A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Every year, beginning a few days before Christmas, it is a tradition of mine to take an hour or two every night to read a bit of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. For me Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas if I didn't. It is, and has been, one of my absolute favourite stories! Not only is it a feel good story, but within it's pages is one of the most valuable lessons I have ever been fortunate enough to learn and understand. 'Tis a lesson I consider to be of the profoundest of importance.

The lesson I speak of takes place in the final moments of Scrooge's encounter with the Ghost of Christmas Present, at which point Scrooge comes face to face with two of Man's children, Want and Ignorance. Seeing as I haven't a hope in hell of recounting that moment of the story in any way that can be said to do it any justice, I have decided it would be better if I simply quoted that particular scene from the book; the lines of the excerpt in which their is the most to be learned from I've written in bold text. Here it is:

"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. Is it a foot or a claw?"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here." From the foldings of it's robe it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at it's feet, and clung upon the outside of it's garment.

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

They were a boy and a 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 it's freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angles 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 stared 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 your's?" 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 his hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!"

Out of all the books I have read over the years, no book has even come close to offering me a moment I love nearly as much as I love this moment from A Christmas Carol. It is by far my favourite book moment. It's lesson, though it was my dad who originally brought it to my attention while he and I were watching the movie version of A Christmas Carol staring Alistair Sims many years ago, has been invaluable to me. In fact, I would not be going too far in saying that it has had a profound impact on my life. Both my desire to be informed, and my unquenchable thirst for knowledge were born from this small scene in this wonderful story.

I can say with all honesty that those words have had a huge influence on the man I have become. Before I realised their importance, everything I feel important to-day wasn't important to me in the lest. Education and knowledge meant nothing to me. I could have cared less if I could be said to be informed or not; it simply wasn't important to me. But over time, as I got older and began to truly understand the message within those words, my perspective of what is important in this world and what isn't began to change dramatically. I cannot even begin to express how great an impact this tiny little scene has had on me.

That being said. If by some chance you have never taken up A Christmas Carol to read, I highly suggest you take the time to do so. Whether you are looking for a book steeped in meaning, or you're just looking for a great story, A Christmas Carol is most definitely worth your while.