"Christmas Eve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Christmas season in Woodland was a notable one. We were to give a dinner to the converts. Many were the gifts of edibles. Christmas eve found Sister Simpson and me very busy preparing and cooking, aided by two prospective guests. While I was thus engaged, a message arrived requesting me to go quickly to a certain street and cabin, where a girl lay dying. Carrying ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... 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 was just learning the sheep business. So they said ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... people cheered the racers as they came laboriously around the turn. The meet was engineered by some American, but, from a standpoint of close finishes, left much to be desired. The market-place on Christmas eve was lighted by a thousand lanterns, and the little people wandered among the booths, smoking their cigarettes and eating peanuts. Until early morning the incessant shuffling in the streets kept up, for every one had gone to midnight mass. Throughout the town the strumming of guitars, the voices of ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... Cardinal Archbishop of Westminister:—A Plenary indulgence may be gained by all persons who—besides making a good Confession and received worthily the Holy Communion, and praying for the intention of his Holiness—shall, on Christmas Eve, on Christmas Day, and on the following day, abstain from all intoxicating drinks. The faithful are earnestly exhorted to endeavor to obtain the Plenary Indulgence; and to offer up this little self-denial as an act of intercession, reparation, and expiation for those who sin against God by drunkenness ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... children; For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the 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 marvelous powers of four-leaved clover and horseshoes, With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... however, at war. As a field officer, I had the duty of attending the burial of British soldiers in the Christian cemetery at Alexandria on Christmas Eve, 1915. Since the outbreak of the War the graveyard had extended from its original site, prettily shaded by foliage, over an adjacent waste of sand and rubble, where over 2500 of our men who died of wounds or disease at this base had already at ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... the Gospeler, "it couldn't have been a ghost, after all; but I certainly thought I saw an umbrella. To conclude what I was saying, then,—I have the confidence in you, Mr. MONTGOMERY, to believe that you will attend the dinner of Reconciliation on Christmas eve, as you have promised." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... alleged to have given occasion for an attempted crime, supposed to have been sanctioned by Henry, which may show us that while the Pope was asserting a right to rule over the nations, he could not rule in his own city. On Christmas Eve, 1075, the city of Rome was visited with a violent tempest. Darkness brooded over the land. The inhabitants thought that the day of judgment was at hand. In the midst of this war of the elements two processions were seen advancing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock, "Now they are all on their knees," An elder said as we sat in a flock By ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... is cold and still, and heavy with the scent of the Christmas trees brought from the forest for the pleasure of the children. Day by day you see the rows of them growing thinner, and if you go to the market on Christmas Eve itself you will find only a few trees left out in the cold. The market is empty, the peasants are harnessing their horses or their oxen, the women are packing up their unsold goods. In every home in the city one of the trees ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... Flagg, I wish you to carefully note the significance of the strange event which soon followed. Christmas Eve, 1903, found me here alone, seated at my desk, alternately reading, musing and writing. All day a terrific snow storm had been raging, at nightfall it continued with increased severity. I could hear the fierce gale shriek as it lashed the tree tops furiously. I shuddered ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... always the worst," said Vickers. "James, some more wine. We don't drink toasts here, but as this is Christmas Eve, 'Her Majesty ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... of Sally Lunn. "The Major is so 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 Patrick ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... 'An Artist's Studio,' and No. 131, 'Christmas Eve,' are by J. F. Weir. Both are well conceived and executed, the latter being especially interesting. The old wall, the great bell, the moonlight, and the elves set the fancy musing over many things in heaven and earth rarely ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... could now greet my few friends with tolerable good-humour, and among them Peter Cornelius, who looked in on me every evening. As Heinrich Porges and Gustav Schonaich sometimes joined us, we founded an intimate little circle and met regularly. On Christmas Eve I invited them all to my house, where I had the Christmas tree lighted up, and gave each one an appropriate trifle. Some work also came my way again, for Tausig asked me to help him with a concert which he ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... On Christmas Eve the old city was very gay. The churches were decorated, and splendidly dressed men and women passed in and out with smiles and congratulations. The fandangoes and the gambling houses were all open. From the huertas around, great numbers of families had come ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... 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, helping with the ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... time we had placed the cold, fresh-smelling little tree in a corner of the sitting-room, it was already Christmas Eve. After supper we all gathered there, and even grandfather, reading his paper by the table, looked up with friendly interest now and then. The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely. We hung it with the gingerbread animals, strings of popcorn, and bits of candle which Fuchs had fitted into ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... France prot., s. v. On the 26th of August, 1526, if, as is likely, he is the "jeune filz, escolier beneficie, non aiant encore ses ordres de prestrise, nomme maistre ... natif de Therouanne, en Picardie," whom the Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris refers to—page 291—as having abjured on Christmas eve, 1525, and been burned "le mardi 28^e aoust, 1526." At any rate, as M. Herminjard has remarked, Beza and Crespin are certainly wrong in placing Pauvan's recantation and execution respectively a year too early (in 1524 ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... see the windows full of pretty things and think of their wives and their children and their old friends. Even misers relax a little then, and a famous statesman, who was somewhat close-fisted in his day, is reported to have given his young coloured servant twenty-five cents on Christmas Eve, telling him to go out to Mount Auburn Cemetery and see where the great men of New England lie buried. And the man, I believe, went there; but he was an African, and the spirit of Christmas was not in his race, for if it had ...
— The Little City Of Hope - A Christmas Story • F. Marion Crawford
... Christmas eve, as she and her brother sat in the Brown home, "I do hope we can find Uncle Simon ...
— Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue Giving a Show • Laura Lee Hope
... knee. All children loved him for he could tell them wonderful fairy tales and strange stories of the forest. He told them of the goblins that came at night to water the horses, of how the oxen talked in their stalls on Christmas Eve, of how a spider shut up in a nutshell could cure the fever, and of the marvellous powers possessed by horse shoes and four-leaved clover. He knew more strange things ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... week that year. Not one of the women or children had yet been forced to stay away from the sands on account of the cold. Upon Christmas eve there was a good day, though, a short one, before them, for it was low water about noon, and the high tide would not be in before six. All the daylight would be theirs. It was a chance not to be missed, for as the tides grew later in the day their time for fishing would be cut shorter. ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... William was coming on Christmas Eve. Mrs. Morel surveyed her pantry. There was a big plum cake, and a rice cake, jam tarts, lemon tarts, and mince-pies—two enormous dishes. She was finishing cooking—Spanish tarts and cheese-cakes. Everywhere was decorated. The kissing bunch of berried holly hung with bright and glittering ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Roses, Bamburgh was held for the queen by the Lancastrian nobles of the north country—Percy and Ros—with the Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Somerset; but was obliged on Christmas Eve, 1462, to capitulate to a superior force. The next year the Scots and the queen's French allies surprised it, and re-captured it for Henry VI. and his courageous queen; but Warwick, "the King-maker," came upon the scene, and after a ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... methods in dealing with it had at least the merit of directness, if they added nothing to the sum of human knowledge or happiness. I had received a "mark," which was a coin like our silver quarter, on Christmas Eve, and I hied myself to Rag Hall at once to divide it with the poorest family there, on the express condition that they should tidy up things, especially those children, and generally change their way of living. The man took the money—I have a vague recollection ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... been decided at Woodburn that they would not go to Ion till Christmas morning, as they all preferred to celebrate Christmas eve at home. The children were going to hang up their stockings, but had not been told that they would have a tree or any gifts. They thought, and had said to each other, that perhaps papa might think the money he had given them to spend and to give, and the privilege of selecting objects for his ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... On Christmas eve she, like Count Vavel, arranged a Christmas tree for the village children. The little ones hastened from the manor to the castle, and repeated wonderful tales of the gifts they had received from ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... travelled that road, it is true, but now perhaps the very home look of everything, where yet she was not at home, might have sent them. There was a bitter twinge or two, and for a minute Ellen's head drooped. "To-morrow will be Christmas eve—last Christmas eve—oh, mamma!" ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... Christmas Eve they went, by her desire, to a church in Soho, where the Christmas Oratorio was being given; and coming away passed, by chance of a wrong turning, down Borrow Street. Ugh! How that startled moment, when the girl had pressed herself ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... otherwise, and gave him many little jobs of pasting, gumming, etc. It was a beautiful tree, I assure you; but Joe had a great deal of mysterious talk with Emilie, apart from the rest, which, however, we must not divulge until Christmas eve. A little box came from London on the morning of the day, directed to Joe. Edith was very curious to know its contents; so was Fred, so ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... rather, to tell the truth, it was contrived,—for I have waited too long for things to turn up to have much faith in "happen," that we who have sat by this hearthstone before should all be together on Christmas eve. There was a splendid backlog of hickory just beginning to burn with a glow that promised to grow more fiery till long past midnight, which would have needed no apology in a loggers' camp,—not so much as the religion of which a lady (in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... incident that befell Mr. Grenville on his departure from England was inauspicious and discouraging. The weather was unusually severe. On the night of Christmas Eve, the thermometer was 14 deg. below freezing point; and for many weeks afterwards the snow lay so thickly on the ground that the service of the ordinary coaches was arrested, and the mails were forwarded on horseback. This delay and suspension of communication ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... it would be Christmas eve. All day I had three points—a chair beside the kitchen table, a lookout melted through the frost on the front window, and ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... Palace of S. Sebastiano at Mantua, and also in the Castello di Gonzaga and in the beautiful Palace of Marmirolo without the city. In the latter Francesco had finished painting in the year 1499, after a vast number of other pictures, some triumphs and many portraits of gentlemen of the Court; and on Christmas Eve, on which day he had finished those works, the Marquis presented to him an estate of a hundred fields in the territory of Mantua, at a place called La Marzotta, with a mansion, garden, meadows, and other things of great beauty and convenience. ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... Christian 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 ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... made it up again, smoothing the limp sheets with clumsy fingers, and talking to Julia, while he worked, of little girls who had brothers and sisters, and who lived in the country, and hung their stockings up on Christmas Eve. Emeline pretended not to notice either father or daughter at these times, although she could have whisked Julia into bed in half the time it took George to do it, and was really very kind to the child when George was ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... It was Christmas Eve—cold, cloudy, and damp. The store windows were gay with every conceivable and inconceivable device for attracting attention. Parents, nurses, and porters hurried along with mysterious looking bundles and important countenances. Crowds of curious, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... that has ever come from this author's pen is made to bloom on Christmas Eve in the sweet freshness of an ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... It was Christmas eve, a wild and stormy day. The wind raged ceaselessly round the old house, howling down the chimneys, and beating the branches of the trees outside ...
— Probable Sons • Amy Le Feuvre
... Rada. You know it's Christmas Eve. Nobody ought to think of unpleasant things on Christmas Eve. I don't think it's right to spoil people's pleasure on Christmas Eve. What have you done with ...
— Rada - A Drama of War in One Act • Alfred Noyes
... its most cherished resources. For fully a month the army was practically lost, so far as communication with the North was concerned. Then it struck the sea at Savannah, captured that beautiful city, and, in the celebrated despatch which actually reached President Lincoln on Christmas Eve, General Sherman presented to the President and the country "the city of Savannah, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... The poem "Christmas Eve," by Robert Browning, with the accompanying poem "Easter Day," seems not to have attracted much notice from the readers of poetry, although highly prized by a few. This is, perhaps, to be attributed, in a great measure, to what many would call a considerable degree of obscurity. ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... Christmas Eve, and I had gone to bed shortly after twelve o'clock, having an hour earlier bid good night to John and Mr. Gaskell. The long habit of watching with, or being in charge of an invalid at night, had made my ears extraordinarily quick to apprehend ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... this Christmas Eve. Duties which before had been a burden to him, which he had, besides, despised, he now performed ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... 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
... On Christmas eve, the shoemaker cleaned his bench, and on it, instead of leather, he laid the two sets of gay little fairy-clothes. Then he and his wife hid away as ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... Hubert answered. "We never could stand it till Christmas day. We always rush through supper, Christmas eve, to be ready as soon as we can. You should see our house when we get everything out of ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... he has kept up the observance of old customs; no Christmas Eve has ever been passed under the roof of his Harmas without the consecrated meats upon the table; the heart of celery, the nougat of almonds, the dish of snails, and the savoury-smelling turkey. Then, stuck into the Christmas bread (15/7.), the sprigs of holly, the verbouisset, the sacred ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... Christmas eve and yesterday, there were little branches of mistletoe hanging in several parts of the house, in the kitchen, the entries, the parlor, and the smoking-room,—suspended from the gas-fittings. The ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... or two my affairs kept me in India, and nothing seemed more unlikely than that—for the present, at any rate—Jack and I should cross paths again, but by one of those strange chances which sometimes occur in this world I found myself, on the Christmas Eve of 190-, standing on the platform of Holdergate Station, having missed the connection for Scotland, and with the pleasing prospect before me of spending the night, and possibly—if trains were not available—the ensuing Christmas Day at the ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... was scarce over Last Christmas Eve had brought: The fibres still were quivering Of the one wounded thought, When Herbert—who, unconscious, Had guessed no inward strife— Bade her, in pride and pleasure, Welcome his fair ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... Christian priests were also followers of the witch-religion that the Inquisitors of the sixteenth century were greatly exercised in their minds as to how to deal with the offenders. Antide Colas confessed that she attended the midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then went to a witch meeting, and returned to the church in time for the mass at dawn on Christmas morning.[144] At Ipswich in 1645 'Mother Lakeland hath been a professour of Religion, a constant hearer of the Word for these many years, and yet a witch (as ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... 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 Neilh 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 Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... Christmas eve when Washington reached Mount Vernon. It must have been a happy and a merry Christmas in that beautiful home, for the toils and dangers of war were over, peace was smiling upon all the land, and the people ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 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 ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... in old Chelsea Village to the theological seminary of his professorship. How many people remember this, or his scholarship? But before that old rooftree was laid low, he wrote beneath it, quite offhand, a little poem, 'The Night Before Christmas,' that blends with childhood's dreams anew each Christmas Eve—a few short verses holding more vitality than all ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... put off from the bank. The owner, a countryman from a small ranch, asked for a tow to Corumba, which we gave. He had with him in the boat his comely brown wife—who was smoking a very large cigar—their two children, a young man, and a couple of trunks and various other belongings. On Christmas eve we reached Corumba, and rejoined the other members ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... before a Festival, as Christmas Eve, Easter Even, and designed to be a preparation for the due observance of the Festival it precedes. By rubric it is provided that the Collect appointed for any Sunday or other Feast may be used at the Evening Service of the ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... not only as Clement's agent in business connected with S. Lorenzo; he also was intrusted with negotiations for the settlement of the Duke's claims. The correspondence which passed between them forms, therefore, our best source of information for this period. On Christmas Eve in 1524 Michelangelo writes from Florence to his friend, begging him not to postpone a journey he had in view, if the only business which detained him was the trouble about the tomb. A pleasant air of manly affection ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... He gave much thought to the matter in the effort to secure many small articles which elaborately concealed their value. And he had taste. The result of his endeavor was that many friends who would not have thought of remembering Monty with even a card were pleasantly surprised on Christmas Eve. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... fell out that on Christmas eve Wilhelmine ordered her coach to convey her to the castle. She drove through the snow in no happy frame of mind. Christmas trees and the favourite!—could anything be more incongruous? and she knew it. Angrily ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... 'Tis Christmas Eve: the midnight chime With mystic music fills the air, And bears the news, "'Tis Christmas time," In ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... until Christmas Eve, when our visitor proposed walking into Peterborough, in order to give the children a treat of raisins to make ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... 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 ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... Christmas Eve. Mother and Sal had just finished papering the walls, and we were busy decorating the place with green boughs, when Sandy and Kate, in their best clothes—Kate seated behind a well-filled pillow-slip ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... It was late on Christmas eve when Ungava Bob, returning from the Indian camp, drew his toboggan into the clearing in the centre of which stood the river tilt. Its roof was scarcely visible in the moonlight above the high drifted snow. ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... ago. Since then it has been reported that a ghost was seen there one bitter Christmas eve, two or three years back. The twilight was already in the street; but the evening lamps were not yet lighted in the windows, and the roofs and chimney-tops were still distinct in the last clear light of the dropping day. It was light enough, however, for one to read easily, from ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... belonged to Black Rag's brother, the one who was drowned last Christmas Eve, when the Leone was cut in two by the steamer in the Mouth of Procida. I suppose she belongs to Black Rag himself now. She is a crazy old craft, but if he were clever he could patch her up and paint her and take foreigners to the Cape in ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... sorry John lost his place at father's. He was so kind and obliging, and I always liked him; and I've been thinking, if you'd get him to sign the pledge over again from Christmas Eve, never to touch another drop, I'll get papa to take him back. I always do get papa to do what I want, and the fact is, he hasn't got anybody that suited him so well since John left. So you tell John that I mean to go surety for him; he certainly won't fail me. Tell him I trust him." ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... vulgar old man who had made his fortune in the commissariat, and purchased a baronetcy. He was allowing his young wife her full swing of fashion and enjoyment. My mother did not think it a desirable acquaintance, and was restless until both the brothers came home together, long after dark on Christmas Eve, having been met by the gig at the corner where the coach stopped. The dinner-hour had been put off till half-past six, and we had to wait for them, the coach having been delayed by setting down Christmas guests and Christmas ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the utmost to make Venice agreeable to Lady Mary. With all her good opinion of herself and of her position, she found herself treated with more distinction than she "could possibly expect." When, on Christmas Eve, she went to see the ceremony of High Mass celebrated by the Doge, she was surprised to find that he had set aside for her and the Prince of Wolfenbuttel a gallery, to which none were admitted but their parties. "A greater compliment could not have ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... legacy of ten pounds from his grandfather gave them a little furniture, and he became again a frequenter of second-hand bookstores. He could scarcely resist the temptation of a book that he wanted. One Christmas Eve he went out with money to buy their Christmas dinner, but spent the whole sum for a copy of Young's "Night Thoughts." His wife did not relish this style ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... When Christmas eve arrived everybody came to see Aunt Matilda's Christmas tree. Kate and Harry were inside superintending the final arrangements, and about fifty or sixty persons, colored and white, were gathered around the closed door ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... didn't he'd deserve to get What For," said Jane, decidedly. "If you was a child in a story book, your pa'd come back and be lookin' for you everywhere, on Christmas Eve; this Christmas eve as ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... Science. In every sense she is the recognized head of the Christian Science Church. At the same time it is her most earnest aim to eliminate the element of personality from the faith. "On this point, Mrs. Eddy feels very strongly," said a gentleman to me on Christmas eve, as I sat in the beautiful drawing room, where Judge and Mrs. Hanna, Miss Elsie Lincoln, the soprano for the choir of the new church, and one or two other friends ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... 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
... days over his unkind speech, and on Christmas Eve, when he paid his next visit, he brought Anna a peace-offering in the shape of a valuable proof engraving of a picture she had long coveted. Malcolm had had it beautifully framed. Anna was enchanted with the gift, but Mrs. Herrick privately called her ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Christmas Eve—a wild, blustering night. It had been blowing up hard for several days now, and we were used to the howling of the wind and the roar of the waves on the beach. We had gone to bed tired and excited, for the ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... hand. These remarkable precautions would seem rather to indicate a profound fear of being himself assassinated; but they were nevertheless supposed to justify Philip's suspicions, that the Infante was meditating parricide. On Christmas eve, however (1567), Don Carlos told his confessor that he had determined to kill a man. The priest, in consequence, refused to admit him to the communion. The Prince demanded, at least, a wafer which was not consecrated, in order that he might seem ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... more than the kingdom of Spain. In an average year they send six million messages. The Waldorf-Astoria alone tops all residential buildings with eleven hundred and twenty telephones and five hundred thousand calls a year; while merely the Christmas Eve orders that flash into Marshall Field's store, or John Wanamaker's, have risen as high as the three ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... on the second night with the loss of a single ox. The Author would say here that this was the last ox which was allowed to die without using the flesh for food, and it was from this same one he cut a steak to eat on Christmas eve, 1849. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... given back the boy to his father's confidence, and saved him so far from the terrible course of deceit and corruption. She could not much take to heart the mad exploits of the so-called boys, even though she spent three hours in heart-beatings on Christmas Eve, when Hector, Mary, Tom, Blanche, and the dog Toby, were lost the whole day. However, they did come back at six o'clock, having been deluded by an old myth of George Larkins, into starting for a common, three ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... office. There was a still larger cabin somewhat more distant from the main building, which was intended for the use of his nephew, William Pressley, on the marriage of that young lawyer to Ruth. But the wedding was some time off yet, having been set for Christmas Eve, and the cabin which was to welcome the bride from Cedar House was not quite complete. The smallest and the oldest cabin was David's. The long black line of cabins crouching under the hillside where the shadows were ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... the office and wrote in my newspaper that Mrs. Ben Wah was sick and needed a parrot, a green one with a red tuft, and that she must have it right away. I told of her lonely life, and of how, on a Christmas Eve, years ago, I had first met her at the door of the Charity Organization Society, laboring up the stairs with a big bundle done up in blue cheese-cloth, which she left in the office with the message that it was for those who were poorer than she. They were opening it ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... his room on Christmas eve in the fine new home in London which he had recently made for ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... (Christmas Eve) was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, 'Happy Christmas!' to us, and some of us replied in German. ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... hailed from Little-Russia, called in to give us some interesting news. One of his intimate friends—also an ex-student and fellow- sufferer—was to pass through our town on his way back from a far-distant Yakut aul,[1] where he had lived for three years; he was due to arrive on Christmas Eve. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... Nell up to attending the tedious rehearsals. Some of the boys we knew were in the chorus of Assyrian youths, but the solo cast was made up of older people, and Nell found them very poky. We gave the cantata in the Baptist church on Christmas eve, "to a crowded house," as the Riverbend "Messenger" truly chronicled. The country folk for miles about had come in through a deep snow, and their teams and wagons stood in a long row at the hitch-bars on each side of the church door. It was certainly ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... Matthew and Moreton and Biddy into ecstasies at the notion of a "real Christmas"), that brought to my mind the immanence of the festival, and the fact that I had as yet bought no presents. Such was the predicament in which I usually found myself on Christmas eve; and it was not without a certain sense of annoyance at the task thus abruptly confronting me that I got into my automobile and directed the chauffeur to the shopping district. The crowds surged ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... was still too rough for the ships to tie up alongside, and our Christmas the next day was the reverse of merry. The Germans had held a Christmas service on the Wolf on Christmas Eve, and sounds of the band and singing were wafted to us over the waters. We could have no music on the Igotz Mendi, as we had no piano, but our friends on the Wolf, so we heard afterwards, gathered together in the 'tween decks and joined in ...
— Five Months on a German Raider - Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf' • Frederic George Trayes
... winter; but if, when there was much snow, the whole family desired to go somewhere, we would put the body of the farm wagon on runners and all bundle in together. We always liked snow at Christmas time, and the sleigh-ride down to the church on Christmas eve. One of the hymns always sung at this Christmas eve festival begins, "It's Christmas eve on the river, it's Christmas eve on the bay." All good natives of the village firmly believe that this hymn was written here, and with direct reference to Oyster ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... on their journey, and every day went a little distance toward the south, till at last, on Christmas Eve, they came to an ancient city at the foot of a range ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... and wishing that I had died of the misery which it dispelled. Certainly, if it had a physical source, it wasn't that I was more comfortable, for I was hungrier than ever, and, you may well fancy, cold enough, having slept on the bare floor without any thing to cover me on Christmas Eve—for Christmas Eve it was. No doubt my sleep had done me good, but I suspect the sleep came to quiet my mind for the reception of the ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... Christmas eve, and in the great house on the hill there was much rejoicing and preparation for the feasting on the morrow. A knock came at the door, and two strangers stood there. "We have lost our way," they said, "and the night is dark and ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Las Palomas, allowing three days for the trip, so as to reach home on Christmas eve. By making a slight deviation, there was a country store which I could pass on the last day, where I expected to buy some presents for my mother and sisters. But I was in a pickle as to what to give Esther, and on consulting Miss Jean, I found that motherly elder ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... ELLEN,—Will you write as soon as you get this and fix your own day for coming to Haworth? I got home on Christmas Eve. The parting scene between me and my late employers was such as to efface the memory of much that annoyed me while I was there, but indeed, during the whole of the last six months they only made too ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... but she overrated his weakness. At all events the rejected one arrived and Clement Searle departed. On a dark December day he took ship at Southampton. The two women, desperate with rage and sorrow, sat alone in this big house, mingling their tears and imprecations. A fortnight later, on Christmas Eve, in the midst of a great snowstorm long famous in the country, something happened that quickened their bitterness. A young woman, battered and chilled by the storm, gained entrance to the house and, making her ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... spirited meeting in Rahway on Christmas eve, December 24, 1867. The following October, 1868, Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony attended a two days' convention in Vineland, and helped to rouse the enthusiasm of the people. A friend, writing from ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... have the holly brought into the house before Christmas Eve, so throughout the week merry parties of young people were out in the woods gathering green boughs, and on Christmas Eve, with jest and song, they came in laden with branches ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... Christmas Eve came, and the Admiral, being very weary, went below to sleep, leaving a sailor to steer the ship. But this sailor thought he too would like to sleep, so he gave the tiller in charge of ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... house where we are obliged to show no sign of life, so as to conceal our presence from the enemy. And so here we are at nine o'clock in the morning, in a darkness that would make it seem to be late on Christmas eve. ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... the honor of Great Britain, one of us finally licked him to such a tune that he has never been able to hold up his head since. It was about a cat. It came off at dusk, one Christmas Eve, on the "Isle of Swans," between Passy and Grenelle (too late ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... Christmas Eve father and son were dining together without guests, and their talk across the broad table, glittering with silver and cut glass, and softly lit by shaded candles, was intimate, though a little slow at times. The elder man was in rather a rare mood, more expansive and confidential ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... here. Then I give another for the political and dramatic worlds. Each is secretly proud to meet the other. The third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends in London are good enough to come over specially for it. It is on Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... was astonished to find Christian worship maintained, though no white teacher had yet passed by that way. These kaingas are all vanished now, and their very names are well-nigh forgotten; but Pukehika (a few miles below Pipiriki) afforded the traveller a memorable experience. At daybreak on Christmas Eve he records that "three bells for morning prayers were heard from different hamlets in the neighbourhood." On reading this astonishing statement, one's thoughts fly at once to Kinglake's well-known experience ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... Christmas Eve, and the boys stayed up late, cracking nuts by the blazing log fire and having a ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... On Christmas eve we went to bed, strangely enough, very early. All the rest of the town was celebrating, but we had been busy moving furniture and fixtures, had worked late in order to finish the job, and were very tired. By this time we were ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... weather, at least with us, and we are getting ready for our Christmas festivals with the family at home. I told Plauchut to try to carry you off; we are expecting him. If you can't come with him, come at least for the Christmas Eve revels and to escape from Paris on New Year's day; it ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... 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, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... not?" I ceased, and gave him rather more Than he was counting of my store. "And since I have it, thanks to you, Don't ask me what I mean to do," Said he. "Believe that even I Would rather tell the truth than lie — On Christmas Eve. ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... wish it every morning—that I could sleep two years; could over-sleep all the thousand tears that shall yet flow. Foolish wish! I am sometimes such a silly child. Do you remember that two years ago on Christmas Eve you gave me white pearls and mother said then: 'Pearls mean tears'? She was right, they followed only ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... "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. Pickwick ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... had perhaps some vague idea of sleeping out, but that would have killed me, for a heavy mist that covered all the tops of the hills and that made a roof over the valley, began to drop down a fine rain; and, as they sing in church on Christmas Eve, 'the heavens sent down their dews upon a just man'. But that was written in Palestine, where rain is a rare blessing; there and then in the cold evening they would have done better to have warmed the righteous. There is no controlling them; they ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... quite right, and did not even smile at her telling the organist so many family items. The days flew by, as they always fly in holiday time, and it was Christmas eve before anybody knew it. The family festival was quiet and very pleasant, but quite swallowed up in the grander preparations for next day. Carol and Elfrida, her pretty German nurse, had ransacked books, ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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 shot upward amidst shrieks of delight which mingled oddly with the rolling ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... commission, and purchased a fine dress pattern at the village store. It cost rather more than six dollars, but this they paid out of their own pockets, and did not report to Andy. Just after supper, as he was about to go home to spend Christmas Eve, they placed the bundle in ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... "It was Christmas eve, now remember, And out in the cold world alone, A cold night, too, in December, There wandered a poor ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... Ultimately, on Christmas Eve, when the prisoner was again brought before the stipendiary magistrate, Mr. Raffles, a very just and high-minded man, Dr. Commins, barrister, acting for Forrester, claimed that no charge, but a mere matter of suspicion, being forthcoming against him, ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... a long and wearisome journey, we reached Pontotoc, McGee's home, on Christmas eve. Boss took me into the house and into the sitting room, where all the family were assembled, and presented me as a Christmas gift ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... some kind of a lark Christmas eve," answered Alan. "We can't do it Christmas day because—Well, I may as well tell the rest of you—mamma has just asked Polly and all the other Adamses to come here for dinner and the evening, so we can have our ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... It was Christmas Eve. They were in the kitchen of her uncle's farmhouse. The deaf old woman sat in her chair by the fire knitting. Upon her sunken face there was a curious sardonic smile that was her habitual expression. The two men stood in the doorway. Mary sat at the table ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... It is Christmas Eve. Drip, drop, drip, falls the rain from the leafless boughs on to the sodden earth. The apology for daylight that has been doing its dull duty for the last few hours is slowly effacing itself, and the gale is celebrating the fact, and showing its joy at the closing-in ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... pile up must have been satisfying indeed to the head of the school. But the work was not all done when the Camp Fire arrived at Hollyhill, most of the girls still having enough to do to keep them busy almost up to Christmas eve. ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... On Christmas Eve there had been a dance at Piping Tree, and because she had danced twice with Gay (who had ridden over in obedience to a whim), Abel had parted from her in anger. For the first time she had felt the white heat of his jealousy, and it had aroused rebellion, not acquiescence, in her heart. Jonathan ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... of his life, on Christmas Eve, in Calcutta, when he felt that the invisible bonds threatening to enslave him were suddenly tightened, rendering ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood, was chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room was full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said, with an attempt ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... exists no rule for the construction of hermits; they seem made out of all kinds of material. But Pilate attended to the matter of expiating his sin while he was alive, whereas St. Nicholas will probably have to go on climbing down sooty chimneys, Christmas eve, forever, and conferring kindness on other people's children, to make up for deserting his own. His bones are kept in a church in a village (Sachseln) which we visited, and are naturally held in great reverence. His portrait is common in the farmhouses of the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... if you behave well," said Charlotte, hiding her embarrassment under sweet smile. "And what do you call behaving well? What should I do, what can I do, my dear Charlotte?" said he. "Thursday night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve. The children are all to be here, and my father too: there is a present for each; do you come likewise, but do not come before that time." Werther started. "I desire you will not: it must be so," ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... It was on Christmas Eve, shortly before twilight. The heath lay deep in snow, and from the leaden sky fresh masses of flakes were descending. Then Paul saw that his sisters secretly took their hats and cloaks, and tried to make their escape by the ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... Aunt Sarah's mother derived its name "Belsnickel" from the fact that the Belsnickels, who invariably visited the houses of "Bucks County" farmers on Christmas Eve, were always treated to some of ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... for three days and nights; and then it was Christmas Eve, and very late at night. The moon climbed up over the roofs and chimneys, and looked down over the gateway into College Court. There were no lights in the windows, nor any sound in the houses; all the city of Gloucester was ...
— The Tailor of Gloucester • Beatrix Potter
... regular 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 was ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... six children." Laine made some notes in a book and put it back in his pocket. "I'm going out. Have a cab here at eight-thirty. The things I bring back will be put in the room at the end of the hall. On Christmas Eve you are to buy what I've mentioned in this"—he handed him an envelope—"and with them take the bundles in the room to the place you went to yesterday. You are not to know who sent them, and when you come back you are to forget you've been, and no one is to be told. You have a great habit ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... in comfort. Christmas Eve we had a celebration for the men in one of the hangars, which was all decorated. They all received some fine presents. The authorities had sent a package with all kinds of things for each one of them. In the evening we officers also ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... weave Through the boughs a lace of rime, While the bells of Christmas Eve Fling for Will the Stratford-chime O'er the river-flags emboss'd Rich with flowery runes of frost— O'er the meads where snowy tufts are toss'd— Strains of ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... laughing. Then the bunny uncle went close to the tree, off which Dr. Possum was taking some bark, and felt of it with his paw. The tree was indeed as slippery as an icy sidewalk slide on Christmas eve. ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... "On Christmas eve; and only think, Agnes, it will be four dollars less than we supposed. He will make it ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... Christmas Eve! Home to a six-o'clock supper after the daily paper distribution was finished, and then to bed, "'Cause going to bed early makes Christmas come ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... merrier Christmas Eve than we here. I went up to Court before church; and in one of the rooms, there being but little company, a fellow in a red coat without a sword came up to me, and, after words of course, asked me how the ladies did? I asked, "What ladies?" He said, "Mrs. Dingley and Mrs. Johnson." "Very ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... a sealed 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 at finding nothing in the piteous little ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... 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 fast and far, To raise the longest funeral ever seen ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... On Christmas eve everything was in readiness with us, and most anxiously did we wait for the signal. The hours rolled slowly on, and midnight passed, but no signal was given. We afterward learned that the citizens below failed in courage when the decisive moment came, and thus defeated ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... returned 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 |
