Rating: 4 out of 5

A great, short, story to read just before Christmas. I know I’ve read it before. And I’m pretty sure I acted in it at school. But I’d forgotten how lovely, and well put together, some of the language is.

Highlighted passaages:

“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”

had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” 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 us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim,

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, and 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.

God bless Us, Every One!

Originally posted to my Goodreads account