Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Quotes from Dickens' Christmas Carol

Here are some warm thoughts on a cold night from a classic Christmas story. The little lighted village is set up in our living room...

"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!"

. . . for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

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-humour.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

8 comments:

  1. Do love this time of the year!! Great choice in quotes!

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  2. ...Now I feel like watching A Christmas Carol. Nice post. :)

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  3. Lovely village and words!

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  4. Good old Scrooge. We watch two versions most Christmases.

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  5. Sweet village - always wanted to set one up.

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  6. You are helping me, Ruth - get into the spirit of the season. It's my favorite - A Christmas Carol.

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  7. Thanks for your comments. We did watch Alister Sims as Scrooge last night. I think it is the best film version.

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  8. Nice words to read this time of the year. It is a good time to get in touch with our inner child.

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