Stave 1 - Key Quotes

Stave 1 - Key Quotes

  • 'Marley was dead, to begin with (...) Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.' - Narrator
  • 'a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!' - Narrator
  • 'Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire' - Narrator
  • '"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the Scrooge's nephew' - Narrator
  • '"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"' - Scrooge
  • 'his face was ruddy and handsome' - Narrator
  • '"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
  • '"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew; "Christmas amongst the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time when it has come round - apart from the veneration due to its scared name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that - as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and woman seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they were really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" - Fred
  • 'The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded' - Narrator
  • 'They were portly gentlemen' - Narrator
  • '"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides - excuse me - I don't know that."' - Scrooge
  • 'Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern' - Narrator
  • 'Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change - not a knocker, but Marley's face.' - Narrator
  • 'The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.' -  Narrator
  • 'much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!' - Narrator
  • '"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "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 turned to happiness!"' - Marley
  • '"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "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. Is its pattern strange to you?"' - Marley
  • '"It was as full and heave and long as this, seven Christmas-eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!"' - Marley
  • '"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse."' - Marley
  • '"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was mt 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!"' - Marley
  • '"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits." (...) "Expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls One." (...) "Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate."' - Marley
  • 'The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.' - Narrator
  • 'went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.' - Narrator

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