A Christmas Carol

• Marley was dead: to begin with.: 'Marley was as dead as a doornail.'
• Scrooge


  • He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone
  • Hard and sharp as flint
  • Solitary as an oyster
  • External heat and cold had little influence on him
• It was cold, bleak, biting weather
• The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole
• Scrooge's clerk


  • He was copying letters in a dismal little cell beyond
• Fred


  • He was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled
• At the ominous word liberality, Scrooge frowned
• Scrooge: '"I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry."'
• Scrooge: '"If they would rather die… they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."'
• Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened
• Piercing, searching, biting cold
• There was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door
• Scrooge: '"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.'
• Marley's ghost: '"I wear the chain I forged in life."'
• Marley's ghost: '"Or would know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"'
• Marley's ghost: '"No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse."'
• Marley's ghost: '"Mankind was my business."'
• The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever
• He tried to say, 'Humbug!' but stopped at the first syllable
• Was it a dream or not?
• The Ghost of Christmas Past

  • It was a strange figure – like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man
  • It wore a tunic of the purest white
  • From the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light
• The voice was soft and gentle
• The Ghost of Christmas Past: '"Would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give?"'
• Scrooge: '"I am a mortal, and liable to fall."'
• Scrooge was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long forgotten!
• The Ghost of Christmas Past: '"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is that upon your cheek?"'
• The school is not quite deserted… A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still
• Scrooge wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be
• Scrooge: '"There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that's all."'
• A little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her 'dear, dear brother'
• The little girl: '"Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's like Heaven!"'
• Fezziwig


  • He called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice
• Scrooge: '"He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make out service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil."'
• Belle: '"Another idol has displaced me."'
• Belle: '"You fear the world too much."'
• Our contract is an old one
• Scrooge seized the extinguisher-cap, and by sudden action pressed it down upon its head
• He could not hide the light: which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground
• A strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter
• Such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney