"Christmas Eve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Feasts of the Dedication and Title of a Church rank as principal festivals; but may not be observed on Advent Sunday, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Epiphany, between the Fifth Sunday in Lent and Low Sunday inclusive, Ascension Day, or from Whitsun Eve to ...
— Ritual Conformity - Interpretations of the Rubrics of the Prayer-Book • Unknown
... spell of Christmas seemed even to have touched the hearts of G.H.Q. for on Christmas Eve the C.O. received a wire through Brigade to ask "How many of your officers have wives in Egypt?" He was compelled to reply that no officer had managed the feat suggested. But it is nice to speculate on how the staff in Cairo, who doubtless had, ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... It was Christmas eve. Lois had done her morning work by the lamplight, and was putting the dining-room, or sitting-room rather, in order; when Madge joined her ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... strange about these bells. They were never heard to ring except on Christmas eve, and no one knew who rang them. Some people thought it was the wind blowing through the tower. Others thought the angels rang them when a gift ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... is little better than a myth to many of us); The Mummers; Christmas Pantomime; Market, Christmas Eve; Boxing Day; and Twelfth Night in the London Streets. The cheery seasonable book shows us the Norfolk Coach with its spanking team rattling into London on a foggy Christmas Eve, heaped with fat turkeys, poultry, Christmas hampers and parcels. William ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Christmas Eve! Home to a six-o'clock supper after the daily paper distribution was finished, and then to bed, "'Cause going to bed early makes ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... "Sviatki" or Holy Nights between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night. Divination, or the telling of fortunes by various expedients, is the favourite pastime on ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... was the rule to go to bed rather early on Christmas eve, and have a long happy day ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Hinderer started for Africa, and arrived at Lagos on Christmas Eve. Mrs. Hinderer had suffered greatly from sea-sickness throughout the voyage, and three weeks after her arrival at Lagos she had her first attack of African fever. It was a sharp one, and left her very weak, but as soon as she was sufficiently ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore
... gentlemen replied it would be difficult to move the duke to his majesty's desires; but even if they succeeded, it would fail to convince the world his royal highness was not a catholic. With these answers Charles seemed satisfied; but again on Christmas Eve he urged Lord Clifford to advise the duke to publicly communicate on the morrow. His royal highness, not being so unscrupulous as the king, refused ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... with wax candles, causes such transports of joy. "You shall have a gift too, if you behave well," said Charlotte, hiding her embarrassment under sweet smile. "And what do you call behaving well? What should I do, what can I do, my dear Charlotte?" said he. "Thursday night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve. The children are all to be here, and my father too: there is a present for each; do you come likewise, but do not come before that time." Werther started. "I desire you will not: it must be so," she continued. "I ask it of you as a favour, for ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... their abundant decorations, tastefully arranged in wreaths and folds and circles, with the great green "Merrie Christmas" welcoming all comers from over the high parlor mantel. All was finished in ample time before the day of Christmas Eve arrived, though there were dozens of final touches still to be made, last happy thoughts that had to be worked out ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... hath, shall be given." The daughters of the parish clerk, a mightily respected person, the sons of the doctor, and so forth, were loaded with half-dozens of cakes, with whole handkerchiefs full of nuts; on the contrary the poor devils whose prospects for Christmas Eve, unlike those of the rich children, were entirely dependent upon Susanna's charitable hands, were scantily portioned off. The reason was that Susanna counted upon return gifts, doubtless was forced to count upon them, and could not ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... sought them out, and persuaded them to return, and they seldom repeated the offence. Some years ago, one of our boys, who had repeatedly tried our patience by his waywardness, ran away. I pursued him, found him, and persuaded him to return. It was Christmas eve when we arrived, and this festival was always celebrated in my mother's chamber. As we entered the room, the children were singing the Christmas hymns. As he appeared, they manifested strong disapprobation of his conduct. They were told that they ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... the merry merry Christmas eve, I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary— 'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, And the bells but mock the wailing round, they sing so cheery. How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again? Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... On Christmas Eve I didn't leave the hospital till long after the Day-Sisters had gone and the Night-Sisters came on. The wards were all quiet as I walked down the corridor, and to left and right through the glass doors hung the rows of ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... would be Christmas eve. All day I had three points—a chair beside the kitchen table, a lookout melted through the frost on the front window, and the big ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... One Christmas Eve, when the sharp, frosty air made the blood brisk and lively in the veins, little George, who was then about six years old, hung up his stocking on the mantel of the huge chimney, saying to himself as he did so, "Good Santa Claus, be kind to ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... came Christmas eve. Little eyes were closing tight in determined efforts to force the sleep that would make the time till morning so much shorter. But in Bethlehem Center were six boys who, it is safe to say, were thinking ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... to the office and wrote in my newspaper that Mrs. Ben Wah was sick and needed a parrot, a green one with a red tuft, and that she must have it right away. I told of her lonely life, and of how, on a Christmas Eve, years ago, I had first met her at the door of the Charity Organization Society, laboring up the stairs with a big bundle done up in blue cheese-cloth, which she left in the office with the message that ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... at the village store. It cost rather more than six dollars, but this they paid out of their own pockets, and did not report to Andy. Just after supper, as he was about to go home to spend Christmas Eve, they placed the bundle in ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... legacy of ten pounds from his grandfather gave them a little furniture, and he became again a frequenter of second-hand bookstores. He could scarcely resist the temptation of a book that he wanted. One Christmas Eve he went out with money to buy their Christmas dinner, but spent the whole sum for a copy of Young's "Night Thoughts." His wife did not relish this style of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... Christmas Eve came, and the Admiral, being very weary, went below to sleep, leaving a sailor to steer the ship. But this sailor thought he too would like to sleep, so he gave the tiller in ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... The Christmas Eve of that year will long be remembered in Monksland and all that stretch of coast as the day of the "great gale" which wrought so much damage on its shores. The winter's dawn was of extraordinary beauty, ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... On Christmas eve itself, a number of men, carters, and peddlers, were seated at table, drinking and smoking around four or five candles in the public room of Thenardier's hostelry. This room resembled all drinking-shop rooms,—tables, pewter jugs, bottles, drinkers, smokers; but little light and a great deal of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... On Christmas Eve the old city was very gay. The churches were decorated, and splendidly dressed men and women passed in and out with smiles and congratulations. The fandangoes and the gambling houses were all open. From the huertas around, great numbers of families ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... held a spirited meeting in Rahway on Christmas eve, December 24, 1867. The following October, 1868, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony attended a two days' convention in Vineland, and helped to rouse the enthusiasm of the people. A friend, writing from ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... be Christmas Eve? Ah, me! the years run swiftly on; Threads in the warp of this short life we live. And now my chequered web is well ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... honey, your gran'ma ain't comin' before Christmas eve, an' dat's a week off. Your bird ain't goin' keep all dat time, but ne' mine, I'll make Ned ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... not?" I ceased, and gave him rather more Than he was counting of my store. "And since I have it, thanks to you, Don't ask me what I mean to do," Said he. "Believe that even I Would rather tell the truth than lie — On Christmas Eve. ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... on Christmas eve, they fetched up to the entrance of the lagoon, and plied all that night outside, keeping their position by the lights of fishers on the reef and the outlines of the palms against the cloudy sky. With the break of day, the schooner was hove to, and the signal for a ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... On Christmas Eve, at the tomb of the Ibarras in a gloomy wood, Elias appears, wounded and dying, to find there a boy named Basilio beside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who had been driven to insanity by her husband's neglect and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, her younger son having disappeared ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... morning he borrowed Samson's pack basket. I felt bad because we couldn't go and make any arrangements with Santa Claus for the children. Joe was dreadfully worried, for Betsey had told him that Santa Claus never came to children whose father and mother were sick. Christmas Eve Abe came with the pack basket chock-full of good things after the children were asleep. He took out a turkey and knit caps and mittens and packages of candy and raisins for the children and some cloth for a new dress for me. ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... crew, now only fourteen in number, repulsed an attempt made in canoes to take the vessel by boarding, and killed Karaka. Emboldened by this, they afterwards made an expedition to the shore and cut up or stove in all their enemies' canoes lying on the beach. This was on Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day they landed and burnt the principal native village, which Kelly calls the "beautiful city of Otago of about six hundred fine houses"—not the only bit of patent exaggeration in his story. Then they ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... be selfish, Rada. You know it's Christmas Eve. Nobody ought to think of unpleasant things on Christmas Eve. I don't think it's right to spoil people's pleasure on Christmas Eve. What have you done with the Christmas ...
— Rada - A Drama of War in One Act • Alfred Noyes
... to be a German Christmas," Miss Blake said, "and we're going to celebrate it on Christmas eve. Of all the different customs I've seen I like the German the best. It is so jolly and freundlich, ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... suddenly that they wondered where the month had gone. Christmas Eve the Happy Family spent in arranging a round-up camp out behind the house where the hill rose picturesquely, and in singeing themselves heroically in the heat of radium flares, while Luck took his camp-fire scenes that were triumphs of lighting-effects and photography,—scenes which he would later ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... book on Paris, tells how, one Christmas Eve, he took an Englishman to dine at Voisin's, and how that Englishman demanded plum-pudding. The maitre-d'hotel was equal to the occasion. He was polite but firm, and his assertion that "The House of Voisin ...
— The Gourmet's Guide to Europe • Algernon Bastard
... the good people of Boston were stoutly waging battle against the common enemy on this bitter Christmas eve. In some of the old-fashioned houses at the North End, inhabited by old-fashioned people, the ruddy light that streamed through the parlor windows on the street announced that huge fires of oak and hickory ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... title of Baroness, and Mrs. Burton at once set about Anglicising her new friend, though her attempt, as in Khamoor's case, was only partially successful. For instance, Lisa, would never wear a hat, "for fear of losing caste." She was willing, however, to hang out her stocking on Christmas eve; and on finding it full next morning said, "Oh, I like this game. Shall we play it every night!" Just however, as a petted Khamoor had made a spoilt Khamoor; so a petted Lisa very soon made a ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... 'Twas Christmas eve. In the old oak hall Preparations were made for the Christmas ball. Gay garlands were hung from ceiling and wall; The Yule log was laid, the tables arrayed, And the Lady Lorraine and her whole cavalcade, From the pompous old steward to the scullery-maid, Were all in a fluster, ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... children." Laine made some notes in a book and put it back in his pocket. "I'm going out. Have a cab here at eight-thirty. The things I bring back will be put in the room at the end of the hall. On Christmas Eve you are to buy what I've mentioned in this"—he handed him an envelope—"and with them take the bundles in the room to the place you went to yesterday. You are not to know who sent them, and when you come back you are to forget ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... little gray wisp of a woman, "but I actually feel as I used to when I was a little girl and Christmas Eve had come, or Hallowe'en, and—and— What other night in the year was it that I used to feel creepy and expectant—as if something wonderful ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... Pole would have been reached. As it was, Commander Peary and his party got to 87 deg. 6' north, thereby breaking all records, and in spite of incredible hardships, hunger and cold, returned safely with all of the expedition, and on Christmas Eve the Roosevelt, after a most trying voyage, entered New York harbor, ...
— A Negro Explorer at the North Pole • Matthew A. Henson
... a carol? In England, it is the custom for bands of singers, called "waits", to go from house to house on Christmas Eve. The author calls this ghost story of Christmas a carol in prose, for it pictures the joys and sorrows of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... subsequently exchanged into the 52nd Light Infantry, from which he retired, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, in order to enter Parliament. In December, 1832, he was returned at the head of the poll for Bedfordshire, and on Christmas Eve a young lady (who in 1834 became his wife) wrote ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... But on Christmas Eve father and son were dining together without guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though a little slow at times. The elder man was in rather a rare mood, more expansive and confidential ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... sun was Perun, the thunder-god. To this god the oak was dedicated. In the folk-songs he is replaced by S. Elias, and to this day a great log of oak is placed on the fire on Christmas Eve, and kindled for the preparation of the evening meal. It burns all night and the whole of the following day, and in many places is kept smouldering for eight days. The customs observed are as follows. The head of the family bares his head and says: ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... slab, in excellent preservation, marks the spot where the remains of Bishop Ironside were laid on Christmas Eve, 1867, in presence of the dean, archdeacon, and praecentor, in a vault specially prepared for them; and there is a small brass on the wall. Gilbert Ironside, D.D., Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, was Vice-Chancellor of the University in 1687, when James II. seized ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... Fezziwig. "No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick! Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... Christmas Eve, when the shop was shut and the house folks and servants were making ready for the festival in kitchen and parlour, the shopkeeper took him aside into his counting-house. If he liked his daughter, said he, there was ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... loved to emphasize Christmas in every possible way, the following extract from a note which he sent me in December, 1868, will evidence. After speaking of a reading which he was to give on Christmas Eve, he says: "It occurs to me that my table at St. James' Hall might be appropriately ornamented with a little holly next Tuesday. If the two front legs were entwined with it, for instance, and a border of it ran round the top of the fringe in front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... till the lease expired. That's the whole affair. The house was empty, and political economists could conceive no reason for the waste of rent except that it was haunted. The rest was all Miss Broughton's imagination, in 'Tales for Christmas Eve.'" ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... English friend, on Christmas Eve, we saw the Mouse-Trap played and well played. I thought the house would kill itself with laughter. By George they played with life! and it was most devastatingly funny. And it was well they did, for they put us Clemenses in the front seat, and if they played it poorly I would have assaulted ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... frosty Christmas Eve When Peggy Deutchland woke From her wooden sleep On the counter steep And ...
— The Adventure of Two Dutch Dolls and a 'Golliwogg' • Bertha Upton
... rather, to tell the truth, it was contrived,—for I have waited too long for things to turn up to have much faith in "happen," that we who have sat by this hearthstone before should all be together on Christmas eve. There was a splendid backlog of hickory just beginning to burn with a glow that promised to grow more fiery till long past midnight, which would have needed no apology in a loggers' camp,—not so ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... we couldn't spend Nan's last evening with you. Too bad this wretched Van Antwerp dance had to come to-night—Christmas Eve, too. Busy, aren't you, as usual? At work on those sketches of country life in winter? You clever boy—who but you could make so much out of so little? Anything we can do for you before we are off? Nan hates to go, since it's the very last evening of her visit. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... followers of the witch-religion that the Inquisitors of the sixteenth century were greatly exercised in their minds as to how to deal with the offenders. Antide Colas confessed that she attended the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then went to a witch meeting, and returned to the church in time for the mass at dawn on Christmas morning.[144] At Ipswich in 1645 'Mother Lakeland hath been a professour of Religion, a constant hearer of the Word for these many years, and yet a witch (as she confessed) ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... without the city, where uncultured minds and affectionate hearts enjoyed life in dreamy, quiet blissfulness, unknown in these bustling times. The city people then rose at dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sunset, except on extraordinary occasions, such as Christmas Eve, a tea party, or a wedding. Then those who attended the fashionable soirees of the 'upper ten' assembled at three o'clock in the afternoon, and went away at six, so that daughter Maritchie might have ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... a party that night on Kon Klayu. Jean had never admired her sister more than when she saw Ellen rise above the haunting fear of starvation and with the few pitiful things at her command create the cheer of Christmas Eve. And there was no lack of presents—home-made gifts that had cost their donors much thought and hours of labor—gifts, some of them smile-provoking, but bringing with them a sense of warmer friendliness, a touch of tenderness ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... Stedburgh. I dare say I'd get heaps of pennies. But—oh! I wonder if girls ever really do such things out of books? Father'd rather I owed pounds than went singing for pennies. He stopped the Sunday School children going round on Christmas Eve, but then they went into the public-houses, and of course I shouldn't. No, I couldn't risk it, and besides, I'd be too shy to sing, and somebody would be sure to find out. Shall I ask Dick to lend ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... from school it wanted but a few days to the vacations. The day which followed her mother's removal to the hospital was Christmas Eve. For two hours on the afternoon of Christmas Day, Ida sat in silence by the bedside in the ward, holding her mother's hand. The patient was not allowed to speak, seemed indeed unable to do so. The child might not even kiss her. The Sister and the nurse looked pityingly ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... Christmas Eve, that delightful day of preparation for the greatest festival in all the year—the day when in most households there are many little mysteries afoot, when parcels come and go, and are smothered away so as to be ready when Santa Claus comes his rounds; when ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter
... years ago, the new-fallen snow lay white and pure over all the woods and fields. It was soft and clinging as it fell on Christmas eve. Now every old wall and fence was a carved bench of gleaming white; every post and stub had a soft white robe and a tall white hat; and every little bush and thicket was a perfect fairyland of white arches and glistening columns, and dark grottoes walled ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... It was Christmas Eve, and Kate Dayton, one of Pomford's pretty girls, had found the Little Gray Lady sitting alone before the fire gazing into the ashes, her small frame almost hidden in the roomy chair. The winter twilight had long since settled and only the flickering blaze of the logs and the ...
— The Little Gray Lady - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pause to admire a wonderful growth of snow-white cave vegetation, before ascending into Santa Claus' Pass, the longest passage in the cave. It is a rough crevice named from the fact of being discovered on Christmas Eve, and ends at the Government Room on the main tourist route where a U.S. pack saddle and apparently portable bath tub ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... car, to keep the good, old-fashioned Christmas cold out, that I thought I should be more comfortable with a smoke before I went to bed; and, anyhow, I could get away from the heat better in the smoking-room. I hated to be leaving home on Christmas Eve, for I never had done that before, and I hated to be leaving my wife alone with the children and the two girls in our little house in Cambridge. Before I started in on the old horse-car for Boston, I had helped her to tuck the young ones in and to fill the stockings hung ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... pack of clothing to sell." "It's all up with the Swede," he told himself according to his own testimony. The prophecy proved only too true. The padres had come to order that the three daughters be god-mothers to the "Cristo" (in the form of a gaudy doll) that was to be "born" in the town on Christmas eve and paraded to the cathedral of Puebla. As their ticket to heaven depended upon obedience, none of the faithful senoritas dreamed of declining the honor, even though it involved the expenditure of considerable of papa's good money and required them to spend most of the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck
... to it a most wonderful present, a surprise full of tears and laughter. Captain Walter Mayne reached home on Christmas Eve. ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... was born at Salford, on Christmas Eve of the year 1818. His father and his grandfather before him were brewers, and the business, in due course, descended to Mr. Joule and his elder brother, and by them was carried on with success till it was sold, in 1854. Mr. Joule's grandfather came from Elton, in Derbyshire, settled near ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning; Browning writes his "Christmas Eve and Easter Day"; "Casa Guidi Windows" commenced; 1850, they go to Rome; "Two in the Campagna"; proposal to confer poet-laureateship on Mrs. Browning; return to London; winter in Paris; summer in London; Kenyon's friendship; return in autumn ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... of church bells more than fifty miles away, once caught up a huge rock, which he hurled at the sacred building. Fortunately it fell short and broke in two. Ever since then, the peasants say that the trolls come on Christmas Eve to raise the largest piece of stone upon golden pillars, and to dance and feast beneath it. A lady, wishing to know whether this tale were true, once sent her groom to the place. The trolls came forward and hospitably offered him a drink from a horn mounted in gold and ornamented with runes. Seizing ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... contents of the 'Seraphim' volume of 1838, more or less revised, as well as the 'Poems' of 1844. This edition, published in 1850, has formed the basis of all subsequent editions of her poems. Meanwhile her husband was engaged in the preparation of 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' which was also published in ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... her money last out. Emma, her aunt's maid, came to the rescue by hunting out a large bag of coloured wools and helping her to make a ball for the baby. This Patty knew would delight him, and would leave her a little extra to spend upon the others. On the day before Christmas Eve, Mrs. Pearson took Muriel and Patty to town with her, and after visiting several places, the carriage finally drew up at Archer's, a large general store where toys and all kinds of fancy articles were sold. The shop was ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... is shared by President Roosevelt, who always regarded his Conservation and Rural Life policies as complementary to each other. The last time I saw him—it was on Christmas Eve, 1908—he dwelt on this aspect of his public work and aims. I remember how he expressed the hope that, when the more striking incidents of his Administration were forgotten, public opinion would look kindly upon his Conservation ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... of L20 conferred by Richard II. in 1394. But the poet, now seventy-one years of age, and probably broken down by the reverses of the past few years, was not destined long to enjoy his renewed prosperity. On Christmas Eve of 1399, he entered on the possession of a house in the garden of the Chapel of the Blessed Mary of Westminster — near to the present site of Henry VII.'s Chapel — having obtained a lease from Robert Hermodesworth, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... father's confidence, and saved him so far from the terrible course of deceit and corruption. She could not much take to heart the mad exploits of the so-called boys, even though she spent three hours in heart-beatings on Christmas Eve, when Hector, Mary, Tom, Blanche, and the dog Toby, were lost the whole day. However, they did come back at six o'clock, having been deluded by an old myth of George Larkins, into starting for a ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... it. "Why, it was when Carol was born," she said. "It was on a Christmas eve, you know. That's why mother named ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... brother insisted upon exhibiting to his guest; for it was decorated with a facsimile of the picture on the stove, showing roses and luscious peaches and grapes in red relief. Three years before, on Christmas Eve, the boys had stood about the red-hot stove, undressing for their bath, and Finn, who was naked, had, in the general scrimmage to get first into the bath-tub, been pushed against the glowing iron, the ornamentation of which had been beautifully ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a large log of wood, formerly put on the hearth on Christmas Eve, as the foundation of the fire. It was brought in with ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... all evenings, the holy Christmas eve—Martha entered the forge and saw the old man still hard at work. She gently remonstrated with him, asking him why he ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... between the 18th and the 24th, and early in the afternoon of the latter date I found my way to St. Pancras Station, and booked for the station nearest Tom Temple's home. Although it was Christmas Eve, I found an empty first-class carriage, and soon comfortably ensconced myself therein. I don't know why, but we English people generally try to get an empty carriage, and feel annoyed when some one comes in to share our possession. I, like the rest of my countrymen ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... and resolved that during the holidays he would go again to the old Welsh town and try what he could do, and so it came about that he accompanied Neil as far as Carnarvon, where he proposed to spend a day and then go over to Stoneleigh on Christmas Eve, more to please Neil, who had urged him so strongly to stop there, than for any particular satisfaction it would be to him to pass the day with strangers, who might or might not care to see him. He knew there was a cousin Bessie, a girl of wondrous beauty, if Neil was to be believed, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... single incident of those years lights up the whole situation. A vague rumor had been blown to Dick of a practice of hanging up stockings at Christmas. It struck his materialistic mind as a rather senseless thing to do; but nevertheless he resolved to try it one Christmas Eve. He lay awake a long while in the frosty darkness, skeptically waiting for something remarkable to happen; once he crawled out of the cot-bed and groped his way to the chimney place. The next morning he was scarcely disappointed at finding nothing in the piteous ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... "Last night (Christmas Eve) was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, 'Happy Christmas!' to us, and some ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... On Christmas Eve, here and there in the town, ground-floor rooms were hired and decorated with palm branches; or palm booths were built, decked with oranges and boughs of cinnamon berries, lighted with candles and lanterns and furnished ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... it has been seen, closed at Brighton on the 13th of November. Immediately after this, it was announced that three Christmas Readings would be given in London at St. Martin's Hall—the first and second on the Christmas Eve and the Boxing Day of 1858, those being respectively Friday and Monday, and the third on Twelfth Night, Thursday, the 6th of January, 1859. Upon each of these occasions the "Christmas Carol" and the "Trial from Pickwick," were given to audiences that were ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... the old roan, shaking his head; I have work to do at home this Christmas evedrive on with the boy, and let your doctor look to the shoulder; though if he will only cut out the shot, I have yarbs that will heal the wound quicker than all his foreign intments. He turned, and was about to move off, when, suddenly recollecting himself, he again ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... tonight's train. I've made an important appointment for you tomorrow morning with a friend of mine." But not another word concerning the mystery would the lawyer say. Both he and his sister went about with a queer smile, and treated Beryl as fond (and rich) parents might a good child on Christmas Eve. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... It was Christmas Eve, and I had gone to bed shortly after twelve o'clock, having an hour earlier bid good night to John and Mr. Gaskell. The long habit of watching with, or being in charge of an invalid at night, had made my ears extraordinarily ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... The night before Christmas eve, however, the little boy saw a light in Uncle Remus's cabin, and he interpreted it as in some sort a signal of invitation. He found the old man sitting by the ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... variety of a pea-soup fog. 'It wouldn't really be London without an occasional day like this! I'm off to tramp the city.' It is one of Hugh Walpole's superstitions that he should always begin his novels on Christmas Eve. He has always done so, and he believes it brings him luck. Often it means the exercise of no small measure of self-control, for the story has matured in his mind and he is aching to commence it. But he vigorously adheres to ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... toys, and lots of baubles, but useful things too! Things which should truthfully be "just what I wanted!" Perhaps I would be noble and forgiving and ask Eric and Claudia and Moreen. Poor mites, it wasn't their fault that their mother wore false pearls! The tree should be on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas night I would invite the grown-ups to dinner, and give them a light, dainty feast, with never a shadow of roast beef or plum pudding! They could do their duty by ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... was Harry Smith, manufacturer. Harry was a man intensely fond of fun, and one Christmas Eve, I remember, when I was coming from the station after returning from Scotland, he tapped me on the shoulder, and, after ascertaining where I had been of late, quoted a motto of the Freemasons'—"In my Father's house ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... further and you reach the place where Mr. Perry was shot. A wooded spot, "convaynient" for ambush, once screened some would-be murderers who missed their mark. Then comes the house of the Misses Brown, in which on Christmas Eve shots were fired, by way of celebrating the festive season. From a clump of trees some four hundred yards from the road the police on a car were fired upon, the horse being shot dead in his tracks. The tenantry of this sweet district are keeping up their rifle practice, and competent ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... and he wired once more for his money, for L. W. had not answered his first telegram; and then he went out with the boys. Since his break with Mrs. Hardesty he had taken to dodging into the bar, where he could be safe from her subtle advances; but on Christmas eve he went too far. They all went too far, in the matter of drinking, but Rimrock went too far with Buckbee. He told him just exactly what he intended to do to Stoddard; which was indiscreet, to say the least. But Buckbee, who was likewise in an expansive mood, told in turn ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... its religious significance, I asked permission of the Rector of Amesbury to use his church for a midnight Eucharist on Christmas Eve. He gladly gave his consent and notice of the service was sent round to the units of the Brigade. In the thick fog the men gathered and marched down the road to the village, where the church windows threw a soft light into the ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... "It was Christmas eve of 1868 at the Bjoernsons in Christiania. They lived then in the Rosenkrantzgade. My wife and I were, as far as I can remember, the only guests. The children were very boisterous in their glee. In the middle of the floor an immense Christmas tree was enthroned ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... (if young especially), and cannot abstain though it be when they go to, or should be at church. We have a pretty story to this purpose in [5531]Westmonasteriensis, an old writer of ours (if you will believe it) An. Dom. 1012. at Colewiz in Saxony, on Christmas eve a company of young men and maids, whilst the priest was at mass in the church, were singing catches and love songs in the churchyard, he sent to them to make less noise, but they sung on still: and if you will, you shall have ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... still larger cabin somewhat more distant from the main building, which was intended for the use of his nephew, William Pressley, on the marriage of that young lawyer to Ruth. But the wedding was some time off yet, having been set for Christmas Eve, and the cabin which was to welcome the bride from Cedar House was not quite complete. The smallest and the oldest cabin was David's. The long black line of cabins crouching under the hillside where the shadows were deepest, marked the quarters of the slaves,—a dark storm-cloud ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... came to her letter, and a sick suspicion that no answer would come began to trouble her. December was passing. Teddy was careful to tell her just what he wanted from Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve she asked Wallace, as he was silently going out, for ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... on the morning of Christmas Eve with one thought predominant in his mind: He should see Odalite—see her for the first time since that eventful day when her marriage with Angus Anglesea ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... pie! For one description of dainty, however, Mr Altham would have been asked on this July afternoon in vain. He would have deemed it next door to sacrilege to heat his oven for a mince pie, outside the charmed period between Christmas Eve ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... legend went on to say) this curse would not be removed until a female lineal descendant of the first Sir Godfrey, a young lady who had never been married, and had never loved anybody except her father and mother and her sisters and brothers, should go out in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, all by herself, and ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... cook for a short time for a company that was constructing a railroad from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I moved to the latter place and obtained employment in the Old Bella Union Hotel as chef. John King was the proprietor of the Bella Union. Until Christmas eve I stayed there, and then Sergeant John Curtis, of my company, who had been working as a saddler for Banning, a capitalist in Wilmington, came back to ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... subsides, then the heart again claims its right, and the tender fingers of our memory gather up again the violets of joy which the guardian angel threw in our way, and we look at them with delight; while we cherish them as the favourite gifts of life—we are as glad as the child on Christmas eve. These are the happiest moments of man's life. But when we are not noisy, not eloquent, we are silent almost mute, like nature in a midsummer's night, reposing from the burning heat of the day. ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... and at the sharing of gifts which Cousin Maud made ready for Christmas eve, we were all friendly and glad at heart, and Ann found her way to join us after that she had put ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his room on Christmas eve in the fine new home in London which he had recently made for himself and ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... It is Christmas eve. A man lies stretched on his blanket in a copse in the depths of a black pine forest of the Saginaw Valley. He has been hunting all day, fruitlessly, and is exhausted. So wearied is he with long hours of walking, that he will not even seek to reach the lumbermen's camp, half a mile distant, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... was passed through both Houses of Parliament in time for the constitutional assent of the Crown to be given to it and for the King-Emperor to address a solemn proclamation to the Viceroy, Princes, and people of India on the eminently appropriate date of Christmas Eve 1920. This Royal message of peace and goodwill set forth in simple language both the purposes and the ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... winds should scold The Christmas Eve so bitterly! But Wife, and Harry the four-year-old, Big ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... when it accuses man or boy. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe, united to the necessity of keeping one hand on my bread and butter as I sat or moved about, almost drove me out of my mind, but as it was Christmas Eve, I was obliged to stir the pudding for next day for one whole hour. I tried to do it with the load on my leg, and found the tendency of exercise was to bring the bread out at my ankle, so I managed to slip away and deposit it in my ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... On the afternoon of Christmas Eve they went, by her desire, to a church in Soho, where the Christmas Oratorio was being given; and coming away passed, by chance of a wrong turning, down Borrow Street. Ugh! How that startled moment, when the girl had pressed herself against him in the dark, and her terror-stricken whisper: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... meet me at twelve o'clock at Paddington Station on Christmas Eve: promise me, Mrs. Clair; I'll make it all right for the boys. Just say you will come. I wanted to ask you all last Christmas; I'm glad I ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... relaxed, and she was soon holding her sides from laughter at Field's drolleries. The result was that the innocent Republican staff could not get within speaking distance of Madame Nilsson during her stay in Denver. The second night of her visit being Christmas eve, the madame held her Christmas tree in the Windsor Hotel, with Field acting the role of Santa Claus and the Tribune staff playing the parts of good little boys, while their envious rivals of the Republican were ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... so fair and sweetly, that one day as we were walking under them, and praising the almighty power of the most merciful God, my child said, "If the Lord goes on to bless us so abundantly, it will be Christmas Eve with us every night of next winter!" But things soon fell out far otherwise. For all in a moment the trees were covered with such swarms of caterpillars (great and small, and of every shape and colour), that one might ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... your little plan of surprising the countess, and will respect your wishes in the matter. But you, on your part, must do me a trifling favor: we have been very dull since you left, and I purpose to start the gayeties afresh by giving a dinner on the 24th (Christmas Eve), in honor of your return—an epicurean repast for gentlemen only. Therefore, I ask you to oblige me by fixing your return for that day, and on arrival at Naples, come straight to me at this hotel, that I may have the satisfaction of being the first to ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... scene on this Christmas eve, Where all could linger and none could grieve, A dazzling vision of wealth and pride, A royal feast and a ...
— Love or Fame; and Other Poems • Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
... Tavia does not worry," Dorothy cautioned the young man. "I know she has a trouble, and I am sure somehow it will be all adjusted by to-night. I depend upon the witches of Christmas Eve." ...
— Dorothy Dale's Queer Holidays • Margaret Penrose
... couldn't have been a ghost, after all; but I certainly thought I saw an umbrella. To conclude what I was saying, then,—I have the confidence in you, Mr. MONTGOMERY, to believe that you will attend the dinner of Reconciliation on Christmas eve, as you ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... unanimously chosen. With the introduction into the plan of a personal element, enthusiasm began, and it became evident at once that there was to be sharp rivalry between the classes as to the size of their gifts. At length came the Christmas Eve concert, and with it a bright, full company of children. They never looked so happy, and every one of them knows that he never was so happy on such an occasion, as when, class by class, the offerings were handed to the Superintendent. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various
... does not matter a bit how late we sit up on Christmas Eve, and the longer the story is, the better; and if you don't believe in ghosts how can it be a story of something you could not account for by ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... themselves in the pleasant fire-lit room overlooking the garden. Judy had brought down two framed photographs of her favorite pictures and a big brass jar by way of ornament, and on Christmas Eve the girls went out to buy holly and ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... for the death of Guise, and the festivities of Christmas Eve gave way to funeral dirges. The University of Sorbonne declared that they would not receive Henry of Valois again as king. His only hope was to reconcile himself with Navarre and the Protestant party. Paris was tumultuous with resistance when the news came that Royalists and Huguenots had raised ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... there was much snow, the whole family desired to go somewhere, we would put the body of the farm wagon on runners and all bundle in together. We always liked snow at Christmas time, and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve. One of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve festival begins, "It's Christmas eve on the river, it's Christmas eve on the bay." All good natives of the village firmly believe that this hymn was written here, and with direct reference to Oyster Bay; although if such were the case the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... a snow-storm on Christmas Eve, and when we entered the house there was a roaring fire on the hearth. I hadn't seen a fire like that for thirty years. You may know how I felt when I knelt down in front of ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... Great, Oswald Bastable, and another very nice writer. Oswald was to keep his birthday on the Saturday, so that his Father could be there. A birthday when there are only many happy returns is a little like Sunday or Christmas Eve. Oswald had a birthday-card or two—that was all; but he did not repine, because he knew they always make it up to you for putting off keeping your birthday, and he ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... four sides of a square garden, with wide porches, where we sat on pleasant days. There was a fountain in this garden, and orange trees, which at Christmas-time hung full of golden fruit and sweet white flowers. On 'the holy night,' as we called Christmas Eve, we hung lanterns in the porches, and everybody crowded there or in the ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... home from shopping, they shivered with the cold and ran to the register. Then papa came home, and they had the happiest Christmas eve imaginable. Of course one cannot make one's charities go all around the world, but Mrs. Linley thought she had stretched hers a long distance. So she had. And yet she might have given the child at her door a few pennies. But street-beggars were so ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... President Andrew Jackson's beloved wife, and on his death-bed the warrior and statesman called for it. It was the favorite of Gen. Robert E. Lee, and was sung at his funeral. The American love and familiar preference for the remarkable hymn was never more strikingly illustrated than when on Christmas Eve, 1898, a whole corps of the United States army Northern and Southern, encamped on the Quemados hills, near Havana, took up ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... Christmas morning by the Napoleon stage for home, and if you wish we may be married Christmas Eve. That will give ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... saw the spirits of the bells up there in the old steeple at midnight on Christmas Eve. Six quaint figures, each wrapped in a shadowy cloak and wearing a bell-shaped cap. All were gray-headed, for they were among the oldest bell-spirits of the city, and "the light of other days" shone in their thoughtful eyes. Silently they sat, looking down on the snow-covered ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... hardly have been over twelve or thirteen when Rag Hall challenged my resentment. My methods in dealing with it had at least the merit of directness, if they added nothing to the sum of human knowledge or happiness. I had received a "mark," which was a coin like our silver quarter, on Christmas Eve, and I hied myself to Rag Hall at once to divide it with the poorest family there, on the express condition that they should tidy up things, especially those children, and generally change their way of living. The man took the money—I have a vague recollection of seeing a stunned ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... unlucky to have the holly brought into the house before Christmas Eve, so throughout the week merry parties of young people were out in the woods gathering green boughs, and on Christmas Eve, with jest and song, they came in laden with branches to ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... It was on Christmas Eve, shortly before twilight. The heath lay deep in snow, and from the leaden sky fresh masses of flakes were descending. Then Paul saw that his sisters secretly took their hats and cloaks, and tried to make their ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... thought the letter quite right, and did not even smile at her telling the organist so many family items. The days flew by, as they always fly in holiday time, and it was Christmas eve before anybody knew it. The family festival was quiet and very pleasant, but quite swallowed up in the grander preparations for next day. Carol and Elfrida, her pretty German nurse, had ransacked books, ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the ball is what they call clubbed up for, and he who can run away with the ball may keep it; but this seldom occurs, as it is kicked to pieces before the game is over. And this is Christmas Day here. At Kirby, a man named Tom Mattham (since deceased) used to go round the town on Christmas Eve, about twelve o'clock, with a bell, and chant a few carols; this was too solemn to be compared to the London waits, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... must try an' not think so much about Sandy Claus," she pleaded. "I don't want her to go an' be disappointed. Sandy Claus lives in at the Settlements, an' you know right well, girlie, he couldn't git 'way out here, Christmas Eve, without neglecting all the little boys an' girls at the Settlements. You wouldn't want them all disappointed, just so's he could come to our little girl 'way off here in the woods, what's got her father ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... invading the houses of men. I thought of little chimney-sweeps, and 'The Water Babies;' but I decided that it was not that. Then I remembered what it was that made me connect such topsy-turvy trespass with ideas quite opposite to the idea of crime. Christmas Eve, of course, and Santa Claus coming ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... for, while trolls commit their depredations at all times of the year and under a multitude of circumstances, many of the stories about them begin with such expressions as: "Yule was approaching. On the eve the shepherd went with his sheep";[54] "In old days no one could stay over Christmas Eve";[55] "It happened once late on a Yule Eve";[56] "Formerly every Christmas Eve";[57] "I gamle dage var det en julenat";[58] "Juleaften gik Per Bakken til kvernhuset";[59] "Nogen av selskapet kom til at tale on Hammertrollet, som det nu kaltes, og de ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... falcons in the morning, he rode with them after dinner (from last August he had found himself riding north more often than south, since Marjorie lived in that quarter); and now all had been crowned last Christmas Eve, when in the enclosed garden at her house he had kissed her two hands suddenly, and made her a little speech he had learned by heart; after which he kissed her on the lips as a man should, in ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Ellen's thoughts left Ventnor and flew over the sea. They often travelled that road, it is true, but now perhaps the very home look of everything, where yet she was not at home, might have sent them. There was a bitter twinge or two, and for a minute Ellen's head drooped. "To-morrow will be Christmas eve—last ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... which I was particularly attached. I had made it so much an object of cleanliness, that it became one of luxury, which was rather expensive. Some persons, however, did me the favor to deliver me from this servitude. On Christmas Eve, whilst the governesses were at vespers, and I was at the spiritual concert, the door of a garret, in which all our linen was hung up after being washed, was broken open. Everything was stolen; and amongst other things, forty-two of my shirts, of very ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... On Christmas Eve a serious misfortune befell Columbus. What with looking for gold, and trying to understand the people who talked about it, and looking after his ships, and writing up his journal, he had had practically no sleep for two days and a night; and at eleven ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... plot is said to have originated, were seized and, after a brief trial, immediately hung. In Montgomery feeling was such as to demand the adoption of the most stringent precautionary measures. Military companies were called out and placed in nightly guard over the capitol and arsenal. On Christmas eve the plot was to go into execution, and as the time approached, the anxiety became painfully intense. It was whispered that one of Mr. Yancey's slaves had been detected in an attempt to poison her master. The police was doubled, soldiers with loaded muskets were stationed in all the prominent ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various |
