For yesterday’s literary advent we had a Christmas carol, today we have an excerpt from A Christmas Carol. Every day of the festive season, we’re bringing you an excerpt or snippet from literature that will make you feel festive, and today’s is from the book that is possibly the most famous Christmas story of all after the nativity.
We hope you enjoy this little excerpt, just nine days to go now!
“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!”, Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.
“They are not torn down”, cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed–curtains in his arms, “they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here—I am here—the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!”
His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
“I don’t know what to do!”, cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”
We hope that happy snippet from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol helped you to feel a little more festive. I’m currently reading an early 20th century leather bound copy and it’s certainly doing the trick for me!
A Christmas Carol is a beautiful story and over the years its been remade many times for film, television, and the stage. There are children’s versions, abridged versions, and all singing all dancing versions, but if you haven’t read the original text, it’s one for the TBR as it’s wonderful!
We’ll be back tomorrow with more Christmas snippets.
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