Charles Dickens' Works: Christmas books. Tale of two cities

Front Cover
G.W. Carleton, 1885

From inside the book

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 46 - At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire.
Page 10 - ... 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.
Page 43 - ... to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own ; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and...
Page 45 - Miss Belinda sweetened up the applesauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons...
Page 46 - ... of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed — "A Merry Christmas to us all,...
Page 10 - 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...
Page 69 - I don't know what to do!' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. 'I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!
Page 43 - ... of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.
Page 46 - God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. "Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live.
Page 7 - Marley was as dead as a doornail. 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.

Bibliographic information