A Christmas Carol: Wide margin annotation edition (Annotation Editions)

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But Scrooge sees any such human sentiment—anything that interferes with the accumulation of money—as foolishness.

Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound , and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too : trimming his candle as he went.

He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep . There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye , which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall . It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. His body was transparent ; so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind. Dickens sets up Cratchit and Scrooge as opposite figures, Cratchit symbolizing joy despite poverty and hardship and Scrooge symbolizing the grave-like sobriety of greed. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light , by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.Since its publication, the famous story has been endlessly adapted for film, theatre, television, opera, and even graphic novels. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own.