Christmas Carol, A.—A ghost story of Christmas, by Charles Dickens, published in 1843, with illustrations by John Leech. “We are all charmed,” wrote Lord Jeffrey to the author, “with your Carol, chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchits is like the dream of a benevolent angel, in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim in life and death almost as sweet and touching as Nelly.”
Christmas Eve.—A poem by Robert Browning, in which, “after following through a long course of reflection the successive phases of religious belief, he arrives at the certainty that, however confused be the vision of Christ, where His love is, there is the Life; and that, the more direct the revelation of that Love, the deeper and more vital is its power.”
Christopher, St.—The giant that carried a child over a brook, and said, “Chylde, thou has put me in grete peryll. I might bere no greater burden.” The Chylde was the Christ and the burden was the “Sin of the World.” This has been a favorite theme for painters.
Chrysalde (krē-zäld´).—A character in Molière’s L’Ecole des Femmes; a friend of Arnolphe.
Chrysale (krē-zäl´).—An honest, simple-minded, henpecked tradesman, in the same comedy by Molière.
Chuzzlewit, Martin.—The hero of Dickens’ novel of the same name. The story is remarkable for the attention it directed to the system of ship hospitals and to the workhouse nurses whose prototype in Sarah Gamp has become famous all over the world.
Chuzzlewit, Jonas.—A miser and a murderer, the opposite type of character from Martin.
Cimmerians (si-mē´ri-anz).—A people described by Homer dwelling “beyond the ocean stream,” in a land where the sun never shines.
Cinderella.—Heroine of a fairy tale. She is the drudge of the house, while her elder sisters go to fine balls. At length a fairy enables her to go to the prince’s ball; the prince falls in love with her, and she is discovered by means of a glass slipper which she drops, and which will fit no foot but her own. She is represented as returning good for evil and heaping upon her half-sisters every kindness a princess can show.