A Christmas Carol: Annotation-Friendly Edition

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Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge returned his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him. As he struggled with the Spirit he was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bed-room. He had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour . The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversation apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that it must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. It could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was the Future. You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament ; but I mean to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and done it easy . There was plenty of width for that, and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip.

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I do. Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!" Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

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I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer." More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece, indignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest. Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course ,’ said Scrooge. ` I’m very glad to hear it.’

Annotated Christmas Carol – A Christmas Carol in Prose: 0 The Annotated Christmas Carol – A Christmas Carol in Prose: 0

Famously grumpy, stingy, and known for his hatred of Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge inspired the label 'Scrooge'. The word 'Scrooge' has entered common language and is often used to describe people who are bad-tempered around the festive season. Without their visits,’ said the Ghost, `you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One.’ He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were. They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them. But there they were in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants. In the past I have viewed the temporal structure of the tale (ghost past, ghost present, ghost future) as an effective but obvious device. But the more I think about it, the more profound it seems, psychologically and spiritually. This, after all, is the pattern of every true conversion, the manner in which we grow in sympathy toward our fellow human beings: we reflect upon the emotionally charged sense impressions of the past, observe their consequences for good or ill manifested in the present, and then—on the basis of these observations—we make a decision to act in a new way, a way which draws us grow closer to love. Certainly St. Augustine would have understood, for it was how he envisioned the Trinity, as a model of love in action: memory, understanding, and will.Tiny Tim talks about going to church and says, “it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” Marley's face, with a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but it looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look, -- with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead. An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey, -- the big one?"

A Christmas Carol: Stave 1 Plot Summary Video - Twinkl A Christmas Carol: Stave 1 Plot Summary Video - Twinkl

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes." At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,’ said the gentleman, taking up a pen, `it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.’ I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin. "Company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know. Bye, bye!" He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. `Christmas a humbug, uncle!’ said Scrooge’s nephew. `You don’t mean that, I am sure?’I will,’ said Scrooge. `But don’t be hard upon me! Don’t be flowery, Jacob! Pray!’ `How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.’ Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist, no night; clear, bright, stirring, golden day. Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!" Alternatively, you can explore a full range of A Christmas Carol Resources. Whatever you need to teach this insightful and important novella, you'll be able to find it here (and if not, just let us know). Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off to the wash-house that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

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I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed." Am I that man who lay upon the bed? No, Spirit! O no, no! Spirit! hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope? Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life." It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel . The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles , designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs’ daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts -- and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole . If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on every one. It matters little," she said softly to Scrooge's former self. "To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve." Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have drank to the unconscious company in an inaudible speech. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him; but his own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.