Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!… External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no 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.
Stave i, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
I am a cold and calculating person by nature. I suppose that is what compels me so much about the character of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Like him, I can go whole stretches of time in which my human interaction is limited to merely polite exchanges with those I meet. Nary much warmth, care, or concern outside of satisfying my own interests and staying up to date with my to-do lists. Scrooge might have continued in this way until his own death if the world of spirits had not intervened in his relaxed state of decomposition. I too am thankful for supernatural events which remind me often of the world to come and break me from my usual pattern of calculation and cold rationality.
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