Book Review: Dodger

I have never read a book by Terry Pratchett. The only books I had heard of by him were from his Discworld series, which a friend of mine absolutely loves. I have never been interested in reading any of those books, as I’m not a big fan of the fantasy genre. Then I read about Dodger. I am familiar with the character of the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist, so I was interested in reading what was touted as a fictional version of the true story of the Artful Dodger.

Description:

A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad see a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he's . . . Dodger.

Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London's sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He's not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl - not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.

Review:

I enjoyed this book very much. The writing is very good and the story is well thought out. The story captured me from the very first page and I kept reading with interest, anxious to find out what would happen next to Dodger and how his carefully thought-out plans would work out. The book contains actual historic figures from the Victorian age. Most of them I was familiar with, and others I had to look up. These historic figures include Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, Henry Mayhew, Robert Peel, Sweeney Todd, Joseph Bazalgette, Angela Burdett-Coutts, and even Queen Victoria herself.

Dodger is a great character, and is the best developed of all of the characters, after all, the book is about him. He is not a pickpocket as he is in Oliver Twist. He is a “tosher,” which is someone who retrieves valuables from the sewers. He doesn’t consider himself a thief. He simply finds things people have lost. Pratchett does a great job of recreating Victorian England. You can tell that he did a lot of research, and it paid off. The descriptions of London and the lives of those who lived there were very vivid.

Charles Dickens is a main character in the book, and Dodger's experiences with him not only give Dickens ideas for Oliver Twist, but even give him ideas for other stories that he will write subsequently. I loved the moments when Dodger would say something and Charlie (as he is referred to in the book) would take out a notebook and write something down, much to the annoyance of Dodger. I know how it is to write down ideas and quotes, I just hope I don't annoy my friends with doing it. *wink*  I also hope that one day I can write a novel close to the quality of Dickens. Even though there are glimpses of Dickens's stories, I am glad that the plot of Dodger isn't taken from a Dickens novel (as far as I know).

After reading Dodger I may try other works by Pratchett. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know.

There were some great passages in the book, and because I read it on my Kindle Fire, I highlighted some. I would never mark up a hard copy of a book, so reading an ebook has its positives.

Here are just a few highlights:

The night passed fairly quickly because so much had already slid away into yesterday.

"Well, I thought to myself, if that is the self-same young man I met the other day, then the only way he would stop anything being stolen would be to put his hands behind his back."

...although the man was the master, which was of course only right and proper, if you watched and listened, you would see that their marriage was like a barge on the river with the wife being the wind that told the captain which way the barge would sail. Mrs. Mayhew, if not being the wind, certainly knew when to apply the right puff.

Sharp Bob, who in these circumstances realized that only half of his name was accurate, was struggling now.

"Mmm, well now," he said, "if one day you gave up messing about in ... well, mess, I might talk to you about the works of Spinoza, a philosopher who might broaden your mind - because as far as I can see, there's plenty room."

The little room was silent and dark, apart from the slight snoring of Solomon, the gray light that managed to filter through the dirty window, and the smell of Onan, which in some peculiar way could almost be heard.

If he had no plans for the day, he would lounge under the blanket until Onan licked his face, and you never wanted that to happen more than once.

Mister Todd was definitely not a naturally cheerful personality; the gloom was apparently laminated to him.

Sweeney swirled a white sheet over him in a way that would have been called theatrical.

"All men are writers, journalists scribbling within their skulls the narrative of what they see and hear, notwithstanding that a man sitting opposite them might well brew an entirely different view as to the nature of the occurrence. That is the salvation and the demon of journalism, the knowledge that there is almost always a different perspective from which to see the conundrum."

And that was how Dodger and Simplicity got into Parliament, indeed with the cutthroat razor - and with a lie, which was fine, considering that's how so many people got into Parliament.

"Money makes people rich; it is a fallacy to think it makes them better, or even that it makes them worse. People are what they do, and what they leave behind."

Dodger said, "Can I have some more?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw Charlie wearing the familiar expression of a man enjoying the fun.

"Don't bother with the fish slice; nobody bothers with the fish slice, it is there as an ornament, just to show people that you have a fish slice."

A Christmas Carol: What the Movies Missed, Part 4

By the time we come to the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, Scrooge has made the decision to change. He no longer wants to be the man he was. Yet, in spite of this, the future he sees is not of the changed Scrooge, but of the yet-to-change Scrooge. I love that, although we - the audience - know that the dead man everyone is speaking of is Scrooge, Scrooge has no clue. He is trying to find his future self walking on the street, or standing on a corner. It is this Spirit who helps him decide to change "for good" - to make the change for the rest of his, hopefully long, life.

(Part 1 of this series. Part 2 of this series. Part 3 of this series.)

Stave IV: The Last of the Spirits

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it.

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any Spectre I have seen. But, as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart."

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob Marley, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost's province was Future. Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard and everything he saw, and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed and would render the solution of these riddles easy.

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however, for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this.

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been greater though they had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now."

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of her heart.

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen.

There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there lately. Poor  Bob sat down in it, and when he thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again quite happy.

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before - though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future.

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come!"

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in , they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

Stave V: The End Of It

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in!

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call.

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 Laocoon of himself with his stockings.

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs.

Running to the window, he opened it and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.
"I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!"

It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you're at it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied.

The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurry to and fro, and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed that any walk - that anything - could give him so much happiness.

"It's I. You uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?"
Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the Tank again; "and therefore I am bout to raise your salary!"

"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, a little heeded them, for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

A Christmas Carol: What the Movies Missed, Part 3

When Scrooge is visited by The Ghost of Christmas Present, he begins to realize that he has been an unhappy, disliked, lonely old man. And most important of all, he realizes that he doesn't have to be. It is while he views the joys of the Christmas season through the eyes of young and old, rich and poor, that he sees what a different life he can have.

(Part 1 of this series. Part 2 of this series.)

Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits

He felt he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention.

He... established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous.

I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling.

"There are some upon this earth of ours," returned the Spirit, "who  lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to use and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a week himself; he pocketed on Saturday but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!

"Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastry cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that! That was the pudding!

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full a five minutes.

They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contended with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially Tiny Tim, until the last.

Here again were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter - artful witches: well they knew it - in a glow!

But if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that  no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there  instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fire half-chimney high.

The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed: though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas.

And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and had remember those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humor.

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"
"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed - as no doubt it was: all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!

"I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers."

Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes) which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindness of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its might Founder was a child Himself.

There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what as going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge: blunt as he took it in his head to be.

"A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!"
Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time.

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

"Spirit! are they yours:" Scrooge could say no more.
"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance.This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree; but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand toward the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!"

A Christmas Carol: What the Movies Missed, Part 2

Stave II of A Christmas Carol introduces us to the first of the Three Spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past. As the spirit tells Scrooge, he (or she) is the Spirit not of long past, but of Scrooge's past. Scrooge is able to see what led him to become the man he is, and he begins to regret many things that he has done. He also sees that he was happy once.

(Click here to view Part 1 of this series.)

Stave II: The First of the the Three Spirits

All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endevoured not to think, the more he thought.

He resolved to lie awake until the hour had passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

...its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another, and what was light one instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.

He 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.

Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

"Yo ho, there! Ebeneezer! Dick!"

In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow.

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation.

I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet been man enough to know its value.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

A Christmas Carol: What the Movies Missed, Part 1

It's been a long time since I've read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I have seen many screen and stage versions of the book over the years, but it wasn't until I read the book again that I realized what a wonderful book Dickens wrote so many years ago. He had such a way with words that it is a joy to read every word of the story.

I love this book, and there are so many great passages in the narration that just can't be translated to film or the stage, that I thought I would post those passages that speak to me and that make this book so great. And, just because I can, I will throw in passages that did make it into film and stage versions. However, there are so many, that I'm breaking it up into four posts. Part 1 is Stave I, Part 2 is Stave II, Part 3 is Stave III, and Part 4 is Staves IV and V.

Stave I: Marley's Ghost

I might have been inclined myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for.

There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot - say Saint Paul's Cathedral for instance - literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.

He carried his own low temperature always about him: he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

"And therefore, uncle, though it has ever 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!"

His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.

Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

He lived in chambers that had once belonged to his deceased partner. The were a gloomy suite of rooms, on a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and -seek with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again.

Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

Scrooge had often heard that Marley had no bowels, but he never believed it until now.

"Can you - can you sit down? asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.
"I can."
"Do it then."
Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation.

"There's more gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror, for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow of his bones.

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, 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!"

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my 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!"

"Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?"

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."
It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.

"Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us."

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.

He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. The misery with them was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power forever.