Christmas Quotes: Christmas 1941

Earlier this year I did a Top Ten Tuesday post about books that have been on my shelf for a very long time. Doing that post prompted me to actually read the book and now I am sharing a Christmas Quote from it!

This is an excerpt from a letter written to the writer's childhood friend who is serving in Europe while the writer is at her home in a seaside town in Devon

In the afternoon I went to see Lady B, who wouldn't let me into her room because of germs. So I went back home, lit the fire in the drawing-room, did the black-out all over the house annd sat down with my knitting. At six o'clock there was a lot of scuffling and scrunching on the path outside, and some children began singing carols. We get a lot of carols here, most of them squeaked hurriedly through the letter-box, but these were real carols, sung by a lot of children with a grown-up in charge.
'God Rest Your Merrie Gentlemen', they sang in their clear, sweet voices, and very nearly in tune. After that, we had 'Once in Royal David's City', and 'No-well, No-well'. A very small child came in with the collecting-box, and deeply moved by their performance, I gave, as they say, generously. When Charles came home he found me sitting in the dark, blowing my nose.
"You're not getting a cold, are you?" he said, rather crossly, as he switching on the lights. "Hullo!" he said, rather crossly, as he switched on the lights. "Hullo!" he said, peering at me closely, "what's going on here?"
"It was the carols," I muttered.
"But carols oughtn't to make you sad."
"Well, these did. There is so little, so very little peach and good will in the world just now, Charles."
Charles patted me kindly on the shoulder. "Not the international sort, perhaps. Plenty of individual good will," he said. "And now, go and put that cottage pie in the oven, I'm hungry."