Nov. 24, 2023
A Christmas Carol: Stave I - Marley's Ghost
In this episode of "Forward Into The Past," J.C. Rede continues his retelling of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." He starts with Stave I, where we learn about the death of Jacob Marley and the introduction of Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is portrayed as a cold and miserly man who has no interest in the holiday season. However, his nephew tries to convince him to embrace the Christmas spirit, but Scrooge dismisses him. After his nephew leaves, two gentlemen visit Scrooge to ask for a donation to help the poor, but he refuses. Later that night, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Jacob Marley, who warns him that he will be visited by three spirits. Scrooge is skeptical but agrees to listen to Marley's message.
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Transcript
WEBVTT
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Hi friends, and welcome to another episode of Forward into the Past.
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I'm J.
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C.
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Rede, your host and narrator, and today I'm tackling a daunting holiday classic for the second time, Charles Dickens immortal story, A Christmas Carol.
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And hopefully I can stay healthy until the end of the story.
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Last year, I only got to stave two before I succumbed to an illness.
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So, stay with me, friends.
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It's sure to be a rollercoaster.
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Charles Dickens 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, is a beloved holiday classic that has been enjoyed by generations of readers, listeners, and movie watchers alike.
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The story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future has become synonymous with the Christmas spirit.
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But beyond its timeless message of redemption and goodwill, A Christmas Carol has also had a profound impact on our modern day Christmas celebrations.
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In the early 19th century, Christmas was not the widely celebrated holiday it is today.
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It was primarily a religious holiday and its focus was on church attendance and charitable giving.
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Dickens, however, wanted to create a more secular and family oriented Christmas, one that was filled with joy, generosity, and togetherness.
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A Christmas Carol helped to popularize many of the Christmas traditions that we still enjoy today, including the Christmas tree.
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The first mention of a Christmas tree in England appeared in Dickens novella, The Pickwick Papers, published in 1836.
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A Christmas Carol further cemented the popularity of the Christmas tree, and it is now a fixture in homes all over the world.
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Christmas carols.
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Charles Dickens was also a prolific songwriter, and many of his Christmas carols such as The Boar's Head Carol and Oh Come All Ye Faithful are still sung today.
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The Christmas Feast The Cratchit's Christmas dinner in A Christmas Carol is a classic example of the traditional Christmas feast.
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The meal typically includes a roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy.
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A Christmas Carol has had a lasting impact on our culture, and its influence on Christmas celebrations is undeniable.
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The novella's message of compassion and goodwill is as relevant today as it was in Dickens time, and its heartwarming story continues to inspire people of all ages.
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In addition to popularizing many of the Christmas traditions that we enjoy today, A Christmas carol has also helped to shape our understanding of the holiday's true meaning.
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Dickens novella reminds us that Christmas is not about material possessions or superficial celebrations, but about love, generosity, and spending time with loved ones.
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And, speaking of spending time with loved ones, Why don't you make yourself comfortable, friends?
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Get yourself a nice warm beverage and share some time with me as I bring you Stave 1 of Charles Dickens classic ghost story, A Christmas Carol.
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Stave 1 Marley's Ghost Marley was dead, to begin with.
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There is no doubt whatever about that.
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The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
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Scrooge signed it and Scrooge's name was good upon change for anything he chose to put his hand to.
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Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
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Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge what there is particularly dead about a doornail.
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I might have been inclined myself to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade, but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for.
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You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a doornail.
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The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from.
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There is no doubt that Marley was dead.
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This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
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If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night in an easterly wind upon his own ramparts than there would be in any other middle aged gentleman.
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Rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot, say, St.
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Paul's Churchyard, for instance, literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
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Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name.
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There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley.
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The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.
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Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge, Scrooge, and sometimes Marley.
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But he answered to both names.
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It was all the same to him.
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Oh, but he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge.
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A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner.
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Hard, and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire.
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Secret, and self contained, and solitary as an oyster.
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The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.
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A frosty rhyme was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.
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He carried his own low temperature always about with him.
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He iced his office in the dog days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
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External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.
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No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.
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No wind that blew was bitterer than he.
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No falling snow was more intent upon its purpose.
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No pelting rain, less open to entreaty.
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Foul weather didn't know where to have him.
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The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.
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They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
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But what did Scrooge care?
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It was the very thing he liked.
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To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the Knowing Ones called nuts to Scrooge.
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Once upon a time, of all the good days of the year, on Christmas Eve, old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house.
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It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.
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The city clocks had only just gone three, but...
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It was quite dark already.
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It had not been light all day, and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.
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The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, Although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.
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To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
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The door of Scrooge's counting house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters.
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Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller, that it looked like one coal, but he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room, and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part, wherefore, the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle, in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.
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A Merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice.
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It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly, that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
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'Bah! said Scrooge.
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'Humbug! 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.
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His face was ruddy and handsome, his eyes sparkled and his breath smoked again.
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Christmas, a humbug, uncle, said Scrooge's nephew.
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You don't mean that, I'm sure.
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I do, said Scrooge.
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Merry Christmas.
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What right have you to be merry?
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What reason have you to be merry?
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You're poor enough.
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Come, then, returned the nephew gaily, what right have you to be dismal?
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What reason have you to be morose?
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You're rich enough! Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said,'Ah! again, and followed it up with,'Humbug! Oh, don't be cross, uncle, said the nephew.
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What else can I be, returned the uncle, when I live in such a world of fools as this?
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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 could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly,'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!'Oh, uncle! pleaded the nephew.
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Nephew, returned the uncle sternly, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.
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Keep it, repeated Scrooge's nephew, but you don't keep it.
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Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge.
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Much good may it do you.
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Much good has it ever done you.
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There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, returned the nephew.
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Christmas among the rest, but I am sure I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round, as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time, the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open up their shut up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
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And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and it will do me good, and I say, God bless it! The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.
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Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.
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Let me hear another sound from you! said Scrooge.
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And you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.
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Hmph.
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You're quite a powerful speaker, sir, he added, turning to his nephew.
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I wonder you don't go into Parliament.
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Don't be angry, Uncle.
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Come, dine with us tomorrow.
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Scrooge said that he would see him.
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Yes, indeed, he did.
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He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
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But, but why?
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cried Scrooge's nephew.
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Why?
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Why?
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Why did you get married?
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said Scrooge.
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Well, because I fell in love.
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Because you fell in love! growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a Merry Christmas.
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Good afternoon.
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Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened.
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Why give it as a reason for not coming now?
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Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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I want nothing from you.
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I ask nothing of you.
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Why cannot we be friends?
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Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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Well, I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute.
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We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party.
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But, I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last.
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So, a Merry Christmas, Uncle! Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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And a Happy New Year! Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding.
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He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them cordially.
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There's another fellow, muttered Scrooge, who overheard him.
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My clerk, with fifteen shillings a week and a wife and a family, talking about a merry Christmas.
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I'll retire to Bedlam.
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This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in.
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They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood with their hats off in Scrooge's office.
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They had books and papers in their hands and bowed to him.
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Ah, yes.
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Uh, Scrooge and Marley's, I believe said one of the gentlemen referring to his list.
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Uh, ha have I the pleasure of addressing Mr.
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Scrooge or Mr.
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Marley?
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Mr.
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Marley has been dead these seven years.
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Scrooge replied.
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He died seven years ago this very night.
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Oh, well, uh, we, we have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner, said the gentleman presenting his credentials.
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It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits.
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At the ominous word liberality, Scrooge frowned and shook his head and handed the credentials back.
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At this festive season of the year, Mr.
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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.
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Many thousands are in want of common necessaries, hundreds of thousands are in want of Common comforts, sir.
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Are there no prisons?
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asked Scrooge.
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Oh, plenty of prisons, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
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And the union workhouses, demanded Scrooge.
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Are they still in operation?
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Oh, they are still, returned the gentleman.
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I wish I could say they were not.
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The treadmill and the poor law are in full vigour then, said Scrooge.
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Both very busy, sir.
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Oh.
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Huh.
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I was afraid from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course.
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Said Scrooge.
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I am very glad to hear it.
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Oh, I...
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Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude, returned the gentleman, a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.
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We chose this time because it is a time of all others when want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices.
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What shall I put you down for?
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Nothing, Scrooge replied.
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You, you wish to be anonymous?
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I wish to be left alone, said Scrooge.
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Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.
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I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry.
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I help to support the establishments I have mentioned.
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They cost enough, and those who are badly off must go there.
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Uh, well, many can't go there, and many would rather die.
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If they would rather die, said Scrooge, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
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Good afternoon, gentlemen.
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Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentleman withdrew.
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Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
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Meanwhile, the fog and darkness thickened so that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses and carriages and conduct them on their way.
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The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
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The cold became intense, foggier yet and colder.
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Piercing, searching, biting cold.
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If the good St.
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Dunstan had but nipped the evil spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed, he would have roared to lusty purpose.
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The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol.
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But, at the first sound of god bless you merry, gentlemen.
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May nothing you dismay.
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Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.
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At length, the hour of shutting up the Counting House had arrived.
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With an ill will, Scrooge dismounted from his stool and tacitly admitted the fact to his expectant clerk in the tank who instantly snuffed out his candle and put on his hat.
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You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose, said Scrooge.
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Oh, if quite convenient, sir.
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It's not convenient, said Scrooge, and it's not fair.
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If I was to stop half a crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound.
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The clerk smiled faintly.
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And yet, said Scrooge, you don't think me ill used when I pay a day's wages for no work.
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The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
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Huh, a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December, said Scrooge buttoning his greatcoat to the chin.
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But, I suppose you must have the whole day.
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Be here all the earlier next morning.
00:20:27.737 --> 00:20:31.686
The clerk promised that he would, and Scrooge walked out with a growl.
00:20:32.692 --> 00:20:53.541
The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist, for he boasted no great coat, went down a slide on Corn Hill at the end of a lane of boys twenty times in honor of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt to play at blind man's buff.
00:20:54.192 --> 00:21:05.652
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern, and having read all the newspapers and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed.
00:21:06.961 --> 00:21:11.291
He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner.
00:21:12.182 --> 00:21:29.321
They were a gloomy suite of rooms in a lowering pile of building up a yard, Where it had so little business to be, That one could scarcely help fancying, And it must have run there when it was a young house, Playing at hide and seek with the other houses, And have forgotten the way out again.
00:21:30.332 --> 00:21:38.491
It was old enough now, and dreary enough, For nobody lived in it but Scrooge, The other rooms being all let out as offices.
00:21:39.876 --> 00:21:48.527
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.
00:21:49.487 --> 00:22:00.047
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house that it seemed as if the genius of weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
00:22:00.696 --> 00:22:09.196
Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large.
00:22:10.517 --> 00:22:17.727
It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it night and morning during his whole residence in that place.
00:22:17.957 --> 00:22:29.977
Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven years dead partner that afternoon and then.
00:22:30.781 --> 00:22:48.182
Let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face.
00:22:50.172 --> 00:22:52.152
Yes, Marley's face.
00:22:52.321 --> 00:23:01.231
It was not an impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it.
00:23:02.247 --> 00:23:11.977
It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look, with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.
00:23:12.906 --> 00:23:23.366
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath of hot air, and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless.
00:23:23.957 --> 00:23:27.596
That, and its livid color, made it horrible.
00:23:28.436 --> 00:23:35.656
But its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
00:23:37.007 --> 00:23:42.396
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
00:23:43.946 --> 00:23:53.517
To say that he was not startled or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy would be untrue.
00:23:54.186 --> 00:23:55.596
But he put his hand upon the key.
00:23:55.596 --> 00:24:01.057
He had relinquished, turned sternly, walked in and lighted his candle.
00:24:02.251 --> 00:24:28.261
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door, and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall, but there was nothing on the back of the door except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he closed it with a bang.
00:24:29.781 --> 00:24:30.531
The sound.
00:24:30.672 --> 00:24:33.892
Scrooge resounded through the house like thunder.
00:24:34.162 --> 00:24:41.642
Every room above and every cask in the wine merchant cellars below appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own.
00:24:42.761 --> 00:24:46.432
Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes.
00:24:47.922 --> 00:24:56.261
He fastened the door and walked across the hall and up the stairs, slowly, too, trimming his candle as he went.
00:24:57.957 --> 00:25:02.436
Half a dozen gas lamps out of the street would not have lighted the entry too well.
00:25:02.946 --> 00:25:07.124
So you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.
00:25:07.124 --> 00:25:11.846
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.
00:25:12.307 --> 00:25:15.604
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.
00:25:16.801 --> 00:25:23.051
But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that it was all right.
00:25:23.922 --> 00:25:27.692
He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.
00:25:28.692 --> 00:25:29.362
Sitting room.
00:25:30.382 --> 00:25:30.961
Bedroom.
00:25:31.682 --> 00:25:32.382
Lumber room.
00:25:32.432 --> 00:25:33.571
All as they should be.
00:25:34.422 --> 00:25:35.541
Nobody under the table.
00:25:35.872 --> 00:25:37.152
Nobody under the sofa.
00:25:37.882 --> 00:25:42.872
Small fire in the grate, spoon and basin ready, and the little saucepan of gruel.
00:25:43.321 --> 00:25:46.412
Scrooge had a cold in his head, upon the hob.
00:25:47.567 --> 00:25:49.067
Nobody under the bed.
00:25:50.156 --> 00:25:51.116
Nobody in the closet.
00:25:51.767 --> 00:25:56.997
Nobody in his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.
00:25:58.176 --> 00:25:59.596
Lumber room, as usual.
00:26:00.386 --> 00:26:01.436
Old fire guard.
00:26:01.797 --> 00:26:02.616
Old shoes.
00:26:02.906 --> 00:26:03.967
Two fish baskets.
00:26:04.957 --> 00:26:06.636
Washing stand on three legs.
00:26:06.636 --> 00:26:08.517
And a poker.
00:26:10.317 --> 00:26:11.176
Quite satisfied.
00:26:11.666 --> 00:26:14.747
Quite satisfied, he closed his door and locked himself in.
00:26:15.981 --> 00:26:30.521
Double locked himself in, which was not his custom, thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat, put on his dressing gown and slippers, and his nightcap, and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
00:26:32.662 --> 00:26:38.301
It was a very low fire indeed, nothing on such a bitter night.
00:26:39.227 --> 00:26:47.317
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.
00:26:48.346 --> 00:26:58.007
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.
00:26:59.047 --> 00:27:00.457
There were canes and ables.
00:27:00.797 --> 00:27:23.991
Pharaoh's daughters, queens of Sheba, angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like featherbeds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, apostles putting off to sea in butterboats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts, and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient prophets rod and swallowed up the whole.
00:27:25.342 --> 00:27:40.811
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 single one.
00:27:42.642 --> 00:27:45.855
Humbug! said Scrooge, and walked across the room.
00:27:47.244 --> 00:27:50.085
After several turns, he sat down again.
00:27:51.234 --> 00:28:07.224
As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with the chamber in the highest story of the building.
00:28:08.545 --> 00:28:21.535
It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing.
00:28:22.295 --> 00:28:34.730
It swung so softly in the outset, that it Scarcely made a sound, but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
00:28:35.569 --> 00:28:40.150
This might have lasted half a minute or a full minute, but it seemed like an hour.
00:28:42.299 --> 00:28:46.250
Then the bells ceased, as they had begun together.
00:28:46.900 --> 00:28:47.984
They were succeeded.
00:28:48.414 --> 00:28:59.884
By clanking noise deep down below as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar.
00:29:01.214 --> 00:29:24.599
Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains the cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below, then coming up the stairs, then coming straight towards his door.
00:29:25.849 --> 00:29:28.640
It's humbug still, said Scrooge.
00:29:28.670 --> 00:29:40.500
I won't believe it! His color changed, though, when, without a pause, It came on through the heavy door, And passed into the room before his eyes.
00:29:41.150 --> 00:29:51.039
Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, As though it cried, I know him, Marley's ghost, And fell again.
00:29:52.910 --> 00:29:53.950
The same night.
00:29:54.384 --> 00:30:08.855
Face the very same, Marley, in his pigtail, his usual waistcoat, tights and boots, the tassels on the latter bristling like his pigtails, and his coat skirts and the hair upon his head.
00:30:09.505 --> 00:30:13.644
The chain he drew was clasped about his middle.
00:30:13.944 --> 00:30:20.704
It was long and wound about him like a tail, and it was made, for Scrooge observed it closely.
00:30:21.230 --> 00:30:28.690
Of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, And heavy purses wrought in steel.
00:30:29.900 --> 00:30:39.049
His body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
00:30:39.619 --> 00:30:46.980
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:51.279
No, nor did he believe it even now.
00:30:52.500 --> 00:31:12.319
Though he looked the phantom through and through and saw it standing before him, though he felt the chilling influence of its death cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before, he was still incredulous and fought against his senses.
00:31:12.970 --> 00:31:17.849
How now, said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever, what do you want with me?
00:31:18.500 --> 00:31:19.259
Much.
00:31:19.521 --> 00:31:21.761
Marley's voice, no doubt about it.
00:31:22.352 --> 00:31:24.051
Who are you?
00:31:26.301 --> 00:31:28.781
Ask me who I was.
00:31:29.432 --> 00:31:31.862
Oh, who were you then?
00:31:32.031 --> 00:31:33.561
Said Scrooge, raising his voice.
00:31:33.932 --> 00:31:35.912
You're particular for a shade.
00:31:37.392 --> 00:31:42.582
In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley.
00:31:43.082 --> 00:31:46.342
Can you, can you sit down?
00:31:46.511 --> 00:31:48.801
Asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.
00:31:50.132 --> 00:31:51.021
I can.
00:31:53.021 --> 00:31:53.652
Do it, then.
00:31:54.152 --> 00:32:07.241
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair, and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation.
00:32:08.342 --> 00:32:14.122
But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.
00:32:16.061 --> 00:32:20.461
You don't believe in me, observed the ghost.
00:32:22.142 --> 00:32:24.192
I don't, said Scrooge.
00:32:24.971 --> 00:32:31.602
What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your own senses?
00:32:32.102 --> 00:32:34.201
I don't know, said Scrooge.
00:32:35.981 --> 00:32:38.271
Why do you doubt your senses?
00:32:38.771 --> 00:32:42.442
Because, said Scrooge, a little thing affects them.
00:32:42.682 --> 00:32:45.541
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats.
00:32:46.152 --> 00:32:54.172
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.
00:32:54.561 --> 00:32:57.961
No, there's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are.
00:32:58.612 --> 00:33:05.051
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then.
00:33:05.652 --> 00:33:17.001
The truth is that he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror, for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.
00:33:17.332 --> 00:33:23.872
To sit staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment would play, Scrooge felt.
00:33:24.356 --> 00:33:33.616
The very deuce with him, there was something very awful, too, in the specters being provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own.
00:33:34.696 --> 00:33:38.787
Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case.
00:33:39.156 --> 00:33:48.797
For though the ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair and skirts and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapor from an oven.
00:33:49.446 --> 00:33:50.856
You see this toothpick?
00:33:51.106 --> 00:34:01.156
Said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge for the reason just assigned, and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.
00:34:02.767 --> 00:34:04.977
I do, replied the Ghost.
00:34:05.477 --> 00:34:08.007
You are not looking at it, said Scrooge.
00:34:08.137 --> 00:34:13.157
But I see it, said the Ghost, notwithstanding.
00:34:15.016 --> 00:34:16.567
Well, returned Scrooge.
00:34:16.817 --> 00:34:23.987
I have but to swallow this and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation.
00:34:24.177 --> 00:34:38.217
Humbug, I tell you, HUMBUG! At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from falling in a swoon.
00:34:38.726 --> 00:34:49.416
But how much greater was his horror when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower, jaw dropped down upon its breast.
00:34:49.996 --> 00:34:54.047
Scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands before his face.
00:34:54.592 --> 00:34:56.342
Mercy, he said.
00:34:56.612 --> 00:34:59.061
Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?
00:35:00.021 --> 00:35:05.242
Man of the worldly mind, replied the ghost, do you believe in me or not?
00:35:05.742 --> 00:35:08.431
I do, said Scrooge, I, I must.
00:35:08.621 --> 00:35:12.641
But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?
00:35:14.231 --> 00:35:33.797
It is required of every man, the ghost returned, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among its fellow men, and travel far and wide, and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, It is condemned to do so after death.
00:35:34.336 --> 00:35:46.626
It is doomed to wander through the world, oh woe is me, and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness.
00:35:49.766 --> 00:35:55.646
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chains, and wrung its shadowy hands.
00:35:56.297 --> 00:35:59.226
You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling.
00:35:59.317 --> 00:36:00.286
Tell me why.
00:36:01.961 --> 00:36:06.311
I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the ghost.
00:36:06.661 --> 00:36:10.771
I made it link by link and yard by yard.
00:36:11.172 --> 00:36:16.561
I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.
00:36:17.121 --> 00:36:28.731
Is its pattern strange to you, Scrooge trembled more and more, or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?
00:36:29.356 --> 00:36:36.186
It was as full, as heavy, and as long as this, seven Christmas eves ago.
00:36:36.777 --> 00:36:39.277
You have labored on it since.
00:36:39.396 --> 00:36:41.876
It is a ponderous chain.
00:36:42.527 --> 00:36:52.626
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing.
00:36:54.077 --> 00:37:01.606
Jacob, he said imploringly, old Jacob Marley, tell me more, speak comfort to me, Jacob.
00:37:02.277 --> 00:37:06.217
I have none to give, replied the ghost.
00:37:06.717 --> 00:37:14.056
But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
00:37:14.730 --> 00:37:18.329
Business, cried the ghost, wringing its hands again.
00:37:18.829 --> 00:37:20.699
Mankind was my business.
00:37:20.750 --> 00:37:23.420
The common welfare was my business.
00:37:23.449 --> 00:37:29.480
Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.
00:37:31.219 --> 00:37:40.119
The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.
00:37:41.650 --> 00:37:52.085
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
00:37:52.585 --> 00:37:58.871
At this time of the rolling year, the spectre said, I suffer the most.
00:37:58.871 --> 00:38:08.195
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
00:38:08.844 --> 00:38:27.905
Hear me, cried the Ghost,'my time is nearly gone!'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 you can see, I may not tell.
00:38:28.505 --> 00:38:36.094
I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day! It was not an agreeable idea.
00:38:36.875 --> 00:38:40.409
Scrooge shivered and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
00:38:40.909 --> 00:38:44.920
That is no light part of my penance, pursued the Ghost.
00:38:45.519 --> 00:39:01.880
'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! You were always a good friend to me, said Scrooge.
00:39:02.670 --> 00:39:09.090
'You will be haunted, resumed the Ghost,'by three spirits.
00:39:09.090 --> 00:39:14.764
'I Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the ghost's had done.
00:39:16.934 --> 00:39:19.684
'Is that the chance and hope you mention, Jacob?
00:39:20.125 --> 00:39:21.974
he demanded in a faltering voice.
00:39:23.114 --> 00:39:28.454
'It is I I think I'd rather not, said Scrooge.
00:39:29.385 --> 00:39:36.704
'Without their visits, said the ghost,'you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.
00:39:37.715 --> 00:39:42.925
Expect the first to morrow, when the bell tolls one.
00:39:43.715 --> 00:39:49.135
Oh, couldn't I take them all at once and have it over Jacob, hinted Scrooge.
00:39:49.635 --> 00:40:01.255
Expect the second on the next night at the same hour, the third upon the following night, when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate.
00:40:01.875 --> 00:40:10.945
Look to see me no more, and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us.
00:40:11.445 --> 00:40:19.494
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table and bound it round its head as before.
00:40:20.235 --> 00:40:26.684
Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when its jaws were brought together by the bandage.
00:40:27.809 --> 00:40:38.869
He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
00:40:40.150 --> 00:40:52.980
The apparition walked backward from him, and, at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
00:40:54.099 --> 00:40:57.239
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.
00:40:58.394 --> 00:41:06.065
When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer.
00:41:06.985 --> 00:41:25.255
Scrooge stopped, not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear, for on the raising of the hand he became sensible of confused noises in the air, incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self accusatory.
00:41:25.755 --> 00:41:35.105
The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
00:41:35.755 --> 00:41:39.934
Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity.
00:41:40.605 --> 00:41:41.675
He looked out.
00:41:42.885 --> 00:41:50.835
The air was filled with phantoms wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went.
00:41:51.414 --> 00:41:54.304
Every one of them wore chains like Marley's ghost.
00:41:54.614 --> 00:41:55.405
Some few.
00:41:55.925 --> 00:42:01.224
They might be guilty governments, were linked together, none were free.
00:42:02.025 --> 00:42:05.364
Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.
00:42:05.644 --> 00:42:21.628
He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep.
00:42:22.318 --> 00:42:32.119
The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere for good in human matters, and had lost the power forever.
00:42:32.768 --> 00:42:38.478
Whether these creatures faded into the mist, or the mist enshrouded them, he could not tell.
00:42:38.778 --> 00:42:39.489
But they...
00:42:39.864 --> 00:42:47.954
And their spirit voices faded together and the night became as it had been when he walked home.
00:42:49.983 --> 00:42:54.594
Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which the ghost had entered.
00:42:55.483 --> 00:43:02.474
It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.
00:43:03.724 --> 00:43:08.123
He tried to say humbug, but stopped at the first syllable.
00:43:09.184 --> 00:43:29.693
And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, and went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep, upon the instant.
00:43:30.994 --> 00:43:35.494
Hey friends, thank you for listening to this holiday episode of Forward into the Past.
00:43:35.893 --> 00:43:41.434
I hope you enjoyed our retelling of Stave One of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
00:43:42.333 --> 00:43:48.184
If you did, please consider supporting our show by making a monthly donation on our Buy Me A Coffee page.
00:43:48.583 --> 00:43:55.684
Your contributions help me to continue producing high quality audio content that you can enjoy absolutely free.
00:43:56.594 --> 00:44:00.063
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00:44:00.664 --> 00:44:05.463
We have a variety of items available, including t shirts, mugs, and tote bags.
00:44:05.844 --> 00:44:09.393
You can find all those links and more on the podcast website.
00:44:10.134 --> 00:44:11.313
That's forwardintothepastpodcast.
00:44:13.713 --> 00:44:14.134
com.
00:44:14.543 --> 00:44:18.483
Remember to add podcast in there, or it won't take you to the correct page.
00:44:19.543 --> 00:44:22.023
And so I thank you in advance for your support.
00:44:22.494 --> 00:44:27.143
Until next time, friends, thanks for listening, keep sharing the stories.
00:44:27.478 --> 00:44:30.048
and be a good human.
00:44:31.429 --> 00:44:32.309
Bye for now.
00:00:01.070 --> 00:00:05.730
Hi friends, and welcome to another episode of Forward into the Past.
00:00:06.250 --> 00:00:06.799
I'm J.
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C.
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Rede, your host and narrator, and today I'm tackling a daunting holiday classic for the second time, Charles Dickens immortal story, A Christmas Carol.
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And hopefully I can stay healthy until the end of the story.
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Last year, I only got to stave two before I succumbed to an illness.
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So, stay with me, friends.
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It's sure to be a rollercoaster.
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Charles Dickens 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, is a beloved holiday classic that has been enjoyed by generations of readers, listeners, and movie watchers alike.
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The story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man who is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future has become synonymous with the Christmas spirit.
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But beyond its timeless message of redemption and goodwill, A Christmas Carol has also had a profound impact on our modern day Christmas celebrations.
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In the early 19th century, Christmas was not the widely celebrated holiday it is today.
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It was primarily a religious holiday and its focus was on church attendance and charitable giving.
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Dickens, however, wanted to create a more secular and family oriented Christmas, one that was filled with joy, generosity, and togetherness.
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A Christmas Carol helped to popularize many of the Christmas traditions that we still enjoy today, including the Christmas tree.
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The first mention of a Christmas tree in England appeared in Dickens novella, The Pickwick Papers, published in 1836.
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A Christmas Carol further cemented the popularity of the Christmas tree, and it is now a fixture in homes all over the world.
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Christmas carols.
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Charles Dickens was also a prolific songwriter, and many of his Christmas carols such as The Boar's Head Carol and Oh Come All Ye Faithful are still sung today.
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The Christmas Feast The Cratchit's Christmas dinner in A Christmas Carol is a classic example of the traditional Christmas feast.
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The meal typically includes a roast turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy.
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A Christmas Carol has had a lasting impact on our culture, and its influence on Christmas celebrations is undeniable.
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The novella's message of compassion and goodwill is as relevant today as it was in Dickens time, and its heartwarming story continues to inspire people of all ages.
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In addition to popularizing many of the Christmas traditions that we enjoy today, A Christmas carol has also helped to shape our understanding of the holiday's true meaning.
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Dickens novella reminds us that Christmas is not about material possessions or superficial celebrations, but about love, generosity, and spending time with loved ones.
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And, speaking of spending time with loved ones, Why don't you make yourself comfortable, friends?
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Get yourself a nice warm beverage and share some time with me as I bring you Stave 1 of Charles Dickens classic ghost story, A Christmas Carol.
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Stave 1 Marley's Ghost Marley was dead, to begin with.
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There is no doubt whatever about that.
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The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
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Scrooge signed it and Scrooge's name was good upon change for anything he chose to put his hand to.
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Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
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Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge what there is particularly dead about a doornail.
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I might have been inclined myself to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade, but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for.
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You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a doornail.
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The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from.
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There is no doubt that Marley was dead.
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This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
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If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night in an easterly wind upon his own ramparts than there would be in any other middle aged gentleman.
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Rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot, say, St.
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Paul's Churchyard, for instance, literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
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Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name.
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There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley.
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The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.
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Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge, Scrooge, and sometimes Marley.
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But he answered to both names.
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It was all the same to him.
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Oh, but he was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge.
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A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner.
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Hard, and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire.
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Secret, and self contained, and solitary as an oyster.
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The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.
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A frosty rhyme was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin.
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He carried his own low temperature always about with him.
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He iced his office in the dog days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
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External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.
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No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.
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No wind that blew was bitterer than he.
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No falling snow was more intent upon its purpose.
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No pelting rain, less open to entreaty.
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Foul weather didn't know where to have him.
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The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect.
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They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
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But what did Scrooge care?
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It was the very thing he liked.
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To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the Knowing Ones called nuts to Scrooge.
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Once upon a time, of all the good days of the year, on Christmas Eve, old Scrooge sat busy in his counting house.
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It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.
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The city clocks had only just gone three, but...
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It was quite dark already.
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It had not been light all day, and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.
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The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, Although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.
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To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
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The door of Scrooge's counting house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters.
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Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller, that it looked like one coal, but he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room, and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part, wherefore, the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle, in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.
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A Merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice.
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It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly, that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
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'Bah! said Scrooge.
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'Humbug! 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.
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His face was ruddy and handsome, his eyes sparkled and his breath smoked again.
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Christmas, a humbug, uncle, said Scrooge's nephew.
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You don't mean that, I'm sure.
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I do, said Scrooge.
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Merry Christmas.
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What right have you to be merry?
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What reason have you to be merry?
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You're poor enough.
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Come, then, returned the nephew gaily, what right have you to be dismal?
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What reason have you to be morose?
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You're rich enough! Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said,'Ah! again, and followed it up with,'Humbug! Oh, don't be cross, uncle, said the nephew.
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What else can I be, returned the uncle, when I live in such a world of fools as this?
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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 could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly,'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!'Oh, uncle! pleaded the nephew.
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Nephew, returned the uncle sternly, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.
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Keep it, repeated Scrooge's nephew, but you don't keep it.
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Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge.
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Much good may it do you.
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Much good has it ever done you.
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There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, returned the nephew.
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Christmas among the rest, but I am sure I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round, as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time, the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open up their shut up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
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And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and it will do me good, and I say, God bless it! The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.
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Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.
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Let me hear another sound from you! said Scrooge.
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And you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation.
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Hmph.
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You're quite a powerful speaker, sir, he added, turning to his nephew.
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I wonder you don't go into Parliament.
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Don't be angry, Uncle.
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Come, dine with us tomorrow.
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Scrooge said that he would see him.
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Yes, indeed, he did.
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He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
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But, but why?
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cried Scrooge's nephew.
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Why?
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Why?
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Why did you get married?
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said Scrooge.
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Well, because I fell in love.
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Because you fell in love! growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a Merry Christmas.
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Good afternoon.
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Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened.
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Why give it as a reason for not coming now?
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Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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I want nothing from you.
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I ask nothing of you.
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Why cannot we be friends?
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Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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Well, I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute.
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We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party.
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But, I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last.
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So, a Merry Christmas, Uncle! Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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And a Happy New Year! Good afternoon, said Scrooge.
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His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding.
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He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them cordially.
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There's another fellow, muttered Scrooge, who overheard him.
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My clerk, with fifteen shillings a week and a wife and a family, talking about a merry Christmas.
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I'll retire to Bedlam.
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This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in.
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They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood with their hats off in Scrooge's office.
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They had books and papers in their hands and bowed to him.
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Ah, yes.
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Uh, Scrooge and Marley's, I believe said one of the gentlemen referring to his list.
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Uh, ha have I the pleasure of addressing Mr.
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Scrooge or Mr.
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Marley?
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Mr.
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Marley has been dead these seven years.
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Scrooge replied.
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He died seven years ago this very night.
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Oh, well, uh, we, we have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner, said the gentleman presenting his credentials.
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It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits.
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At the ominous word liberality, Scrooge frowned and shook his head and handed the credentials back.
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At this festive season of the year, Mr.
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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.
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Many thousands are in want of common necessaries, hundreds of thousands are in want of Common comforts, sir.
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Are there no prisons?
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asked Scrooge.
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Oh, plenty of prisons, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
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And the union workhouses, demanded Scrooge.
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Are they still in operation?
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Oh, they are still, returned the gentleman.
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I wish I could say they were not.
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The treadmill and the poor law are in full vigour then, said Scrooge.
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Both very busy, sir.
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Oh.
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Huh.
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I was afraid from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course.
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Said Scrooge.
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I am very glad to hear it.
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Oh, I...
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Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude, returned the gentleman, a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.
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We chose this time because it is a time of all others when want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices.
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What shall I put you down for?
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Nothing, Scrooge replied.
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You, you wish to be anonymous?
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I wish to be left alone, said Scrooge.
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Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.
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I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry.
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I help to support the establishments I have mentioned.
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They cost enough, and those who are badly off must go there.
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Uh, well, many can't go there, and many would rather die.
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If they would rather die, said Scrooge, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.
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Good afternoon, gentlemen.
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Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentleman withdrew.
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Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.
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Meanwhile, the fog and darkness thickened so that people ran about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses and carriages and conduct them on their way.
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The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.
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The cold became intense, foggier yet and colder.
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Piercing, searching, biting cold.
00:18:42.836 --> 00:18:43.636
If the good St.
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Dunstan had but nipped the evil spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed, he would have roared to lusty purpose.
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The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol.
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But, at the first sound of god bless you merry, gentlemen.
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May nothing you dismay.
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Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.
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At length, the hour of shutting up the Counting House had arrived.
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With an ill will, Scrooge dismounted from his stool and tacitly admitted the fact to his expectant clerk in the tank who instantly snuffed out his candle and put on his hat.
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You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose, said Scrooge.
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Oh, if quite convenient, sir.
00:19:48.576 --> 00:19:51.926
It's not convenient, said Scrooge, and it's not fair.
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If I was to stop half a crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound.
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The clerk smiled faintly.
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And yet, said Scrooge, you don't think me ill used when I pay a day's wages for no work.
00:20:08.086 --> 00:20:10.396
The clerk observed that it was only once a year.
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Huh, a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December, said Scrooge buttoning his greatcoat to the chin.
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But, I suppose you must have the whole day.
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Be here all the earlier next morning.
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The clerk promised that he would, and Scrooge walked out with a growl.
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The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist, for he boasted no great coat, went down a slide on Corn Hill at the end of a lane of boys twenty times in honor of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt to play at blind man's buff.
00:20:54.192 --> 00:21:05.652
Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern, and having read all the newspapers and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed.
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He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner.
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They were a gloomy suite of rooms in a lowering pile of building up a yard, Where it had so little business to be, That one could scarcely help fancying, And it must have run there when it was a young house, Playing at hide and seek with the other houses, And have forgotten the way out again.
00:21:30.332 --> 00:21:38.491
It was old enough now, and dreary enough, For nobody lived in it but Scrooge, The other rooms being all let out as offices.
00:21:39.876 --> 00:21:48.527
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.
00:21:49.487 --> 00:22:00.047
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house that it seemed as if the genius of weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.
00:22:00.696 --> 00:22:09.196
Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large.
00:22:10.517 --> 00:22:17.727
It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it night and morning during his whole residence in that place.
00:22:17.957 --> 00:22:29.977
Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven years dead partner that afternoon and then.
00:22:30.781 --> 00:22:48.182
Let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face.
00:22:50.172 --> 00:22:52.152
Yes, Marley's face.
00:22:52.321 --> 00:23:01.231
It was not an impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it.
00:23:02.247 --> 00:23:11.977
It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look, with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.
00:23:12.906 --> 00:23:23.366
The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath of hot air, and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless.
00:23:23.957 --> 00:23:27.596
That, and its livid color, made it horrible.
00:23:28.436 --> 00:23:35.656
But its horror seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.
00:23:37.007 --> 00:23:42.396
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
00:23:43.946 --> 00:23:53.517
To say that he was not startled or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy would be untrue.
00:23:54.186 --> 00:23:55.596
But he put his hand upon the key.
00:23:55.596 --> 00:24:01.057
He had relinquished, turned sternly, walked in and lighted his candle.
00:24:02.251 --> 00:24:28.261
He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door, and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall, but there was nothing on the back of the door except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he closed it with a bang.
00:24:29.781 --> 00:24:30.531
The sound.
00:24:30.672 --> 00:24:33.892
Scrooge resounded through the house like thunder.
00:24:34.162 --> 00:24:41.642
Every room above and every cask in the wine merchant cellars below appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own.
00:24:42.761 --> 00:24:46.432
Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes.
00:24:47.922 --> 00:24:56.261
He fastened the door and walked across the hall and up the stairs, slowly, too, trimming his candle as he went.
00:24:57.957 --> 00:25:02.436
Half a dozen gas lamps out of the street would not have lighted the entry too well.
00:25:02.946 --> 00:25:07.124
So you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.
00:25:07.124 --> 00:25:11.846
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.
00:25:12.307 --> 00:25:15.604
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.
00:25:16.801 --> 00:25:23.051
But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that it was all right.
00:25:23.922 --> 00:25:27.692
He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.
00:25:28.692 --> 00:25:29.362
Sitting room.
00:25:30.382 --> 00:25:30.961
Bedroom.
00:25:31.682 --> 00:25:32.382
Lumber room.
00:25:32.432 --> 00:25:33.571
All as they should be.
00:25:34.422 --> 00:25:35.541
Nobody under the table.
00:25:35.872 --> 00:25:37.152
Nobody under the sofa.
00:25:37.882 --> 00:25:42.872
Small fire in the grate, spoon and basin ready, and the little saucepan of gruel.
00:25:43.321 --> 00:25:46.412
Scrooge had a cold in his head, upon the hob.
00:25:47.567 --> 00:25:49.067
Nobody under the bed.
00:25:50.156 --> 00:25:51.116
Nobody in the closet.
00:25:51.767 --> 00:25:56.997
Nobody in his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.
00:25:58.176 --> 00:25:59.596
Lumber room, as usual.
00:26:00.386 --> 00:26:01.436
Old fire guard.
00:26:01.797 --> 00:26:02.616
Old shoes.
00:26:02.906 --> 00:26:03.967
Two fish baskets.
00:26:04.957 --> 00:26:06.636
Washing stand on three legs.
00:26:06.636 --> 00:26:08.517
And a poker.
00:26:10.317 --> 00:26:11.176
Quite satisfied.
00:26:11.666 --> 00:26:14.747
Quite satisfied, he closed his door and locked himself in.
00:26:15.981 --> 00:26:30.521
Double locked himself in, which was not his custom, thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat, put on his dressing gown and slippers, and his nightcap, and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
00:26:32.662 --> 00:26:38.301
It was a very low fire indeed, nothing on such a bitter night.
00:26:39.227 --> 00:26:47.317
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.
00:26:48.346 --> 00:26:58.007
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.
00:26:59.047 --> 00:27:00.457
There were canes and ables.
00:27:00.797 --> 00:27:23.991
Pharaoh's daughters, queens of Sheba, angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like featherbeds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, apostles putting off to sea in butterboats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts, and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient prophets rod and swallowed up the whole.
00:27:25.342 --> 00:27:40.811
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 single one.
00:27:42.642 --> 00:27:45.855
Humbug! said Scrooge, and walked across the room.
00:27:47.244 --> 00:27:50.085
After several turns, he sat down again.
00:27:51.234 --> 00:28:07.224
As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with the chamber in the highest story of the building.
00:28:08.545 --> 00:28:21.535
It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing.
00:28:22.295 --> 00:28:34.730
It swung so softly in the outset, that it Scarcely made a sound, but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.
00:28:35.569 --> 00:28:40.150
This might have lasted half a minute or a full minute, but it seemed like an hour.
00:28:42.299 --> 00:28:46.250
Then the bells ceased, as they had begun together.
00:28:46.900 --> 00:28:47.984
They were succeeded.
00:28:48.414 --> 00:28:59.884
By clanking noise deep down below as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar.
00:29:01.214 --> 00:29:24.599
Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains the cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below, then coming up the stairs, then coming straight towards his door.
00:29:25.849 --> 00:29:28.640
It's humbug still, said Scrooge.
00:29:28.670 --> 00:29:40.500
I won't believe it! His color changed, though, when, without a pause, It came on through the heavy door, And passed into the room before his eyes.
00:29:41.150 --> 00:29:51.039
Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, As though it cried, I know him, Marley's ghost, And fell again.
00:29:52.910 --> 00:29:53.950
The same night.
00:29:54.384 --> 00:30:08.855
Face the very same, Marley, in his pigtail, his usual waistcoat, tights and boots, the tassels on the latter bristling like his pigtails, and his coat skirts and the hair upon his head.
00:30:09.505 --> 00:30:13.644
The chain he drew was clasped about his middle.
00:30:13.944 --> 00:30:20.704
It was long and wound about him like a tail, and it was made, for Scrooge observed it closely.
00:30:21.230 --> 00:30:28.690
Of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, And heavy purses wrought in steel.
00:30:29.900 --> 00:30:39.049
His body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.
00:30:39.619 --> 00:30:46.980
Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.
00:30:48.279 --> 00:30:51.279
No, nor did he believe it even now.
00:30:52.500 --> 00:31:12.319
Though he looked the phantom through and through and saw it standing before him, though he felt the chilling influence of its death cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before, he was still incredulous and fought against his senses.
00:31:12.970 --> 00:31:17.849
How now, said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever, what do you want with me?
00:31:18.500 --> 00:31:19.259
Much.
00:31:19.521 --> 00:31:21.761
Marley's voice, no doubt about it.
00:31:22.352 --> 00:31:24.051
Who are you?
00:31:26.301 --> 00:31:28.781
Ask me who I was.
00:31:29.432 --> 00:31:31.862
Oh, who were you then?
00:31:32.031 --> 00:31:33.561
Said Scrooge, raising his voice.
00:31:33.932 --> 00:31:35.912
You're particular for a shade.
00:31:37.392 --> 00:31:42.582
In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley.
00:31:43.082 --> 00:31:46.342
Can you, can you sit down?
00:31:46.511 --> 00:31:48.801
Asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.
00:31:50.132 --> 00:31:51.021
I can.
00:31:53.021 --> 00:31:53.652
Do it, then.
00:31:54.152 --> 00:32:07.241
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair, and felt that, in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation.
00:32:08.342 --> 00:32:14.122
But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.
00:32:16.061 --> 00:32:20.461
You don't believe in me, observed the ghost.
00:32:22.142 --> 00:32:24.192
I don't, said Scrooge.
00:32:24.971 --> 00:32:31.602
What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your own senses?
00:32:32.102 --> 00:32:34.201
I don't know, said Scrooge.
00:32:35.981 --> 00:32:38.271
Why do you doubt your senses?
00:32:38.771 --> 00:32:42.442
Because, said Scrooge, a little thing affects them.
00:32:42.682 --> 00:32:45.541
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats.
00:32:46.152 --> 00:32:54.172
You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.
00:32:54.561 --> 00:32:57.961
No, there's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are.
00:32:58.612 --> 00:33:05.051
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then.
00:33:05.652 --> 00:33:17.001
The truth is that he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror, for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.
00:33:17.332 --> 00:33:23.872
To sit staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment would play, Scrooge felt.
00:33:24.356 --> 00:33:33.616
The very deuce with him, there was something very awful, too, in the specters being provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own.
00:33:34.696 --> 00:33:38.787
Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case.
00:33:39.156 --> 00:33:48.797
For though the ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair and skirts and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapor from an oven.
00:33:49.446 --> 00:33:50.856
You see this toothpick?
00:33:51.106 --> 00:34:01.156
Said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge for the reason just assigned, and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.
00:34:02.767 --> 00:34:04.977
I do, replied the Ghost.
00:34:05.477 --> 00:34:08.007
You are not looking at it, said Scrooge.
00:34:08.137 --> 00:34:13.157
But I see it, said the Ghost, notwithstanding.
00:34:15.016 --> 00:34:16.567
Well, returned Scrooge.
00:34:16.817 --> 00:34:23.987
I have but to swallow this and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation.
00:34:24.177 --> 00:34:38.217
Humbug, I tell you, HUMBUG! At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from falling in a swoon.
00:34:38.726 --> 00:34:49.416
But how much greater was his horror when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower, jaw dropped down upon its breast.
00:34:49.996 --> 00:34:54.047
Scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands before his face.
00:34:54.592 --> 00:34:56.342
Mercy, he said.
00:34:56.612 --> 00:34:59.061
Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?
00:35:00.021 --> 00:35:05.242
Man of the worldly mind, replied the ghost, do you believe in me or not?
00:35:05.742 --> 00:35:08.431
I do, said Scrooge, I, I must.
00:35:08.621 --> 00:35:12.641
But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?
00:35:14.231 --> 00:35:33.797
It is required of every man, the ghost returned, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among its fellow men, and travel far and wide, and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, It is condemned to do so after death.
00:35:34.336 --> 00:35:46.626
It is doomed to wander through the world, oh woe is me, and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness.
00:35:49.766 --> 00:35:55.646
Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chains, and wrung its shadowy hands.
00:35:56.297 --> 00:35:59.226
You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling.
00:35:59.317 --> 00:36:00.286
Tell me why.
00:36:01.961 --> 00:36:06.311
I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the ghost.
00:36:06.661 --> 00:36:10.771
I made it link by link and yard by yard.
00:36:11.172 --> 00:36:16.561
I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.
00:36:17.121 --> 00:36:28.731
Is its pattern strange to you, Scrooge trembled more and more, or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?
00:36:29.356 --> 00:36:36.186
It was as full, as heavy, and as long as this, seven Christmas eves ago.
00:36:36.777 --> 00:36:39.277
You have labored on it since.
00:36:39.396 --> 00:36:41.876
It is a ponderous chain.
00:36:42.527 --> 00:36:52.626
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing.
00:36:54.077 --> 00:37:01.606
Jacob, he said imploringly, old Jacob Marley, tell me more, speak comfort to me, Jacob.
00:37:02.277 --> 00:37:06.217
I have none to give, replied the ghost.
00:37:06.717 --> 00:37:14.056
But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
00:37:14.730 --> 00:37:18.329
Business, cried the ghost, wringing its hands again.
00:37:18.829 --> 00:37:20.699
Mankind was my business.
00:37:20.750 --> 00:37:23.420
The common welfare was my business.
00:37:23.449 --> 00:37:29.480
Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.
00:37:31.219 --> 00:37:40.119
The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.
00:37:41.650 --> 00:37:52.085
It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
00:37:52.585 --> 00:37:58.871
At this time of the rolling year, the spectre said, I suffer the most.
00:37:58.871 --> 00:38:08.195
Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.
00:38:08.844 --> 00:38:27.905
Hear me, cried the Ghost,'my time is nearly gone!'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 you can see, I may not tell.
00:38:28.505 --> 00:38:36.094
I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day! It was not an agreeable idea.
00:38:36.875 --> 00:38:40.409
Scrooge shivered and wiped the perspiration from his brow.
00:38:40.909 --> 00:38:44.920
That is no light part of my penance, pursued the Ghost.
00:38:45.519 --> 00:39:01.880
'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! You were always a good friend to me, said Scrooge.
00:39:02.670 --> 00:39:09.090
'You will be haunted, resumed the Ghost,'by three spirits.
00:39:09.090 --> 00:39:14.764
'I Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the ghost's had done.
00:39:16.934 --> 00:39:19.684
'Is that the chance and hope you mention, Jacob?
00:39:20.125 --> 00:39:21.974
he demanded in a faltering voice.
00:39:23.114 --> 00:39:28.454
'It is I I think I'd rather not, said Scrooge.
00:39:29.385 --> 00:39:36.704
'Without their visits, said the ghost,'you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.
00:39:37.715 --> 00:39:42.925
Expect the first to morrow, when the bell tolls one.
00:39:43.715 --> 00:39:49.135
Oh, couldn't I take them all at once and have it over Jacob, hinted Scrooge.
00:39:49.635 --> 00:40:01.255
Expect the second on the next night at the same hour, the third upon the following night, when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate.
00:40:01.875 --> 00:40:10.945
Look to see me no more, and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us.
00:40:11.445 --> 00:40:19.494
When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table and bound it round its head as before.
00:40:20.235 --> 00:40:26.684
Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when its jaws were brought together by the bandage.
00:40:27.809 --> 00:40:38.869
He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
00:40:40.150 --> 00:40:52.980
The apparition walked backward from him, and, at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
00:40:54.099 --> 00:40:57.239
It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.
00:40:58.394 --> 00:41:06.065
When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer.
00:41:06.985 --> 00:41:25.255
Scrooge stopped, not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear, for on the raising of the hand he became sensible of confused noises in the air, incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self accusatory.
00:41:25.755 --> 00:41:35.105
The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
00:41:35.755 --> 00:41:39.934
Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity.
00:41:40.605 --> 00:41:41.675
He looked out.
00:41:42.885 --> 00:41:50.835
The air was filled with phantoms wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went.
00:41:51.414 --> 00:41:54.304
Every one of them wore chains like Marley's ghost.
00:41:54.614 --> 00:41:55.405
Some few.
00:41:55.925 --> 00:42:01.224
They might be guilty governments, were linked together, none were free.
00:42:02.025 --> 00:42:05.364
Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.
00:42:05.644 --> 00:42:21.628
He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep.
00:42:22.318 --> 00:42:32.119
The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere for good in human matters, and had lost the power forever.
00:42:32.768 --> 00:42:38.478
Whether these creatures faded into the mist, or the mist enshrouded them, he could not tell.
00:42:38.778 --> 00:42:39.489
But they...
00:42:39.864 --> 00:42:47.954
And their spirit voices faded together and the night became as it had been when he walked home.
00:42:49.983 --> 00:42:54.594
Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which the ghost had entered.
00:42:55.483 --> 00:43:02.474
It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.
00:43:03.724 --> 00:43:08.123
He tried to say humbug, but stopped at the first syllable.
00:43:09.184 --> 00:43:29.693
And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, and went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep, upon the instant.
00:43:30.994 --> 00:43:35.494
Hey friends, thank you for listening to this holiday episode of Forward into the Past.
00:43:35.893 --> 00:43:41.434
I hope you enjoyed our retelling of Stave One of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
00:43:42.333 --> 00:43:48.184
If you did, please consider supporting our show by making a monthly donation on our Buy Me A Coffee page.
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Your contributions help me to continue producing high quality audio content that you can enjoy absolutely free.
00:43:56.594 --> 00:44:00.063
You can also support the show by purchasing an item from the merchandise shop.
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We have a variety of items available, including t shirts, mugs, and tote bags.
00:44:05.844 --> 00:44:09.393
You can find all those links and more on the podcast website.
00:44:10.134 --> 00:44:11.313
That's forwardintothepastpodcast.
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com.
00:44:14.543 --> 00:44:18.483
Remember to add podcast in there, or it won't take you to the correct page.
00:44:19.543 --> 00:44:22.023
And so I thank you in advance for your support.
00:44:22.494 --> 00:44:27.143
Until next time, friends, thanks for listening, keep sharing the stories.
00:44:27.478 --> 00:44:30.048
and be a good human.
00:44:31.429 --> 00:44:32.309
Bye for now.
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