A Christmas Carol - Stave Two: The First of the Three Spirits

All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach.  I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master=passion, Gain, engrosses you.

I am still loving this book.  I continue to marvel at Dickens' ability to pack so much meaning into a rather short story.  I keep asking myself why I have put off reading Charles Dickens.  I haven't got a decent response.  I am just really glad I am finally rectifying the situation.

Scrooge gets to take a trip to his past with the visit from the first spirit.  We learn that Scrooge wasn't always so cold and unfeeling.  It was his lust for money - his desire to move far beyond poverty - that started blinding him to all else in the world.  I believe that losing the woman he was meant to marry sent him further down his lonely path.  He made his own choices but I think (at this point in the story) that he felt undeserving and only in control where money was concerned.  While I can definitely understand the desire to succeed, I would be miserable without my family.  It becomes apparent that Scrooge does indeed feel that he missed out on the chance for love and family.

This stave made me feel really sad.  I had to remind myself that there is redemption for Scrooge.