{"id":31667,"date":"2020-11-28T20:53:47","date_gmt":"2020-11-29T03:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?page_id=31667"},"modified":"2020-11-28T22:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-11-29T05:53:52","slug":"merry-christmas-according-to-scrooge","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/dickens-in-days\/merry-christmas-according-to-scrooge\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 2 – Merry Christmas According to Scrooge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dickens<\/a>Once upon a time\u2014of all the good days in the year, on Christmas<\/a> Eve\u2014old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already\u2014it had not been light all day\u2014and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.<\/p>\n

The door of Scrooge\u2019s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk\u2019s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn\u2019t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.<\/p>\n

\u201cA merry Christmas<\/a>, uncle! God save you!\u201d cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge\u2019s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cBah!\u201d said Scrooge, \u201cHumbug!\u201d<\/p>\n

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge\u2019s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristmas a humbug, uncle!\u201d said Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cYou don\u2019t mean that, I am sure?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cMerry Christmas<\/a>! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You\u2019re poor enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCome, then,\u201d returned the nephew gaily. \u201cWhat right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You\u2019re rich enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, \u201cBah!\u201d again; and followed it up with \u201cHumbug.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be cross, uncle!\u201d said the nephew.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat else can I be,\u201d returned the uncle, \u201cwhen I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas<\/a>! Out upon merry Christmas<\/a>! What\u2019s Christmas<\/a> time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in \u2019em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,\u201d said Scrooge indignantly, \u201cevery idiot who goes about with \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUncle!\u201d pleaded the nephew.<\/p>\n

\u201cNephew!\u201d returned the uncle sternly, \u201ckeep Christmas<\/a> in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep it!\u201d repeated Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cBut you don\u2019t keep it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me leave it alone, then,\u201d said Scrooge. \u201cMuch good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,\u201d returned the nephew. \u201cChristmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas<\/a> time, when it has come round\u2014apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that\u2014as 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 women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they 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!\u201d<\/p>\n

The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me hear another sound from you,\u201d said Scrooge, \u201cand you\u2019ll keep your Christmas<\/a> by losing your situation! You\u2019re quite a powerful speaker, sir,\u201d he added, turning to his nephew. \u201cI wonder you don\u2019t go into Parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scrooge said that he would see him\u2014yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut why?\u201d cried Scrooge\u2019s nephew. \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you get married?\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I fell in love<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause you fell in love<\/a>!\u201d growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas<\/a>. \u201cGood afternoon!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood afternoon,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood afternoon,\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas<\/a>, and I\u2019ll keep my Christmas<\/a> humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas<\/a>, uncle!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood afternoon!\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd A Happy New Year!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGood afternoon!\u201d said Scrooge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once upon a time\u2014of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve\u2014old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"parent":31663,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"pageWithContainerAndSidebar.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":46,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-31667","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31667\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/31663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}