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Faith Moore
Hello and welcome to the Storytime for Grown Ups Christmas Spectacular. I'm Faith Moore and for the month of December, we'll be reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read one chapter from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea or a mug of hot chocolate, find a cozy chair, throw another log on the fire and settle in. It's story time. Hello. I am so happy to be here with you today. I am always happy to be here with you, but today is my birthday and I'm extra happy to be with you on my birthday. What a treat to get to read this amazing book with you on my birthday and to talk to you about this book. This is so fun. And I have a gift for you. I am so excited about this. I'm very pleased to announce that Storytime for Grown Ups has a merch store. If you've been with me from the beginning, at some point in season one, when we had been reading Jane Eyre together and this show was starting to grow and it was starting to come together and feel like a community, the way that really feels like a community now, it was starting to feel that way, I said, one day, maybe we'll have a merch store. Maybe we'll be able to have Storytime for Grown Ups mugs and shirts and things like that. And you know, I. I've joked before, I have this thing I like to call the one day list, meaning one day. One day that thing will happen. And there are so many things. My one day list for this show is growing and growing and growing. But if this new development is anything to go by, we're going to get to every single one of those things on my one day list. It'll just be one day. But for the merch store, that day is today. So in the description of this episode in the show notes, so wherever you're listening, if you just scroll down to where it says what this episode is about, there is a link to our merch store. Currently, there is one design so you can get various things with this design on it. There's mugs, there's T shirts, sweatshirts, there's baby onesies, there's kids shirts, whatever you want. There's lots of stuff there. There's just one piece of artwork at this point which is a logo for this show. It's amazing. It's beautiful. I'm working with a fantastic designer named Cynthia Angulo. She's 50. Fantastic. And she's going to be creating more. So right now there's the logo and just in time for Christmas. I think if you order now, these things will still come to you for Christmas. So ask for it for somebody else. Send them the link or buy yourself something. Treat yourself. Go ahead and treat yourself. It's my birthday. So treat yourself to something from the Merch store. But we are getting more designs. More designs will come. There's going to be a design for each one of the books that we've read that will have a picture and it will say the title of the book and it will say Storytime for Grown Ups on it. So those things are coming. And I have a few other ideas for other designs and other items that we can put in the store. But for now, you can get the logo on various items. I myself have the mug and a T shirt. I drank my morning cup of tea out of my mug this morning and it made me so happy. And it's really good quality stuff. It's the real deal. It's like any other mug, any other T shirt, any other sweatshirt. It just says Storytime for Grown Ups on it and it has a lovely picture. I hope you'll check it out. So that link is in the Show Notes. Also in the Show Notes, you will find links to a variety of other things. One, just one more to mention is that I am giving away signed book plates. So free book plates with my signature on it that you can stick into a book. If you buy a copy of my novel Christmas Carol, that's Carol with a K. There's a link in the Show Notes to buy the book. There's also more information about that giveaway. There's also a drawing that I'm doing to give you your money back or an additional signed copy. So all the information for that is also in the Show Notes. You click on it, it goes to my website and then there's lots of information about how you can do that. So if you're interested in my book Christmas Carol, that's where you should go. Click on that. Or also if you're interested in hearing me read a section of my book Christmas Carol that is related to A Christmas Carol, the chapter that we're reading today, which is going to be Stave two, if you're interested in that, there's also a link to to that on YouTube. But as I said in the intro, and I probably said last time as well, I don't want to bog down this experience with trying to sell you my book because either you'll buy it or you won't because it sounds good to you or it doesn't. And that's completely fine. Okay, so this is the storytime for Grown Ups Christmas Spectacular. Welcome. I'm so glad that you're here. I'm so glad that you found us. We are going to be reading Stave 2 of Charles Dickens Is A Christmas Carol today. If you missed Dave one, it's still there in your podcast feed. Just scroll down, you'll find it there. And you'll also find an introduction episode where I give a little bit of historical context about the world that Charles Dickens is living in Victorian England and some of the Christmas traditions that were going on at the time that Dickens was really using and kind of solidifying into our own Christmas traditions that we still have today. Talked a little bit about Charles Dickens himself. All of that is still there as well in your podcast feed. It's in the introduction episode. And speaking of podcast feeds, if you're enjoying this show and you'd like to keep listening all the way through to the end of this book, you should make sure that you are subscribed. So hit that subscribe button. Or maybe it's called follow and wherever you're listening, it's called something that will make sure that the episodes just come right to your phone and that whenever they drop, you get them so you don't have to come looking for them. So make sure that you are subscribed. And if you're enjoying the show, I would really appreciate it if you would just tap those five stars that you'll find in your podcast player and if you have a couple of extra seconds, just leave a positive review or and this is really how the show grows, text a link to the show to a friend or family member or colleague and tell them, hey, I think you might like this. Join us. We're reading this wonderful book together. So let's read this book together. Let's do a recap of what happened in Stave 1. And then I have two related questions that I got that are great questions and we're going to kind of start delving into this book and some of this themes, the big ideas that we are going to get in this book. So I'm going to do those two questions. After the recap, we'll have a little discussion and then we'll get into the chapters. So here's the recap. All right. So last time we met Ebenezer Scrooge. He is a businessman who Got rich along with his partner, Jacob Marley, by lending money and then charging a high interest rate. He's a horrible man, right? He cares only about money and he absolutely hates Christmas. We saw him be awful to his clerk and rude to his nephew, who just came to wish a Merry Christmas. And he refuses to give to the poor when some people come around collecting donations. His partner, Jacob Marley has been dead seven years. But on Christmas Eve, Marley's ghost visits Scrooge and says he's going to send Scrooge three spirits in order to save him from his own fate, which is that he is bound and chained with a huge chain and has to wander the earth, wanting to help people but being unable to. So Scrooge is absolutely terrified by this. But eventually he falls asleep and. And that's where we left him, asleep in his bed. Okay, so, as I say, I have two questions this time. The first one comes to us from Lydia Osborne. Lydia writes, am I the only one who finds Scrooge to be quite likable and rather adorable in his crotchety way? For all that Dickens claims he has no imagination or humor, I find him quite humorous, which requires no small imagination. I always laugh at his declaration that fools who go about spouting Merry Christmas should be buried with stakes of holly through their hearts, as if they were some kind of festive vampire one can never be fully rid of. But it's such a brilliant piece of writing that Dickens doesn't paint him as spiteful and cruel, as one would think the obvious choice. It makes him unnervingly relatable, if you think about it, which makes you root for him despite his chill exterior. And the second question comes to us from Rebecca Holman. Rebecca writes, perhaps I didn't understand, but Marley says he put this chain on of his own free will. I assume that means I made my bed and now I'm lying in it kind of deal. And it sounds like the other phantoms seem to have the same miserly attitudes as Scrooge and Marley. With the safe being linked to the one phantom's ankle, it sounds like they're doomed to be forever attached to what they thought was their freedom, doing with their money as they pleased and not helping anyone. Okay, so these might sound a bit unrelated at first, but they are related, I promise. So Lydia's point that Scrooge isn't actually that unlikable is really important, I think. I mean, yes, if you met him, you would dislike him, right? We're told that beggars run away from him. Rather than asking for money. Blind men's dogs lead their masters away from him. Children are terrified of him. The carol singers run away from his door in terror and on and on. So clearly in the world of the book, he is a very unlikable guy. Not to mention the fact that he's also obviously a miser, right? He doesn't let his Clark build up the fire. He grumbles about him taking Christmas Day off while still being paid. We can imagine that when he lends money to people as part of his job, he's probably not forgiving or kind if they can't pay up when the time comes, he refuses to donate to charity. He thinks poor people should just go to these horrible places like the workhouse or the treadmill and that they should be imprisoned for being poor. And if they don't want to do that, they should just die, right? And decrease the surplus population. So not a likable guy, right? Not a good guy. Not someone you'd want to know or be friends with or work for or have to borrow money from. From. I mean, Dickens calls him, here's a quote, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner, hard and sharp as flint from which no steel had ever struck out. Generous fire, secret and self contained and solitary as an oyster, right? And then he goes on to say 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. So not a good guy, not a likable guy, not a guy who is operating in the world in a way that makes you want to know him or even really feel for him. And in fact, the feeling that he seems to generate in most of the people around him is fear, right? And he doesn't seem to feel really much of anything at all for the people around him. The most he seems to feel is annoyed or even angry. We know that he signed over all of Jacob Marley's possessions to himself without feeling any sense of loss, even though this guy was his, basically his only friend that had died. He's totally uninterested in knowing his nephew. He doesn't care at all about his clerk. And yet, okay, there is something still sort of endearing about the way that Dickens describes him. It is funny. It's funny to see him saying like, good afternoon over and over again to his nephew and his nephew is wishing him Merry Christmas and he just keeps saying that good afternoon. It's funny that he's pretending not to be scared after he sees Marley's face in the door knocker. Some of his little zingers are funny, like the line about the stake of holly that Lydia mentioned. And when he mutters that he'll retire to bedlam because his clerk wants to celebrate Christmas even though he's poor. And I think what's going on here, at least initially, is that Scrooge himself is meant to be this truly awful sort of person. But Dickens has a kind of affection for him, right? Dickens is describing him in this way that doesn't write him off completely. And, and I think this is important. In another part of Lydia's letter that I didn't include here, she also alludes to this. But what I think Dickens is doing so skillfully is painting Scrooge as a man who doesn't think he's doing anything wrong, right? Clearly he is doing something wrong. He's doing everything wrong. And I'll say more about that in a minute. But Scrooge himself doesn't see himself as a bad guy. He feels justified in his way of seeing the world and operating within it. And he's annoyed at everyone else for acting in ways that seem totally irrational and unhelpful to him, right? He is not a like mustache twirling villain. In other words, he's not really a villain at all. He's just a man who's lost track of what's truly important. And in losing track of that, he's living his life in a way that is truly a warrant to everyone around him. But he thinks he's living in a rational and clear headed way and it's everyone else who've lost their ever loving minds, right? So it's not wrong, I don't think, to sort of like Scrooge or to at least look on him with the sort of amused indulgence that Dickens does. I mean, we're not supposed to like his behavior or the way that he treats other people, or his worldview. All of that, I hope we can agree, is very bad. But there is a sort of sense that he's a man who has gone astray, or that he's blind to the way the world really is, that he's just completely lost and doesn't even know it. I mean, he is cruel, right? It's cruel not to pay your employees a living wage or to cut off your nephew because he married a poor woman instead of a rich one or whatever. But he's not intentionally cruel. He's not trying to hurt people. In fact, I don't think he's thinking about people at all. And that is really the thing I want to get to today. So Rebecca's question about what is actually going on with Marley and the other ghosts that Scrooge sees outside his window, and what does it mean that Marley made his chain of his own free will and wears it of his own free will as well? All of this is really important to the question of what it is about Scrooge that's actually wrong, what has gone wrong in him, such that he's now this truly awful sort of person. And I'm going to make the case, and I'm going to try to make this case throughout our discussion of this book, because I think it's essentially the central theme of this story. I want to make the case that the problem that Scrooge is facing and the thing that Marley is trying to help him with is, is that Scrooge has no connection whatsoever to his fellow man. Connection is the key here. Connection between people, kindness, compassion, interest, just like communion between human beings, is the thing that Scrooge has forgotten. It's not that he's intentionally mean. It's that he is completely disregarding every single other person around him. He doesn't care about anyone, and he doesn't see why he should. And he doesn't even really know that it's expected, right? He's confused when he's asked to participate in the kind of messy, joyful, confusing hubbub of humanity. He doesn't see why he should do that. He would much rather be alone. And he's really, really put off by anyone making any sort of overtures toward including him in camaraderie of any kind, like his nephew inviting him to dinner. But Marley, who I think we're meant to believe was a person very much like Scrooge, is now. So Marley has come back to say that actually connection to other people isn't just important, it's everything, right? When Scrooge tells Marley that he was always a good man of business, here's what Marley says. He says, mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business, right? Essentially, money, work the even lines in your ledger, keeping an orderly schedule. All the things that Scrooge values and that Marley valued, too, when he was alive, all those things are totally useless. What matters is the way you act toward other people. And more than that, the way you reach out to other people, connect with them, and give of yourself and receive of themselves in return. You know that line that Rebecca mentions where Marley says, I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link and yard by yard, I girded it on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it. That line, right. What Marley is saying there is that he knew in his life that he was choosing money over people, business over connection or whatever, but he kept on living that life. Or another way to look at it is in his life, he cared about the material things, not the spiritual or human things. So now that he's dead, he is literally weighted down by the material. He has to wear these chains that tie him up and hold him down, because in life he cared about the sorts of things that tie you up and hold you down. It's not just bad to other people to not care about them and to only care about money, it's bad for you. You are weighted down by material concerns. But if you see that those things are unimportant and you place above all other things that joy of connection to the human race, then you're free. And Marley and the ghosts that Scrooge sees out the window have learned in death the true meaning of life, that it's all about connecting with each other. But they're dead now, so they can't be a part of it anymore, and they're doomed to walk the earth in, as Marley puts it, incessant torture of remorse. I mean, Marley is very clear about this, right? About what is truly important and what people on earth are meant to be doing. Here's what he it is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men and travel far and wide. And if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. 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 turn to happiness. So in life, according to Marley's ghost, you're supposed to be a part of humanity, to connect with other people, to help them, to be kind to them, to accept their help and accept their kindness. You're supposed to love and be loved, essentially, and if you don't do that, according to Marley, you'll be doomed to watch other people connecting and living without ever getting to join in. And doomed, too, to see all the ways in which you could have helped people but now have no power to actually Help them. So Marley has found some way to help Scrooge understand the error of his ways. And we'll probably talk more about this later on. But the theology of this book, or the mechanics of how all the supernatural stuff works is kind of intentionally vague, right? We don't really understand the intricacies of who sent Marley and who is going to send these spirits that Marley says will be coming to haunt Scrooge. Even Marley says he doesn't really know how this is happening, though he also says that he's the one that set up this whole situation with the spirits. I mean, Dickens is really clear, and you'll see this as we go along. He's really clear that there is a God and that God is in charge of all things, and that things that are good come from God and things that are not good come from man, essentially. But how Marley can appear to Scrooge now when apparently he's been sitting next to him many other nights without being seen. No one really knows where the spirits are going to come from and how it was all organized and by whom. We don't really know that either. But what we do know is that this whole experience that Marley is telling Scrooge he's about to have with these spirits is in service of waking Scrooge up to the fact that he's living his life all wrong. And the thing he's doing wrong, according to Marley, is that he's not connecting with others, that he's shut himself off entirely from his fellow men. And if he doesn't want to end up like Marley and the other kind of lamenting ghosts out there out the window, he's going to have to figure out how to connect. And that, as we were discussing a minute ago, is going to take a complete overhaul of his actual worldview, his actual philosophy of life. So can he do it? Should he do it? Let's find out. Okay, so don't forget to write in with your thoughts. I'm dying to hear your thoughts about this book, so. Faithkmoore.com and click on Contact or just click on the link in the show show notes. And don't forget to check out the merch store. I'm really excited for you to see that. And if you buy something and it comes, take a picture and post it somewhere and tag me or something. I cannot wait to see you guys wearing your storytime stuff. All right, let's get started with Stave 2 of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Stave 2, the first of the three spirits. When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes when the chimes of a neighboring church struck the four quarters. So he listened for the hour. To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from 6 to 7, and from 7 to 8, and regularly up to 12, then stopped. 12. It was past 2 when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. 12. He touched the spring of his repeater to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat 12 and stopped. So a repeater is a clock that repeats the hour when you press a button. So it's strangely 12 o'clock. Even though when he went to bed it was 2:00am why, it isn't possible, said Scrooge, that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun and that it is 12 at noon, the idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed and groped his way to the window. Window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing gown before he could see anything, and could see very little. Then all he could make out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, because three days after sight of the first exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order and so forth, would have become a mere United States security. If there were no days to count by meaning, if there was no distinction between night and day, then he couldn't count the time until his loans were due to be paid and he couldn't make his money. Scrooge went to bed again and thought and thought and thought it over and over and over and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was, and the more he endeavored not to think, the more he thought Marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released to its first position and presented the same problem to be worked all through. Was it a dream or not? Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters more when he remembered on a sudden that the ghost had warned him of a visitation. When the bell tolled one, he resolved to lie awake until the hour was past, and considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power. The quarter was so long that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear. Ding dong a quarter past, said Scrooge, counting Ding dong. Half past, said Scrooge. Ding dong a quarter to it, said Scrooge. Ding dong. The hour itself, said Scrooge triumphantly, and nothing else he spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow melancholy. One light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you by a hand, not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, and Scrooge, starting up into a half recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. It was a strange figure, like a child, yet not so like a child as like an old man viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view and being diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white, as if with age, and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular, the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand, and in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright, clear jet of light, by which all this was visible, and which was doubtless the occasion of its using in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. So an extinguisher is a sort of cup that you would put over a candle to put it out. So his hat looks like an extinguisher, and if he puts it on, the light shining out of his head would go out. Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness, being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with 20 legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body, body of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away, and in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again, distinct and clear as ever. Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me? Asked Scrooge. I am. The voice was soft and gentle, singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. Who and what are you? Scrooge demanded. I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. Long past? Inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature. Know your past, perhaps. Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him. But he had a special desire to see the spirit in his cap lamp, and begged him to be covered. What, exclaimed the ghost, would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap and forced me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow? Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the spirit at any period of his life, he then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. Your welfare, said the ghost. Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said, immediately, your reclamation. Then take heed. It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. Rise, and walk with me. It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes, that bed was warm and the thermometer a long way below freezing, that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing gown and nightcap, and that he had a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose, but finding that the spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication. I am mortal. Scrooge remonstrated, and liable to fall. So the spirit seems to want him to come out through the window, and he's saying he's gonna fall out and down to the ground. There but a touch of my hand. There, said the spirit, laying it upon his heart, and you shall be upheld in more than this. As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall and stood upon an open country road with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold winter day with snow upon the ground. Good heaven. Said Scrooge, clasping his hands together as he looked about him. I was bred in this place. I was a boy here. The spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts and hopes and joys and cares long, long forgotten. Your lip is trembling, said the ghost. And what is that upon your cheek? Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple, and begged the ghost to lead him where he would. So Scrooge is crying, but he doesn't want the ghost to know. You recollect the way. Inquired the spirit. Remember it. Cried Scrooge with fervor. I could walk it blindfold. Strange to have forgotten it for so many years, observed the ghost. Let us go on. They walked along the road, Scrooge recognizing every gate and post and tree, until a little market town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen, trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country jigs and carts driven by farmers. A jig is a little two wheeled carriage. All these boys were in great spirits and shouted to each other until the broad fields were so full of merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it. These are but shadows of the things that have been, said the ghost. They have no consciousness of us. The jocund travelers came on, and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye glisten and his heart leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry Christmas as they Parted at crossroads and byways for their several homes. What was Merry Christmas to Scrooge out upon? Merry Christmas. What good had it ever done to him? The school is not quite deserted, said the ghost. A solitary child, neglected by his friends is left there still. Right. So all the boys are going home from boarding school for the Christmas vacation. But the ghost says that one boy is left behind. Scrooge said he knew it and he sobbed. They left the high road by a well remembered lane and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick with a little weathercock surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes, for the spacious offices were little used. Their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables and the coach houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within. For entering the dreary hall and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold and vast. There was an earthy savor in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candlelight and not too much to eat. They went, the ghost and Scrooge, along the hall to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal, forms and desks. So forms are long wooden benches. So this is a schoolroom. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire, and Scrooge sat down upon a form and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be. Not a latent echo in the house, nor a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the panelling. Not a drip from the half thawed waterspout in the dull yard behind. Not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar. Not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening influence and gave a freer passage to his tears. So everything about this lonely scene is affecting Scrooge and bringing him to tears. The spirit touched him on the arm and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle, an ass laden with wood. Why, it's ali Baba. Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. It's dear old honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he. He did come for the first time, just like that poor boy. And Valentine, said Scrooge and his wild brother Orson, there they go. And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers asleep at the gate of Damascus. Don't you see him? And the sultan's groom turned upside down by the genie. There he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the princess? So these are all the stories that the little boy Scrooge was reading. And the old man Scrooge is suddenly remembering all these fanciful tales like the Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe and things like that. And he's getting very excited and seeing them as if they were really there. To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying, and to see his heightened and excited face would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city. Indeed. There's the parrot. Cried Scrooge. Green body and yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head. There he is. Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him when he came home again after sailing round the island. Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin Crusoe? The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little Creek Halloa Hoop. Hello. Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said in pity for his former self, poor boy, and cried again. I wish, Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket and looking about him after drying his eyes with his cuff. But it is too late now. What is the matter? Asked the spirit. Nothing, said Scrooge. Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something, that's all. The ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved its hand, saying as it did so, let us see another Christmas. Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked, fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked lathes were shown instead. But how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct that everything had happened so that there he was alone again when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge looked at the ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. It opened, and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in and putting her arms round his neck and often kissing him, addressed him as her dear, dear brother. I have come to bring you home, dear brother, said the child, clapping her tiny hands and bending down to laugh. To bring you home, home, home, home. Little Fan, returned the boy. Yes, said the child, brimful of glee, Home for good and all. Home forever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be that home's like heaven. He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home. And he said, yes, you should, and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're to be a man, said the child, opening her eyes, and are never to come back here, but first we're to be together all the Christmas long and have the merriest time in all the world. You are quite a woman, little fan. Exclaimed the boy. She clapped her hands and laughed and tried to touch his head, but being too little, laughed again and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him in her childish eagerness towards the door, and he, nothing loth to go, accompanied her. A terrible voice in the hall cried, bring down Master Scrooge's box. There. And in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake. Cake. And administered instalments of those dainties to the young people, at the same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something to the postboy, meaning the carriage driver, who answered that he thanked the gentleman. But if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied to the top of the chaise, so the top of the carriage. The children bade the schoolmaster. Goodbye. Right willingly me. And getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep, the quick wheels dashing the hoar. Frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. Always a delicate creature whom a breath might have withered, said the ghost. But she had a large heart. So she had. Cried Scrooge. You're right. I will not gainsay it, spirit. God forbid. She died a woman, said the ghost, and had, I think, children. One child. Scrooge returned. True, said the ghost. Your nephew. Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind and answered briefly, yes. So this girl fan is Scrooge's sister and the mother of Scrooge's nephew, who we met last time. Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city where shadowy passengers passed and repassed, where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way and all the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough by the dressing of the shops that here too it was Christmas time again. But it was evening and the streets were lighted up. The ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door and asked Scrooge if he knew it. Know it, said Scrooge, was I apprenticed here? They went in at sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig. So a Welsh wig is like a kind of woollen cap, sitting behind such a high desk that if he had been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head against the ceiling. Scrooge cried in great excitement. Why, it's old Fezziwig. Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again. Old Fezziwig laid down his pen and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands, adjusted his capacious waistcoat. Capacious means large and roomy. So he's got a large waistcoat. Laughed all over himself from his shoes to his organ of benevolence. So the organ of benevolence is a phrenological term which you might remember if you were with us for Jane Eyre. But it's just above the whorehead. So he's laughing all over from his head, head to his toes. And called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice, yo ho there, Ebenezer Dick, Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow prentice, Dick Wilkins. To be sure, said Scrooge to the ghost. Bless me. Yes, there he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear yo ho, my boys, said Fezziwig. No more work tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas Eve, Ebenezer. Let's have the shutters up. Cried old Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands before a man could say Jack Robinson. You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it. They charged into the street with the shutters. One, two, three, had em up in their places. Four, five, six, barred em and pinned em. Seven, eight, nine. And came back before you could have got to 12, panting like racehorses. Hilly ho. Cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility. Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here. Hilly ho, Dick. Cheer up, Ebenezer. Clear away. There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away or couldn't have cleared away with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every moveable was packed off as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore. The floor was swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire, and the warehouse was as sn and warm and dry and bright a ballroom as you would desire to see upon a winter's night. So they've changed the office into a dance floor. In came a fiddler with a music book and went up to the lofty desk and made an orchestra of it. And tuned like 50 stomach aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Ms. Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid with her cousin the baker. In came the cook with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way who was suspected of not having bored enough from his master, trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door, but one who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another, some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling. In they all came anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, 20 couples at once. Hands half round and back again the other way, down the middle and up again, round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping. Old top couple always turning up in the wrong place. New top couple starting off again as soon as they got there. All top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, well done. And the fiddler plunged his Hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. So they're having like a raucous, chaotic, hilarious fun party with lots of dancing but scorning rest upon his reappearance he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home exhausted on a shutter. And he were a brand new man resolved to beat him out of sight or perish. There were more dances and there were forfeits. Forfeits is a sort of party game. And more dances. And there was cake, and there was negus, which is a kind of Christmassy wine. And there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece of cold boiled, and there were mince pies and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and boiled, when the fiddler, an artful dog mind the sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him, struck up Sir Roger de Coverley. That's the music for a certain dance. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple too, with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them. 3 or 4. And 20 pair of partners, people who were not to be trifled with. People who would dance and had no notion of walking. But if they had been twice as many, ah, four times, old Fezziwig would have been a match for them. Them. And so would Mrs. Fezziwig, as to her she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me higher and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted at any given time what would have become of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance. Advance and retire. Both hands to your partner. Bow and curtsy. Corkscrew. Thread the needle and back again to your place. Fezziwig. Cut. Cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs and came upon his feet again without a stagger. To cut means to perform a fancy dance move that involves jumping and landing in a specific way. When the clock struck 11, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. And Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did the same to them. And thus the cheerful voices died away and the lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter in the back shop. So apprentices often slept under their desks. So Scrooge and Dick are going to bed after the party in their normal places. During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. Wits, his heart and soul were in the scene. And with his former self he corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the ghost and became conscious that it was looking full upon him while the light upon its head burnt very clear. A small matter, said the ghost, to make these silly folks so full of gratitude. Small, Echoed Scrooge. The spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig, and when he had done so, said, why is it not he has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money? Three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise? It isn't that, said Scrooge, heated by the remark and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self. It isn't that spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks, in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count em up. What then? The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune. He felt the spirit's glance and stopped. What is the matter? Asked the ghost. Nothing particular, said Scrooge. Something, I think, the ghost insisted. No, said Scrooge. No. I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now, that's all. His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish. And Scrooge and the ghost again stood side by side in the open air. My time grows short, observed the spirit quick. This was not addressed to Scrooge or to anyone whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect, for again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now, a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years, but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye which showed the passion that had taken root and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. Meaning this version of himself has started to care more for money than for people. He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning dress, in whose eyes there were tears which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. It matters little, she said softly to you, Very little. Another idol has displaced me, and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve. What idol has displaced you? He rejoined. A golden one. This is the even handed dealing of the world, he said. There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty, and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth. You fear the world too much, she answered gently. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion gain engrosses you. Have I not? What then? He retorted. Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you. She shook her head. Am I? Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor and content to be so until in good season we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed. When it was made, you were another man. I was a boy, he said impatiently. Your own feeling tells you that you are not what you are, she returned. I am that which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this. I will not say it is enough that I have thought of it and can release you. Have I ever sought release in words? No, never. In what, then? In a changed nature, in an altered spirit, in another atmosphere of life, another hope, as its great end in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, said the girl, looking mildly but with steadiness upon him, him, tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no. He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of himself. But, he said with a struggle, you think not? I would gladly think otherwise if I could, she answered. Heaven knows when I have learned a truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be be. But if you were free today, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl, you, who in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by gain or choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so. Do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do. And I release you with a full heart for the love of him you once were. He was about to speak, but with her head turned from him, she resumed. You may the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will have pain in this a very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it gladly as an unprofitable dream from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen. She left him and they parted. Spirit, said Scrooge, show me no more. Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me? One shadow more, exclaimed the ghost. No more. Cried Scrooge. No more. I don't wish to see it. Show me no more. But the relentless ghost pinioned him in both his arms and forced him to observe what happened next. They were in another scene and place, a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like the last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her now, a comely matron sitting opposite her daughter. So there's a girl who looks a lot like his ex fiance, and Scrooge thinks at first it is her, but it's really her daughter. And the ex fiance comes in and she's now an older woman. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than Scrooge, in his agitated state of mind, could count. And unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not 40 children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like 40. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief, but no one seemed to care. On the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily and enjoyed it very much. And the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them? Though I never could have been so rude. No, no, I wouldn't. For the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair and torn it down, down. And for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul, to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport as they did bold young brood, I couldn't have done it. I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lipsto have questioned her that she might have opened them, to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes and never raised a blush. To have let loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price. In short, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value. So Dickens is speaking to us here and telling us what a beautiful, wonderful, priceless sort of person this woman is that Scrooge gave up. But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne towards it, the center of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling and the onslaught that was made on the defenseless porter. So the porter is the man carrying the presents. He's a kind of servant or a shop boy of some kind who's helped the father carry home his purchase purchases. This scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received. The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth, and which was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter. The immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy and gratitude and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlor, and by one stair at a time up to the top of the house, where they went to bed and so subsided. And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever. When the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside, and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a springtime in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. Bell, said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon. Who was it? Guess. How can I tut? Don't I know? She added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. Mr. Scrooge. Mr. Scrooge. It was I passed his office window, and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear. And there he sat alone, quite alone in the world, I do believe. Spirit, said Scrooge in a broken voice, remove me from this place. I told you these were shadows. Of the things that have been, said the ghost, that they are what they are, do not blame me. Remove me. Scrooge exclaimed. I cannot bear it. He turned upon the ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face in which, in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. Leave me. Take me back. Haunt me no longer in the struggle, if that can be called a struggle, in which the ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part, was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and bright, and dimly connecting that with its influence over him. He seized the extinguisher cap and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. The spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form. But though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light which streamed from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground. He was conscious of being exhausted and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness, and further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze in which his hand relaxed and had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to check out my novel, Christmas Carol. That's Carol with a K. Using the link in the Show Notes to hear me read an excerpt from the book tied to today's episode, click on the link in the Show Notes. I would be so grateful if you would consider buying a copy or a few copies for yourself or as a gift. If you buy a copy of the book and email me a screenshot of your receipt, you'll be entered into a drawing to receive your choice of either your money back or an additional signed copy. The email to send the receipt to is in the Show Notes. If you buy multiple copies, you can enter the drawing multiple times. The winner will be notified by email. Also, everyone who buys a copy of the book is entitled to a free signed bookplate, which you can stick into the book to make it a signed copy. If you'd like one. Just email the screenshot of your receipt to the email address listed in the Show Notes and let me know whom you'd like the book plate made out to and what address to mail it to. Thank you so much for supporting me and the work I do by buying my book this Christmas time. And of course, don't forget to get in touch with comments or questions about this episode. Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com, click on Contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the show notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Alright everyone, storytime is over. To be continued. It.