But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him., Im sure he is very rich, Fred, hinted Scrooges niece. Scrooge is a miserly, cruel employer who treats the father of the Crachit family cruelly everyday but particularly on Christmas Eve. At the beginning of the novel, Scrooge is described as "the Ogre of the family", this image allows the reader to understand that Scrooge is unloved and, furthermore, that his family are scared of him as he is seen to be monsterous. Ha, ha! laughed Scrooges nephew. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Come in! exclaimed the Ghost. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. He then looked at the knocker with great affection. Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. Bob had but fifteen bob[7]a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house. Examine the minor character of Mrs. Cratchit in ''A . The Ghost of Christmas Present, the second of the three spirits that haunt the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, in order to prompt him to repent his selfish ways, has taken Scrooge to see the family of his clerk, Bob Cratchit. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Hurrah! The moment Scrooges hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a childrens Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (18371896), Catherine Elizabeth Macready Dickens (18391929), Alfred DOrsay Tennyson Dickens (18451912), Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (18471872). Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of courseand in truth it was something very like it in that house. What you need is to be surrounded by people who love and care about you. My life upon this globe, is very brief, replied the Ghost. God bless us every one! said Tiny Tim, the last of all. Oh, no, kind Spirit! look here. It ends to-night., To-night at midnight. I know what it is!. M.A. The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxeds Church, 11. Oh, perfectly satisfactory. He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live! cried Scrooges nephew. That was the cloth. The Daughters of the Late Colonel: V, 180. Hay and coal can self-ignite, but Dickens claimed that human bodies could do so as well. Mrs. Cratchit voices her dislikes, and refers to Scrooge as an "odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man." The family feels this way toward Scrooge because Mr. Cratchit works hard as his employee but is paid little and treated poorly. If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooges nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Scrooge is a miserly, cruel employer who treats the father of the Crachit family cruelly everyday but particularly on Christmas Eve. Study Questions, Activities, and Resources, 31. Oh, I have! said Scrooges nephew. Stop! It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor mans child. All the fun of Charles Dickenss Greenwich Fair. The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. And abide the end!. See the preface to. Oh, Man! For, Scrooge was the "Ogre of the family"; his name cast a pall over the celebration. ", poverty and lack of education will ruin the city of London. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycooks next door to each other, with a laundresss next door to that! The children drank the toast after her. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. You know he is, Robert! He also tells the men that the men who wish to die should do it and "decrease the population." To Scrooges horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbours house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter-artful witches, well they knew it - in a glow! Wed a deal of work to finish up last night, replied the girl, and had to clear away this morning, mother!, Well! Ha, ha, ha!. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. And how did little Tim behave? asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his hearts content. Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas. The spirit warns that unless his life changes and he has better conditions, he will die. Scrooges nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously followed. Design changes: Please bear with us if you come across anything that may look a little disjointed. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again. Then, the Spirit reminds Scrooge that it is not for him to decide who is "surplus." It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.. Suppose it should not be done enough! Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. Mrs. Cratchit calls Mr. Scrooge an "odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man," and if Bob hadn't reminded her that it was Christmas Day and to calm herself in front of the children, she would never. great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence, ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled, compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer, pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top, at Bob Cratchits elbow stood the family display of glass. It ends to-night., To-night at midnight. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooges nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. But this the Spirit said could not be done. After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. When Scrooges nephew laughed in this way: holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions: Scrooges niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. With this in mind, Scrooge asks the Spirit what will become of Tiny Tim in the future. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alonetoo nervous to bear witnessesto take the pudding up and bring it in. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts content. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, spedwhither? Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. And Martha warnt as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?. Theres father coming, cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. Scrooge now has "an interest he had never felt before.". 10 May 1851. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts content. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms. Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!, No, no! if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Christmas Day., It should be Christmas Day, I am sure, said she, on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. To any kindly given. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycooks next door to each other, with a laundresss next door to that! are they yours? Scrooge could say no more. Dickens says of Scrooge: ''To Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldnt have seen his head if you had been there. He dont lose much of a dinner.. Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. I was only going to say, said Scrooges nephew, that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah! To sea. Mrs Cratchitdressed out but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a goodly show for sixpence. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be. Martha didnt like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. The children drank the toast after her. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse!