Happy holidays!

BrontëBlog would like to wish one and all a wonderful Christmas (or any other holiday you celebrate). To let the Brontës into our celebration, we bring you a selection of the beautiful quotes we received for our Christmas contest:

From Michael:
'My dear girl', she said, 'one happy Christmas Eve I dressed and decorated myself, expecting my lover, very soon to be my husband, would come that night to visit me. I sat down to wait. Once more I see that moment - I see the snow-twilight stealing through the window over which the curtain was not dropped, for I designed to watch him ride up the white walk; I see and feel the soft firelight warming me, playing on my silk dress, and fitfully showing me my own young figure in a glass. I see the moon of a calm winter night float full, clear and cold, over the inky mass of shrubbery, and the silvered turf of my grounds. I wait, with some impatience in my pulse, but no doubt in my breast. The flames had died in the fire, but it was a bright mass yet; the moon was mounting high, but she was still visible from the lattice; the clock neared ten; he rarely tarried later than this, but once or twice he had been delayed so long.
(Villette, Chapter IV, by Charlotte Brontë)

From Kat
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
(Wuthering Heights, Chapter XXXIV, by Emily Brontë)

From M. Schelling
We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.
(Jane Eyre, chapter VIII, by Charlotte Brontë)

From Marybeth
Running through the vestibule, and up-stairs to the drawing-room, there I found Mrs. Bretton--a summer-day in her own person. Had I been twice as cold as I was, her kind kiss and cordial clasp would have warmed me. Inured now for so long a time to rooms with bare boards, black benches, desks, and stoves, the blue saloon seemed to me gorgeous. In its Christmas-like fire alone there was a clear and crimson splendour which quite dazzled me.
(Villette, chapter XXIV, by Charlotte Brontë)

From Hannah
I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. (Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey , January 15, 1849)

And of course the weekly quote on the sidebar this week and the coming week will be the ones sent by the winners (Amy and Merry) of the two prizes.

A big thank you to everyone who participated - we would have loved to have had a present for everyone.

Have a very merry Christmas!

Picture: Keith Melling

Looking down the steep cobbled main street of Haworth - famous for its Bronte associations. Haworth is not really in the Yorkshire Dales but is not too far away.
From an oil painting.
Signed Limited Edition of 850. 8 x 12 ins. More information, here.

Categories: Messages from BB