Grace S. Richmond > Quotes

“Actual physical repose isn’t often the best cure for weariness: it’s change of thought and occupation, particularly if the open air is a part of the cure. I’ve forgotten I have a care in the world.”
― Grace S. Richmond

“If you imagine that this little drama had escaped the attention of the departing congregation, headed the other way, you are much mistaken. The congregation was not headed the other way. From the moment when Burnett, Fraser and Tomlinson had started toward the pulpit, the congregation, to a man, had paused, and was staring directly toward them. It continued to stare, up to the moment when the handshaking took place. But then—eyes turned and met other eyes. Hearts beat fast, lips trembled, feet moved. Unquestionably something had happened to the people of North Estabrook.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening

“Speaking of Aunt Eliza, Mother, makes me think of the old church. She used to talk so much about liking to hear the bell ring, right up over her head, next door. Does the bell ever ring, these days—or have cobwebs grown over the clapper?” A shadow dropped upon Mrs. Fernald’s bright face, but before she could speak her husband answered for her. He was more than a little deaf, but he was listening closely, and he caught the question. “It’s a miserable shame, Nancy, but that church hasn’t had a door open since a year ago last July, when the trouble burst out. We haven’t had a service there since. Mother and I drive over to Estabrook when we feel like getting out—but that’s not often, come winter-time.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening

“But the faces were the same—the faces. And George Tomlinson did not look at Asa Fraser, though he passed him in the aisle, beard to beard. Miss Jane Pollock stared hard at the back of Mrs. Maria Hill’s bonnet, in the pew in front of her, but when Mrs. Hill turned about to glance up at the organ-loft, to discover who was there, Miss Pollock’s face became as adamant, and her eyes remained fixed on her folded hands until Mrs. Hill had twisted about again, and there was no danger of their glances encountering. All over the church, likewise, were people who avoided seeing each other, though conscious, all down their rigid backbones, that those with whom they had fallen out on that unhappy July day were present.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening

“Dear Nan: It's a confounded, full-grown shame that not a soul of us all got home for Christmas—except yours truly, and he only for a couple of hours. What have the blessed old folks done to us that we treat them like this? I was invited to the Sewalls' for the day, and went, of course—you know why. We had a ripping time, but along toward evening I began to feel worried. I really thought Ralph was home—he wrote me that he might swing round that way by the holidays—but I knew the rest of you were all wrapped up in your own Christmas trees and weren't going to get there.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Morning

“We really must make an effort to be there Christmas next year, Sam," she said to her husband, and Sam assented cheerfully. He only wished there were a father and mother somewhere in the world for him to go home to.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Morning

“Ah, it’s not worth while,” agreed the old man quickly. “It’s not worth while for any of us to be hard on one another, no matter what the facts. Life is pretty difficult, at its best—we can’t afford to make it more difficult for any human soul. Go back to town and make it right with your friend, Mr. Burnett. I take it he was your friend, or you wouldn’t think of him to-night.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening

“don't we owe the old home anything but a present tied up in tissue paper once a year?”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Morning

“Let him alone,” said he. “He gets enough of prominent positions. If he wants to sit on the fence and kick his heels a while, let him. He’s certainly earned the right to do as he pleases to-night. By George!—talk about magnificent team-work! If ever I saw a sacrifice play I saw it to-night.” Sewall shook his head. “You may have seen team-work,” said he, “though Mr. Blake was the most of the team. But there was no sacrifice play on my part. It was simply a matter of passing the ball to the man who could run. I should have been down in four yards—if I ever got away at all.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening

“It turned out he'd written home about enlisting, and he'd got back a letter from his mother, all sobs. He didn't know what to do about it. You see the fellows were all writing home, and trying to break it gently that when they got there they'd have to put it up to the family to say "Go, and God bless you!" But it was looking pretty dubious for some of my special friends. Their mothers were all right, an awfully nice sort, of course, but when it came to telling Bob and Sam and Hector to enlist—they just simply couldn't do it.”
― Grace S. Richmond, The Whistling Mother

“Sewall smiled. “Somehow this strikes me as the bigger one,” said he. “The wisest of my old professors used to say that the further you got into the country the less it mattered about your clothes but the more about your sermon. I’ve been wondering, all the way up, if I knew enough to preach that sermon. Isn’t there any minister in town, not even a visiting one?” “Not a one. You can’t get out of it, Billy Sewall, if you have got an attack of stage-fright—which we don’t believe.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening

“But after all, it's the mothers, I think, who do the biggest giving when their sons go to war. I suspect it's what they put into their sons that stands for the real stuff in the crisis. I don't think there are many weak mothers, like Hoofy Gilbert's, even among the ones who are invalids. But I wish more of them understood what it is to a fellow to have his mother hold her head up!”
― Grace S. Richmond, The Whistling Mother

“Which wasn't true a bit, for she drives just as well as I do—she ought to, I taught her. But she has an awfully clever little trick of making a fellow feel good, and I like it—who wouldn't? A lot of mothers never lose an opportunity to take a son down a bit—though I don't suppose one would whose son had come to say goodbye.”
― Grace S. Richmond, The Whistling Mother

“As for Grandfather and Grandmother, they went through the Civil War, and they knew, better than any of us, what might be ahead.”
― Grace S. Richmond, The Whistling Mother

“They were not bidden to lie down together like lambs, they were summoned to march together like lions—the lions of the Lord. As William Sewall looked down into the faces of the people and watched the changing expressions there, he felt that the strange, strong, challenging words were going home. He saw stooping shoulders straighten even as the preacher’s had straightened; he saw heads come up, and eyes grow light;—most of all, he saw that at last the people had forgotten one another and were remembering—God.”
― Grace S. Richmond, On Christmas Day in the Evening