Scrooge
Marley
MARLEY
was dead, to begin with. There is 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 he chose to put his hand to.
Old
Marley was as dead as a door nail.
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 sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole
friend, his sole mourner.
Scrooge
never painted out old Marley's name, however. There it yet 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. He answered to both names. It was all the same to him.
Oh ! But
he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge! A squeezing,
wrenching grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! External heat and
cold had little influence on him. No warmth could warm, no cold could 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. Foul 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, -- they often "came
down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.
Nobody
ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear
Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?"
No beggars implored
him to bestow 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.
Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him
coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then 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, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance.
**This description of
Scrooge is the best illustration I have ever seen of a hardened, callous sinner
whose heart and mind and spirit are so deadened to human life and nurture that
he prefers loneliness and rejection to warm fellowship.
Just imagine for a while the
cold, hard, penetrating eyes and the lack of compassion that covered his face
like a steel mask. No knight in armor ever had a more forbidding visage than
Scrooge.
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