Five minutes, ten minutes, a quater of an hour went by, yet nothing came. ‘Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!’, ‘No, no! The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped – whither. Selfishness. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker’s they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled. ... Also the Ghost of Christmas Present criticises the "bigotry and selfishness" of those who supported Sabbatarianism . A smell like a washing-day! A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, pages 63-64. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea –on, on–until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. Hark! ... pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.” Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol 1834 POOR LAW. ‘Here’s Martha, mother!’ cried the two young Cratchits. There’s such a goose, Martha!’. ‘And it comes to the same thing.’. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn’t made a show of, and wasn’t led by anybody, and didn’t live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. Quotes related to Moral Responsibility within A Christmas Carol. ‘Hide, Martha, hide!’. After tea they had some music. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws[4] to peck at if they chose. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. Scrooge Fred. Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. ‘Oh, no, kind Spirit! God love it, so it was! Scrooge has just remarked that Marley was always a good man of business. ‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. The Ghost of Christmas Present also reveals Ignorance and Want - children who are described as "horrible" monsters. The following is Scrooge's interaction with the Ghost of Christmas Present on the issue of the Sabbath day--or at least that's what it looks like to me:In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet … Contempt. Chains of greed. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door. “Slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled” is a quotation from A Christmas Carol . Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.’. A Christmas Carol was the most successful book of the 1843 holiday season. The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. 50 quotes from A Christmas Carol - Oh, a wonderful pudding! ‘One half hour, Spirit, only one!’. Charles Dickens and The Ghost Club. She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not. He obeyed. ‘Oh, I have!’ said Scrooge’s nephew. A Christmas Carol Quotes. He shelters the two because, in the spirit of Christmas—a day the text encourages people to honor at all times—society should and must take care of the problems of ignorance and want, for the good of all. He reminds Scrooge that many people who claim a religious justification for their actions live as strangers to the true meaning of Christianity. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew’s and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability. The Ghost Club was founded in London in 1862 and, after initially receiving some light-hearted ridicule in the press, Charles Dickens joined the club, lending it a degree of respectability. The value of a life rests on proactive, positive morality rather than a passive strategy of avoiding sin. No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton’s spade that buried Jacob Marley. Make the poor seem more desperate. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,’ said Scrooge. Bob had but fifteen bob[7] a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house. ... and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. That was the pudding! Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes[2], and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. Christmas Carol. Then Bob proposed: ‘A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. This girl is Want. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. Alight shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. ‘Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,’ interrupted Scrooge’s niece. A decorated cake made for a Twelfth Night (January 5, the eve of Epiphany) celebration. I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Scrooge’s nephew, ‘because I haven’t great faith in these young housekeepers. ‘There are some upon this earth of yours,’ returned the Spirit, ‘who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Charles Dickens, “A Christmas Carol” (1843). Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. The time is drawing near.’. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.’. Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground. Suppose it should not be done enough! Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say,”Uncle Scrooge!” ‘, ‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is.’ said Scrooge’s nephew. ‘But they know me. Christmas : connotations:goodwill and generosity. Which it certainly was. ‘Here is a new game,’ said Scrooge. However, she can afford these ribbons and the family does have a Christmas goose, 'the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon' (p. 49). The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. To a poor one most.’, ‘Spirit?’ said Scrooge, after a moment’s thought, ‘I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.’, ‘You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day[6], often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,’ said Scrooge. ‘Forgive me if I am wrong. What’s the consequence? So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone. But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. Search all ... who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. 347 quotes from A Christmas Carol: ‘There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.’ ... hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. ‘More than eighteen hundred,’ said the Ghost. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. The overall message here reveals that one may be both a good businessman and a good person. Dickens attacks Sabbatarianism because of the restrictions it places on the poor. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! Hallo! Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. “There are some upon this earth of yours . Marley, distressed, knows that his true business should have been helping people. ‘You have never seen the like of me before!’ exclaimed the Spirit. And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze[9], and coarse rank grass. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to ‘Is it a bear?’ ought to have been ‘Yes;’ inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Home; Phonology ; Syntax and Pragmatics ... and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. ‘Have they no refuge or resource?’ cried Scrooge. And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge’s clerk’s; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. God bless us!’. A great deal of steam! So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. A Christmas Carol ; Summary ... and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.’. Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. ‘To any kindly given. He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinking–ha, ha, ha!–that he is ever going to benefit us with it.’. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins[3], squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. Think of that. They are always in earnest. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Bakers were forbidden to bake bread on Sundays and holidays, but for a small fee they allowed people to bring meals to be cooked in their bakery ovens. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. ‘I am afraid I have not. There never was such a goose. The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment. ‘A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,’ returned the Spirit. ‘Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, ‘but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. oh the Grocers’! ‘And your brother, Tiny Tim? I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. Blessings on it, how the Ghost exulted! ‘Well. ‘Are spirits’ lives so short?’ asked Scrooge. Charles Dickens's novel, A Christmas Carol (1843), is the famous redemption tale of the wicked Ebenezer Scrooge. Bigotry. You can view our. ‘Come in! Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. There was nothing of high mark in this. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion. ‘We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,’ replied the girl, ‘and had to clear away this morning, mother.’, ‘Well! Oh, perfectly satisfactory! "Look upon me!" It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint and subsequently bilious. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.’. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. See the preface to. ... pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Dickens is, yet again, attacking the restriction placed on the poor . ‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge submissively, ‘conduct me where you will. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?’. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. Self-ignition. You know he is, Robert. He don’t make himself comfortable with it. ‘Spirit, are they yours?’ Scrooge could say no more. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. Ignorance & want plays a large role in A Christmas Carol & works aside religious imagery to convey the author’s message. Suppose it should break in turning out. linguistic analysis of literature A Christmas carol by charles dickens. Long life to him! I know what it is, Fred! Dickens uses the Ghost of Christmas Present to condemn the "bigotry, and selfishness" of those who supported Sabbatarianism. poor left to live in dreadful conditions. Any help would be appreciated. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. Scrooge reverently did so. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while Bob, turning up his cuffs–as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby–compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. A Christmas Carol † is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1843, that few contemporary people have read but pretty much everyone knows the story of.But, for the record... Ebenezer Scrooge, a hard-hearted, crotchety old moneylender living in Victorian London, is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley. “There are some upon this earth of yours who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. ‘Mr Scrooge!’ said Bob; ‘I’ll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!’, ‘The Founder of the Feast indeed!’ cried Mrs Cratchit, reddening. Until the night his … And so it was! The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song–it had been a very old song when he was a boy!-and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. ‘Wouldn’t you?’, ‘You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,’ said Scrooge. Sadly, A Christmas Carol wasn’t the moneymaker that Dickens hoped it would be. ‘Do go on, Fred,’ said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands. Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.