Name: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Audiobook with holidays music)
Uploaded: 2023-10-11T21:13:58.000Z
Duration: 3 h 31 min 35 s
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a christmas carol by charles  dickens read by bob neufeld

preface i have endeavored in this ghostly  little book to raise the ghost of an idea  

which shall not put my readers out of  humor with themselves with each other  

with the season or with me may it haunt their  houses pleasantly and no one wished to lay it  

their faithful friend and servant  charles dickens december 1843

marley was dead to begin with there is no  doubt whatever about that the register of  

his burial was signed by the clergyman the  clerk the undertaker and the chief mourner  

scrooge signed it and scrooch's name was good upon  change for anything he chose to put his hand to  

old marley was as dead as a doornail mind i  don't mean to say that i know of my own knowledge  

what there is particularly dead about a door  nail i might have been inclined myself to  

regard a coffin nail as the deadest  piece of iron mongeri in the trade  

but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile  and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it  

for the country is done for you will therefore  permit me to repeat emphatically that marley  

was as dead as a doornail scrooge knew he was  dead of course he did how could it be otherwise  

scrooge and he were partners for i don't know  how many years scrooge was his sole executor  

his sole administrator his soul assign his sole  residuary legacy his soul friend and soul mourner  

and even scrooge was not so dreadfully caught up  by the sad events but that he was an excellent  

man of business on the very day of the funeral  and solemnized it with an undaunted bargain the  

mention of marty's funeral brings me back to the  point i started from 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 then there would be any other middle-aged  gentleman brashly turning out after dark in  

a breezy spot say saint paul's churchyard for  instance literally to astonish his son's weak mind  

scrooge never painted out old molly's name there  it stood years afterwards above the warehouse door  

scrooge and marley the firm was known as scrooge  and marley sometimes people new to the business  

called scrooge scrooge and sometimes marley but he  answered to both names it was all the same to him  

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  

the cold within him froze his old features  nipped his pointed nose shriveled his cheek  

stiffened his gate made his eyes red his thin lips  blew and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice  

a frosty rhyme was on his head and on his  eyebrows and his wiery chin he carried his  

own low temperature always about with him he iced  his office in the dog days and didn't thaw it one  

degree at christmas external heat and cold had  little influence on scrooge no warmth could warm  

no wintry weather chilled him no wind that  blew was better than he no falling snow was  

more intent upon its purpose no pelting rain less  open to entreaty foul weather didn't know where to  

have him the heaviest rain and snow and hail and  sleet that boast of the advantage over him in only  

one respect they often came down handsomely  and scrooge never did nobody ever stopped him  

in the street to say with gladsome looks my dear  scrooge how are you when will you come to see me  

though beggars implored him to bestow a trifle  no children asked him what it was o'clock  

no man or woman ever once in all his life  inquired away to such and such a place of scrooge  

even the blind men's dogs appeared to  know him and when they saw him coming on  

would tug their owners into doorways and up courts  and then would wag their tails as though they said  

no i at all is better than an evil one  dark master but what did scrooge care  

it was the very thing he liked to edge  his way along the crowded paths of life  

warning all human sympathy to keep its distance  was what the knowing ones call nuts to scrooge  

once upon a time of all the good days in the  year on christmas eve old scrooge sat busy in  

his counting house there was cold bleak biting  weather foggy with all 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 it had not been  light all day and candles were flaring in the  

windows of the neighboring offices like  bloody smears upon the palpable brown air  

the fog came pouring in at every [ __ ] 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 the door of  scrooge's 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's  fire was so much smaller that it looked like  

one coal but he couldn't replenish it for  scrooge kept the coal box in his own room  

and so surely as the clerk came in with the  shuffle 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  efforts not being a man of a strong imagination he  

failed a merry christmas uncle god save you cried  a cheerful voice it was the voice of scrooge's  

nephew who came upon him so quickly that this  was the first intimation he had of his approach

said scrooge hum bug he had so heated himself  with his rapid walking in the fog and frost  

this nephew of screeches that he was all in a glow  his face was ruddy and handsome his eyes sparkled  

and his breath smoked again christmas a humbug  uncle said scrooge's nephew you don't mean that  

i am sure i do said scrooge merry  christmas what right have you to be married  

what reason have you to be married you're poor  enough oh come then return the nephew gaby  

what right have you to be dismal what reason have  you to be morose you're rich enough throughge  

having no better answer ready on the spirit of the  moment said again and followed it up with hamburg  

don't be cross uncle said the nephew but 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  

but not an hour richer a time for balancing your  books and having every item in them through a  

round dozen of once 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 steak of honey through  his heart he should uncle pleaded the nephew  

nephew returned the uncle sternly keep christmas  in your own way and let me keep it in mind  

keep it repeated scrooge's nephew but you don't  keep it let me leave it alone then said scrooge  

much good man do you much good has it ever done  you there are many things from which i might have  

derived good by which i have not profited i  daresay returned the nephew christmas among  

the rest but i am sure i have always thought of  christmas time when it has come round apart from  

the veneration due its sacred 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 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 the clerk in the  tank involuntarily applauded becoming immediately  

sensible of the impropriety he poked the fire  and distinguished the last frail spark forever

let me hear another sound from you said  scrooge and you'll keep your christmas  

by losing your situation you're quite a  powerful speaker sir we added turning to  

his nephew i wonder you don't go into parliament  don't be angry uncle come dine with us tomorrow  

scrooge said that he would see him yes indeed he  did he went the whole length of the expression  

and said that he would see him in that  extremity first but why cried scrooge's nephew  

why why did you get married said scrooge  because i fell in love because you fell in love  

growled scrooge as if that were the only one  thing in the world more ridiculous than a  

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Audiobook with holidays music)

suppose

tiny

spirit

observe