"Christmas" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... died in A.D. 211, and another Emperor, Constantius, in 306. The latter's son, who was born at York, was there proclaimed Emperor on the death of his father, to become better known afterwards as Constantine the Great. In A.D. 521 King Arthur was said to have spent Christmas at York in company with his courtiers and the famous Knights of the Round Table; but Geoffrey of Monmouth, who recorded this, was said to have a lively imagination in the way of dates and perhaps of persons as well. It is, however, certain that ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... November 22 the opposition was still disunited, and, though Windham severely condemned the inadequacy of the provision made for national defence, he did not venture to divide against the government. But during the Christmas recess a distinct step was made towards the consolidation of the opposition by the reunion of the two sections of the whig party. Grenville had conceived a chimerical project of replacing the existing administration by one which should include all statesmen possessed of real political talent, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... in all the exercises of honourable knighthood, Merlin went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and counselled him to send to all the lords of the realm and all the gentlemen of arms, that they should come to London at Christmas time, since God of His great mercy would at that time show by miracle who should be rightwise king of the realm. The Archbishop did as Merlin advised, and all the great knights made them clean of their life so that their prayer might be the more acceptable unto ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I don't want a "George, Prince of Wales" Prayer-book as a Christmas present. The fact ...
— Reginald • Saki
... had been warned of his advent by the sibylline books. For this reason the figures of Augustus and of the Tiburtine sibyl are painted on either side of the arch above the high altar. They have actually been given the place of honor in this church; and formerly, when at Christmas time the Presepio was exhibited in the second chapel on the left, they occupied the front row, the sibyl pointing out to Augustus the Virgin and the Bambino who appeared in the sky in a halo of light. The two figures, carved ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... he revisited the ruined palace, and brought away Genghiz Khan's hoard, which the two men shared and brought to England, where they arrived about Christmas time. ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... Eyre Coote, alive at the present time) the following account of the breakfast party at Lockhart's, which, though already published in 'The Gentleman's Magazine' (November, 1854), is sufficiently interesting to be repeated. He first mentions "the writing and preparing for the Adelphi Theatre a Christmas pantomime from the renowned adventures of Daniel O'Rourke, two or three meetings with Sir Walter Scott, some anxious experiments in lithography under the directions of Mr. Coindet, one of the partners of Englemann's house of Paris, who has ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... and sadly. "I was deprived of innocence by a teacher in the ministerial school, Ivan Petrovich Sus. He simply called me over to his rooms, and his wife at that time had gone to market for a suckling pig—it was Christmas. Treated me with candies, and then said it was going to be one of two things: either I must obey him in everything, or he'd at once expel me out of school for bad conduct. But then you know yourselves, girls, how we feared the teachers. Here they aren't terrible to us, because we ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... attractions of this Christmas foolery, a real elephant was introduced.... The friend, who sat close to Johnstone, jogged his elbow, whispering, 'This is a bitter bad job for Drury! Why, the elephant's alive! He'll carry all before him, and beat you hollow. What do you think ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... his wife on Christmas Day, "I received a letter from Dr. Dabney, saying, "one of the highest gratifications both Mrs. Dabney and I could enjoy would be another visit from Mrs. Jackson," and he invites me to meet you there. He and Mrs. Dabney are very kind, but it appears to me that it is ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... coming since last Christmas," she continued, in a hurried, tremulous undertone. "You know he came down to Bath; that was our last meeting; and I felt that something was wrong. Ah, so hard to know oneself! I wanted to talk to you about it; but then I said to myself—what can ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... conquered adversaries, to contend with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the centre of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments; ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... from them: for instance, Charles knew that tea grows in China, which is in Asia; and sugar in the West-Indies; that the rose-wood that his mamma's chairs and card tables were made of, grew in a country called Brazil in South America; and that the raisins in the plum-pudding on Christmas day, were dried ...
— More Seeds of Knowledge; Or, Another Peep at Charles. • Julia Corner
... piastres a head, and sell them two months afterwards at thirty to forty. The mountaineers of the Druse and Maronite districts breed very few sheep, and very seldom eat animal food. On the approach of their respective great festivals, (Christmas with the Maronites, and Ramadan with the Druses) each head of a family kills one or two sheep; during the rest of the year, he feeds his people on Borgul, with occasionally some old cow's, or goat's flesh. It is only in the largest of the mountain towns of the Druses and Maronites ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... the Doctor and I had resolved upon the blessed and time-honoured day being kept as we keep it in Anglo-Saxon lands, with a feast such as Ujiji could furnish us. The fever had quite gone from me the night before, and on Christmas morning, though exceedingly weak, I was up and dressed, and lecturing Ferajji, the cook, upon the importance of this day to white men, and endeavouring to instil into the mind of the sleek and pampered animal some cunning ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Singapore who would cut a man's throat for a Straits dollar. Either Mallow or Craig had seen him counting the money on shipboard. It had been a pastime of his to throw the belt on the bunk-blanket and play with the gold and notes; like a child with its Christmas blocks. He had spent hours gloating over the yellow metal and crackly paper which meant a competence for the rest of his years. And Craig ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... nor durst attendance strive, Label to wit, verser remonstrative, And in some suburb-page—scandal to thine— Like Lent before a Christmas scatter mine. This speaks thee not, since at the utmost rate Such remnants from thy piece entreat their date; Nor can I dub the copy, or afford Titles to swell the rear of verse with lord; Nor politicly big, to inch low fame, Stretch in ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... returned to London, where I forthwith sold off my household-furniture, and, in three weeks from my first visit, brought my wife hither to keep her Christmas. — Considering the gloomy season of the year, the dreariness of the place, and the decayed aspect of our habitation, I was afraid that her resolution would sink under the sudden transition from a town life to such a melancholy state of rustication; but I was ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... winter that year, and the Baltic closed early. Captain Cable chartered the Minnie in the coasting trade, and after Christmas he put her into one of the cheaper dry-docks down the river towards Rotherhithe. His ship was, indeed, in dry-dock when the captain opened with the Brothers of Liberty those negotiations which came to such ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... Just before Christmas the 3rd Brigade were moved into huts at Lark Hill. They were certainly an improvement upon the tents, but they (p. 032) were draughty and leaky. From my window I could see, on the few occasions when the weather permitted it, the weird ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... During the Christmas party at Holkham I had 'fallen in love,' as the phrase goes, with a young lady whose uncle (she had neither father nor mother) had rented a place in the neighbourhood. At the end of his visit he invited ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... stuck on this piece o' land," called Friend Othniel after them, "that we thinks o' farmin' it permanently. Come back and spend Christmas ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... I cannot even see you again until after Christmas. It will be safer—better not. But in January I will come to ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... than London, although Italy still remained neutral. In London itself a good example of the parasitic industry are the firms which make ingeniously useless silver toys for rich people to give each other at Christmas.[51] ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... lady of the whole family. That am her portrait over the mantelshelf. You is jest like her as two peas in the pod and I reckin I'll have to take a stick to you like I did to yo' father when he was most growed up and stole all the fruitcake I had done baked in July fer Christmas," she said with a wide smile of great affection upon her ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... burst out Jones, in a rage. "And y'u can go, for all I care—you and your Christmas-tree pistol. Like as not you won't find your cavalry friend at San Carlos. They've killed a lot of them soldiers ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... shall try to show in the next chapter, such an apparent justification of evil cannot be avoided by a reflective optimist; and it is implicitly contained even in those religious utterances of Rabbi Ben Ezra, Christmas Eve, and A Death in the Desert, with which we not only identify the poet but ourselves, in so far as ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... overcoat, even if it was summer; then he wouldn't get so tired carrying them. He put on the fur cap, pulling it well down over his ears, and slipped into the overcoat. Slowly he took up the woolly dog and started down the stairs. Then he remembered the red mittens which a lady had brought him at Christmas, and returned to get them. He put them on carefully, smoothing them over his hands, and then went downstairs and out by the front door, prepared for any kind ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... 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
... provided some remedy for the evils complained of. On a division the second reading was carried by a majority of two hundred and fourteen against one hundred and sixty. Nothing further was done, however, before Christmas, except that there was much discussion on the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... at a moment when I wanted to reflect, I could appreciate quite fully the beauties of education and certain remote places where under careful direction it could be acquired. But how silent and lonely the house seemed when the Pride and the Hope were gone! How glad we were that Christmas was ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve, in ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... hustling?" angrily shouted Rosie Sweeny, a pretty girl at the next table, who supplied most of the profanity for our end of the room. "God Almighty! how I hate Easter and Christmas-time! Oh, my legs is 'most breaking," and with that the overwrought girl burst into a passionate tirade against everybody, the foreman included, and all the while she never ceased ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... large house, 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... extremely mean, or entirely evanescent. For the present, however, we will refrain from making any further description, until we visit them with our friends on the morrow; merely premising that the summer was about half spent, that it was in fact about Christmas time, and the water in the creek ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... associates that he was at least Ward's equal in mental stature and originality. Goodman and the others began to realize that for Mark Twain the rewards of the future were to be measured only by his resolution and ability to hold out. On Christmas Eve Artemus lectured in Silver City and afterward came to the Enterprise office to give the boys a farewell dinner. The Enterprise always published a Christmas carol, and Goodman sat at his desk writing it. He was just finishing ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... On Christmas Day Pakenham took command of the forces at the front now augmented to about six thousand, but hesitated to attack. And well he might hesitate, in spite of his superior numbers, for Jackson had employed his time well and ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... Elias, putting his paddle in the banca. "We will see each other again at the tomb of your grandfather on Nochebeuna (Christmas eve.) Save yourself." ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... was my intention," replied Augustine; "but I have, perhaps, scarce sufficiently explained the manner in which I meant to proceed. By the advice of a minstrel of our house, the same who is now prisoner at Douglas, I caused exhibit a large feast upon Christmas eve, and sent invitations abroad to the young knights of noble name who were known to spend their leisure in quest of arms and adventures. When the tables were drawn, and the feast concluded, Bertram, as had been before devised, was called ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... On Christmas Day I preached such a sermon on Christian charity, without mentioning the present affairs, that the women even wept for the unjust persecution of an archbishop who had so great a ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... of yo' winesaps into Applegate, Abel?" inquired Jim Halloween. "I'm savin' mine till Christmas, when the prices will ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... widow was not suffered to withhold her mite, and, wherever 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 was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... So passed Christmas of '57 with plum-pudding and a roasted ox and toasts to the crown and the company, though we cannot be quite sure that the company was not put before the crown in the ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... spring, crossed the Bosporus in April, and began the long journey described in the following pages. When we had finally completed our travels in the Flowery Kingdom, we sailed from Shanghai for Japan. Thence we voyaged to San Francisco, where we arrived on Christmas night, 1892. Three weeks later we resumed our bicycles and wheeled by way of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas to ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... a delightful custom in nursery days, devised by my mother, that on festival occasions, such as birthdays or at Christmas, our presents were given us in the evening by a ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Joliffes looked at each other again, and thought of young Bulteel, who had helped Anastasia with the gas-standards when the minster was decorated at Christmas. Or was it possible that her affected voice and fine lady airs had after all caught Mr Westray, that rather good-looking and interesting young man, on whom both the churchwarden's daughters were not without hopes of making ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... when on frosty Christmas eves the light Shone on his quiet hearth, he missed the sight Of Yule-log, Tree, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Then I looked back over my shoulder, to be puzzled by the baffling, indecipherable stare of Burke's tawny eyes. Was he looking at me, at the reaved safe, or at the pathetic little reminder, which I was holding in my hand, of that long-ago Christmas present? Though I could not be certain, I somehow felt that his interest was, at the moment, intense, and that I had been mistaken in thinking ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... morbid fancies were gone; she was keenly alive; the homely real life of this huckster had fired her, touched her blood with a more vital stimulus than any tale of crusader. As she went down the crooked maze of dingy lanes, she could hear Lois's little cracked bell far off: it sounded like a Christmas song to her. She half smiled, remembering how sometimes in her distempered brain the world had seemed a gray, dismal Dance of Death. How actual it was to-day,—hearty, vigorous, alive with honest work and tears and pleasure! A broad, good world to live and work in, to suffer or die, if God so willed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... risking his prospects for a bit of external decoration? I don't mind it myself," said Mr Wentworth, impartially—"I don't pretend to see, for my own part, why flowers at Easter should be considered more superstitious than holly at Christmas; but, bless my soul, sir, when your aunt thought so, what was the good of running right in her face for such a trifle? I never could understand you parsons," the Squire said, with an impatient sigh—"nobody, that I know of, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a regular cad, Joel, and I tell you what we'll do. After Christmas you move over to Hampton and room with me. You have to make an application before recess, you ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... marriage, died Hardi Knute in 1041. Here, Harold, son of Earl Godwin, who seized the crown after the death of the Confessor, is said to have placed it on his own head. Here, in 1231, King Henry III. held his court, and passed a solemn and a stately Christmas. And here, says Matthew Paris, was held a Parliament in the succeeding year. Hither, says good old Stow, anno 1376, came the Duke of Lancaster to escape the fury of the populace of London, on Friday, February 20, the day following that on which Wicliffe had been brought before the bishops at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... the Governor- General triumphed by a majority of above a hundred votes over the combined efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. The ministers were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even Lord North lost his temper, no ordinary occurrence with him, and threatened to convoke Parliament before Christmas, and to bring in a bill for depriving the Company of all political power, and for restricting it to its old business of trading in ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... attempt—I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!—You know who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer. Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty things at every body's service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a great deal ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Bath The Silent Brothers The Nineteenth Hat Vera's First Christmas Adventure The Murder of the Mandarin Vera's Second Christmas Adventure The Burglary News of the Engagement Beginning the New Year From One Generation to Another The Death of Simon Fuge In a ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... is worth being even half sick about. Buy yourself another, or better yet, Christmas is coming. Throw out a few gentle hints to your friends. Tell them you have lost your pin. They would be very stupid not to understand that it was their duty to replace it. Perhaps more than one will respond as becomes friends. You may have a half ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... centre of the fruit; in Australia, the stone grows on the outside. The foliage of the trees in America spreads out horizontally; in this south-land the leaves hang vertically. When it is day with us it is night with them. There, Christmas comes in mid-summer; with us in mid-winter. Bituminous and anthracite coal are with us only one color,—black; but they have white bituminous coal,—white as chalk. The majority of trees with us shed their leaves in the fall of the year; with them they are evergreen, ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... up the rocky ascent in order to revisit the sacred building that is now closed for worship. Nevertheless the church is cared for by the members of the Vozzi family, its present owners, who every Christmas-tide still prepare the popular presepio, that curious representation of the scene in the stable at Bethlehem, wherein a score of gaily dressed figures of painted wood represent the Holy Family and the worshipping peasants. Little in fact has been changed within the building itself, ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... the debate that there was not so much as a Christmas recess. Christmas Day was kept as a holyday. On {p.180} the 26th the struggle began again, and, fortunately, clouds had risen between the House of Commons and the court. Finding more difficulty than he expected in embroiling England with France, Philip, to feel the temper of the people, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... and always put the contrary to what they foretell; if he were to lay a wager, he would not care which side he took, excepting where no uncertainty could fall out, as to promise excessive heats at Christmas, or extremity of cold at Midsummer. I have the same opinion of these political controversies; be on which side you will, you have as fair a game to play as your adversary, provided you do not proceed so far as to shock principles that are broad and manifest. And yet, in my conceit, in public ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... is very droll!—I tell my valet, we go at Leicestershire for the hunting fox.—Very well.—So soon as I finish this letter, he come and demand what I shall leave behind in orders for some presents, to give what people will come at my lodgments for Christmas Boxes. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... begin to remember. You draw the pictures, and I'll describe myself. Four years old!—let me see—I had a sled for Christmas, and I used to eat green apples. That's all I can remember; and five and six years old were just ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... 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 of saints' days, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Its broad terraces, dazzlingly white in the moonlight; its long line of mullioned windows, suffused with a warm red glow from within, made it look like part of a wintry landscape—and suggested a Christmas card. The venerable ivy that hid the ravages time had made in its walls looked like black carving. His heart swelled with strange emotions as he gazed at his ancestral hall. How many of his blood had lived and died there; how many ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... school; and whom else should I mean, but Carrie, my own dear sister, who was two years older than I, and who was as good as she was pretty, and who set us all such an example of unworldliness and self-denial; and Jessie had spent the Christmas holidays at our house, and had grown to know and love her too; and yet she could doubt of whom I was speaking; it could not be denied that Jessie ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not adopt the extreme measure of deposing Bruce from the presidential authority, but resolved to suspend him therefrom till the pleasure of His Imperial Majesty as regarded his conduct should be made known. Accordingly, on Christmas day, 1824, I addressed to him ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... said Rocky. "It's sheer laziness. I went to see her last Christmas and she was bursting with health. Her doctor told me himself that there was nothing wrong with her whatever. But she will insist that she's a hopeless invalid, so he has to agree with her. She's got a fixed idea that the trip to New York would kill her; so, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... a row of lights was kindled on the altar; that was part of the ceremonial of the Saturnalia, and signified the return of the sun. This custom was adopted by the Christians in celebrating the Birth of Christ or Christmas. ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... had heard from time to time from my family. It was the middle of winter—the second or third week in December—when London exhibits all that joyous bustle of plenteousness and good cheer, amidst which its citizens celebrate the festival of Christmas. As Mrs Sainsbury and her daughters were now at home, I was easily prevailed on to prolong my visit for a few days before I departed for Lincolnshire. The moment I entered the house, the rooms and their associations recalled ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... causes. In the afternoon the British held athletic sports, an impromptu military tournament, and a gymkhana, all of which caused much merriment and diversion, and the Boers profited by the cessation of the shell fire to shovel away at their trenches. In the evening there were Christmas dinners in our camp—roast beef, plum pudding, a quart of beer for everyone, and various smoking concerts afterwards. I cannot describe the ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... reigned paramount, and that any sudden emancipation must endanger the peace of the islands. The experience of the first of August at once scattered to the winds that most fallacious prophecy. Then it was said, only wait till Christmas, for that is a period when, by all who have any practical knowledge of the negro character, a rebellion on their part is most to be apprehended. We did wait for this dreaded Christmas; and what was the result? I will go for it to Antigua, for it is the strongest case, there ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... refuse apply as forcibly to this month as to October. The leaves are falling, the atmosphere is moist, and there should be the utmost care taken not to make things worse by scatterings of vegetable rubbish. Now we are in the 'dull days before Christmas' the affairs of the garden may be reviewed in detail, and this is the best period for such a review. Sorts that have done well or ill, wants that have been felt, mistakes that have been made, are fresh in one's memory, ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Western Australia Independence: 1 January 1901 (federation of UK colonies) Constitution: 9 July 1900, effective 1 January 1901 Dependent areas: Ashmore and Cartier Islands, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Norfolk Island Legal system: based on English common law; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations National ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... This was destined to be the first among the deceptions that greeted such brides; for there were hundreds of such cakes, alas! kept constantly on hand. They were the same—a glory of sugar-mouldings and devices covering a mountain of richness—that were sent up yearly at Christmas time to certain mansard studios in the Latin quarter, where the artist recipients, like the brides, eat of the cake as did Adam when partaking of the apple, believing ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Since Christmas your Government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... sometimes disappointment in Rough and Ready, when it was known that Dick Spindler intended to give a "family" Christmas party at his own house. That he should take an early opportunity to celebrate his good fortune and show hospitality was only expected from the man who had just made a handsome "strike" on his claim; but that it should assume so conservative, old-fashioned, and respectable a form was ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... patient irony, "what we wish to know is whether these friends of yours whom you so kindly remember at Christmas dragged the helpless man away from your house, threw him into jail and charged him with ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Now, can we rely on the cabled refusal, or must we wait till after Christmas to give him a chance to have written—that's the point, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... body, while about thirty hares dangled by their hind legs, with their long ears flapping to and fro, from the back seat and baggage rack. The wagon looked, I scarce know how, something between an English stage-coach when the merry days of Christmas are at hand, and a ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... light glowed brightly in Elsie's cabin, exactly as she had left it an hour ago. This was one of the anomalous conditions of the disaster. It lent a queer sense of Midsummer madness to the night's doings. In a few days it would be Christmas, the Christmas of sunshine and flowers known only to that lesser portion of the habitable earth south of the line. In Valparaiso the weather was stifling, yet here, not so very far away, it was bitterly cold. And the ship was driving headlong to destruction, though electric bells and switches ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... are!" Hal cried; "Why, I have told you about him in my letters lots of times. He is out and away the nicest fellow in our school. A big fellow, too, thirteen and a half, and simply splendid at cricket. He is leaving at Christmas, and going ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... of illustration, and at the risk of gossiping, which, after all, is not the worst of things, a brief notice of my very first journey. I might be then seven years old. A young gentleman, the son of a wealthy banker, had to return home for the Christmas holidays to a town in Lincolnshire, distant from the public school where he was pursuing his education about a hundred miles. The school was in the neighborhood of Greenhay, my father's house. There were at that time no coaches in that direction; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... supplies from Pole, Hoseason, & Company, when you were employed by them?-No; I generally took my supplies in tea and sugar and other things from Braidwood & Fowler, Sandport Street, Leith. We are friendly yet, and they always send me some present at Christmas. ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Duerer's friend. Only less felicitous because less harmonious in colour than the three former, this vivacious portrait of a ruddy, jovial, and white-haired patrician seen against a bright blue background might produce the effect of a Father Christmas, were it not for the resolute mouth and the puissant side-glance of the eyes. Bernard van Orley, the only youthful person immortalised in this group, has a gentle, responsible air which his features are a little too ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... received all the tongues of oxen killed, and the heads of pigs. He covered the cistern in time of drought, and water could only be drawn when he took the cover off. The streets were ordered to be kept clean, and slops taken to the sea, not thrown out of the window! At Christmas and Easter the country people still ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson
... was Christmas, but it brought us no holiday. The only change was that we had a "plum duff'' for dinner, and the crew quarrelled with the steward because he did not give us our usual allowance of molasses to eat with it. He thought the plums would be a substitute for the molasses, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and her husband returned to Melkbridge. Christmas Day that year fell on a Sunday. Upon the preceding Saturday, she bade her many Melkbridge acquaintances to the feast. When this was over, she wished her guests good night and a happy Christmas. After seeing her husband safely abed and asleep, she set about making ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... hoped to interest in our undertaking, 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. Well! there is ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of Good Stories to Tell to Children under Twelve Years of Age, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, $0.05. There are references to books in which the stories may be found, including 25 Bible stories, 16 fables, 14 myths, 14 Christmas stories, 7 Thanksgiving ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... On Christmas Day, 1880, came a concrete evidence of the affection in which Charles was held by his minstrel colleagues. They assembled on the stage of Her Majesty's Theater and presented him with a gold watch and chain. The charm was a tiny reproduction of the famous ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Pictures of Italy, and American Notes. *Nicholas Nickleby. Old Curiosity Shop, and Reprinted Pieces. Barnaby Rudge, and Hard Times. *Martin Chuzzlewit. Dombey and Son. *David Copperfield. Christmas Books, Uncommercial Traveller, and Additional Christmas Stories. Bleak House. Little Dorrit. Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations. Our Mutual Friend. Edwin Drood, Sketches, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... friend, we have come as far as this now in Rome. This is Christ's Kingdom as it was announced at the first Christmas, 'One Shepherd, One Sheepfold.' The Holy Father rules over the whole Roman Empire as it was under Caesar and Augustus. But mark well! this empire is a spiritual one, and all these earthly princes lie at ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... Drury, and you will agree with me (and the old wag with a taste for ancient jests) that Sir AUGUST-US might add September, October, November, and December to his signature, as A Sailor's Knot seems likely to remain tied to the Knightly Boards until it is time to produce the Christmas Pantomime. So heave away, my hearties, and good luck ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. Sep. 12, 1891 • Various
... passed since the dewless September morning, when Mabel had gathered roses in the garden walks, and her brother's return had shaken the dew with the bloom from her young heart. It was the evening of Christmas-day, and the tide of wassail, the blaze of yule, were high at Ridgeley. Without, the fall of snow that had commenced at sundown, was waxing heavier and the wind fiercer. In-doors, fires roared and crackled upon every hearth; there was a stir of busy or merry life in every room. ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... different, for they depend on parcels sent by friends, and as of late years there has been no regular communication with the island they have been at times very short, especially of underclothing. Now that whalers have begun to call again, two or three appearing about Christmas time, they can sometimes get material from them, but, except the dungaree, it is very poor stuff, and they have to pay a high price in exchange. The women usually have a very neat appearance, no hole is allowed to remain in a garment, which is at once patched, and many and varied ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... yield in the northern district is light. The early dwarf crab, with or without, worms, as desired—but mostly with—is unusually poor this fall. They make good cider. This cider when put into a brandy flask that has not been drained too dry, and allowed to stand until Christmas, puts a great deal of expression into a country dance. I have tried it once myself, so that I could write it up for ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... At Christmas a new character appeared on the stage, the rector's son, Nigel. He had completed a year with a private tutor, and was on the eve of commencing his first term at Oxford, being eighteen, nearly five ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... all, he had spoken sound sense, and there was Hilda. He couldn't lose Hilda, and if the old man turned out obstinate—well, it would be all but impossible to get her. Probably things were not as bad as he had imagined. Very likely it would all be over by Christmas. If so, it was not much use throwing everything up. Perhaps he could word the letter to the Bishop a little differently. He turned over phrases all the way home, and got them fairly pat. But it was a busy evening, and he ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... was nonsense. And how generous and kind at heart her husband was! In his skillful making little of it she was very much comforted, and at the same time drawn into more perfect sympathy with him. She was glad she was not going to Brandon for Christmas; she would not submit herself to its censorship. The note of acknowledgment she wrote to her aunt was short and almost formal. She was very sorry they looked at the matter in that way. She thought she was doing right, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... month he worked hard and made up the time he had lost, running straight home when he came out from school, and returning just in time to go in with the others; but gradually he fell into his former ways, and by the time the school broke up at Christmas was able to mix with the boys and take part in their games. At home he did his best to make things bright, but it was uphill work. Mrs. Sankey was fretful and complaining. Their income was reduced by the loss ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... 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
... her not—in any case not yet. Later, after Christmas, she and her father might very likely go abroad. But till then they had a full programme ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the Australian fight. On the day before Christmas, Colonel Pilcher, at Belmont, got wind of the assemblage of a considerable Boer force at a place 30 miles away, called Sunnyside Farm, and he determined to try to attack it before the enemy could get wind of his intention. To ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... agreed Aggie enthusiastically, as though they would be according the poor soul a rare privilege. "Jimmy gives a hundred dollars to the Home every Christmas,"—additional proof why he should be selected for ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... One Christmas afternoon, calling upon a friend, I found some fourteen or fifteen elderly ladies and gentlemen trotting solemnly round a row of chairs in the centre of the drawing-room while Poppleton played the piano. Every now and then ...
— Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 displayed in its window, beside the folds of gingham and ...
— The Wooing of Calvin Parks • Laura E. Richards
... he is under the influence of liquor, he weeps and says that he is going to leave everything and go to the "sacred mountain" to gain salvation for his soul. What is the name of this mountain? Where is it? He does not know exactly; he only knows that it is very far away. On Christmas eve, Makar extorts a ruble from two political refugees, and, instead of bringing them some wood for the money, he quickly buys some tobacco and brandy. After drinking and smoking a great deal, Makar goes to sleep and has a dream. ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... and takes off his hat, and makes them a low bow, and they larfs wus than ever, and calls out again, "La Fossy Your," "La Fossy Your." He was kinder ryled, was the Elder. His honey had begun to farment, and smell vinegery. 'May be, next Christmas,' sais he, 'you won't larf so loud, when you find the mare is dead. Goodish and the old mare are jist alike, they are all tongue them critters. I rather think it's me,' sais he, 'has the right to larf, for I've got the best of this bargain, and no mistake. This is as smart ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... it will do him far more good if you don't go disturbing him again this evening; he will have a good night without you; to-morrow morning you can go round early and you will find him cured." From the beginning of December it would make her quite ill to think that the 'faithful' might fail her on Christmas and New Year's Days. The pianist's aunt insisted that he must accompany her, on the latter, to a family dinner ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... does the work. We descends into nothin' so low as labor in them halcyon days. Our social existence is made up of weddin's, infares an' visitin' 'round; an' life in the Bloo Grass is a pleasant round of chicken fixin's an' flour doin's from one Christmas to another.' ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... Freelove (which is stated by the Yorkshire Gazette to have been "lost, together with one hundred and fifty passengers and the winter's supply of gingerbread for Whitby, off either the French or Dutch coast" one stormy Christmas, the date not given) Cook was sent to assist in rigging and fitting for sea a vessel, called the Three Brothers, some 600 tons burden, which was still in existence towards the close of last century. When she was completed, Cook made two ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... 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 ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... one more anecdote of these men, who are sent out to set an example of the beauty of the Christian faith to the unenlightened heathens. A few weeks since, the festival of Christmas took place; and Englishmen, in whatever part of the world they chance to be, make a point of assembling together on that day, our recollections then being associated with "home" and our families, uniting to spend that day in mutual ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... the First Christmas Tree (see Appendix); Arbor Day; Constructive work suggested by St. Valentine's Day and Thanksgiving Day; Stories of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education |
