Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Christmas Love Story - The Gift of the Magi

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Starting point is 00:00:46 please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with a bell to get alerts on all new free content. Thank you. Have you ever gazed in wonder at the Great Pyramid? Have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun? Or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti?

Starting point is 00:01:21 If you have, you'll probably like The History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore tales of this ancient culture. The history of Egypt is available. wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Welcome to Sleep Cove, the place to get a great night's sleep. Please listen to this recording in a place where you can safely go to sleep. Hi everyone, we're entering the Christmas season.

Starting point is 00:02:02 With that in mind, I've read out a classic Christmas season. story from O. Henry. The story describes a husband and wife who are buying and exchanging Christmas gifts for the first time. I really hope you enjoy it. This story will also be available on my premium feeds. Please go to patreon.com slash sleepcove or sleepcove.com slash support. to get more information about the premium feeds. This episode is made possible by Noom Mood. I want to recommend an app that I'm using for myself right now that's called Noom Mood.

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Starting point is 00:04:37 and feel happier. Sign up for your trial at Noom.com slash Sleepcove. That's your trial at Noom.com slash sleepcove. I can really recommend it. Speak in. The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry. $1.87. That was all. And 60 cents of it was in pennies. saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with silent impotation of parsimmy that such close deeming implied. Three times Della counted it, one dollar and eighty-seven cents, and the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing left to do, but flopped down on the little shabby couch and howl. So Della did, which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs,

Starting point is 00:05:52 sniffles and smiles, with sniffles predominating. While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home, a furnished flat of $8 per week. It did not exactly beg a description, but it certainly had that word of the lookout for the beggar squad. In the vestibule below was a letterbox into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining there and two was a card bearing the name

Starting point is 00:06:36 Mr James Dillingham Young, the letters that spelled out Dingingham on the letterbox had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of Dingingham looked blurred as though they were thinking seriously

Starting point is 00:07:02 of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James, Dingingham Young came home and reached his flat above, he was called Jim and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dingingham Young, already introduced to you as Dalla, which is all very good. Dalla finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a grey cat, walking a grey fence, in a grey backyard, tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she only had $1.87, with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.

Starting point is 00:07:57 $20 a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her gym. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling. Something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honour of being owned by Jim. There was a peer glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a peer class in an eight-dollar bat.

Starting point is 00:08:40 A very thin and very agile person may be observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della being slender had mastered the art. Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, and her face had lost its colour within 20 seconds. Rapidly, she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length. There were two possessions of the James Dilliam Youngs, in which they both took a mighty bride. One was Jim's gold watch, that had been his fathers and his grandfathers,

Starting point is 00:09:33 and the other was Dadda's hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat opposite the air shaft, Della would have let her long hair out of the window some day just to dry it, just to depreciate her majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon being the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed,

Starting point is 00:10:02 just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again, nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still, while a tear or two splashed on the wall red carpet. On went her old brown jacket, and on went her old brown hat, with a whirl of skirts, and with a brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she cluttered out of the door and down the stairs to the street. Where she stopped, the sign read, Madame Sofrani, hair goods of

Starting point is 00:11:05 all kinds. Della ran up the stairs and collected herself panting. Madame, too large, too white, chilly, hardly looked like soft runny. Will you buy my hair? asked Della. I buy hair, said Madame. Take your hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it. down rippled to the brown cascade of hair. Twenty dollars, said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand. Give it to me quick, said Donna.

Starting point is 00:11:49 Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stalls for Jim's present. She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain and chased in design,

Starting point is 00:12:22 properly proclaiming its value by substance alone, and not by meretricious ornamentation, as all good things should be. It was even worthy of the watch As soon as she saw it she knew it must be Jim's It was like him Quietness and value The description applied to both

Starting point is 00:12:48 $21 they took away from her As she hurried home with 78 cents With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap

Starting point is 00:13:12 that he used in place of a chain. When Della reached home, her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted to the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love, which is always a tremendous task, dear friends,

Starting point is 00:13:39 a mammoth task. Within 40 minutes, her head was covered with tiny, close lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully and critically. If Jim doesn't kill me, she said to herself, before he takes a second look at me,

Starting point is 00:14:08 he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do? Oh, what could I do with a dollar and 87 cents? Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. and she heard his step on the stairway down on the first flight, and she turned white for a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers about their simplest everyday things, and now she whispered, please God, make him think I am still pretty.

Starting point is 00:14:55 The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only 22 and to be burdened with a family. He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves. Jim stepped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she couldn't not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her

Starting point is 00:15:46 fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face. Delah wriggled off the table and went for him. Jim darling she cried don't look at me that way I had my hair cut off and sold it because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present it'll grow out again you won't mind will you I just had to do it my hair grows awfully fast say Merry Christmas Jim and let's be happy you don't know what a nice what a beautiful nice gift I've got

Starting point is 00:16:25 for you. You've cut off your hair, asked Jim, lay briskly, as he had not arrived at the patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labour. I cut it off and sold it, said Della. Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I? Jim looked around the room curiously. You say your hair is gone, he said, with an air of almost idiocy.

Starting point is 00:17:01 You needn't look for it, said Della. It's sold, I tell you, sold and gone too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered. She went on with a sudden serious sweetness, but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on Jim?

Starting point is 00:17:28 Out of his trance, Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his dollar. For ten seconds, let us regard with discrete scrutiny, some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week, or a million a year. What is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The Magi, known as the wise men, brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them.

Starting point is 00:18:04 The dark ascitation will be illuminated later on. Jim drew a package for his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table. Don't make any mistake, Dell, he said, about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap the package, you may see why you had me going a while at first. White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper, and then an ecstatic scream of joy. and then, alas, a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wales, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the Lord of the Flat.

Starting point is 00:19:06 For there lay the combs. The set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in Broadway window, beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell with jeweled rims, just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. She hooked them to her bosom,

Starting point is 00:19:46 and at length she was able to look at, with dim eyes and a smile and say, My hair grows so fast, Jim. And then Della leaped up like a little startled cat and cried, Uh oh. Jim had not seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with the

Starting point is 00:20:18 the reflection of her bright and ardent spirit. Isn't it dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day. Give me your watch, I want to see how it looks on it. Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled. Dale, said he, let's put our Christmas presents away and keep him a while.

Starting point is 00:20:54 They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on. The Magi, as you know, were wise men, wonderfully wise men who brought gifts to the babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication.

Starting point is 00:21:32 And here I have lamely related to you, the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in their last word to the wise of these days, let it be said that of all who give gifts, these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts,

Starting point is 00:22:03 such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest, they are the magi, the wise men.

Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Christmas Love Story - The Gift of the Magi

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