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More "Christmas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most profound knowledge of Greek Metres, or the most accurate acquaintance with the value of Roman coins. Vivian Grey's English verses and Vivian Grey's English themes were the subject of universal commendation. Some young lads made copies of these productions, to enrich, at the Christmas holidays, their sisters' albums; while the whole school were scribbling embryo prize-poems, epics of twenty lines on "the Ruins of Paestum" and "the Temple of Minerva;" "Agrigentum," and "the Cascade ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Lizzy that he loved her,—hardly told himself. Why, he was forty-five,—and a year or two ago she was sledding down the street with her brothers, a mere yellow-haired baby. He remembered the first time he had noticed her,—one Christmas eve; his mother and Sarah were alive then. There was an Italian woman came to the village with a broken hand-organ, a filthy, starving wretch, and Gurney's little girl went with her from house to house in the snow, singing Christmas carols, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... only tried to be in all ages at once (which is a very reasonable ambition, though not often realised), but they wanted to be on all sides at once: which is nonsense. Swinburne tries to question the philosophy of Christianity in the metres of a Christmas carol: and Dante Rossetti tries to write as if he were Christina Rossetti. Certainly the almost successful summit of all this attempt is Pater's superb passage on the Mona Lisa; in which he seeks to make her ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... their medals," he said. "They can take their medals and hang 'em on Christmas trees. I don't owe the British army anything. It owes me. I've done my bit. I've earned what I've got, and there's no one can ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... some Russian neighbours," the newcomer was saying; "Prince and Princess Jaroslav; and they had an English party at Christmas. It was great fun. They used to take us out riding into the mountains, or into Italy." She paused a moment, and then said carelessly—as though to keep up the conversation—"There was a Mr. Falloden with them—an ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... seen him at Christmas you might have said so,' replied James; 'but now I see naught amiss; I had been thinking I had never seen him so ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my friend, Would wait and hear me to the end; And for His eyes a light would shine Through this unpleasant shell of mine That in your fancy makes of me A Christmas curiosity. All right, I might be worse than that; And you might now be lying flat; I might have done it from behind, And taken what there was to find. Don't worry, for I'm not that kind. 'Do I believe in God?' Is ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... is a man of mirthful speech, Can many a game and gambol teach; Full well at tables can he play, And sweep at bowls the stake away. None can a lustier carol bawl; The needfullest among us all, When time hangs heavy in the hall, And snow comes thick at Christmas-tide, And we can neither hunt, nor ride A foray on the Scottish side. The vowed revenge of Bughtrig rude, May end in worse than loss of hood. Let Friar John, in safety, still In chimney-corner snore his fill, Roast hissing crabs, or flagons swill: Last night to Norham ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... week, indeed, the weather had seemed to be trying to outdo itself. I remember in particular the day before Christmas. I rose long before daylight, crossed the Mystic River marshes as the dawn was beginning to break, and shortly after sunrise was on my way down the South Shore. Leaving the cars at Cohasset, I sauntered over the Jerusalem Road to Nantasket, spent ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... Christmas Day.—I thank the good Lord for the good gift of His Son Christ Jesus our Lord. Slaughtered an ox, and gave a fundo and a half to each of the party. This is our great day, so we rest. It is cold and wet, day and night. The headman is gracious and generous, which is very pleasant compared ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... occasionally intense. Besides, we were too much of a mind, now, for real disagreement. We both yearned too deeply to set the old house in complete order, to establish ourselves in it exclusively and live there for ever and ever. Think of Christmas in it, we said, with the great open fires, the snow outside, and a Christmas tree brought in ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... best of 'em all," said Kittredge in a low tone. "His name is Sewell. He's a Harvard man—Harvard and Heidelberg. But drink! Ye gods, how he does drink! His wife died last Christmas—practically starvation. Sewell disappeared—frightful bust. A month afterward they found him under an assumed name over on Blackwell's Island, doing three months for disorderly conduct. He wrote a Christmas carol while his wife was dying. It began "Merrily over the Snow" and went on about light ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... that wor the biggest bit of loock that iver I wor in yet. Two twelvemonth ago come Christmas it wor, an' iver an' always I had been thinkin' what 'ud I do wid ye nixt, when Ann Dolan towld me how her sisther's son had got a chance wid a lawyer to clane out his bit ov an office, and run wid arrants an' sich, an' wor to have fifty dollars a year, wid the chance ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... the General Assembly which met on Christmas Day 1563, a French waiting-maid of Mary Stuart, 'ane Frenche woman that servit in the Queenis chalmer,' fell into sin 'with the Queenis awin hipoticary.' The father and mother slew the child, and were 'dampned to be hangit upoun the publict streit ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... farm as it is now on some estates when coal is to be drawn, and "duty" tribute in kind was levied as well. Thus the tenant was obliged not only to cultivate the "ould masther's" land, but to give him at Christmas tide a "duty" pig and "duty" geese and fowls according to a fixed percentage. My friend, whose position places his assertion above all doubt, assures me that in old leases it is quite common to find a sum of money specified ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... by the stops he draws to add to it: he has a special supply of "mixtures" which sound truly dreadful and impossible by themselves, but these in combination with the fundamental go to the making of a successful timbre. Carrots, by themselves, are not a Christmas diet, but we understand that they go to improve the flavour of ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... so many suicides, so many misdirected letters (and men of letters), but not so many geniuses. In this one thing old Mother Nature will be whimsical and womanish. This is a gift that John Bull, or Johnny Crapaud, or Brother Jonathan does not find in his stocking every Christmas. Crude imagination is common enough,—every hypochondriac has a more than Shakspearian allowance of it; fancy is cheap, or nobody would dream; eloquence sits ten deep on every platform. But genius in Art is that supreme organizing and idealizing faculty which, by combining, arranging, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... strengthen the colony at Quebec and promote trade on the lower St Lawrence. Taken a captive to London by Kirke in 1629 upon the surrender of Quebec, but after its recession to France returned (1633) and remained in Canada until his death, on Christmas Day 1635. Published several important narratives describing his explorations and adventures. An intrepid pioneer and the ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... the Savoy Church.—At the Savoy Church (London), the Sunday following Christmas Day, there was a chair placed near the door, covered with a cloth: on the chair was ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... accounts for much of its delay. He remained there, or in the Gulf of Palmas, a little to the westward, for about a week, and on the 19th of December left for his station off Cape San Sebastian. At the latter place, on Christmas Day, he was joined by the "Swiftsure," which brought him a great batch of official mail that had come out with Orde. He thus received at one and the same time his leave to go home and the Admiralty's order reducing ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... and wise similes, and he concludes, to my thinking, with the most delightful one of all, and one, besides, entirely appropriate and seasonable: it is folly and fret, he said, "to take out your furred gown at Saint John because you will want it at Christmas." ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... had been out walking all the afternoon. It was one of those soft, leaden-colored, expectant days, of late autumn or early winter, when one is sure of snow; and I went out on purpose to see it fall among the woods; for it was just upon Christmas, and I longed to see the black ground covered. By-and-by a few flakes sauntered down, coquetting as to where they would alight; then a few more followed, thickening and thickening until the whole upper ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... which was afterwards also Defoe's, was not without justification in those days. But Prynne's crusade did not stop at theatres; and Heylin's account reveals the feeling of contemporaries: "Neither the hospitality of the gentry in the time of Christmas, nor the music in cathedrals and the chapels royal, nor the pomps and gallantries of the Court, nor the Queen's harmless recreations, nor the King's solacing himself sometimes in masques and dances could escape the venom of his ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... a sthore? Sure, 't was the kindly daughter you were to me, and me old and not worth my salt, a broken cailleach hobbling on a stick. Never did you refuse me the cup o' tea so strong a mouse could walk on it. And the butcher's meat o' Christmas, sure your old ma must have a taste, too. And many's the brown egg you let me have, and they bringing a high price on the Wednesday market. And the ha'porth o' snuff—sure you never came home without it, and you at Dundalk fair. Kindly you were as the rains of April, and my heart is ashes ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... are going to say that we do not celebrate Christmas in the winter solstice as should properly be done. We know it, but it seems to me a matter of no account. I would rather bear with this small mistake than grievously afflict vast numbers of my subjects by depriving ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... allowance the first week, another the second, and so on! Or suppose at first, he only allowed himself to become intoxicated in the evenings, then every second evening, then only on Saturday nights, and finally only every Christmas? How would a thief be reformed if he slowly reduced the number of his burglaries, or a wife-beater by gradually diminishing the number of his blows? The argument ends with an ad absurdum. "Let him that stole steal no more," is ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... ter Christmas, Lyddy Ann; did ye know it?" said the old man, settling back in his chair with ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... fussily.] It's a regular mess. I don't like the position we're in; I don't like it; I've said so for a long time. [Looking at WANKLIN.] When Wanklin and I came down here before Christmas it looked as if the men must collapse. You thought so ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... "it does, and I think it's a splendid thing. I went to a literary club meeting with Nan last Christmas and one of the papers was copied straight out of a book I'd just been reading, almost word for word. I told Nan and she laughed and said it was a very common way of doing. I think Harding girls will do a good deal if they ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... them all I set Yew twigs and Christmas roses pure and pale; Then Spring her snowdrop and her violet May keep, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... widows, but taking up the burden of life again bravely. If she still shrank from Honour, it was only they and their mother who could perceive it. Sir Arthur Cinnamond arrived from the front with the Commander-in-Chief for a week about Christmas time, and it so happened that Gerrard came suddenly upon Honour riding with her father the day after his arrival. She wore a habit made like the uniform of Sir Arthur's famous Peninsular regiment—a fashion which probably owed its vogue to the semi-military costume adopted by the young ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... Polly led her mother to John's room. "Maw, I'm going to use those new shades I bought for your Christmas gift, and put them at the windows ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... in part unavoidably, by the conduct of my parents. In all matters of choice or distinction, Tom was to have the preference, because he was the oldest: this I thought hard enough; but when Tom had new clothes at Midsummer and Christmas, and his old ones were converted to my use, I honestly own I wished the devil had Tom. As a point of economy, perhaps, this could not be avoided; but it engendered a hatred towards my brother which often made me, in my own little malignant mind, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... so be that he would return with the ship he came in, he cannot do any thing so conueniently for the breuitie of the time, because that when they custome their goods in Pegu that come from S. Tome in their ships, it is as it were about Christmas: and when they haue customed their goods, then must they sell them for their credits sake for a moneth or two: and then at the beginning of March the ships depart. The Marchants that come from S. Tome take for the paiment of their goods, gold and siluer, which is neuer wanting there. [Sidenote: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... comprehending those dreams and enthusiasms which others had derided, or compassionated as delusions of the mad. This was the man who had given him what might have been his chance, had he only been able to use it aright. Like a tawdry curtain drawn up at a Christmas pantomime on a dazzling transformation scene, so, at the memory, the veil of the present was instantly removed, revealing only the flashing splendours of past things, which lay behind. This same body which ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... when I was teaching Dinky-Dunk how to make a rabbit out of his table-napkin and a sea-sick passenger out of the last of his oranges, he explained that he might not get back in time for Christmas, and asked if I'd mind. I knew his trip was important, so I kept a stiff upper lip and said of course I wouldn't mind. But the thought of a Christmas alone chilled my heart. I tried to be jolly, and gave my repertory on the mouth-organ, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... America and Canada, where every thing, from a pin to a six-point blanket, may be obtained for dollars, country produce, or approved bills of exchange—chiefly however by barter, that true universal medium in a new country, as may be gleaned from any Canadian newspaper about Christmas time, when the subscribers are usually reminded that wood for warming the printer ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... rather too near together, since we have so few of them;—Thanksgiving, Christmas-day, New-Years'-day, and then none again till July. We know not but these four, with the addition of a "day set apart for fasting and prayer," might answer the purposes of rest and edification as well as a calendar full ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... came and found them in extreme poverty. Mr. Worthington still weak from his illness, but able to go around a little, came in from his morning walk very gloomy and feeling that his friends were very few. "This is the saddest Christmas I have ever known," he said to Mrs. Worthington. "It is almost more than I can bear to know that I have nothing to give the children today, and barely enough in the house to eat. I did not realize it so keenly until ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... plenty of books of our own, and we have new ones very often: on birthdays and at Christmas. Sometimes they are interesting, and sometimes they are disappointing. Most of them have pretty pictures. It was because we had been rather unlucky for some time, and had had disappointing ones on our birthdays, that Arthur said to me, "Look here, Mary, ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... and Lucy Hurst, these frosty days brought innumerable enjoyments in their train—skating and sleighing by daylight and moonlight, evening parties, and all sorts of frolics. There were gay times at the Red House, especially when in Christmas week Mr. Robert Keane came home, bringing with him two school-boy cousins from Philadelphia. Miss Alice Keane called at Thankful Rest on her pony, one morning, to ask Tom and Lucy to a Christmas-eve gathering. The invitation was curtly declined by Miss Hepsy, and she was dismissed with such ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... the Doc. 'All I should do would only be to increase his nerve supply. In time I could remedy his ocular defecks, too,' says he. He allows that if we will give him time, he can make Pinto's eyes straighten out so's he'll look like a new rockin' horse Christmas mornin' at a church festerval. Incidentally he suggests that we get a tall leather blinder and run it down Pinto's nose, right ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... and even I, Sitka Charley, am tired. It is Christmas Eve. I dance, drink, make a good time, for to-morrow is Christmas Day and we will rest. But no. It is five o'clock in the morning—Christmas morning. I am two hours asleep. The man stand by my bed. 'Come, Charley,' he says, 'harness the dogs. ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... thought it would be a good experiment, and informed his mother the next morning that he intended to furnish the ducks for the next Christmas dinner; and when she wondered how he was to come by them, he said, mysteriously, "O, I will show you how!" but did not further explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, and made a trade ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... hung too high, Would it blur the Christmas glee, That not a Santa Claus could reach The ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Clipperton Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Cook Islands Coral Sea Islands Costa Rica Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... out the infernal cornucopias at the Church's silly old Christmas tree," he went on quickly, "while he played Santa Claus? What more can a fellow do to earn his money? Don't you call that sweating? No, sir! I've danced like a damned hand-organ monkey for the pennies he left me, and I had to grin and ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... Children still learn to knit either at school or at home, and if their mother teaches them she probably makes them a marvellous ball. She does this by winding the wool round little toys and small coins, until it hides as many surprises as a Christmas stocking, and is as much out of shape; but the child who wants the treasures in the stocking has to knit for them, and the faster she secures them the faster she is learning her lesson. The mother, however, who troubles about knitting ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... godless children, whom they will hale into the Sunday-school; they will shine with unsurpassed skill in the manufacture of slippers for the rector; they will exhibit a fiery enthusiasm in the decoration and adornment of the church at Christmas and Easter festivals. Far be the thought that would deny praise to the mild raptures and delicate aspirations of gentle natures such as Cooper drew. But in novels, at least, one longs for a (p. 281) ruddier life than flows in the veins of these pale, bleached-out personifications ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... actress. I hardly think this can be so, as you well know my dislike of the stage and anything appertaining thereto. My health is greatly improved by my visit here, and all being well I shall probably risk making the return voyage after Christmas. Upon second consideration, I shall be glad if you will cable your reply to me, as the mail takes six weeks, as ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... to a Christmas Tree over the way at twelve o'clock mid-day, but we think it will be rather too hot for us to go then. My often quoted informant tells me that seeing there are no fir trees here they use instead a tamarisk branch, and its feathery, pine-like needles look almost as well as our fir ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... There was Christmas company in the Good Intent, and the sanded tap-room, with its trestle tables and sprigs of holly stuck under sooty beams reeked with smoke and the steam of ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... there was nothing to be done but to stand helplessly by and watch him drown. And what were Boyton's thoughts? He stated afterwards: "I thought of it being Christmas eve. The news of my death would be telegraphed to New York, my mother would hear of it and it would make a sad Christmas for her." The voyager straggled with all the strength he possessed against the awful power of the contending waters ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... case for such a brain to hold Communion with a stirring child! Sad case, as you may think, for one Who had a brain so wild! Last Christmas when we talked of this, Old Farmer Simpson did maintain, That in her womb the infant wrought About its mother's heart, and brought Her senses back again: And when at last her time drew near, Her looks were calm, ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... Dormouse. "Not to say teetotally. They're preparing their Christmas issues in Magazine form, and that means a terrible lot of extra work. I don't believe the way things look now that the City will be able to print the money for last January's payroll until somewhere around the next Fourth of July, ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs
... 9th February, the two vessels once more together weighed anchor, and resumed their voyage by way of the Sunda Isles. Beyond Christmas Island they were again separated in cloudy weather, and did not meet until the end of the trip. On the 4th May, the Nadiejeda cast anchor in St. Helena Bay, sixty days' voyage from the Sunda Isles ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Horace, "Dulce est desipere in loco," he grants the proposition, with the commentary that he, at least, has very rarely been "in loco." He reads tragedies, and perhaps writes one; but he does not affect comedies, and he could have no sympathy with an uproarious burlesque or side-shaking Christmas pantomime. His brethren who seek the theatre for amusement are of similar opinion, and so are they who stand behind the foot-lights. Therefore it is, that, for every passable comedian, America can produce a whole batch of very ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... of fellow students were greatly blessed. About seventy-five new names for the pledge against the use of alcoholics and narcotics were obtained. This means much. The use of intoxicating drinks at Christmas festivals is very popular, and many a young man is "the worse for ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 • Various
... others, of course—that only means that the weighing up of the good and evil in them is a more difficult matter. There are experts who can tell you the weight of a haystack by looking at it, and there are others who are able at Christmas-time to indulge in an unquenchable thirst by accurately computing the weight, down to ounces, of the pig or turkey raffled for at their favourite public-house. So the trained student of his fellows can also diagnose his subjects ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Thou wilt have thy way—" At this moment Prudencia appeared. Nothing whatever could be seen of her small person but her feet; she looked like an exploded bale of goods. "What! what!" gasped Don Guillermo. "Thou little rat! Thou wouldst make a Christmas doll of thyself with satin that is too heavy for thy grandmother, and eke out thy dumpy inches with a train? Oh, Mother of God!" He turned to the captain, who was smoking complacently, assured of the issue. "I will let them carry these things home; but to-morrow one-half, ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... us become the winter months there. And Singapore is so close to the equator that for it "all seasons are summer," and the punkah wallas (the coolies who swing the big fans by which the rooms are made tolerable) must work as hard on Christmas Day as on the ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... their posterity in 1641. For upwards of one hundred years after the marriage, this was the principal residence of the family; and so lately as the time of the first Duke of Rutland, (so created by queen Anne,) seven score servants were maintained, and during twelve days after Christmas, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... just read that Macleod and Grogan have been liberated. May I indulge a hope that my case will engage the sympathies of the world during the Christmas holidays. H. L.] ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... times count more, Admit these four: A flower of promise rich with day, A son with victories that wear A halo on his mother's way: And friends whose hearts ring like a chime Across the world at Christmas time. ...
— Ballads of Peace in War • Michael Earls
... have done a kindness. You are proud of it, I know. You have made your friends happy, and you ought to be so glad as to cheerfully accept reproof from your conscience. Joe Wadsworth and I once stole a goose and gave it to a poor widow as a Christmas present. No crime in that. I always put my counterfeit money on the plate. "The passer of the sasser" always smiles at me and I get credit for doing generous things. But seriously again, if you do feel a little uncomfortable wait until I see you before you tell anybody. Avoid cultivating misery. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the Christmas vacation. He was full, not so much of Cambridge, as of schemes for establishing a co-operative press next year. He was learning printing and binding, and wanted ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... you, nor never was earthly king so praised as he, until that a slothful will came upon him and he began to lose the pleasure in doing largesse that he wont to have, nor was he minded to hold court neither at Christmas-tide nor at Easter nor at Pentecost. The knights of the Table Round when they saw his well-doing wax slack departed thence and began to hold aloof from his court, insomuch as that of three hundred and three-score knights ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest spring I ever lived anywhere. R. H. D. came shortly after Christmas. The spireas were in bloom, and the monthly roses; you could always find a sweet violet or two somewhere in the yard; here and there splotches of deep pink against gray cabin walls proved that precocious peach-trees were in bloom. It never rained. At night it was cold enough ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... conspirators did not despair. The term before Christmas was in some ways rather a dull one, and they were glad of any excitement to break the monotony. As difficulties increased their ardor also deepened, and they were resolved not to leave a stone unturned to effect their object. Where there is ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... declaring his nephew his successor, implies at the same time no thought of getting rid of the queen, though he did not expect more issue from her: and little as Buck's authority is regarded, a contemporary writer confirms the probability of this story. The Chronicle of Croyland says, that at the Christmas festival,(34) men were scandalized at seeing the queen and the lady Elizabeth dressed in robes similar and equally royal. I should suppose that Richard learning the projected marriage of Elizabeth and the earl of Richmond, amused the young ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... five weeks: till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... found a remedy. Put him in bed. Come, come! courage! I am with you, and all the wisdom of the ancients! Call a doctor, and this very day, cousin, go present yourself to the captain-general, and take him a present, a gold chain, a ring; say it's a Christmas present. Shut the windows and doors, and if any one asks for your husband, say he is seriously ill. Meanwhile I'll burn all the letters, papers, and books, as Don Crisostomo did. Scripti testes sunt! Go on to the captain's. Leave me to myself. In extremis extrema. Give me the power ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... extent the law of atrophy has begun to work upon the doctrine of the virgin birth appears in the recent utterance of so eminent an evangelical scholar as Dr. R. F. Horton, of London. The following report of his remarks in a Christmas sermon in 1901 is taken from the Christian World, London. "We could not imagine Paul, Peter, and John all ignoring something essential to the Gospel they preached. Strictly speaking, this narrative in Matthew and Luke was one of the latest ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... Aikins, alias "Softy" Hubbard, alias Billy The Hopper, paused for breath behind a hedge that bordered a quiet lane and peered out into the highway at a roadster whose tail light advertised its presence to his felonious gaze. It was Christmas Eve, and after a day of unseasonable warmth a slow, drizzling rain was whimsically changing ...
— A Reversible Santa Claus • Meredith Nicholson
... great throb. Somehow he was smitten to his knees. Christmas Eve! He remembered the day with a rush of emotion. He stared again at the vouchsafed vision. He rubbed ...
— 'way Down In Lonesome Cove - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... than that of the most powerful of the nobles who were, in fact, his feudal tenants, in whatever portion of lands they possessed. Thrice in the year this proud muster-roll of noble tenants was examined, i.e. at the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, where they appeared before the monarch in all the pomp of state. A sort of coronation scene was at this time exhibited. The nobles renewed their homage to the monarch, who received them at once as his guests and dependents—seated on his throne, with a crown on ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... interview Mr. Browne, who was a shrewd, clever Yankee, told me that a vessel was on the point of starting for Old Point Comfort, and, if she had good weather off Cape Hatteras, would reach Fortress Monroe by Christmas-day, and he suggested that I might make it the occasion of sending a welcome Christmas gift to the President, Mr. Lincoln, who peculiarly enjoyed such pleasantry. I accordingly sat down and wrote on a slip of paper, to be ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... for the Christmas holidays. I was at home in my new lodging in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, occupied with I know not what bagatelles, totus in illis, when a letter addressed to me and brought by a dragoon was handed to me. I opened the envelope, and this is what ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... I had not known it! I leaned back in my chair in sudden loneliness, what pictures coming before me of long-ago Christmas Eves at home!—old Christmas Eves when ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... departure from Hamburg is unknown, nor have we the slightest information as to his whereabouts until we hear of him at Rome in January 1707. Chrysander's statement that he spent Christmas 1706 with his mother at Halle is manifestly untrue. Mattheson says that he travelled to Rome with a Herr von Binitz, but nothing is known of this gentleman. His most natural route into Italy would be by the Brenner, the historic ...
— Handel • Edward J. Dent
... be left to the children, and if they bring bad, sentimental prints from the Christmas numbers I shall say nothing when they hang them up. But as an active member of the community, I shall bring reproductions of the work of Rembrandt, Velasquez, Angelo, Augustus John, Cezanne, Nevinson; I shall buy Colour ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... but the coming war was talked of. For the Rostov family the whole interest of these preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denisov's furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away from home, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... there he fulfilled an ambition long cherished and hidden away; he touched Joan on the arm and opened the elaborate door of a famous jeweler. He was known to the shop from the fact that he and his father had always dealt there for wedding and Christmas presents. He was welcomed by a man in the clothes of a concert singer and with the bedside ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... the animals remain until spring opens, as snugly protected from the severity of the weather as sheep under the sheds of a farm-yard. Here they feed upon the leaves of the laurel and other evergreens. It is contrary to the law to kill them after the Christmas holidays, but sometimes their retreat is invaded, and a deer or two killed; their flesh, however, is not wholesome, on account of the laurel leaves on which they feed, and ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... about without difficulty—he can come down and go up. One might say, perhaps, that in J., though Jahweh cannot be everywhere, he can go to almost any place. All this is just like a child's thought. The child, at Christmas, can believe that, though Santa Claus cannot be everywhere, he can move about with wonderful facility, and, though he is a man, he is rather mysterious. The Jahwist's thought of God represents the childhood stage of the ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... the thought of his coming visit! Radmore was now looked upon as a fairy godfather might have been. They were too young, too self-absorbed, to realise that these wonderful gifts out of the blue never seemed to wing their way to Betty or Janet. Yet stop, there had been an exception. Last Christmas each had received an anonymous fairing—Betty, a beautiful little watch, set in diamonds, and Janet, a wonderful old lace flounce. Both registered parcels had come from London, Godfrey Radmore being known at the time to be in Australia. ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... of despising it. I should be only too thankful for any kind of copying or pattern-drawing, or designing for Christmas-cards—like poor Fanny Russell—if it were the beginning of the least little bit of an order," said Rose meekly, with a stifled sigh given to her and May's old magnificent ideas of commissions. "But ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... she went, the pouting children of the household were forced to open their money-boxes and tin savings-banks, and bring forth the hoarded pence with which they had hoped to purchase candy and toys at Christmas and New Year. The village folks reckoned the cost of her visits among their annual expenses, and, when she was seen approaching, made ready, as if a sturdy beggar or a tax-gatherer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... please myself not a little that I shall in a few days see you again, and I will give you an account of my journey. I have heard almost nothing of your late weeks,—but that is my fault,—only I heard with sorrow that your wife had been ill, and could not go with you on your Christmas holidays. Now may her good days have come again! I say I have heard nothing of your late days; of your early days, of your genius, of your influence, I cease not to hear and to see continually, yea, often am called upon to resist the same with might and main. But I will ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the feather-cushioned rocker-lounge, and fanning her comely face with her shade-hat, it occurred to her to say to Cornelia, sewing hard beside the window, "I guess you won't see them in blossom this Christmas, Nie." ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... who, a few days after the Christmas following Hornby's arrival at Pool, was conversing with her husband in the parlor of Grange farmhouse, scarcely realized the air-drawn image which dwelt in the memory of the unforgiving, unforgetting man. Mrs. Burton was at this time ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... Wel, say I am, why should proud Summer boast, Before the Birds haue any cause to sing? Why should I ioy in any abortiue birth? At Christmas I no more desire a Rose, Then wish a Snow in Mayes new fangled showes: But like of each thing that in season growes. So you to studie now it is too late, That were to clymbe ore the house to ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... there he kept his Christmas With mirth and princely cheare, When, lo! a straunge and cunning ...
— Book of Old Ballads • Selected by Beverly Nichols
... proves, unhappily, to be at a crisis in his career. The field of human sympathy, out of which I might have raised the needful pecuniary crop, is closed to me from want of time to cultivate it. I see no other resource left—if we are to be ready by Christmas—than to try one of the local music-sellers in this town, who is said to be a speculating man. A private rehearsal at these lodgings, and a bargain which will fill the pockets of a grasping stranger—such are the sacrifices which dire necessity imposes on me at starting. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... feminine vanity left in her, yet she looked furtively to one side or the other, expecting scoffing glances. She felt sure that she looked like one of the fantastically-clad ragamuffins she had seen in the streets of New York, at Christmas and Thanksgiving. But the pair met but one or two Indian women who wore a garb that was none too aesthetic and who paid not the slightest attention to them, and a few men who may possibly have wondered but, with the instinctive civility of the ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... chair, my dear," said Mrs. Stubbs, beginning to pour out. "Yes," she said thoughtfully, as she handed the tea, "but I don't care about the size. I'm having an enlargemint. All very well for Christmas cards, but I never was the one for small photers myself. You get no comfort out of them. To say the truth, ...
— The Garden Party • Katherine Mansfield
... restoration to the abbey of pensions and lands which it had held in England, and which had been seized by Edward II. In 1334 the same king granted a protection to Melrose in common with the other Border abbeys, and in 1341 he came to Melrose to spend Christmas. In 1385 Richard II., exasperated by his fruitless expedition into Scotland, spent a night in the abbey and caused it to be burned. Notwithstanding these disasters, the abbey increased in wealth and architectural ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... his death and not of his life or works which I wish to tell, for it was singular. He died on Christmas Eve, 1432. The winter that year in the north of France was, as is well known, terrible for its severe cold. The rich stayed at home, the poor died, and the unfortunate third estate of gipsies, balladmongers, tinkers, tumblers, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... impossible. I cannot even see you again until after Christmas. It will be safer—better not. But in January I will come to Lucca, ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... medical inhumanity is reported from Birmingham. A poor man named Tompkins was taken seriously ill early on Christmas morning, and although snow was falling and the atmosphere was terribly raw, his wife left the house in search of a doctor. The nearest practitioner declined to leave the house without being paid his fee; a second imposed the same condition, and the woman then went to the police station. As ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... "that Holmes only spent part of that Christmas vacation with his mother, and went off somewhere or the other early in January." I cudgelled back my memory into confirmation of his statement. To remember trivial incidents before the war takes a lot of cudgelling. Yes. I distinctly recollected the young man's telling ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... thrown on their hands, and are reduced to a condition approaching bankruptcy. The crisis has been precipitated by the circumstance that, just when the combined trades, recovering from their first disaster, had produced a Christmas stock of portraits and busts, showing His Majesty with a beard, he shaved it off, and once more they have their goods returned on their hands. Prussian 31/2 per Cents. have fallen ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 7, 1891 • Various
... the coarseness which disfigures so much of the Elizabethan literature,—an additional inducement, if any were necessary, for rescuing it from the liability to destruction which is of course incident to any book of such excessive rarity. Our thanks are due to the Rev. H. Christmas, Librarian of Sion College, for the courtesy and liberality with which he permitted our transcript to be made from a volume of tracts possessing the greatest charm for the bibliographer; for besides the present one, it contains the first ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... they prefer to work along as they have, wherein they begin to show sense. Rose is still the only cook and does very well, except that she sometimes bakes potatoes longer than she boils hams, etc., etc. I suspect H. helps her put things together somewhat. The Christmas tree was to have been last evening, but the rain prevented. C. P. W. has gone up to bring down Mr. Eustis and his two ladies to dine. The house being an elastic one, I suppose it can be made to hold several more people than at present, if they will only bring their own blankets. The ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... was not fond of the rapid changes of temperature up on the "roof of the world" in Afghanistan. During one twenty-four hours at Jellalabad, we had one man killed by a sunstroke, and another frozen to death on sentry duty in the night. On Christmas morning, when I rose at sunrise, the thermometer was far below freezing point; the water in the brass basin in my tent was frozen solid, and I was glad to wrap myself in furs. At noon the thermometer was over a hundred in the shade, ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... thing I regret. If Mrs. Brooks and Maria come, they will be very much disappointed. Tell them I'll try to attend to them the day but one after Christmas. And now, good by, children. You know you're as dear to me as the apple of my eye. Do take good care of ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... if any of the little maidens who are having so much comfort with their beloved dolls in these Christmas holidays, ever think that somebody must have taken a great deal of pains to dress them up so nicely, and above all, to make the tiny garments and ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... and waiting until the amount of the merchandise has been completed, so that they may carry it—we could not get them off so quickly as was wished, nor upon an appointed day as before, when there was no war, and when at Christmas we used to have thirty or forty ships from China. The viceroy can inform you of this, for he too can ascertain this through the relations, as well ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... find a person, and after trying half a dozen, who could not or would not do the work, they gave it up in despair. But not long were they permitted to struggle with the severe toil which their circumstances imposed upon them; for on the night before Christmas, when a large demand for candy was anticipated, and both of them had worked very hard, Mrs. Redburn fainted and fell upon the floor. It was in this manner that she had been taken at the commencement of her former long sickness, and to Katy the future looked dark and gloomy. But she did not give ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... as sudden as they were unexpected. Thus early in the morning of Christmas Eve, about a fortnight after we had entered the pack, "we have come into a region of where the open water exceeds the ice; the former lies in great irregular pools three or four miles or more across and connecting with many leads. The latter—and the fact is puzzling—still contain floes of enormous ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... sent me a divine Christmas present. All the children in the world cannot be so delighted with their trees and the golden apples and splendid gifts suspended thereon as I, in my own person, am with your unique "Tristan." Away with all the cares and tribulations of every-day existence! ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... after the expiration of the delay granted; nevertheless, as the sentence had not yet been put into execution, MM. de Bellievre and de Chateauneuf set out at once for Greenwich Castle, some miles from London, where the queen was keeping Christmas, to beg her to grant them an audience, in which they could transmit to her Majesty their king's reply; but they could obtain nothing for four or five days; however, as they were not disheartened, and returned unceasingly to the charge, January 6th, MM. de Bellievre and de Chateauneuf ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... the Senator, "but that's a very popular style of angel for Christmas cards—the more expensive kinds. Here, I ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... about it often," said Tant Sannie. "And he was the son of the old doctor that they say died on Christmas-day, but I don't know if that's true. People do tell such awful lies. Why should he die on Christmas-day more than any ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... left London, Mrs. Umfraville had chosen a very bright pleasant young governess, to be a friend and companion, as well as an instructress. Further, it was settled that as soon as Christmas was over, Sylvia should come for a long visit, and learn of the ...
— Countess Kate • Charlotte M. Yonge
... foretelling everything—from a change of Ministry down to a rise in Unified—are much enquired for. Our penny Curse—one of the cheapest things in the trade—is considered infallible. We have some very superior Blessings, too, but they're very little asked for. We've only sold one since Christmas—to a gentleman who bought it to send to his mother-in-law—but it turned out that he was afflicted in the head, and it's been returned on our hands. But our sale of penny Curses, especially on Saturday nights, is tremendous. We can't turn 'em out ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... by thunder!" he shouted; "and Jerry Curtis, and young Tom; though I would not have known him if he hadn't been with the others. Well, this air a good sight for the eyes, and to-morrow Christmas-day. I had begun to be afeard that something had gone wrong with you, I looked for news from you nigh three months ago. I got the message you sent me in the spring, and I have asked every old hand who came along ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... about your clothes and my clothes, and the rates and taxes, and bus-fares, and holidays, and your cigarettes, and doctor, and errand boys' Christmas-boxes, and gas, and coal, and repairs? Repairs! A hundred and eighty is more ...
— The Great Adventure • Arnold Bennett
... road? Take it how you like, it's bad and it's shabby. If you're rich enough to give your daughter twenty or thirty thousand pounds, wait for some little family festival—her birthday, or her husband's birthday, or a Christmas gathering, or maybe a christening—and put the notes in her hand. Oh, major dear,' cried he aloud, 'if you knew how much of life you lose with lawyers, and what a deal of bad blood comes into the world by parchments, you'd see the wisdom of trusting ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... his father, laying down the newspaper at which he had been glancing carelessly, and throwing himself back in the window-seat, 'I believe you know how very much I dislike what are called family affairs, which are only fit for plebeian Christmas days, and have no manner of business with people of our condition. But as you are proceeding upon a mistake, Ned—altogether upon a mistake—I will conquer my repugnance to entering on such matters, and give you a perfectly plain and candid answer, if you ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... manufacturers, paid L3,000 for three logs, all cut from one tree, and each about fifteen feet long and more than three feet square. The tree is cut at two seasons of the year—in the autumn and about Christmas time. The trunk, of course, furnishes timber of the largest dimensions, but that from the branches is preferred for ornamental purposes, owing to its closer grain and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various
... not talk for more than forty-five minutes at the most and the words came slowly from his lips, but when he had done my head was spinning from more visions of bold men and large deeds than it had held since the Christmas night when I reeled off to bed after bolting a full ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... when Epiphanius,(348) preaching on Ascension Day, refer to Acts i. 10, 11,—we do not feel ourselves warranted to press the coincidence of such a quotation with the Liturgical section of the day.—So, again, when Chrysostom preaches on Christmas Day, and quotes from S. Matthew ii. 1, 2;(349) or on Whitsunday, and quotes from S. John vii. 38 and Acts ii. 3 and 13;—though both places form part of the Liturgical sections for the day, no proof results therefrom that either ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... continued, "and though I knocked and knocked and knocked, as hard as I could, nobody came to open it. I was dreadfully disappointed, because I felt as if Santa Claus must live here all of the year except when he went out to pay Christmas visits, and it would be so lovely to see him in his own home, you know. But what was I to do? The gate was entirely too high to climb over, and there wasn't even a crack ...
— Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land and other Stories • Ellis Towne, Sophie May and Ella Farman
... When the Christmas vacation drew near, William wrote that he hoped Billy and Aunt Hannah would spend it with them; but Billy answered that although she appreciated their kindness and thanked them for it, yet she must decline their invitation, as she had already invited several of the girls ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... had no children to sponge upon them. What they had, they spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas—just met, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... so says at first sight the science of bio-geology; till the naturalist, if he be also human and humane, is glad to escape from the confusion and darkness of the universal battle-field of selfishness into the order and light of Christmas- tide. ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... the Theatres will be busy with the Autumn-cum-Winter Season. The first on the List is Drury Lane, which, reserving PAYNE for the Pantomime at Christmas, opens in September ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... feudal burthens, when the flag of the Bourbons floated over the fortress of New France. In 1846, at the time of my visit, in vain would you have sought in the farm yard for a live seigniorial capon (un chapon vif et en plumes) though possibly in the larder, at Christmas, you might have discovered some fat, tender turkeys, or a juicy haunch of venison. Of vin ordinaire ne'er a trace, but judging from the samples on the table, perhaps much mellow Madeira, and "London Stout" might have been stored in the cellars. Everywhere, in fact, was apparent English comfort, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... watchmen, and road wainmen, and a pint weekly to the head home wainman, the potter, the midwife, and the young children's field nurse. These allowances totaled about three hundred gallons yearly. But a considerably greater quantity than this was distributed, mostly at Christmas perhaps, for in 1796 for example 922 gallons were recorded of "rum used for the negroes on the estate." Upon the birth of each child the mother was given a Scotch rug and ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Aruba, The Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Brunei, Burkina, Burma, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Christmas Island, Cocos Islands, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Cuba, Cyprus, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands, Fiji, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... tore the tumbled bed apart, and made it up again, smoothing the limp sheets with clumsy fingers, and talking to Julia, while he worked, of little girls who had brothers and sisters, and who lived in the country, and hung their stockings up on Christmas Eve. Emeline pretended not to notice either father or daughter at these times, although she could have whisked Julia into bed in half the time it took George to do it, and was really very kind to the child when ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... provocations of the Spanish Court, he chose to represent that affair as a cowardly, and almost piratical attack on an unprepared Power. Pitt had expected some such misrepresentations. He knew that the Opposition would strain every nerve to overthrow him; and in the Christmas Vacation he made timely overtures through Hawkesbury for the support of Addington. The two old friends met on 23rd December 1804, at Hawkesbury's residence, Coombe Wood, near Richmond Park. The host contrived ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of frost without suffering, requiring only protection from rain in winter. In North America it forms large, spreading masses on gravelly hillsides, and is much dreaded by travellers, and especially by horses; there it is usually covered with snow from Christmas to the following May. ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... mother; wanderings in Italy: the Baths of Lucca; Venice; friendship with Margaret Fuller Ossoli; winter in Paris; Carlyle; George Sand. Close friendship with M. Joseph Milsand; Milsand's appreciation of Browning; new edition of Browning's poems; 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day'; the Essay on Shelley; summer in London; introduction to Dante G. Rossetti; again in Florence; production of 'Colombe's Birthday' (1853); again at Lucca, Mr. and Mrs. W. Story; first winter in Rome; the Kembles; again in London (1855): ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... this palace in 1344. He became Duke of York, Earl of Cambridge and Lord Tivedale, and married Isabel, a younger daughter of Don Pedro of Castile. In 1392 Richard II., with his first Queen, Anne of Bohemia, and many bishops, earls, lords and ladies, kept Christmas at ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... persisted in their intention of remaining pagans, and deserting Clovis, betook themselves to Ragnacaire, the Frankish king of Cambrai, who was destined ere long to pay dearly for this acquisition. So soon as St. Remi was informed of this good disposition on the part of king and people, he fixed Christmas Day of this year, 496, for the ceremony of the baptism of these grand neophytes. The description of it is borrowed from the historian of the church of Rheims, Frodoard by name, born at the close of the ninth century. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... aunt, as he came in from doing his chores on Christmas morning, and she handed him a handsome ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... morning came and found them in extreme poverty. Mr. Worthington still weak from his illness, but able to go around a little, came in from his morning walk very gloomy and feeling that his friends were very few. "This is the saddest Christmas I have ever known," he said to Mrs. Worthington. "It is almost more than I can bear to know that I have nothing to give the children today, and barely enough in the house to eat. I did not realize it so keenly until I saw an old man trudging along Thirty-first Street ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... our Lord, 1886, brought an infinitely greater sorrow than the mere financial losses which pressed so hardly upon us in connection with our Florida endeavors. On Christmas morning, while alone in my room, I distinctly heard my father's voice whisper: "James, James, good-bye," and an hour later the telegraph flashed the news that he passed away at the exact time when I heard him bidding ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... busy, you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask them what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are frightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have a postman, but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box, and though they have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress, and when she has called the roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back. It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest ...
— Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... suppose painted glass, in the fine times, was ever wrought without figures? We have got into the way, among our other modern wretchednesses, of trying to make windows of leaf diapers, and of strips of twisted red and yellow bands, looking like the patterns of currant jelly on the top of Christmas cakes; but every casement of old glass contained a saint's history. The windows of Bourges, Chartres, or Rouen have ten, fifteen, or twenty medallions in each, and each medallion contains two figures at least, often six or seven, representing ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... speak," returned the sailor, as he carefully scraped up and consumed the very last grain of the savoury mess, murmuring, as he did so, that it was out o' sight the wery best blow-out he'd had since he enjoyed his last Christmas dinner ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... of age Sir Joshua was painting the portraits of great folk, and being well paid for it, as well as lavishly praised. His first real sorrow came at a Christmas time when he was summoned home from London where he was ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... was remarkable in Sir Richard Whittington's year was that the King kept his Christmas at Lambeth, and at the feast of Purification seven Dolphins of the sea came up to the River of Thames and played there up and down until four of them ...
— The History of Sir Richard Whittington • T. H.
... a busy month, indeed. To Genevieve it seemed actually to be one whirl of study, lessons, practice, and examinations, leaving oh, so little time for Christmas gifts ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... welcome Him. The nobler part Of all the house here is the heart, Which we will give Him, and bequeath This hollie and this ivie wreath To do Him honour who's our King, The Lord of all this revelling' HERRICK, A Christmas Carol ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... a bolt of scarlet silk for the Sarki's paramount wife, and strings of candy for the great man's children. He puffed in with one last brown-wrapped parcel, which he unpacked to display a leather saddle. This confection was embossed with a hundred intricate designs, rich with silver; un-Amish as a Christmas tree. Judging from the Sarki's dazzled thanks, the saddle was just the thing for ...
— Blind Man's Lantern • Allen Kim Lang
... claimant), was far larger than that of the most powerful of the nobles who were, in fact, his feudal tenants, in whatever portion of lands they possessed. Thrice in the year this proud muster-roll of noble tenants was examined, i.e. at the festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, where they appeared before the monarch in all the pomp of state. A sort of coronation scene was at this time exhibited. The nobles renewed their homage to the monarch, who received them ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... Froissart and I spent forty-eight hours in Paris, during which time we purchased one thousand toys for our Christmas party. Such a time as I had coralling a taxi to carry our large crate of playthings to the station. Paris was gay and crowded, making up for its four years of gravity, and the conscienceless taxi drivers were having pretty much their own way, refusing all that were going in a direction ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... to go very carefully about getting a start," said Linda, "and you should be careful to find the right kind of friends at the very start. Christmas and Thanksgiving boxes can always be sent on time to reach you. It won't be so long for you as for us; and by the time you have Oka Sayye beaten to ravelings you will have such a 'perfect habit' that you ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... a few flakes of snow from his sleeve, and it seemed to her that the casual kindness of his kiss fell like ice on her cheek as he greeted her. It was almost three months since he had seen her, for he had been unable to come home for Christmas, but from his manner he might have parted from her only yesterday. He was kind—he had never been kinder—but she would have preferred ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... it helped a lot when I went about asking for gifts for the Christmas Ship," said Roger. "Lots of people said, 'Oh, it's your club that had a float in ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... 21, Sherman entered Savannah, and wired Lincoln that he presented him the city as a Christmas gift. Then he turned northward to join Grant, taking Columbia, Fayetteville, Goldsboro and Raleigh, and destroying Confederate arsenals, foundries, railroads and public works of all descriptions. Lee had surrendered four days before Sherman marched into Raleigh, and the next day a flag of truce from ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... congress without authority, a commander-in-chief without money, and an army without discipline, equipments, or flag—or rather, with so many flags that they must have had little significance except to the respective groups of men who had marched under each. Before Christmas a flag was designed and made, but how, where, and by whom is not known. Neither Washington nor Franklin gives any information, and the Journal of Congress says nothing about its designer or maker. It is true that ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan
... is the center of interest to "Toad" and his friends long before Christmas arrives. They plan a surprise that brings joy to a poor family. The boys erect snow forts and the two sides have ...
— Hallowe'en at Merryvale • Alice Hale Burnett
... when he comes home,' replied his sister. 'Now I must begin my lessons; I have done them better lately, my governess says, and if I only work steadily on, I shall get a prize at Christmas. ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie
... (occasionally Ben's companion, sometimes Tom's) is hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions; divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions, conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria—two plaster heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... sir!" cried Dan'l indignantly. "Is Ribstons a petty complaint—my chycest Ribstons, as I want for dessert at Christmas? And is my Sturmer pippins a petty complaint—them as ought to succeed the ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... broach-post and at the bottom, the slater no longer sees any danger in mounting it, however anxious the dizzy man may feel down on the firm earth when he looks up and thinks the ladder made of match-wood glued together, like a child's Christmas toy. But before he has bound the ladder fast—and in order to do that he must climb it once—the slater may commend his poor soul to God. Then he is indeed between heaven and earth. He knows that the slightest shift of the ladder—and a single false step ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... for many years walked back and forth, every day and in all weathers, between Azzano and Menaggio, a distance of six miles, bearing merchandise of all sorts in a basket on her back, fell to the ground exhausted, as she was nearing her poor home on Christmas Eve, 1907. She died next morning at the age of seventy-three. At the time she fell, she was carrying a load of ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... town till nearly Christmas!" and Stingaree gazed enviously. "It must be hard to realize," ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... He was silent for some moments. Then he moved tentatively. 'I was going to ask her, in any case, to go away with me at Christmas,' he said, in a very ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... that man was to take care that his appetites and passions are duly indulged, of which ethical writers have, alas! condescended to say but little, supposing that every body would feel that there was no need of solemn counsels on such a subject. It reminds one of the Christmas sermon mentioned in the 'Sketch Book,' preached by the good little antiquarian who elaborately proved, and pathetically enforced on reluctant auditors, the duty of a proper devotion to the festivities of the season. However, every one must like the complexion of your theology, though its ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... the boy. "And at Christmas, if I can do it, I'm going to make her some sort of a nice present. She is the only friend I had left ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... yet," he chirruped, and the housekeeper smiled gravely. It was very decent and kindly and quite what one would have expected; I remembered that every employee always received a personally selected gift at Christmas and that he had stood godfather for seventeen (or was it twenty-seven?) children of labourers, born on the great eight thousand acre estate on ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... of The Ring and The Book I got for Elsmere's Christmas last year. I wanted so to read it. I am devoted to Byron. But Algernon gave me the Complete Works, so that I felt I could give this away to advantage. It is a little damaged. The dear child uses his books to build stables with, but I knew that the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... weak against the strong, Or tyranny to fight; Long as there lingers gloom to chase, Or streaming tear to dry, One kindred woe, one sorrowing face, That smiles as we draw nigh; Long as a tale of anguish swells The heart and lids grow wet, And at the sound of Christmas bells We pardon and forget; So long as Faith with Freedom reigns And loyal Hope survives, And gracious Charity remains To leaven lowly lives; While there is one untrodden tract For Intellect or Will, And men are free to think and act, Life is worth ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... and her mother had always loved Christmas, and had invariably given some gift to each other. After their stockings were hung side by side, Christmas Eve, her mother would take her in her lap and tell her the Christmas story. So now it was a great mercy for Elsie that she had her child ...
— The Potato Child and Others • Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
... he wouldn't squeak!" the old gentleman would remark. "You have his squeaker in upside down! That would never do for some little boy or girl to find on Christmas morning! Take the squeaker out and ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... went on to the tomb of Thomas Becket's parents, and the requiem was again said. This done they returned by Cheapside to the Church of St. Thomas Acons, where each man offered a penny. On All Saints' Day (three days later) they went to St. Paul's again for Vespers, and again at Christmas, on the Epiphany, and on Candlemas Day (Purification). On Whitsun Monday they met at St. Peter's, Cornhill, and on this occasion the City clergy all joined the procession, and again they assembled in the cathedral nave, while the Veni ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... almanacks printed, where you double the ember days and vigils, so that you may profit by the fasts to which you bind all your house; another, that you always have a ready-made quarrel for your servants at Christmas time or when they leave you, so that you may give them nothing. One tells a story how not long since you prosecuted a neighbour's cat because it had eaten up the remainder of a leg of mutton; another ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... heavily-nailed and barred doors, and find yourself in a vast hall panelled up to the ceiling with old oak. The immense fireplace with its brass dogs and andirons tells of the yule log that still at Christmas burns upon the hearth, and trophies of arms of all ages—from the Toledo blade that can be bent by the point into a semicircle, so perfect is the temper of its steel, to the Sikh sword that was brought home after the Indian mutiny—form ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... provide much entertainment for Christmas gatherings ... ingenious puzzles and problems invented by 'Sphinx,' the ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... When Christmas bowls were circling, And all was joy and cheer, He passed that goblet from him With a kiss and with ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... could submit to their "Egyptian taskmasters," and therefore was not surprised now to find them pull down their huts and march off with the materials to a distant site. Every day this sort of migration continued, just as you see in the picture; and nothing more important occurred until Christmas-day, when an armadillo was caught, and I heard from Mahamed's head wife that the Turks had plundered and burnt down three villages, and in all probability they would return shortly laden with ivory. This was a true anticipation; for, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... cheerful, good-natured, lively custom be perpetuated among us! As long as the side-walks of Manhattan and the canals of Amsterdam last, so long may Santa Claus bring his Christmas gifts to the little folk; and so long may the gallant Knickerbockers pay to their female friends the homage of a PERSONAL visit at New-Year's. Cards on every other day in the year, if necessary; but, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... caps and swords, are stationed amongst them. The room has distempered walls, a bookcase with numerous official-looking books, a cupboard between the windows, a plan of the prison on the wall, a writing-table covered with documents. It is Christmas Eve. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of how much she had given up for the Patriotic Fund; that she had determined not to give one Christmas present, and had given up all the societies to which she had belonged, even the Missionary Society, and was giving it all to the Red Cross. "I will not even give a present to the boy who brings the paper," she declared with conviction. Whether or not the boy's present ever reached the Red Cross, ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... suffered the post hour to come so nearly on me, that I must huddle over what I have more than appears in the public papers. I arrived here on Christmas day, not a single bill or other article of business having yet been brought into Senate. The President's speech, so unlike himself in point of moderation, is supposed to have been written by the military conclave, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Blake, then leader of the Opposition, and his followers with a unanimous shout of disapproval. During the Christmas recess Blake endeavoured to raise the country against it. A rival syndicate was hastily organized, with Sir William Howland, A. R. M'Master, William Hendrie, A. T. Wood, Allan Gilmour, George A. Cox, P. Larkin, James M'Laren, ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year. The Farmer's Daily Diet. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... believe him. These things are errors. But now listen to truths. The skin of a sea-calf is a safeguard against thunder. The toad feeds upon earth, which causes a stone to come into his head. The rose of Jericho blooms on Christmas Eve. Serpents cannot endure the shadow of the ash tree. The elephant has no joints, and sleeps resting upright against a tree. Make a toad sit upon a cock's egg, and he will hatch a scorpion which will become a salamander. A blind person will recover sight by putting one hand ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to the story now, are we not? AUTHOR. That was all local colour. I want to make it quite clear that it was Christmas. EDITOR. Yes, yes, quite so. This is certainly a Christmas story. I think I shall like Robert, do ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... deracines whom I came across in Serbia was an artel of Rostof engineers. I met a family I had known in Russia. Last time I had seen them it was one evening with their children scampering round a tall Christmas tree on which all the candles were lighted. They were comfortable and capable people, and proud in their way of what they could do and of what they possessed. Now, with all the other engineers of the Vladikavsky Railway, they had ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... introduced to stamp out the popular discontent which broke out in the east, in the west, and in the midland counties. Everywhere men protested against the new changes and called for the maintenance of the system of Henry the Eighth. The Cornishmen refused to receive the new service "because it is like a Christmas game." In 1549 Devonshire demanded by open revolt the restoration of the Mass and the Six Articles as well as a partial re-establishment of the suppressed abbeys. The agrarian discontent woke again in the general disorder. Enclosures and evictions ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... the voyage till Christmas day, they had discovered seventy leagues to the eastwards, and had arrived in the latitude in which India was said to be in his instructions. The fleet continued to sail for so long a time without going to land, as to be in want of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... have combined to discourage immigration. In consequence, foreign elements, including the elsewhere ubiquitous negro, are wanting, except along the few railroads which in recent years have penetrated this country. Here survive an eighteenth century English, Christmas celebrated on Twelfth Night, the spinning wheel, and a belief in Joshua's power to arrest the course ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... living and by the living for the lesser dead—a perfect survival of heroes and penates on the one hand and of pagan funeral rites and commemorations on the other. Add Lent with its carnival, ember-days, all saints' and all souls', Christmas with its magi or its Saint Nicholas, Saint Agnes's and Saint Valentine's days with their profane associations, a saint for finding lost objects and another for prospering amourettes, since all great and tragic loves have their inevitable patrons in Christ and the Virgin, in Mary Magdalene, and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... influenced by custom and duty, that are not always awake to compassion; and indolence or avarice may yield a too ready obedience to prohibitions which favour both. The poor are certainly no gainers by the substitution of philosophy for religion; and many of those who are forbidden to celebrate Christmas or Easter by a mass, will forget to do it by a donation. For my own part, I think it an advantage that any period of the year is more particularly signalized by charity; and I rejoice when I hear of the annual gifts of meat or firing of such, or such a great personage—and I never ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the stamina, and the grand voice of Captain Abrane, and the Father Christmas, roast-beef-of-Old England face of the umpire declared to be on the side of Lord Brailstone's colour blue, darkened the star of Kit Ines till a characteristic piece of behaviour was espied. He dashed his cap into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... SECT. III. Range from Christmas Sound, round Cape Horn, through Strait Le Maire, and round Staten Land; with an Account of the Discovery of a Harbour in that Island, and a Description ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Blanchard, has claimed the possession of the estate, and the right of receiving the rents at the Christmas audit, in her name. Mr. Smart, on his side, has admitted that there is great weight in the family solicitor's application. He cannot see his way, as things are now, to contesting the question of Armadale's death, and he will consent to offer no resistance to the application, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... constant as the sun, pure as the dew, she passed the golden years preparing herself and others for a still brighter eternity. At home, it was she who warmed and cheered the house, and the hearth, more than all Christmas fires. Abroad, she shone upon the poor like the sun. She led her beloved husband by the hand to Heaven. She led her children the same road; and she was leading her grandchildren when the angel of death came for her; and she slept ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... songs, songs for choruses, for feasts, Christmas songs, all sorts! I know such a lot of them, you see, and I've not forgotten them. Only dance songs I don't sing. In my state ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... carriage and in every omnibus, but readers of the respectable Press will refuse to believe that there are any cruel people outside Germany and Russia. Not one but all the Ten Commandments will be broken, and turkeys will be eaten on Christmas Day. Men will die of disease, violence, famine and old age, and others will be born to take their place. Intellectuals will be pretentious—mules solemnly trying to look like Derby winners. There will be a considerable amount of lying, injustice, and self-righteousness. Dogs will be ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... generation, our second-cousins, across the water. They, however, cannot have it (as we fully intend that certain small bodies, but huge feeders on fiction, among our acquaintance, shall have it) on Christmas morning,—the dear old festival, that, as we write, is already near enough to warm our hearts ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... the crowd carried Joan with it. A surge forward, and then on her ear fell a shrill cry, and as the name of Jerrem Christmas started from each mouth a hundred eyes seemed turned upon her. For a moment the girl stood dazed, staring around like some wild animal at bay: then, flinging out her arms, she forced those near her aside, and rushing forward to the front made a desperate ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... Yatton Keynel, and at Broomfield in that parish, they went a great way to water their cattle; and about 1640 the springs in these parts did not breake till neer Christmas. ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... It was Christmas week, and East Cyrus was making ready for the festival. The butcher's shop was hung with turkeys and chickens, and bright with green of celery and red of cranberries and apples. The dry-goods store ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... the term wore away, and time healed the wound to some extent; and by-and-by the Christmas holidays drew near and the date of Dan's return, and that was sufficient to drive unwelcome thoughts from their minds and lighten ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... since Christmas day. A young Filipino and I got into a scrap with a drunken Chinaman who was beating a boy, and the Chink slashed us both. Carey stitched us up, but the other fellow keeps a scar across ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... considered," he said presently, "what you would do if your other—sisters want their relations asked down to stay with them? Christmas, for instance, is a time of general rejoicing, when the coldest hearts grow warm. Relations who have quarrelled all the year, seek each other out at Christmas and talk tearfully of ties of blood. And birthdays—will your twelve sisters ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... him the crisis of his diplomatic career; for the secretaries it was merely the beginning of another intolerable delay, as though they were a military outpost waiting orders to quit an abandoned position. At the moment of sharpest suspense, the Prince Consort sickened and died. Portland Place at Christmas in a black fog was never a rosy landscape, but in 1861 the most hardened Londoner lost his ruddiness. The private secretary had one source of comfort denied to them — he should not ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... said Vickers, always well disposed to anyone who praised his daughter, "but if you've nothing better to do, come and dine with us on Christmas Day, Mr. Meekin. We usually ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... the plants should be destroyed, a succession being kept up by sowing annually. By slowly growing the plants from spring-sown seeds and potting in autumn, it is not a difficult matter to have Alpines in fruit under glass at Christmas. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... many discussions on the subject, that she and her husband should go up to town for a couple of months after Christmas, Lady Amelia going with them to look after the porter and arrowroot, and that in March she should be brought back to Manor Cross with a view to her confinement. This had not been conceded to her easily, but it had at last been conceded. She had learned in secret from her father that ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... vehemence in winter, when his sermon against the Queen's dancing for joy over some unknown Protestant misfortune was actually delivered, and the good seed fell on ground not wholly barren. The Queen's French and Scots musicians would not play or sing at the Queen's Christmas-day Mass, whether pricked in heart by conscience, or afraid for their lives. "Her poor soul is so troubled for the preservation of her silly Mass that she knoweth not where to turn for defence of it," says Randolph. {223a} These persecutions ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... inhabitants pished and pshawed a little at the folly of the new shopkeeper in venturing on such an outlay in goods that would not keep; to be sure, Christmas was coming, but what housewife in Grimworth would not think shame to furnish forth her table with articles that were not home-cooked? No, no. Mr. Edward Freely, as he called himself, was deceived, if he thought Grimworth money was to flow into his ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... it united the whole community in the formation of a church, to some of whose services came all the Protestant population; in whose membership were representatives of all groups of the Protestant residents; and which was able at least once a year to call the Catholics also together at Christmas festivities. ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... the poor than you do, father," she said, "and much more of their needs. If I were queen I would have a house down among the slums; and I would never spend Christmas, or Easter, or Good Friday in any other place." Her voice broke. "I would try—I would try," she said, "to set up Christianity in high places. That ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... formerly the capital of a great kingdom, and the greatest and fairest city in those parts, but the Tartars have now made it a wilderness. There were formerly eight hundred churches [13] of the Armenians here, which are now reduced to two very small ones, in one of which I held my Christmas as well as I could, with our clerk Gosset. Next day the priest of this church died, and a bishop with twelve monks came from the mountains to his funeral, for all the bishops of the Armenians are monks, and likewise most of those belonging ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... went and done it myself. And now my missus, she's a invalide, as they say, and she ain't out o' bed this twelvemonth come Christmas, and she gets lonesome lying all by herself, and ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... and minced up. Puzzle find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and war depend on some fellow's digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... days before Christmas, and Katy was talking confidentially to Mrs. Banker, whom she had asked to see the next ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... the narrower parts of the channel. On the north side of the island were the houses of Kosoko and the slave-dealers, and it was here accordingly, as it was right that they should be chiefly punished, that the commander of the expedition resolved to commence the attack. The following day being Christmas-day, he determined, in order that that holy day should be spent as quietly as possible, and be a day of rest, to wait till the 26th. This it was, except that the slave-dealers wasted a large amount of ammunition by firing ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... The schoolmaster who looked after the education of the midshipmen was killed. Even a poor goat, kept by the officers for her milk, was cut down by a cannon-ball, and, after hobbling piteously about the deck, was mercifully thrown overboard. And this was Sunday, Christmas Day! ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... the seeds of all the weeds and tall grasses that reached above the snow, then they cleaned the honeysuckles of their watery black berries. When these were nearly gone, I began to feed them every day with crumbs, and they soon grew very tame. At Christmas an ice storm came, and after that the cold was bitter indeed. For two days I did not see my birds; but on the third day in the afternoon, when I was feeding the hens in the barnyard, a party of feeble, half-starved Juncos, hardly ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... had laboriously completed "Little Dorrit" and was beginning heavily upon the "Christmas Stories," the vacation came to an end and the Herndon girls returned for the fall term. Adelle was now a familiar figure to them, and therefore less interesting to snub. She was merely ignored, which did not hurt her. Whatever might have been her slender expectations of happiness, she must ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... through the streets of London with a smile for every one and a happy laugh upon his lips? What wonder is it that the cannon in the Tower thundered a loud welcome, and that all over England, at one season or another, maypoles rose and Christmas fires blazed? For Englishmen at heart are not only monarchists, but they are lovers of good cheer and merrymaking and ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... it was to hear the banns read, and to think the wedding was so near. She decorates the room with wreaths of pine branches, and festoons of the birch-tree, such festoons as we make into trails with holly and ivy for Christmas decorations. She jumps for joy as the guests begin to arrive, and in this strange play the father actually thinks it right for his daughter to marry Mikko, her seducer, whom he welcomes, and they arrange affairs ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... boy of nine, who had been for three months apprenticed to Alyahin the shoemaker, was sitting up on Christmas Eve. Waiting till his master and mistress and their workmen had gone to the midnight service, he took out of his master's cupboard a bottle of ink and a pen with a rusty nib, and, spreading out a crumpled sheet of paper in front of him, began writing. Before forming the first letter ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... for the joy of the Morning! The light and song of the Morning! There'll be joy in the Christmas Morning When the King comes to ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... know how it is said that on Christmas eve, twelve o'clock, the animals talk. I thought so much about it, and I made up my mind to go and hear what they had to say. I was in the middle stable that's empty, and I waited, and all of a sudden—" ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... fully realise how completely Robin had settled down as an accepted member of my household until one afternoon towards the end of the Christmas holidays. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... to London, which had been arranged to take place the Christmas after Anthony's departure to Cambridge, was full of bewildering experiences to her. Mr. Norris from time to time had references to look up in London, and divines to consult as to difficult points in his book on the Eucharist; and this was a favourable opportunity to see Mr. Dering, the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... boy," exclaimed the doctor cordially, after Tryon had introduced himself, "I'm delighted to meet you—or any one of the old blood. Your mother and I were sweethearts, long ago, when we both wore pinafores, and went to see our grandfather at Christmas; and I met her more than once, and paid her more than one compliment, after she had grown to be a fine young woman. You're like her! too, but not quite so handsome—you've more of what I suppose to be the Tryon favor, though I ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Elnora had intended he should do. Christmas brought beautiful cards of greeting to Mrs. Comstock and Elnora, Easter others, and the year ran rapidly toward spring. Elnora's position had been intensely absorbing, while she had worked with all her power. She had made a wonderful success and won new friends. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... medicine could have done, and heading his troops he issued forth and came upon the enemy near Old Meldrum, where, after a desperate fight, Buchan and his confederates were defeated with great slaughter on Christmas day, 1307. Buchan and Mowbray fled into England. Brechin took refuge in his own castle of Brechin, where he was afterwards besieged ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... few drinks when we came home from a show or something and sit right here in this room and swill 'em off, laffing and laffing till we got a little lit up. That time when we sneaked down to Sheepshead and you lost your wad at the wheel and I won it back for you. All them times, Max! That—that Christmas Eve you sneaked away from your old woman! Remember? I tell you, Max, you can't throw me over after what we been through together, and get away with it. You can't, not by ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... Naples about Christmas, 1638, prevailed upon Milton to abandon his projected visit to Sicily and Greece, were no doubt those of the revolt of Scotland, and Charles's resolution to quell it by force of arms. Ere he had yet quitted Italy, the King's impotence had been ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... cruelty upon the poor people of his diocese, but also encouraged those in place and power to do the like: So that he became the author of almost all the mischief in that part of the country.—But in this he did not long escape the just judgment of God; for in the night before (what they call) Christmas day, 1446, as he lay in his own house in Lockwood about seven miles from Glasgow, he seemed to hear an audible voice summoning him to appear before Christ's tribunal to give an account of his doings.—He got up affrighted, and called ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Hector really hopes that he'll be able to get down to us for Christmas, although he's been asked to go on this reading party. Of course, it's simply a question as to whether he works better at home or with his friends. If he were a weak character, I think Mr. Alweed would insist in his coming home, but Hector ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... At Christmas I obtained a furlough to visit my people at Penryn. The next day after arrival, in my sergeant's uniform with silk sash and gold stripes, I visited my friends and my former companions. I was the only soldier in ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... love—but never strain Could kindle raptures so divine, So grief assuage, so conquer pain, And rouse this pensive heart of mine— As that we hear on Christmas morn, Upon the ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... the same as in the English army canteens. A shop, run by a Bulgarian merchant, is permitted for the sale of tobacco, cigars and cigarettes. Besides this there is a Viennese who makes cigarettes in the camp itself. On Christmas Day the commandant made a generous distribution of cigarettes to all the interned men at his own expense. They can also obtain at the bar tea, coffee and other drinks. In point of fact, we made sure that the camp administration has organised the ...
— Turkish Prisoners in Egypt - A Report By The Delegates Of The International Committee - Of The Red Cross • Various
... The Rev. Samuel Marsden, who was appointed chaplain to the convict settlement of New South Wales in 1793, and who held the first divine service in New Zealand, on Christmas ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... First came Christmas, with its homely joys, and Twelfth night on which we cut and ate a great cake that Dolly had made; then there was the winter's work to be done in preparation for the spring; and then spring itself, with the crocuses sprouting between the joints of ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... No, he wouldn't do it. By the time that he was half a mile from Igoe's stables he had determined that, as the girl was gone it would be a pity to throw the horses after her; he would finish this year on the turf; and then, if Fanny Wyndham was still her own mistress after Christmas, he would again ask her her mind. "If she's a girl of spirit," he said to himself—"and nobody knows better than I do that she is, she won't like me the worse for having shown that I'm not to be led by the nose by a pompous old fool like Lord Cashel," and he rode ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... spite of the difficulties of transport, in procuring an immense quantity of ammunition, and the long-delayed bombardment of Paris was ready to begin. Having stationed with all secrecy twelve batteries with seventy-six guns around Mont Avron, on Christmas-day the firing was directed with such success against the fortified eminences, that even in the second night the French, after great losses, evacuated the important position, the "key of Paris," which was immediately taken possession of by the Saxons. Terror ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... which also the Schoenewald Church Order dates. At this visitation, therefore, even prior to January 7, Luther himself distributed the first series of tables, comprising the first three chief parts, of his Small Catechism. Cohrs opines that Luther sent this series to the printer about Christmas 1528 at the latest. However, it does not appear why the printing should have consumed three to four weeks Seb. Froeschels however, is mistaken when he declares in his book on the Priesthood of Christ, 1565, that, at a table conversation of 1528, Luther ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... matter of the yearly Christmas play at court has been settled; the Master of the Revels has chosen from the rich stores of his manuscripts "The Midsummer Night's Dream", graciously adding that "for wit and mirth it is like to please her Majesty exceedingly." A high honor, indeed, for its author. ...
— Shakespeare's Christmas Gift to Queen Bess • Anna Benneson McMahan
... am certain of what I say. Remember my prediction when it is fulfilled. The Yankees are a theatrical people. They take Vicksburg, and win Gettysburg, on their 'great national anniversary;' and now they are going to present themselves with a handsome 'Christmas gift'—that is the city ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... fellow in the world—but the fact is, that I am not very well myself. I want a little sea air; I shall go to Dover or Brighton. But I suppose you will have the house full again about Christmas; in that case I shall be delighted to ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pp. 256 ff.) has recently defended the position that the commemoration of the death of Christ was placed by a great many churches upon March 25th to replace the celebration of Attis's death on the same date, just as Christmas has been substituted for the Natalis Invicti. The text of Ambrosiaster cited in our article (Pseudo Augustin, Quaest. veter. Test, LXXXIV, 3, p. 145, 13, Souter ed.) shows that this was asserted even ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... stormy session. To the great surprise of the ministry, the Tories appear in intimate league with the Prince's party, and both agreed in warm and passionate expressions on the treaty: we shall not have the discussion till after Christmas. My uncle, who is extremely mended by soap, and the hopes of a peerage is come up, and the very first day broke out in a volley of treaties: though he is altered, you would be astonished ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... for the present we are concerned with the history of sex-degradation from the pure ideal of nature worship to that of a monistic God whose gender is masculine. The pine tree, held sacred in many countries as a symbol of generation, and from which our own Christmas-tree is descended, is distinctively a male emblem, and its perennial green typifies the hope of Man that he too may manifest, in some form of life, the never-failing virility of the pine. The Latin name ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... was from the first a body known as the Commune Concilium, the Common, or Great, Council. "Thrice a year," the Saxon Chronicle tells us, "King William wore his crown every year he was in England; at Easter he wore it at Winchester; at Pentecost, at Westminster; and at Christmas, at Gloucester; and at these times all the men of England were with him—archbishops, bishops and abbots, earls, thegns and knights." By the phrase "all the men of England" is to be understood only the great ecclesiastics, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Hail Christmas! On my knees and fowl I fall: For greater grace and better gravy call. Vive l'Humbug!—that's to say, God bless ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... "Merry Christmas!" cried Mrs. Comstock, gathering them in. "Got everything right here but the tree, and there seems to be plenty of them a little higher up. If this wind would stiffen just enough more to blow away the people, so one could see this place, I ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... your weight (the boss'll either have to stand up or lie down), and I don't know that there's much else excepting plenty of cups and plates—they're enamel, fortunately, so you won't have much trouble with the servants breaking things. Of course there's a Christmas card and a few works of art on the walls for you to look at when you're tired of looking at yourself in the glass. Yes! There's a looking-glass—goodness knows how it got there! You ought to be thankful for that and the wire-mattress. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... things. Now and then it rains, and this year there is a little south-easter, which is quite unusual, and not odious, as it is near the sea; and there is seldom a hot wind from the north. I am promised that on or about Christmas-day; then doors and windows are shut, and you gasp. Hitherto we have had nothing nearly so hot as Paris in summer, or as the summer of 1859 in England; and they say it is no hotter, except when the hot wind blows, which is very rare. Up here, snow sometimes lies, in winter, on the ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... stirring words, to believe in CHRIST, because He is the Saviour of the world. To all who are present, ruler and subjects, the occasion is one of unfeigned joy. Once more the Queen and her christian subjects met before the year closed. On Christmas Day the palace court was crowded by converts wishing to present their congratulations, and, at the Queen's request, they sang some of their hymns and offered prayer. The Report of the Mission speaks of 20,000 hearers added to the congregations during last year; ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... deserved to be distinguished from its fellows. Theron was so conscious of its importance that he not only prophesied in the little morocco-bound diary which Alice had given him for Christmas, but returned after he had got out upon the front steps of the parsonage to have his ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... about Louis were wrong and cruel, and to prove to her in some mysterious way the deep rightness of the betrothal. She blushed only for the moment of her betrothal. She had solemnly bound Louis to keep the betrothal secret until Christmas. She had laid upon both of them a self-denying ordinance as to meeting. The funeral over, she was without a home. She wished to find another situation; Louis would not hear of it. She contemplated a visit to her father and brother in America. In response to a letter, her brother sent her the exact ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... interesting competition in the near future. We need original work, however, more than translations. Meanwhile we offer a Prize (the Will o' the Wisp English-Esperanto Dictionary, which really ought to be ready by Christmas) to all friends who can send us the annual subscriptions of ten new subscribers. Of course secretaries and officials of groups are not included ...
— The Esperantist, Vol. 1, No. 2 • Various
... most exciting Christmas, most of which I spent in Whitechapel in the London Hospital. I lunched with the Spenders and then went down with them carrying large packages for distribution to the sick. I expected to be terribly bored, but thought I would feel so virtuous that I would the better enjoy my dinner which ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... of the house, noticed that Miss Sophie's bundle was larger than usual that afternoon. "Ah, poor woman!" sighed Titiche's mother, "she would be rich for Christmas." ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... countries have left a livelier impression on my mind. Destiny has always torn me away before I could take deep root any where. And now, at times, I find myself a stranger here. For example, the dialects of the provinces are unintelligible to me. I get more presents than I deserve on Christmas-day, but am not touched by the magic of the Christmas-tree; and few of the popular melodies you are all so proud of, haunt my ear. And, besides these smaller matters, there are other things in which I feel deficient," continued he, more earnestly; "I know that at times I ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... man, well and good, I would work him; if not there would be no harm done. I tried to get on his tracks, and, as luck would have it, I succeeded (or thought I had) at the very moment when I happened to have a few days to myself. I was cut over on the hand, just before the big Christmas match, and couldn't have bowled a ball if ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... di Cattreda, or commemoration of the placing of the chair of St. Peter, on the 18th of January, is one of the most striking ceremonies, at Rome, which follow Christmas and precede the holy week. At the extremity of the great nave of St. Peter's, behind the high altar, and mounted upon a tribune designed or ornamented by Michael Angelo, stands a sort of throne, composed of precious materials, and supported by four gigantic figures. A glory ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... his eyes. It was Christmas Day—the day to which he had looked forward with mingled feelings for twelve months. It was a jolly day, of course—presents and turkey and crackers and staying up late. On the other hand, there were generally too many relations about, too much was often expected of one, ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... East Lane Chapel was the Sunday School anniversary; and in Elisabeth's childish eyes this was a feast compared with which Christmas and Easter sank to the level of black-letter days. On these festivals the Sunday School scholars sat all together in those parts of the gallery adjacent to the organ, the girls wearing white frocks and blue neckerchiefs, and the boys black suits and blue ties. The pews were strewn ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... solicited payment of the same; that said defendant then made no pretense that he did not owe the same, but on the contrary expressly promised that he would come into Springfield, in a very few days and either pay the money, or give a new note, payable by the then next Christmas; that your Petitioner accordingly left said note with said J. C. Spugg, with directions to give defendant full time to pay the money or give the new note as above, and if he did neither to sue; and then affiant came home to Edgar County, not ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Boothby, which I sent into the country to him. You laugh at me when you talk about the tears at the Drawing Room. I confess to you that I left Ireland with a great deal of regret. If you had not packed me off to Parliament, I suppose that by Christmas I should almost have thought myself happy to have established myself in Dublin. There is a great misfortune in your being Lord Lieutenant, not only to yourself, but to your friends—for en fait des femmes, you can neither do anything for yourself, nor can you for me; so that ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... his utmost ambition could desire: and it now became his chief wish to have them all together in Headlong Hall, arguing, over his old Port and Burgundy, the various knotty points which had puzzled his pericranium. He had, therefore, sent them invitations in due form to pass their Christmas at Headlong Hall; which invitations the extensive fame of his kitchen fire had induced the greater part of them to accept; and four of the chosen guests had, from different parts of the metropolis, ensconced themselves in the four ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... quarrel in the Ciseaux family, but at last something Joyce did helped to make it up. The gate swung open, and the old white-haired brother and sister went back to the home of their childhood together, and it was Christmas Day in the morning. They had been kept from going through the gate all those years, because the Giant Scissors wouldn't let them pass. Only those who belong to the kingdom of loving ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... unicameral Christmas Island Shire Council (9 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve one-year terms) election results: percent of vote - NA%; seats - independents 9 elections: last held NA December 2001 (next to ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... worship, profane cursing, tippling, breaking the Sabbath, idleness, overcharges by the merchants, and the "loose and sinful habit of riding from town to town, men and women together, under pretence of going to lectures, but really to drink and revel in taverns." The law forbidding the keeping of Christmas Day had to be repealed in 1681. Mrs. Randolph, when attending Mr. Willard's preaching at the South Church, was observed "to make a curtsey" at the name of Jesus "even in prayer time"; and the colony was threatened with "gynecandrical or ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
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