Identifier: christmascarol00dick2 (find matches)
Title: A Christmas carol
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 Coburn, Frederick Simpson
Subjects: Christmas stories Misers
Publisher: New York : Putnam
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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turned down the lamps as hegave utterance to the wish; and Scrooge and theGhost again stood side by side in the open air. My time grows short, observed the Spirit.Quick ! This was not addressed to Scrooge, or toany one whom he could see, but it producedan immediate effect. For again Scrooge sawhimself. He was older now ; a man in theprime of life. His face had not the harsh andrigid lines of later years ; but it had begun towear the signs of care and avarice. ThereWas an eager, greedy, restless motion in theeye, which showed the passion that had takenroot, and where the shadow of the growingtree would fall. He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fairyoung girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyesthere were tears, which sparkled in the lightthat shone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past. It matters little, she said, softly. Toyou, very little. Another idol has displacedme ; and if it can cheer and comfort you intime to come, as 1 would have tried to do, Ihave no just cause to grieve.
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63 B Christmas Carol What Idol has displaced you? he re-joined. A golden one. This is the even-handed dealing of theworld! he said. ** There is nothing onwhich it is so hard as poverty ; and there isnothing it professes to condemn with suchseverity as the pursuit of wealth ! You fear the world too much, she an-swered, gently. All your other hopes havemerged into the hope of being beyond thechance of its sordid reproach. I have seenyour nobler aspirations fall off one by one,until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.Have 1 not ? ■ _ What then ? he retorted. Even if I■^^^jJl^^X, ^^^^ grown so much wiser, what then ?I am not changed towards you.She shook her head. Am \? Our contract is an old one. It was madewhen we were both poor and content to beso, until, in good season, we could improveour worldly fortune by our patient industry.You are changed. When it was made, youwere another man. I was a boy, he said impatiently. 64

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