"Christmas Eve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I never saw mosses so beautifully arranged; and it was so thoughtful of her to bring them in for you for Christmas Eve. I wish we had something to send in to ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... getting out. When he went away next morning he borrowed Samson's pack basket. I felt bad because we couldn't go and make any arrangements with Santa Claus for the children. Joe was dreadfully worried, for Betsey had told him that Santa Claus never came to children whose father and mother were sick. Christmas Eve Abe came with the pack basket chock-full of good things after the children were asleep. He took out a turkey and knit caps and mittens and packages of candy and raisins for the children and some cloth for a new dress for me. Mrs. Kelso had come to spend the night with ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... Christmas eve. A man lies stretched on his blanket in a copse in the depths of a black pine forest of the Saginaw Valley. He has been hunting all day, fruitlessly, and is exhausted. So wearied is he with long hours of walking, that he will ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... on Christmas Eve. It was snowing; she came in chilled and looking miserable. Mrs. Mutimer met her in the hall, passed her, and looked out at the open door, then turned with a few white flecks ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... will not come to him this year with all his old-time joy, An imitation Santa Claus must serve his little boy; Last year he heard the reindeers paw the roof above his head, And as he dreamed the kindly saint tip-toed about his bed, But Christmas Eve he will not come by any happy chance; This year his kindly Santa Claus must ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest
... Sketch-Book. Edited by Elmer E. Wentworth. Cloth, 35 cents. This book contains The Voyage, The Wife, Rip Van Winkle, Sunday in London, The Art of Bookmaking, The Mutability of Literature, The Spectre Bridegroom, Westminster Abbey, Christmas, The Stage Coach, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Stratford-on-Avon, To My Books, The ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... mining town, away up amid the snow-clad, rock-bound peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, sat a woman, in widow's weeds, holding upon her knee a bright-eyed, sunny-faced little girl, about five years old, while a little cherub of a boy lay upon a bear-skin before the open fireplace. It was Christmas Eve, and the woman sat gazing abstractedly into the fireplace. She was yet young, and as the glowing flames lit up her sad face they invested ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... We'll catch the first train north, stop two days, Christmas Eve and Christmas, in Asheville, and ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... seven children. We put her to vote, and she was promptly and unanimously chosen. With the introduction into the plan of a personal element, enthusiasm began, and it became evident at once that there was to be sharp rivalry between the classes as to the size of their gifts. At length came the Christmas Eve concert, and with it a bright, full company of children. They never looked so happy, and every one of them knows that he never was so happy on such an occasion, as when, class by class, the offerings were handed to the Superintendent. ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 01, January, 1884 • Various
... secret service a copy was obtained of a Turkish order for an attack down the Nablus-Jerusalem road by two fresh divisions, timed for 6 A.M. on 27th December. This was only secured, however, three days in advance, and it was not till 3 P.M. on Christmas Eve that we got orders to move at once to our position of readiness ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... little gift, Dear Portia, now we crave your leave. And let it have the grace to lift Our hearts to yours this Christmas eve. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... and then telegrams, to stop it. But it didn't do any good; and then she got to calling at the Fairy's house, but the girl that came to the door always said, "Not at home," or "Engaged," or "At dinner," or something like that; and so it went on till it came to the old once-a-year Christmas Eve. The little girl fell asleep, and when she woke up in ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... morning—Mat was walking with his father in the "Big Meadows." Snow had fallen heavily the night before; and as they passed a bush, they saw the impress of a woman's form; it was evident that an unhappy being had there spent her Christmas Eve. ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... can have their party on the day before Christmas Eve," decided Mrs. Brown, "and then William can ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... Christmas gifts for her carefully, wisely, even merrily, for fun had a large share in Christmas at The Savins; but only Theodora knew that Billy had bought a small annuity for Cicely, and that the papers were to be given to her, not in the basket on Christmas eve, but when she was quite ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... the new American playright with the name unmentionable to ears polite, and will recognise in him, as the Dam par excellence, their brother, as one of the uncommon descendants of A-DAM. By the way, the appropriate night for its production would be Christmas Eve. Fancy the cries all over the House, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 1, 1892 • Various
... that I might give Blue Bonnet the Christmas present I brought for her? On the ranch we scarcely ever waited beyond Christmas Eve for our gifts, did ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... On Christmas Eve, at the tomb of the Ibarras in a gloomy wood, Elias appears, wounded and dying, to find there a boy named Basilio beside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who had been driven to insanity by her husband's neglect and abuses on the part of the Civil Guard, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... revived from that hour, having his tonic administered at intervals, and astonished the doctors. On Christmas Eve he had made such progress that Lighthead was allowed to ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... out to the cabin, and there was reunited with his little family. And such a gladsome, happy, and thankful Christmas eve was ...
— The Curlytops and Their Playmates - or Jolly Times Through the Holidays • Howard R. Garis
... broken that it saddens me," she said, when these offices of hostess were accomplished. "He has never been himself since his daughter ran away, and that was—dear me, why that was twelve years ago next Christmas. It was on Christmas Eve, you remember, he came to tell us. The house was dressed in evergreens, and Uncle ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... gave welcome to these poems, some five or six hundred years ago, are precisely the same feelings which warm the heart of a poet and his readers to-day. There is nothing ancient but the spelling in this exquisite Lullaby, for instance, which was sung on Christmas eve: ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... by the inroads of the sea; but, with tradition, the locality is a favourite still. The superstitio loci marks the site: 'The church,' it says, 'was swallowed up by an earthquake, together with the Jean la Cairne of Stonyhill; but on Christmas eve every one, since that time, on bending his ear to the ground, may distinguish clearly its ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... On Christmas Eve a serious misfortune befell Columbus. What with looking for gold, and trying to understand the people who talked about it, and looking after his ships, and writing up his journal, he had had practically no sleep for two days and a night; and at eleven o'clock on the 24th ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... 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 ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... tour, it has been seen, closed at Brighton on the 13th of November. Immediately after this, it was announced that three Christmas Readings would be given in London at St. Martin's Hall—the first and second on the Christmas Eve and the Boxing Day of 1858, those being respectively Friday and Monday, and the third on Twelfth Night, Thursday, the 6th of January, 1859. Upon each of these occasions the "Christmas Carol" and the "Trial from Pickwick," were given to audiences that were ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... business did not begin again till Wednesday. So on Friday everybody had to lay in their stock of bread and meat to last till Wednesday morning. In wholesale business, in the professions and amongst the working-classes, the whole week from Christmas Eve to the 2nd of January is practically a holiday. It is quite useless to attempt to do any business during that period. In most places it is about Twelfth Day before things get into trim again. During the first few days of the year the work is done by half the ordinary staff The ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... the long gown he wore as a scholar; and at the same time his great friend, Ambrosio by name, who had been his companion in his studies, took to the shepherd's dress with him. I forgot to say that Chrysostom, who is dead, was a great man for writing verses, so much so that he made carols for Christmas Eve, and plays for Corpus Christi, which the young men of our village acted, and all said they were excellent. When the villagers saw the two scholars so unexpectedly appearing in shepherd's dress, they ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "Christmas eve. Now it is our party, you understand; mine and Norton's and David's; mamma has nothing to do with it, nor grandmamma, except to prepare everything. That she'll do; but we have got to prepare the entertainment; and we are ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... sires of old Loved when the year its course had roll'd And brought blithe Christmas back again, With all its hospitable train. Domestic and religious rite Gave honour to the holy night: On Christmas Eve the bells were rung; On Christmas Eve the Mass was sung; That only night in all the year Saw the staled priest the chalice rear. The damsel donn'd her kirtle sheen; The hall was dressed with holly green; Forth to the wood ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... and all sorts of otiose details about the chimney—just what I fled from in my father's office twenty years ago; I should have made a languid engineer. Rode up with the carpenter. Ah, my wicked Jack! on Christmas Eve, as I was taking the saddle bag off, he kicked at me, and fetched me too, right on the shin. On Friday, being annoyed at the carpenter's horse having a longer trot, he uttered a shrill cry and tried to bite him! Alas, alas, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the oak tree's dream; and whilst it dreamt a fearful storm had burst over sea and land that holy Christmas eve. The ocean rolled heavy billows on the beach—the tree rocked violently, and was torn up by the roots at the moment it was dreaming that its roots were loosening. It fell. Its three hundred and sixty-five years were now as but ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... on the island; a fine big male one was caught in a pit on Christmas eve at the water-works." The fellow was probably on the track of a Christmas dinner, and ventured to the very suburbs ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... many national peculiarities still remain. At Christmas, for instance, every peasant goes to the woods, and cuts down a young oak; as soon as he returns home, which is in the twilight; he says to the assembled family, "A happy Christmas eve to the house;" on which a male of the family scatters a little grain on the ground and answers, "God be gracious to you, our happy and honoured father." The housewife then lays the young oak on the fire, to which are thrown a few ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... Gypsy was very busy in her own room with her paint box, all the spare time she could find. On Christmas Eve she went down just after dusk to Peace Maythorne's room, and called Miss ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... Fir tree, thinking over what he had himself related. "Yes, in reality those were happy times." And then he told about Christmas Eve, when he was decked out with ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... On Christmas Eve they had bought a tree for Agnes, trimmed it, and lighted it with candles. Agnes's Christmas gifts were placed under the tree: a big piece of ginger-bread, a basket with apples and nuts, and a cheap doll. ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... DECEMBER! The dame was very aged, but her eyes glistened like two stars. She carried on her arm a flower-pot, in which a little fir tree was growing. "This tree I shall guard and cherish," she said, "that it may grow large by Christmas Eve, and reach from the floor to the ceiling, to be adorned with lighted candles, golden apples, and toys. I shall sit by the fireplace, and bring a story-book out of my pocket, and read aloud to all the little children. Then the toys on the tree will become alive, and the little ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... Irene scarcely breathed, as she stood, with colorless face, parted lips and eager eyes, looking down the road that led to the landing. But she looked in vain; the form of her husband did not appear—and it was Christmas Eve! ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... good and beautiful things) reached us here in good time, and were divided amongst Serbians who [were in various camps] and the remainder we distributed here on Christmas Eve in the camp. You should have seen the joy of these poor men!... May God only grant a speedy peace!... While thanking you heartily once again, we beg you to think of us in the future also.... P.S.—In all the camps belonging to our group ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... father and son curled up on the big mat by the register, sound asleep. It was against the regulations entirely, and he was going to wake them up and put them out, when he happened to glance through the glass doors at the storm without, and remembered that it was Christmas Eve. With a growl he let them sleep, trusting to luck that the inspector wouldn't come out. The doorman, too, ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... this event, Kirke White went to London, and on Christmas Eve he wrote to his mother from town, stating that his health had been rather affected by study, that he came to London for amusement, and that his tutor had, in the kindest manner, relieved his mind from pecuniary cares, and cheered him with the assurance that his talents would be rewarded ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... like a statue of sandstone; only going on weaving, like a machine; and never quickening the cast of her shuttle; while St. Barbara was telling her so eagerly all about the most beautiful things, and chattering away, as fast as bells ring on Christmas Eve, till she saw that Neith didn't care; and then St. Barbara got as red as a rose, and stopped, just in time;—or I think she would really have said ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... what kind of a mortal Christmas seems to be only the day before the twenty-sixth day of December. It's the chap in the big city earning sixteen dollars a week, with no friends and few acquaintances, who finds himself with only fifty cents in his pocket on Christmas eve. He can't accept charity; he can't borrow; he knows no one who would invite him to dinner. I have a fancy that when the shepherds left their flocks to follow the star of Bethlehem there was a bandy-legged young fellow among them who ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... London world was rushing in great multitudes by alley, lane, street and park preparing for the celebration of Christmas Eve. ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... little plan of surprising the countess, and will respect your wishes in the matter. But you, on your part, must do me a trifling favor: we have been very dull since you left, and I purpose to start the gayeties afresh by giving a dinner on the 24th (Christmas Eve), in honor of your return—an epicurean repast for gentlemen only. Therefore, I ask you to oblige me by fixing your return for that day, and on arrival at Naples, come straight to me at this hotel, that I may have the satisfaction of being the ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... she who was most particular about the dyeing of his Easter eggs and the ritual of hanging up his stocking on Christmas Eve. She had wanted to go on dyeing eggs for him at Easter and hanging up his stocking on Christmas Eve, even when he was twelve years of age and could not be expected to tolerate such things any longer. He liked the Easter ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... he drove off a few moments later, through the fast falling snow. Christmas eve—and down there at the curve! Patricia choked back a sudden sob, as she went to telephone to her aunt, who was down at the church, ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... It was Christmas Eve. Elizabeth Compton and Harriet Holden were completing the rounds of their friends' homes with Christmas remembrances—a custom that they had continued since childhood. The last parcel had been delivered upon the South Side, and they were now being ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Christmas Eve. We sailed with a small, small wind for the cacique's village, out from harbor of St. Thomas, around a headland and along a low, bright green shore. So low and fitful was the wind that we moved like two great snails. Better to have left the ships and gone, so many of us, in ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... "Christmas Eve at Mr. Wardle's." The changes here are a cat and dog introduced in the foreground in b, instead of the dog which in a is between Mr. ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... joy and gratitude, and did not think it enough simply to put a fresh load of compost about the tree. Some old English customs are suggestive at least. I find them described chiefly in Brand's "Popular Antiquities." It appears that "on Christmas eve the farmers and their men in Devonshire take a large bowl of cider, with a toast in it, and carrying it in state to the orchard, they salute the apple-trees with much ceremony, in order to make them bear ...
— Wild Apples • Henry David Thoreau
... clouds. He believed that they were not far from the Land's End, and well over to the British coast. Old Hulks insisted that they were too far to the southward, and ordered the schooner to be headed more to the northward. Night was approaching. It was Christmas Eve. The wind was strong, and a heavy snowstorm prevented the possibility of their sighting ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... the grand old Christmas hymn had just been warbled forth from the throats and hearts of a number of happy folks, who were seated around the blazing log one Christmas eve; and on the face of each one of that family circle the cheering light revealed the look of happiness; the young—happy in the present, and indulging in hopeful anticipations for the future; the old,—equally happy as ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... But most beautiful was Christmas Eve, when all distinctions were suspended for an hour before the office closed, when Mr. Truax distributed gold pieces and handshakes, when "Chas.," the hat-tilted sales-manager, stood on a chair and sang a solo. Mr. Fein hung holly on all their desks, and for an hour stenographers and salesmen and ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... A Song of Low Degree A German Christmas Eve A Christmas Idyll The Manifestation All Souls' Day in a German Town By Rivers and Streams Spring A Lark's Song 'Luvly Miss' Four Stories Told To Children: The Dreadful Griffin The Discontented Daffodils The Fairy Fluffikins The ...
— The Grey Brethren and Other Fragments in Prose and Verse • Michael Fairless
... happened, so you stayed. I'm sure my wedding would be incomplete Without your presence. Selfish, I'm afraid You'll think your Helen. But I love you so, How can I be quite willing you should go? Come Christmas Eve, or earlier. Let me know And I will meet you, dearie! at the train. Your happy, loving Helen." Then the pain That, hidden under later pain and care, Had made no moan, but silent, seemed to sleep, Woke from its trance-like lethargy, to ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Fir Tree; and it thought about what it had told. "Yes, those were really quite happy times." But then he told of the Christmas Eve, when he had been hung with ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... though the lips that uttered this amiable fib might be white with pain as they spoke. Over the dressing of some of the wounds, we used to carry on conversations upon subjects foreign to the work in hand, that the patient might forget himself in the charms of our discourse. Christmas eve was spent in this way; the Doctor strapping the little Sergeant's arm, I holding the lamp, while all three laughed and talked, as if anywhere but in a hospital ward; except when the chat was broken by a long-drawn "Oh!" from "Baby B.," an abrupt request ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... greeting and a "jolly send-off" at a banquet given me on Christmas eve by many friends. To name a few of the devoted would be invidious to the many. It will suffice to say I felt grateful and touched by the many expressions, which added testimony to their valued appreciation. Arriving at New York I was met by Mr. W. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... whose bare back his brother insisted upon exhibiting to his guest; for it was decorated with a facsimile of the picture on the stove, showing roses and luscious peaches and grapes in red relief. Three years before, on Christmas Eve, the boys had stood about the red-hot stove, undressing for their bath, and Finn, who was naked, had, in the general scrimmage to get first into the bath-tub, been pushed against the glowing iron, the ornamentation ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... On Christmas eve light streamed from every window, bonfires flared on the hills; the streets were illuminated, and every one was abroad. The clear warm night was ablaze with fireworks; men and women were in their gala gowns; rockets ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... Denver died on Talbragar when Christmas Eve began, And there was sorrow round the place, for Denver was a man; Jack Denver's wife bowed down her head — her daughter's grief was wild, And big Ben Duggan by the bed stood sobbing like a child. But big Ben Duggan saddled up, and galloped ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... where all the chief rooms were paneled, there lived once upon a time a farmer, whose ill-fate it was that every servant of his that was left alone to guard the house on Christmas Eve, while the rest of the family went to church, was found dead when the family returned home. As soon as the report of this was spread abroad, the farmer had the greatest difficulty in procuring servants who would consent to watch alone in the house on that night; until at last, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... until Christmas Eve there was a mysterious activity within the crowded space of the small bunk house. We were not only busy sorting over the purchases we had made in the big cities, which included a suitable present for each one of ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... forest, And of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses, And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who unchristened Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers of children; And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the stable, And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a nutshell, And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horseshoes, With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with a sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... volume to him. A single incident of those years lights up the whole situation. A vague rumor had been blown to Dick of a practice of hanging up stockings at Christmas. It struck his materialistic mind as a rather senseless thing to do; but nevertheless he resolved to try it one Christmas Eve. He lay awake a long while in the frosty darkness, skeptically waiting for something remarkable to happen; once he crawled out of the cot-bed and groped his way to the chimney place. The next morning he was scarcely disappointed ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in the old, old days there were two brothers, one of whom was rich and the other poor. When Christmas Eve came the poor brother had not a morsel in the house, neither of meat nor bread; and so he went to his rich brother, and asked for a trifle for Christmas, in heaven's name. It was not the first time the brother had helped him, but he was always very close-fisted, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... cold evening,—Christmas eve,—the night coming on fast. No vessel had any business to be out there among the breakers, running in straight on the bar; that is, if any man aboard of her knew ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... home from shopping, they shivered with the cold and ran to the register. Then papa came home, and they had the happiest Christmas eve imaginable. Of course one cannot make one's charities go all around the world, but Mrs. Linley thought she had stretched hers a long distance. So she had. And yet she might have given the child at her door a few pennies. But ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... he did not care about pleasant things any more. He could think of nothing but Jolyff; of nothing but old sores that rankled; of great deals that had gone wrong, through his enemy. And in that spirit he picked at his Christmas Eve dinner, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... went around to the Royall house, and that looked like a hotel on a gala day, and was nearly as full of people. The treaty had been signed on Christmas Eve. The President had now to issue a decree suspending hostilities. But one of the most brilliant battles had been fought on the 8th of January at New Orleans, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... when he had first realized his manhood, the working out of his dreams had been to the man the supreme object of his life. He had put his life, literally, into his work. For his work he had lived. But that Christmas eve, when his mind and heart were so filled with thoughts of childhood and those new emotions were aroused within him, he saw that the supreme thing in his life must be Life itself. He saw that not by putting his life into his work, would ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... miller, greatly in debt. One Christmas Eve a Polish Jew came to his house in a sledge, and, after rest and refreshment, started for Nantzig, "four leagues off." Mathis followed him, killed him with an axe, and burnt the body in a lime-kiln. He then paid his debts, greatly prospered, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to-day, Jenny," said her father, as the girl stepped from the threshold. "I don't trust the weather at this season; and besides you had better be looking over your wardrobe for the Christmas Eve party at Sol. Catlin's." ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... student: he lived in a garret, and nothing at all belonged to him; but there was also once a regular huckster: he lived on the ground floor, and the whole house was his; and the goblin kept with him, for on the huckster's table on Christmas Eve there was always a dish of plum porridge, with a great piece of butter floating in the middle. The huckster could accomplish that; and consequently the goblin stuck to the huckster's shop, and that ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... can hand buns," said Connie at once. "No harm if he does tread on a few. I shall count on you then next week Thursday, three days after Christmas. Take care not to stir abroad on Christmas eve for that's when the Jersey witches hold their meeting at the rock up ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... we eat so many of 'em that afternoon, an' 'cordingly drank so much water, that I was obliged to put us all on short rations the next day. 'This is the day afore Christmas,' says Andy Boyle, 'an' to-night will be Christmas eve, an' it's pretty tough fur us to be sittin' here with not even so much hardtack as we want, an' all the time thinkin' that the hold of this ship is packed full of the gayest kind of good things to eat.' 'Shut up about Christmas!' says Tom Simmons. 'Them two youngsters of ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... On Christmas Eve we went in a large party to visit some of the principal churches, and witness the celebration of the Nativity; one of the most splendid ceremonies of the Romish Church. We arrived at the chapel of Monte Cavallo about half-past nine; but the pope being ill and absent, nothing ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... into Circle City, 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, ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... SS. "Volga," Christmas Eve, 1878.—The snowy dome of Fujisan reddening in the sunrise rose above the violet woodlands of Mississippi Bay as we steamed out of Yokohama Harbour on the 19th, and three days later I saw the last of Japan—a rugged coast, lashed by ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... spell of Christmas seemed even to have touched the hearts of G.H.Q. for on Christmas Eve the C.O. received a wire through Brigade to ask "How many of your officers have wives in Egypt?" He was compelled to reply that no officer had managed the feat suggested. But it is nice to speculate on how the staff in Cairo, who doubtless had, felt their ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall. Fusby had just taken the tray, the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... overshadow his spirit as if it had been a gorgeous cathedral-house borne aloft upon the joined palms of its Gothic arches. The Master is truer than men think, and the power of His presence, as Browning has so well set forth in his "Christmas Eve," is where two or three are gathered in His name. And inasmuch as Stephen was not a man of imagination, he had the greater need of the ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... On Christmas Eve in Homeburg we all go to the Exercises to hear the children perform. They build churches in Homeburg with big doors, so that they can get big Christmas trees in them, and we grown-ups go early in order to hear the kids squeal with wonder when they come in and see ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... Late on Christmas Eve, in the street alone, Outside a house, on the pavement-stone, I sang to her, as we'd sung together On former eves ere I felt her tether. - Above the door of green by me Was she, her casement seen by me; But she would not heed What I melodied In my soul's ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... church bells more than fifty miles away, once caught up a huge rock, which he hurled at the sacred building. Fortunately it fell short and broke in two. Ever since then, the peasants say that the trolls come on Christmas Eve to raise the largest piece of stone upon golden pillars, and to dance and feast beneath it. A lady, wishing to know whether this tale were true, once sent her groom to the place. The trolls came forward ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... of December 24, 1849—the first Christmas eve following the gold rush. Windham, who had lain awake since midnight, pondered upon this and other things. Events had succeeded each other with such riotous activity of late that life seemed more ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... changed every seven years, science has long since exploded. "The matter," said Mr. John Goodsir, "of the organized frame to its minutest parts is in a continual flux." Our bodies are never the same for any two successive days. The feet that Mary shall dance with next Christmas Eve will not be the same feet that bore her triumphantly through the previous Christmas holidays. The brain that she learns German with to-day does not contain a cell in its convolutions that was spent in studying French one year ago. Whether her present feet can dance better ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... Peter's thumb, by which from age to age it is distinguished from fishes having otherwise an external resemblance. All domesticated cattle, having the benefit of man's guardianship and care, are believed throughout England and Germany to go down upon their knees at one particular moment of Christmas eve, when the fields are covered with darkness, when no eye looks down but that of God, and when the exact anniversary hour revolves of the angelic song, once rolling over the fields and flocks of Palestine. [Footnote: Mahometanism, which everywhere pillages Christianity, cannot ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... strewed over the fields during the Twelve Nights. This, so people fancied, promotes the fruitfulness of the year's crops."[635] In some parts of the Eifel Mountains, to the west of Coblentz, a log of wood called the Christbrand used to be placed on the hearth on Christmas Eve; and the charred remains of it on Twelfth Night were put in the corn-bin to keep the mice from devouring the corn.[636] At Weidenhausen and Girkshausen, in Westphalia, the practice was to withdraw the Yule log (Christbrand) from the fire so ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Joule was born at Salford, on Christmas Eve of the year 1818. His father and his grandfather before him were brewers, and the business, in due course, descended to Mr. Joule and his elder brother, and by them was carried on with success till it was ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... without companion, without sympathy, without sense,—heartless, friendless, idealess, almost soulless! and so ignorant, as not even to seem to know whether he had ever heard of a Redeemer, or seen His written Word. It was on a stormy Christmas eve when he begged shelter in the hut of an old man, whose office it was to regulate the transit of conveyances upon the road of a great mining establishment in the neighbourhood. The old man had received him, and shared with him his humble cheer and his humble bed; for ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... in shocking those good people. Shall I tell you what was the finest thing I ever produced since I first began to work, and the one which I recall with the greatest pleasure? It's quite a story. When I was at my Aunt Lisa's on Christmas Eve last year that idiot of an Auguste, the assistant, was setting out the shop-window. Well, he quite irritated me by the weak, spiritless way in which he arranged the display; and at last I requested him to take himself off, saying that ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... knowledge this view is shared by President Roosevelt, who always regarded his Conservation and Rural Life policies as complementary to each other. The last time I saw him—it was on Christmas Eve, 1908—he dwelt on this aspect of his public work and aims. I remember how he expressed the hope that, when the more striking incidents of his Administration were forgotten, public opinion would look kindly upon his Conservation and Rural Life policies. I ventured upon the confident prediction ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... he did not want to be used as a milking stool by the Maiden All Forlorn, Skiddy slid away Christmas eve. With him went Jack the Jumper, and they had a wonderful time in the ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... Christmas Eve, the large snowflakes drifted slowly down out of a windless sky. The dusk was cheerful with the sound of sleigh bells that announced the arrival or departure ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... at a church festival one Christmas Eve," responded Aunt Saidie, in a high-pitched, rasping voice. "The same evening that I got this pink crocheted nuby." She touched a small pointed shawl about her shoulders. "Miss Belinda Beale worked it and it was raffled off for ten ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... made on the night of Christmas eve, when mass is celebrated, because our Lord was born in the night (De Consecr., dist. 1). And in like manner it is celebrated on Holy Saturday towards the beginning of the night, since our Lord rose in the night, that ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... ever seen me, Colonel," says he, "was when I fell in love with your daughter, sir," says he. "That was when I drove you home to your house on Christmas Eve." ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... home and was regarded as an omen of destiny. His mother used to say he was always cheerful, loving, never naughty but most obedient. The child seemed religious by nature, which feeling was fostered by his good mother. He loved to go to church on Sundays and fast days. The midnight mass on Christmas eve, when Adam Liszt, carrying a lantern, led the way to church along the country road, through the silent night, filled the child's thoughts ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... the trouble," he returned. "I didn't know what to do with it. It was ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was leaving, that he gave it to me. 'Tiddling Brothers have sent me a goose, Biggles,' he said to me as I helped him on with his great-coat. 'Very kind of 'em, but I don't want it myself; you can ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... affectionate hearts enjoyed life in dreamy, quiet blissfulness, unknown in these bustling times. The city people then rose at dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sunset, except on extraordinary occasions, such as Christmas Eve, a tea party, or a wedding. Then those who attended the fashionable soirees of the 'upper ten' assembled at three o'clock in the afternoon, and went away at six, so that daughter Maritchie might have the pewter plates and delf teapot cleaned and cupboarded in time for evening prayer at seven. Knitting ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... College was in vacation and Lewisham was free. He declined the plumber's invitation; "work" kept him in London, he said, though it meant a pound or more of added expenditure. These absurd young people walked sixteen miles that Christmas Eve, and parted warm and glowing. There had been a hard frost and a little snow, the sky was a colourless grey, icicles hung from the arms of the street lamps, and the pavements were patterned out with frond-like forms that ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... from education and conviction, she found herself in spiritual accord with the pious introversion of Thomas a Kempis and Madame Guion. She was fond of Christmas Eve stories, of warnings, signs, and spiritual intimations, her half belief in which sometimes seemed like credulity to her auditors. James Russell Lowell, in his tender tribute to her, playfully ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... at "frightful frightfulness" on the part of these "baby-killers" were a couple of aeroplane raids—of which the base was probably Ostend—carried out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day respectively—against Dover and Sheerness. It must be owned that they were decidedly daring, yet in the nature of damp-squib affairs, as it turned out. In the case of Dover, the bomb dropped was probably intended for the ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various
... time, but it was a long, long time ago, there were two brothers, one rich and one poor. Now, one Christmas eve, the poor one hadn't so much as a crumb in the house, either of meat or bread, so he went to his brother to ask him for something to keep Christmas with, in God's name. It was not the first time his brother had been forced to help him, and you may fancy ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... church and house made as green as spring-tide with their abundant decorations, tastefully arranged in wreaths and folds and circles, with the great green "Merrie Christmas" welcoming all comers from over the high parlor mantel. All was finished in ample time before the day of Christmas Eve arrived, though there were dozens of final touches still to be made, last happy thoughts that had to be worked out in green, red, ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Christmas Eve. The weather had changed; to-night there was frost in the air, and the light of stars made a shimmer upon the black vault. Gilbert always gave this season to companionship with his mother. About seven ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... On Christmas Eve I didn't leave the hospital till long after the Day-Sisters had gone and the Night-Sisters came on. The wards were all quiet as I walked down the corridor, and to left and right through the glass doors hung the rows of ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... ship a fortnight on its way. A dying man when he was put in the Tolbooth, he yet had to undergo many exhausting examinations and a farcical trial, with "Bluidy Mackenzie" for chief inquisitor, and on Christmas Eve, 1684, he gallantly and cheerfully met a martyr's death at ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... fired as far as the Fremont Expedition is concerned was on Christmas Eve, in 1843. The party was camped on Christmas Lake, now known as Warner Lake, Oregon, and the following morning the gun crew wakened Fremont with a salute, fired in honor of the day. A month later, two hundred and fifty miles south, it was to be abandoned ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... cairns. He was taking a little butter from each bag [of the three depoted weekly units], and with this would have enough to the next depot on short rations."[255] At the Upper Glacier Depot [Mount Hooper] the news from Meares was dated Christmas Eve, in the evening: "The dogs were going slowly but steadily in very soft stuff, especially his last two days. He was running short of food, having only biscuit crumbs, tea, some cornflour, and half a cup ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... The night before Christmas eve, however, the little boy saw a light in Uncle Remus's cabin, and he interpreted it as in some sort a signal of invitation. He found the old man sitting by the ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... including nearly all the contents of the 'Seraphim' volume of 1838, more or less revised, as well as the 'Poems' of 1844. This edition, published in 1850, has formed the basis of all subsequent editions of her poems. Meanwhile her husband was engaged in the preparation of 'Christmas Eve and Easter Day,' which was also published in the course ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon |
