stave 1

• " marley was dead : to begin with "
• " marley was as dead as a doornail "
• " he was a tight - fisted hand at the grindstone, scrooge ! "
• "hard and sharp as flint."
• "solitary as an oyster "
• "external heat and cold had little influence on scrooge."
• "it was a cold, bleak, biting winter."
• the fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole.'
• "his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond... was copying letters ."
• ' he was all i a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome ; his eyes sparkled
• ' at the ominous work liberality.' scrooge frowned'
• ‘”Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.’
• I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford to make idle people merry.
• ‘”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
• ‘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.’ (Scrooge after seeing Marley’s face)
• ‘”How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.’
• ‘”I wear the chain I forged in life.”’
• ‘”Or would know,” pursued the Ghost, “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!
• ”No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.’
• ‘”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.’