Arguably, it is the key line in one of the world's favorite Christmas stories: Charles Dickens ' A Christmas Carol, first published in London in 1843. A merry Christmas and a happy new year. God bless even the 'surplus population', or perhaps especially the 'surplus population'. Oh, a wonderful pudding. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us." In the 1843 story, A Christmas Carol, the young Tim Cratchit asks for God’s blessings on every person as he offered the prayer before Christmas dinner. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour’s house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in a glow. Herod was such a good little zero population growth eugenicist who viewed life so cheaply that he had no hesitation in exterminating all the little boys in Bethlehem just to make sure. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. `Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, `tell me if Tiny Tim will live.’ How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach. Tiny Tim says, 'God bless us every one!' Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. `Wouldn’t you.’ What does Scrooge say to the portly gentlemen in Stave 1 after they said "some would rather die"? his pure, unselfish spirit rings out. `I wish I had him here. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery’s every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts. I think it's something paraphrased, bless us all, Merry Christmas everyone. God bless us.’ - … But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his four-roomed house. `I am afraid I have not. `More shame for him, Fred.’ said Scrooge’s niece, indignantly. "’ That was the cloth. Suppose it should break in turning out. To Scrooge’s horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. Bob held his little hand, as if he feared to lose him. But 'God bless us - EVERY ONE'. `Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch.’ asked Scrooge. 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. But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. `And how did little Tim behave. `He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.’ cried Scrooge’s nephew. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. `A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is.’ said Scrooge’s nephew. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. look here. 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. And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.’ `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. And abide the end.’ `They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. At the end of the story, Dickens makes it explicit that Tiny Tim does not die, and Scrooge becomes a "second father" to him. He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. `Are there no workhouses.’. The poverty-stricken children. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for, wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in his head to be. `A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,’ returned the Spirit. `Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,’ said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe,’ but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister -- the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed. no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. The narrator concludes the story by saying that Scrooge's words and thoughts should be shared by of all of us ... "and so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, Every one!" `Come in.’ exclaimed the Ghost. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting company, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. All Rights Reserved. Not to sea. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose. That everyone, rich or poor, is worthy of God's blessing. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. Because Tim declares the glory of God. `Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.’ said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.’ Sickness and Tiny Tim. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.’ ( NOT 'everyone'. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! `Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,’ interrupted Scrooge’s niece. `If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,’ returned the Ghost, `will find him here. `My dear,’ said Bob, `the children. And this brings us back to the title of the story, A Christmas Carol. 24 of 30. "God bless us every one!" `Spirit. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. Uncle Scrooge.’ A Christmas Carol. It is fitting that tiny Tim's message ends the novel as the entire novel is based upon themes of compassion which people have bestowed upon Scrooge throughout the novel and that Scrooge has returned at the end. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew’s and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability. `My life upon this globe, is very brief,’ replied the Ghost. he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.’, Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly, The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. The Grocers’. He is such a ridiculous fellow.’ It was his own room. He always knew where the plump sister was. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. `Forgive me if I am wrong. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. God bless us!" I’m very glad to hear it,’ said Scrooge’s nephew, `because I haven’t great faith in these young housekeepers. `Hide, Martha, hide.’ `Ha, ha, ha.’ Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. `I seek.’ exclaimed the Spirit. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. Stave IV: What does the third Spirit say to Scrooge when he sees him? But the Ghost/Angel proclaims that Tim might well be of far greater worth to heaven than someone like Scrooge. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again. `Oh, no, kind Spirit. See.’ A smell like a washing-day. `He never finishes what he begins to say. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song -- it had been a very old song when he was a boy -- and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. `A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. `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. My life upon this globe, is very brief,’ replied the Ghost. which he offers as a blessing at Christmas dinner. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased, `Are there no prisons.’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. `Spirit,’ said Scrooge submissively,’ conduct me where you will. I know what it is.’ At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. There never was such a goose. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there. I know what it is, Fred. He don’t do any good with it. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. `And it comes to the same thing.’ `Are there no prisons.’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. There was nothing of high mark in this. "If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. Doesn't he say God bless us all, everyone? `What has ever got your precious father then.’ said Mrs Cratchit. To any kindly given. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. say he will be spared." And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the baker’ shops. There were plenty of poor little boys where they came from. `Here’s Martha, mother.’ said a girl, appearing as she spoke. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us… 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. `Touch my robe.’ All sorts of horrors were supposed. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? `To-night at midnight. `Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, `tell me if Tiny Tim will live.’, If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’. Tiny Tim's line is a reflection of his enthusiasm for the holiday. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us. “Spirit,” said Scrooge, who felt sorry for the boy, “tell me if Tiny Tim … But why not kill them? He don’t do any good with it. The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. Dickens further memorializes him in the last line, further demonstrating Tim’s importance to the book. "Well they better hurry up and do it to decrease the surplus population" 5 Tiny Tim says 'God bless us, everyone' in A Christmas Carol. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. 7th ELA A Christmas Carol Staves 4 and 5 Review Questions. He sat very close to his father’s side upon his little stool. The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. At the stock exchange/bank/.counting house. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance. `Look here.’ `Have they no refuge or resource.’ cried Scrooge. They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s. My own.’ I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, ... `God bless us every one.’ said Tiny Tim, the last of all. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. Uncle Scrooge.’ they cried. Deny it.’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, “Uncle Scrooge. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention. `He believed it too.’ He becomes known for his Christmas spirit, and the story ends with Tiny Tim’s words, “God bless us, every one!” Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. `Not coming,’ said Mrs Cratchit. `Not coming.’ said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. `Mr Scrooge.’ said Bob; `I’ll give you Mr Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast.’ It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes. But this the Spirit said could not be done. `I have no patience with him,’ observed Scrooge’s niece. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. “God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim. May God bless us, everyone? `What is it.’ cried Fred. "I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that. In the context of the story, this is the final nail (perhaps a door nail) in the coffin of zero sum game economic thinking. Mumford & Sons Musician Speaks Out After Andy Ngo Criticism...And Conservatives Couldn't Be More Disappointed, TownhallFinance.com makes available to the viewer a variety of independent sources that offer trading and investment advice and related services and products. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. Resources > Quotes > Christmas > Quote. And so it was. The very lamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company but Christmas. An old, old man and woman, with their children and their children’s children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it. Himself, always. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. Of course there was. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us… Compare this to the description of Scrooge in Stave I. In the story, Tiny Tim is known for the statement, "God bless us, every one!" Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. Long life to him. It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. This girl is Want. Dickens repeats the phrase at the end of the story. A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. `I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,’ hinted Scrooge’s niece. I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon. `Do go on, Fred,’ said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands. The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. For, he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous. `Spirit,’ said Scrooge submissively,’ conduct me where you will. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. This boy is Ignorance. `One half hour, Spirit, only one.’ ... God Bless Us Everyone." That is the meaning of Tim's benediction, not just 'God bless us.' The time is drawing near.’ Stave IV: What feeling floods Scrooge when he meets the third Spirit? they had some music. Scrooge’s niece was not one of the blind-man’s buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. Tim redeems his suffering by seeing in it a way to remind people of the deeds of Jesus. Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. The undertaker (funeral director) hands a pen to an elderly, outstretched hand of Ebenezer Scrooge, who uses it to sign his name on the death certi… If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.’
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