Christmas spirit

[JudgeWapner]

Trying to get into the mood.Gonna post a quote or excerpt from one of what I believe to be one of the greatest stories every written.Will try to do a new one every day.For those that have a problem that this is not gambling related:my apologies.If the mods need to move it,just let me know where it is.Okay,and away we go.

``A small matter,'' said the Ghost, ``to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.''

``Small!'' echoed Scrooge.

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,

``Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?''

``It isn't that,'' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. ``It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.''

 

[TheGeneral+]

Thanks judge...

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[MeyerLansky]

Nice Judge

 

[wilheim]

Dickens - outstanding.

Thanks, wil.

 

[JudgeWapner]

But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?''

``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 that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!''

 

[TheGeneral+]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing other's loads and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas. ~W. C. Jones

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

[wilheim]

 

[JudgeWapner]

``Spirit,'' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, ``I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.''

``I!'' cried the Spirit.

``You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,'' said Scrooge. ``Wouldn't you?''

``I!'' cried the Spirit.

``You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?'' said Scrooge. ``And it comes to the same thing.''

``I seek!'' exclaimed the Spirit.

``Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,'' said Scrooge.

``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 out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.''

 

[TheGeneral+]

Nice thread Judge. Hope more contribute.

 

[TheGeneral+]

It happened one day at the year's white end,
Two neighbors called on an old-time friend

And they found his shop so meager and mean,
Made gay with a thousand boughs of green,

And Conrad was sitting with face a-shine
When he suddenly stopped as he stitched a twine

And said, "Old friends, at dawn today,
When the cock was crowing the night away,

The Lord appeared in a dream to me
And said, 'I am coming your guest to be'.

So I've been busy with feet astir,
Strewing my shop with branches of fir,

The table is spread and the kettle is shined
And over the rafters the holly is twined,

And now I will wait for my Lord to appear
And listen closely so I will hear

His step as He nears my humble place,
And I open the door and look in His face. . ."

So his friends went home and left Conrad alone,
For this was the happiest day he had known,

For, long since, his family had passed away
And Conrad has spent a sad Christmas Day.

But he knew with the Lord as his Christmas guest
This Christmas would be the dearest and best,

And he listened with only joy in his heart.
And with every sound he would rise with a start

And look for the Lord to be standing there
In answer to his earnest prayer

So he ran to the window after hearing a sound,
But all that he saw on the snow-covered ground

Was a shabby beggar whose shoes were torn
And all of his clothes were ragged and worn.

So Conrad was touched and went to the door
And he said, "Your feet must be frozen and sore,

And I have some shoes in my shop for you
And a coat that will keep you warmer, too."

So with grateful heart the man went away,
But as Conrad noticed the time of day

He wondered what made the dear Lord so late
And how much longer he'd have to wait,

When he heard a knock and ran to the door,
But it was only a stranger once more,

A bent, old crone with a shawl of black,
A bundle of faggots piled on her back.

She asked for only a place to rest,
But that was reserved for Conrad's Great Guest.

But her voice seemed to plead, "Don't send me away
Let me rest awhile on Christmas Day."

So Conrad brewed her a steaming cup
And told her to sit at the table and sup.

But after she left he was filled with dismay
For he saw that the hours were passing away

And the Lord had not come as He said He would,
And Conrad felt sure he had misunderstood.

When out of the stillness he heard a cry,
"Please help me and tell me where am I."

So again he opened his friendly door
And stood disappointed as twice before,

It was only a child who had wandered away
And was lost from her family on Christmas Day...

Again Conrad's heart was heavy and sad,
But he knew he should make this little child glad,

So he called her in and wiped her tears
And quieted her childish fears.

Then he led her back to her home once more
But as he entered his own darkened door,

He knew that the Lord was not coming today
For the hours of Christmas had passed away.

So he went to his room and knelt down to pray
And he said, "Dear Lord, why did you delay,

What kept You from coming to call on me,
For I wanted so much Your face to see. . ."

When soft in the silence a voice he heard,
"Lift up your head for I kept My word--

Three times My shadow crossed your floor--
Three times I came to your lonely door--

For I was the beggar with bruised, cold feet,
I was the woman you gave to eat,
And I was the child on the homeless street."

 

[JudgeWapner]

Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may 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 opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!''

``But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,'' faultered Scrooge, who now began to apply 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, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!''

 

[JudgeWapner]

General.Wonderful.

 

[TheGeneral+]

I just read it again Judge and it makes me feel good each time Sir.

Happy Holidays to you

 

[JudgeWapner]

And how did little Tim behave?'' asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

``As good as gold,'' said Bob, ``and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.''

 

[JudgeWapner]

He's a comical old fellow,'' said Scrooge's nephew, ``that's the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.''

``I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,'' hinted Scrooge's niece. ``At least you always tell me so.''

``What of that, my dear!'' said Scrooge's nephew. ``His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha! -- that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.''

 

[JudgeWapner]

``I was only going to say,'' said Scrooge's nephew, ``that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it

 

[JudgeWapner]

Spirit,'' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ``tell me if Tiny Tim will live.''

``I see a vacant seat,'' replied the Ghost, ``in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.''

``No, no,'' said Scrooge. ``Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.''

``If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,'' returned the Ghost, ``will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.''

Scrooge hung his head to hear his wn words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

``Man,'' said the Ghost, ``if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child.

 

[JudgeWapner]

``Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!'' exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

``Spirit! are they yours?'' Scrooge could say no more.

``They are Man's,'' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ``And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!'' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ``Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!''

``Have they no refuge or resource?'' cried Scrooge.

``Are there no prisons?'' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ``Are there no workhouses?''

The bell struck twelve.

 

[JudgeWapner]

``The colour hurts my eyes,'' she said.

The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!

``They're better now again,'' said Cratchit's wife. ``It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.''

``Past it rather,'' Peter answered, shutting up his book. ``But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.''


``I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.''

``But he was very light to carry,'' she resumed, intent upon her work, ``and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!''


Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

``Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?'' said his wife.

``Yes, my dear,'' returned Bob. ``I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!'' cried Bob. ``My little child!''

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart perhaps than they were.

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little -- ``just a little down you know,'' said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. ``On which,'' said Bob, ``for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. ``I am heartily sorry for it, Mr Cratchit,'' he said, ``and heartily sorry for your good wife.'' By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know.''

``Heartily sorry,'' he said, ``for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,'' he said, giving me his card, ``that's where I live. Pray come to me.'' Now, it wasn't,'' cried Bob, ``for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.''

``I'm sure he's a good soul!'' said Mrs Cratchit.

``It's just as likely as not,'' said Bob, ``one of these days; though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim -- shall we -- or this first parting that there was among us?''

``Never, father!'' cried they all.

``And I know,'' said Bob, ``I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.''

``No, never, father!'' they all cried again.

``I am very happy,'' said little Bob, ``I am very happy!''

Mrs Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shok hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God!

 

[WalkofLife]

Allow me to pitch in, blood:

"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead."

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before -- though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the Future -- into the resorts of business men, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

"This courts," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come."

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you point away?"

The inexorable finger underwent no change.

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.

He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"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."

The Spirit was immovable as ever.

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.

"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon his knees.

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"

The finger still was there.

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?"

For the first time the hand appeared to shake.

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life."

The kind hand trembled.

"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!"

In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

On to "Stave 5: The End of It"