A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens

‘There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,’

You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.

‘At this time of the rolling year,’ the spectre said ‘I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise 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!’

‘How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.’ It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

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 them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.’

and shaving requires attention, even when you don’t dance while you are at it.