Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Christmas Carol by the Fireside - part one

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Starting point is 00:00:46 please go to sleepcove.com slash support. That's sleepcove.com slash support. If you can't support the show right now, please subscribe with the bell to get alerts on all new free content thank you have you ever gazed in wonder at the great pyramid have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun

Starting point is 00:01:16 or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti if you have you'll probably like the History of Egypt podcast every week we explore tales of this ancient culture The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Egypt. Hello and welcome. Please listen to this recording in a place where you can safely go to sleep. In tonight's reading, I'll be reading one of the most famous Christmas stories of all time,

Starting point is 00:02:01 A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I really hope you. enjoy it. Let's begin. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Stave 1. Marley's Ghost Marley was dead to begin with. There was 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 Scrooge's name was good upon change for anything. to put his hand to. Old Marley was dead as a doornail. Mind, I don't mean to say that I know of my own

Starting point is 00:02:49 knowledge what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined myself to regard a coffinail as the deadliest piece of ironmongery in the trade, but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, all the country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was 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 soul residual legality, his sole friend and soul mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up

Starting point is 00:03:48 by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley'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 the father taking a stroll at night in the 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 St. Paul's Churchyard, for instance,

Starting point is 00:04:38 literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name. There is 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.

Starting point is 00:05:13 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 gait and made his eyes red, his lips thin and blue, and spoke out shrewdly in a grating voice. A frosty rhyme was on his head and on his eyebrows and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about him. He iced his office in the dog days and didn't thore it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on screws.

Starting point is 00:06:08 No warmth could warm, No wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he. No falling snow was more intent upon its purpose. No pelting rain less open to entreaty. Fow 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.

Starting point is 00:06:37 They often came down, handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, My dear Mr Scrooge, how are you? When were you come to see me? No beggars implored him to dispo a trifle. No children asked him what it was o'clock. No man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place of Scrooge.

Starting point is 00:07:08 Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him and when they saw him coming would tug on their owners into doorways and up course and would wag their tails as though they said no eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master. But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked to edge his way along the crowded paths of life

Starting point is 00:07:32 warning all human sympathy to keep his 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. It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy with all, and you 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 warn 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 neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.

Starting point is 00:08:21 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. 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,

Starting point is 00:08:52 a sort of tank was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal, but he couldn't replenish it. The 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,

Starting point is 00:09:17 wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter and tried to warm himself at the candle, in which effort not being a man of 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

Starting point is 00:09:37 that it was the first intimation he had of his approach. Bah, said Scrooge, humbug. He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's that he was awed 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'm sure.'

Starting point is 00:10:08 "'I do,' said Scrooge. "' Merry Christmas. "'What right have you to be merry? "'What reason have you to be merry? "'You're poor enough.' "'Come, then, return the nephew gaily. "'What right you have to be dismal? "'What reason have you to be morose?

Starting point is 00:10:27 "'You're rich enough.' "'Scrooge, having no better answer, Ready at the spur of the moment said, Ba again, and followed it with humbug. Don't be cross, said the nephew. What else can I be? Return the uncle. When I live in such a world of fools as this.

Starting point is 00:10:47 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 and not an hour richer. a tie for balancing your books and having every item in him through a round dozen of months presented dead against you. If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly. Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips

Starting point is 00:11:16 should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of Holly 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 mine. Keep it, repeated Scrooge's nephew, but you don't keep it. Let me leave it alone then, said Scrooge. Much good may it do to you.

Starting point is 00:11:45 Much good has it ever done to you. There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, 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 to its sacred name and origin. If anything belonging to it can be apart from that,

Starting point is 00:12:13 as a good time, a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time, the only time I know of in their long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one constant to open their own, shut up hearts freely, and to think of people below them, as if they were really fellow passengers to their 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 it will do me good, and I say, God bless it. The clerk in the tank involuntary applauded, becoming immediately sensible to the improprietary.

Starting point is 00:13:03 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, he added, turning to his nephew, I wonder you don't go into Parliament. Don't be angry, uncle. Come, dying 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.

Starting point is 00:13:40 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 thing in the world more ridiculous than a Merry Christmas. "'Good afternoon.' "'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. "'Why give it as a reason for not coming now?' "'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. "'I want nothing from you. "'I ask nothing of you.

Starting point is 00:14:15 "'Why cannot we be friends?' "'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge. "'I am sorry with all my heart to find you so resolute. "'We have never had a quarrel to which I have been a party. But I've made the trial and homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So a merry Christmas, uncle. Good afternoon, said Scrooge. And a happy new year.

Starting point is 00:14:42 Good afternoon, said Scrooge. 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 to them cordially. There's another fellow, muttered Scrooge, who overheard him. My clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and a family talking about a Merry Christmas,

Starting point is 00:15:14 I'll retire to bedlam. This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people in. They were poorly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood with her hats off, in Scrooge's office. They have books and papers in their hands and bowed to him. Scrooge and Marley's, I believe, said one of the gentlemen referring to his list.

Starting point is 00:15:41 Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley? Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years. Scrooge replied, He died seven years ago this very night. We have no doubt that his liberality is well. presented by his surviving partner, said the gentleman, presenting his credentials. It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits, at their ononymous word, liberality, Scrooge frowned, and shook his head and handed the credentials back.

Starting point is 00:16:17 At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge, said the gentleman, taking up a pen, it is more than usual desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessities. Hundreds of thousands are in want of common comfort, sir. Are there no prisons? asked Scrooge. Plenty of prisons, said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. And are the union workhouses?

Starting point is 00:16:53 Demanded Scrooge, are they still in operation? Yes, they are still, returned the gentleman. I wish I could say they were not. The treadmill and the poor law are in full vigour then, said Scrooge. Both very busy, sir. Oh, I was afraid from what you said at first that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course, said Scrooge. I am very glad to hear it.

Starting point is 00:17:23 Under the impression that they scarcely furnished Christian cheer of mind or body in the multitude, returned the gentleman. A few others are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We choose this time because it is a time of all others when want is keenly felt and abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?

Starting point is 00:17:53 Nothing, Scrooge replied. You wish to be, anonymous? I wish to be left alone, said Scrooge. Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people marry. I help to support the establishments I've mentioned may cost enough, and those who are badly off must go there. But many can't go there, and many would die. If they would rather die, said Scrooge, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides, excuse me, I don't know that.

Starting point is 00:18:39 But you might know it, observe the gentleman. It's not my business, Scrooge returned. It's enough for a man to understand his own business and not to interfere with other peoples. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen. and some men. Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentleman withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper that was usual with him. Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with flaring links,

Starting point is 00:19:20 proffering their services to go before horses and carriages and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a gothic window in the wall became invisible and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds with tremulous vibrations afterwards

Starting point is 00:19:44 of if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there the cold became intense in the main street at the corner of the court some labourers were repairing the gas pipes and had lighted a great fire in a brassia round with a party of ragged men and boys were gathered

Starting point is 00:20:05 warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze and rupture the water plug being left in solitude is overflowing suddenly congealed and turned to misanthropic ice the brightness of the shops were Holly sprigs and berries Crackawed in the lump heat of the windows Made pale faces ruddy as they passed

Starting point is 00:20:30 Poulterers and grosses trades became a splendid joke A glorious pageant With which it was next to impossible to believe That such dull principles as bargain in sale Had anything to do The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty mansion house Gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers

Starting point is 00:20:51 to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should. And even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied round out to buy the beef. Fogier yet and colder, piercing, searching, biting cold, if the good St. Dunstan had but nipped the evil spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose.

Starting point is 00:21:32 The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol, but at the first sound of, God bless you, married gentleman, may nothing you dismay? Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, an even more congenial frost.

Starting point is 00:22:05 At length the hour of shutting up, the counting house arrived, with an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tactedly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out and put on his hat. You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose, said Scrooge. If quite convenient, sir, it's not convenient, said Scrooge, and it's not fair. If I was to stop half a crown for you, you'll think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound. The clerk smiled faintly.

Starting point is 00:22:43 And yet, said Scrooge, you don't think me ill-used when I pay a date-a-day-day-old. wages for no work. The clerk observed that it was merely once a year, a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December, said Scrooge, buttoning his great coat to the chin. But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here or the earlier next morning. The clerk promised that he would, and Scrooge walked past out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, And the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter, dangling blow his waist, for he boasted no great coat, went down a slide on Cornwall, and the end of a lane of boys, 20 times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve,

Starting point is 00:23:35 and then ran home to Camden Town, as hard as he could, to play at Blindman's Buff. Scrooge took his melanchony dinner in his usual melanchony tavern, and having read all the newspapers and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business to be, but 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.

Starting point is 00:24:20 It was old enough now and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was feigned to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house

Starting point is 00:24:42 that it seemed as if the genius of the weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knock on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it night and morning during his whole residence in that place. Also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of London,

Starting point is 00:25:13 even including which is a bold world, the corporation, aldermen and livery. Let it also be born in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his last mention of his seven years dead partner that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,

Starting point is 00:25:41 saw in the knocker without its own. undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Marley's face. Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yards were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look, with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath of hot air, and though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That and its livid colour made it horrible, but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part

Starting point is 00:26:34 of his own expression. As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which he had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, enlightened his candle. He did pause with the moment's irresolution, before he shut the door, and he did look cautiously behind it first. as he half expected to be terrified

Starting point is 00:27:16 with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall but there was nothing on the back of the door except the screws and the nuts that held the knocker on so he said poo-poo and he closed it with a bang the sound resounded through the house like thunder every room above and every cask in the wine merchant cellars below appeared to have a separate peel of

Starting point is 00:27:43 echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door and walked across the hall and up the stairs slowly too, trimming his candle as he went. You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and sips up a good flight of stairs, or through a bad young actor parliament. But I mean to say that you might have got a hearse up that staircase and taken it broadwise. with a splinter bar towards the wall and the door towards the balustrades and done it easily. There was plenty of width for that

Starting point is 00:28:22 and reamed to spare, which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas lamps out on the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.

Starting point is 00:28:42 Up Scrooge would. went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap and Scrooge liked it, but before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. Sitting room, bedroom, lumber room, all as they should be. Nobody under the table, no one under the sofa. A small fire in the grate. spoon and basin ready And the little saucepan of gruel Scrooge had a cold in his head

Starting point is 00:29:20 Upon the hob Nobody under the bed Nobody in the closet No one in this dressing gown Which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude Against the wall Lumber room as usual Old fireguard

Starting point is 00:29:35 Old shoes Two fish baskets Washing stand on three legs And a poker Quite satisfied he closed his door and locked himself in, double locked himself in, which was not his custom, thus secured against his surprise, he took off his cravat, but on his dressing gown and slippers and his nightcap, and sat down before the fire to take his grul. It was a very low fire indeed, nothing on such a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it and brood over it. before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago,

Starting point is 00:30:24 and paved all around with quaint Dutch tiles designed to illustrate the scriptures. There were Canaan ables, fair as daughters, queens of Sheba, angelic messengers descended through the air on clouds, like feather beds, Abraham's, Belchazars, apostles putting off to sea and butterboats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts,

Starting point is 00:30:50 and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient prophet's rod and swallowed up the hole. If each smooth tile had been a blanket first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's head on everyone.

Starting point is 00:31:15 Humbug, said Scrooge and walked across the room. After several turns he sat down again and threw his head back in the chair. His glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell that hung in the room and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment and with a strange, inexplicable dread That as he looked he saw this bell begin to swing

Starting point is 00:31:47 It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound But it soon rang out loudly and so did every bell in the house This might have lasted half a minute or a minute but it seemed an hour The bell ceased as they have begun together They were succeeded by a clanking noise Deep down below As if some person were dragging a heavy chain Over the casks in the wine merchant cellar

Starting point is 00:32:19 Scrooge then remembered to have heard That ghosts in haunted houses Were described as dragging chains The cellar door flew open with a booming sound And then he heard the noise Much louder on the floor floors below, then coming up the stairs and coming straight towards his door. It's humbuged still, said Scrooge, I won't believe it.

Starting point is 00:32:49 His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon it coming in, the dying flame leaped up as though it cried. I know him. Marley's ghost, and fell again. The same face, the very same. Marley and his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots, the tassel of the latter bristling, like his pigtail,

Starting point is 00:33:23 and his coat skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was clasp about his middle. It was long and wound around him like a tail, and it was made, for Scrooge observed it close, of cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no boughs, but he had never believed it until now.

Starting point is 00:34:04 No, nor did he believe it, even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through and saw it standing before him, though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which rapper he had not observed before, he was still incredulous and fought against his senses.

Starting point is 00:34:33 How now, said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. What do you want with me? Much, Marley's voice, no doubt about it. Who are you? Ask me who I was. Who were you then? said Scrooge, raising his voice. Your particular for a shade. He was going to say to a shade, but substituted this,

Starting point is 00:35:02 as more appropriate. In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley. Can you? Can you sit down? Ask 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

Starting point is 00:35:27 and felt that in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation, but the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace as if he were quite used to it. You don't believe me, observe the ghost. I don't, said Scrooge. What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?

Starting point is 00:35:57 I don't know, said Scrooge. Why do you doubt? your senses, said Marley. Because, said Scrooge, a little thing affects them, a slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bitter beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdum potato. There's more of 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,

Starting point is 00:36:39 as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror, for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence for a moment would play. Scrooge felt the very juice with him. There was something very awful too, in the spectres being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was very clearly the case, for though the ghost sat perfectly motionless,

Starting point is 00:37:15 its hair and skirts and tassels were still agitated, as by the hot vapour from an oven. You see this toothpick, said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned in wishing, though it was not only for a second to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. I do, replied the ghost. You are not looking at it, said Scrooge.

Starting point is 00:37:44 But I see it, said the ghost, notwithstanding. Well, returned Scrooge, I have but to swallow this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you, humbug. And why would they come to me?

Starting point is 00:38:06 It is required of every man, the ghost returned, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow men and travel far and wide, and if the spirit goes, not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.

Starting point is 00:38:24 It is doomed to wander through the world. O woe is me, and witness what it cannot share but might have shared on earth and turned to happiness. Again the spectre raised a cry and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

Starting point is 00:38:42 You are fettered, said Scrooge trembling. Tell me why. I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the ghost. I made it link by link and yard by yard. I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

Starting point is 00:39:02 It is a pattern strange to you? Scrooge trembled more and more. Or would you know, pursued the ghost, the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy as long as this. Seven Christmas Eve's ago, you have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain.

Starting point is 00:39:27 Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing. Jacob, he said imploringly, O Jacob Marley, tell me more, speak comfort to me, Jacob. I have known to give, the ghost replied. It comes from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge. It is conveyed by other ministers. to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot rest.

Starting point is 00:40:07 I cannot stay. I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our counting house, mark me. In life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole and wearies journeys lie before me. It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful to put his hands in his breeches pockets,

Starting point is 00:40:31 pondering on what the ghost had said. He did so now, but without lifting his eyes or getting off his knees. You must have been very slow about it, Jacob. Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, through the humility of difference. Slow, the ghost repeated. Seven years dead, muse Scrooge, and travelling all the time.

Starting point is 00:40:56 The whole time, said the ghost, no rest, no peace, incessant torture of remorse. You travel fast, said Scrooge, on the wings of the wind, replied the ghost. You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years, said Scrooge. The ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, but the ward. could have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance. Oh, captive bound and double ironed, cried the phantom. Not to know that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity,

Starting point is 00:41:44 before the good of which it is susceptible, is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it might be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused. Yet such was I. Oh, such was I. But you were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge, who now began to imply this to himself. Business, cried the ghost, wringing its hands again. mankind was my business, the common welfare was my business, charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence

Starting point is 00:42:35 were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business. It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that was the cause of all its availing grief and flung it heavily upon the ground again. At this time of the rolling year, the spectre said, I suffer most. Why did I walk through the crowns of fellow beings, with my eyes turned down and never raised 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? Scrooge was very dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate and began to quake exceedingly. Hear me, cried the ghost. My time is nearly gone. I will, said Scrooge, but don't be hard upon me.

Starting point is 00:43:35 Don't be flowery, Jacob, pray. How is it that I appear before you in a shape that you can see? I may not tell you. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day. Is that a the chance and hope you mention Jacob? He demanded in a faltering voice. It is. I, I think I'd rather not, said Scrooge. Without their visits, said the ghost, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.

Starting point is 00:44:08 Expect the first tomorrow. And when the bell tolls, one. Couldn't I take them all at once and have it over, Jacob? Hinted Scrooge. Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night, when the last stroke of twelve, has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more, and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us. When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table and bound it round its head,

Starting point is 00:44:45 and as before Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude with its chain wound over and about its arm. The apparition walked backwards from him and at every step it took the window raised itself a little so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

Starting point is 00:45:19 It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's ghost held up his hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped, not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear, for on the racing of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air, incoherent sounds of lamention and regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity.

Starting point is 00:46:10 He looked out. The air filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's ghosts. Some few, they might be guilty, governments, were linked together. None were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He was 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.

Starting point is 00:46:54 The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere for good in human matters and had lost the power forever. Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist and shrouded them, he could not tell, but they and their spirit voices faded together, and the night became as it had been when he walked home. Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which the ghost had entered.

Starting point is 00:47:27 It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say humbug, but stopped at the first syllable. and being from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

Guided Sleep Meditation & Sleep Hypnosis from Sleep Cove - A Christmas Carol by the Fireside - part one

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