So the little girl went on with her little naked feet, which were quite red and blue with the cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny. Shivering with cold and hunger, she crept along; poor little child, she looked the picture of misery. The snowflakes fell on her long, fair hair, which hung in curls on her shoulders, but she regarded them not.
She had drawn her little feet under her, but she could not keep off the cold; and she dared not go home, for she had sold no matches, and could not take home even a penny of money.
[I]t was almost as cold at home as here, for they had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind howled, although the largest holes had been stopped up with straw and rags.
Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold. Ah! perhaps a burning match might be some good, if she could draw it from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm her fingers. She drew one out—“scratch!” how it sputtered as it burnt! It gave a warm, bright light, like a little candle, as she held her hand over it. It was really a wonderful light. It seemed to the little girl that she was sitting by a large iron stove, with polished brass feet and a brass ornament. How the fire burned! and seemed so beautifully warm that the child stretched out her feet as if to warm them, when, lo! the flame of the match went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the half-burnt match in her hand.
She rubbed another match on the wall. It burst into a flame, and where its light fell upon the wall it became as transparent as a veil, and she could see into the room. The table was covered with a snowy white table-cloth, on which stood a splendid dinner service, and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with apples and dried plums. And what was still more wonderful, the goose jumped down from the dish and waddled across the floor, with a knife and fork in its breast, to the little girl. Then the match went out, and there remained nothing but the thick, damp, cold wall before her.
[S]he made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
“The winter grew colder and colder; he was obliged to swim about on the water to keep it from freezing, but every night the space on which he swam became smaller and smaller. At length it froze so hard that the ice in the water crackled as he moved, and the duckling had to paddle with his legs as well as he could, to keep the space from closing up. He became exhausted at last, and lay still and helpless, frozen fast in the ice.”
“Coraline was too close to stop, and she felt the other mother’s cold arms enfold her. She stood there, rigid and trembling as the other mother held her tightly.”
“Jurgis had first come to the stockyards he had been as clean as any workingman could well be. But later on, what with sickness and cold and hunger and discouragement, and the filthiness of his work, and the vermin in his home, he had given up washing in winter, and in summer only as much of him as would go into a basin. He had had a shower bath in jail, but nothing since—and now he would have a swim!”
“Tough mindedness without tenderheartedness is cold and detached, leaving one’s life in a perpetual winter devoid of the warmth of spring in the gentle heat of summer. ”
“One of the gasping joys of summer was my daily bath in the spring. It was cold water, I never stayed in long, but it woke me up and started me into the day with a vengeance.”
“The dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the fire. This man did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge”
“We woke early, shivering and coated with dust that had blown up through the knotholes and in through the slits around the doorway. During the night Mama had unpacked all our clothes and heaped them on our beds for warmth.”
“What kept body and soul together in these men was a mystery. Canvas belts were drawn tight around empty bellies. The frost was crackling merrily. Not a warm spot, nor a spark of fire anywhere.”
“You have no right to make people undress in the freezing cold! You don’t know Article 9 of the Criminal Code! . . . But they did have. They did know. It’s you, brother, who don’t know anything yet!”
“Toad was getting colder and colder. He was beginning to shiver and sneeze. ‘I will have to come out of the water,’ said Toad. ‘I am catching a cold.’ ”
“I hereby promise faithfully to live to be a hundred. In order to do that, I must toughen up. I shall start on that this year. I shall learn how to tolerate both cold and heat.”
“The cold chill of fear ran up Miyax’s spine – the wolves would soon depart! Then what would she do? […]
Her hands trembled and she pressed them together to make them stop, for Kapugen had taught her that fear can so cripple a person that he cannot think or act. Already she was too scared to crawl.”
“Now you know food will spoil if you just leave it out in the open. So I did the only thing there was to do. I had dinner again. Think of it as a second helping, I was getting awfully full. But my cold was feeling a little better/ And I still didn’t have that cup of sugar for my dear old granny’s birthday cake.”
“Weasel was there already. ′ It’s so cold here.′ moaned Mr. Tod. ‘I keep warm by chasing rabbits,’ Weasel told him. Mr. Tod smirked. ‘I use clever ideas to catch rabbits,’ Mr. Tod said.”
″‘Your grandmother has caught a cold, grand children, and it is dark and windy out here. Quickly open up, and let your Po Po come in,’ the cunning wolf said.
Tao and Paotze could not wait. One unlatched the door and the other opened it. They shouted, ‘Po Po, Po Po, come in.‘”
“On the other side of Blueberry Hill, Little Bear came with his mother to eat blueberries. ‘Little Bear,’ she said, ‘eat lots of berries and grow big and fat. We must store up food for the long, cold winter’. “
“Bitterness isn’t usually found most deeply in those whose hearts are hard but rather in those who are most tender. It’s not that they are cold; it’s that they’ve been made to feel unsafe.”
“The flickering pine knot in the corner fireplace held blue flames. They had no warmth. There was loneliness and emptiness inside. When Mammy Sally came, the warmth would spark out in the fire, and the shadows would bring sleep.”
“But little by little they had nibbled up most of the nuts and berries, the straw was gone, and the corn was only a memory. It was cold in the wall and no one felt like chatting.”
“One is the Springmouse who turns on the showers. Then comes the Summer who paints in the flowers. The Fallmouse is next with the walnuts and wheat. And Winter is last…with little cold feet.”
“I felt cold and hot and sick and mad all at once. I only felt it for a second, only for a second and then it was gone—but sometimes now I wonder how it would be to feel like that all your life.”
″‘Gruffydd Rwfyn oir, ofn... Mi fuaswn yn hoffi aros. Peidiwch a gwneud i mi fynd. Peidiwch as gwelwch yn dda.’ The tape clicked off. There’s more. I recorded it last night while she was asleep, and managed to find someone to translate it. She says she’s tired and cold and she doesn’t want to go. She’s pleading with someone named Gruffydd to let her stay...”
“There was an Old Person of Mold,
Who shrank from sensations of cold;
So he purchased some muffs, some furs, and some fluffs,
And wrapped himself well from the cold.”
“He walked toward her instantly and put out his hand to lay it on her. There was nothing there but intense cold. All grew white about him. He groped on further. The white thickened about him and he felt himself stumbling and falling. But as he fell, he rolled over the threshold. It was thus that Diamond got to the back of the north wind.”
″ ‘I hate winter,’ said Griselda, pressing her cold little face against the colder window-pane, ‘I hate winter, and I hate lessons. I would give up being a person in a minute if I might be a-a-what would I best like to be? Oh yes, I know - a butterfly. Butterflies never see winter and they certainly never have any lessons or any kind of work to do. I hate must-ing to do anything.”
“The winter is cold, is cold.
All’s spent in keeping warm.
Has joy been frozen, too?
I blow upon my hands
Stiff from the biting wind.
My heart beats slow, beats slow.
What has become of joy?
″‘We’ve eloped,’ Christina said to Aunt Grace. She had not meant to use the silly word, but it had got stuck in her head, and she was too befuddled with cold to catch it before it slipped out.”
“He crossed to the far bank, shuddering with cold but walking slow and erect as he should through that icy, living water. As he came to the bank Ogion, waiting, reached out his hand and clasping the boy’s arm whispered to him his true name: Ged.”
“When she had finished, she called Borka and tried it on her. Borka was delighted, and flapped around with joy, because she had always been chilly at night.”
“Hugh Goch’s face was white and thin under the flame of his hair, long-boned and almost delicate, but his eyes were the cold, inhuman, gold-rimmed eyes of a bird of prey, and looking into them, Randal was more afraid than he had ever been in his life before.”
“Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn’t go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold.”
“Cold had come all right; you could see it as well as feel it. He turned quickly and trotted for the barn, eyeing the lower meadow as he went, dark-patched with ironweed, where the little frame chicken house stood looking shabby and frail.”
″ ‘Just look at his ears!’ cried Mrs Rabbit. ‘I’m sure I’d never hear him with those furry things. And, oh dear, no tail! - Well, well! Take care he does not catch cold. I really think he should have a tail to keep him warm.’ ”
“A chilly breeze rippled the dark water and the soggy wet bear shivered and shook from the cold and also from fright. Bruce knew that the night hunters were already out on the prowl, and now he was fair game.”
“There is none of the colour and tastiness of get-up, you will perceive, which lends such a life to the present game at Rugby, making the dullest and worst-fought match a pretty sight. Now each house has its own uniform of cap and jersey, of some lively colour; but at the time we are speaking of plush caps have not yet come in, or uniforms of any sort, except the School-house white trousers, which are abominably cold to-day. Let us get to work, bare-headed, and girded with our plain leather straps. But we mean business, gentlemen.”
“Once upon a time there was a frog called Mr. Jeremy Fisher; he lived in a little damp house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond.
The water was all slippery-sloppy in the larder and in the back passage.
But Mr. Jeremy liked getting his feet wet; nobody ever scolded him, and he never caught a cold!”
“I don’t know how it is, Christopher Robin, but what with all this snow and one thing and another, not to mention icicles and such-like, it isn’t so Hot in my field about three o’clock in the morning as some people think it is. It isn’t Close, if you know what I mean—not so as to be uncomfortable. It isn’t Stuffy. In fact, Christopher Robin,” he went on in a loud whisper, “quite-between-ourselves-and-don’t-tell-anybody, it’s Cold.”
The wind had dropped, and the snow, tired of rushing round in circles trying to catch itself up, now fluttered gently down until it found a place on which to rest, and sometimes the place was Pooh’s nose and sometimes it wasn’t, and in a little while Piglet was wearing a white muffler round his neck and feeling more snowy behind the ears than he had ever felt before.
So he sang it again.
The more it
SNOWS-tiddely-pom,
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.
And nobody
KNOWS-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing.
He sang it like that, which is much the best way of singing it, and when he had finished, he waited for Piglet to say that, of all the Outdoor Hums for Snowy Weather he had ever heard, this was the best. And, after thinking the matter out carefully, Piglet said:
“Pooh,” he said solemnly, “it isn’t the toes so much as the ears.”
“It’s not that I care a whoop what becomes of you, but for the dogs’ sakes I just want to tell you, you can help them a mighty lot by breaking out that sled. The runners are froze fast. Throw your weight against the gee-pole, right and left, and break it out.”
It appeared dry and cold; but at the bottom was dotted in with pencil an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, she had now no power to repeal it.