ARE you running a corner in 'Christmas Carols?" a friend inquired the other evening, as he stood facing my book-shelves, looking at a little cluster of books in brown cloth jackets. "No, not exactly," I answered, "but that book has been a favorite for a lifetime; indeed, with the exception of the manuscript, which is safely locked up in the Pierpont Morgan Library, I admit to having a very pretty 'run' of 'Carols,' including a presentation copy, with an inscription reading, 'Thomas Beard, from his old friend Charles Dickens.' "
The manuscript of the "Carol," so rewritten, interlined, and corrected as to be almost illegible, except to one accustomed to Dickens's handwriting, is far from being Mr. Morgan's chief literary possession; but it is an ornament to any collection, and Miss Greene, who showed it to me not long ago, told me that it is one of the items that almost all visitors wish to see.
Contrasting small things with great, I have in my own Dickens collection the original drawing by John Leech of "The Last of the Spirits," which I was lucky enough to pick up in a New York bookshop a few years ago, and I am still seeking the original drawing of Mr. Fezziwig's Ball. It must be in existence somewhere; who has it? It is the gayest little picture in all the world, and fairly exudes Christmas cheer. Who would not love to dance a Sir Roger de Coverly with Mrs. Fezziwig, her face one vast substantial smile?
We hear much of the world being shaken from centre to circumference by this or that evil influence; influences for good are not so dramatic in their operation, but they are of greater duration, and among them Dickens's "Christmas Carol" ranks high. It is the best book of its kind in the world. I am confirmed in this opinion by Dickens's friend, Lord Jeffrey, who said that it had done more good than all the pulpits in Christendom. Thackeray referred to it as a national benefit, and with the passage of time the English-speaking world has grown to look upon it as an international blessing.
The first edition of this famous book appeared a few days before Christmas, 1843, and six thousand copies were sold the first day. It appeared when the vogue for "colored plate" books was at its height; but from the figures given by Forster, Dickens's biographer, it would seem that no care had been taken by the publishers to discover what the cost of manufacture would be before the selling price was fixed. No expense was spared to make it a beautiful little book. It was daintily printed, and tastefully bound in cloth, with gilt edges, and Leech had supplied drawings for four full-page engraved illustrations which were subsequently exquisitely colored by hand, and in addition there were four small woodcuts from the same artist. But when the financial returns came in, Dickens was terribly disappointed. He had been led to expect that he would receive a thousand pounds, whereas there was a profit of but two hundred and thirty. However, the second and third editions brought the profits up to over seven hundred and twenty-odd pounds, and countless other editions followed, so that in the end the profits were considerable; but it was Dickens's first and last experience with "colored plates."
John C. Eckel, the accepted authority on first editions of Dickens, says that the "Carol" has just enough "bibliographical twists" to make it interesting. An ardent collector could master them in ten minutes. The title-page of the first issue of the first edition should be printed in red and blue; the date must be 1843; and Stave I, on page one, should have the numeral "1," and not be spelled out, "one," as it was in the second issue. Moreover, the "end-papers," that is to say, the papers pasted down inside the covers, should be of a Paris green color and not a pale lemon yellow. I bought such a copy thirty years ago for thirty shillings, and sold it a few years later, when I was hard up, for fifteen dollars; such a copy is now worth thirty pounds if in fine condition, whereas a copy lacking these points is worth only a few dollars.
A few, a very few copies were issued with the title-page in red and green, with the lemon end-papers, and "Stave I," bearing the date 1844. These were evidently trial pages, and the green border was abandoned in favor of a border printed in blue. On account of their great scarcity, these red-and-green "Carols" are much more costly—I forget what I paid for mine. Charles Sessler, the Philadelphia bookseller, who specializes in Dickens, tells me that $450 would not be high for a really fine copy. Charles Plumptre Johnson, in his "Hints to Dickens Collectors," says, "I have in my possession a copy, absolutely uncut, which I believe to be the first copy printed and sent to the binder for his guidance." Oh, joy! Oh, joy!
Not everyone can read the book as it ought to be read, as I have frequently read it, on Christmas Eve in London; but it is a book which should be read, if not in an early edition, at least in such a format as, reader, the one you hold in your hand. I have always resented this book being got up in modern fashion, however beautifully illustrated, printed, and bound; nor should it be read in a large volume out of a "set," or expensively bound in leather. No, as my friend Dr. Johnson has said, "a book that can be held easily in the hand and carried to the fireside is the most useful after all," and this is especially true of the "Carol," which is a fireside book, if there ever was one. Originally it sold for five shillings, but this was almost eighty years ago, and shillings went further in those days than dollars do to-day. I have no idea what the price of this book will be, but whatever it is, buy it: buy two copies of it, one to give away and one to read, as the season rolls around. And when you come to know it, by heart almost, so that it begins to sing the moment you turn its pages, you will come to love the music of this Carol, and in the spirit of Christmas will exclaim, with Tiny Tim: "God Bless Us, Every One."
A. Edward Newton.
"Oak Knoll,"
Daylesford, Penna., September 2, 1920.
I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant,
C. D.
December, 1843.
MARLEY'S GHOST.
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.
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that 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 and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance—literally to astonish his son's weak mind.
Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it 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, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather 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, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.
Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.
"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"
He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.
"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure."
"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! what right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough."
"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What right have you to be dismal? what reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough."
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Humbug."
"Don't be cross, uncle," said the nephew.
"What else can I be" returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge, indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas,' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"
"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.
"Nephew!" returned the uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."
"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't keep it."
"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"
"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew: "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"
The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded: becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.
"Let me hear another sound from you" said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament."
"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."
Scrooge said that he would see him—yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.
"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"
"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.
"Because I fell in love."
"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"
"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"
"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.
"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"