In A Christmas Carol — as if you couldn’t tell from the title of this posting — the Ghost of Christmas Past forces Ebenezer Scrooge to watch as his younger self accepts Belle’s (his fiancée) release from their engagement. As she gives him her decision (and, presumably, returns the ring, although Dickens didn’t mention that particular bit of jewelry — pronounced “jewel-ry,” not “jew-lery,” by the way), we gain important clues as to Scrooge’s motive for pursuing wealth . . . which is, of course, why Dickens included the scene:
“It matters little,” she said, softly. “To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.”
“What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined.
“A golden one.”
“This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!”
“You fear the world too much,” she answered, gently. “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. Have I not?”
“What then?” he retorted. “Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you.”
There it is: “You fear the world too much.” Belle’s use of the word “idol” was figurative. Dickens, although a “broad” Christian, would not have his characters worshiping false gods, not even (or especially) Scrooge. She just meant the main object of his attention and that on which he focused most, if not all his efforts, had shifted from her to wealth.
Instead of wealth being a means to an end, it had become for Scrooge almost an end in itself — and it is that almost which saves him from being totally lost. Wealth was not his god, but his protection, his security blanket, if you will. His fear of the world and what others would do to him if he did not have the power wealth confers is what drove him, not the acquisition of wealth per se. Fearing “the world” (i.e., other people), Scrooge cut himself off from normal human interaction and hid behind his wealth.
Of course, it didn’t have to be wealth. It could have been sex, popularity, political power, drugs, liquor, or countless other things people use to shield themselves from reality. Wealth, at least, is not as damaging by itself as some of these other things and even has the potential for great good . . . if it’s used properly. In any event, as Belle’s husband remarked to her in the next scene,
“Belle,” said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, “I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.”
“Who was it?”
“Guess!”
“How can I? Tut, don’t I know,” she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. “Mr. Scrooge.”
“Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe.”
Alone, yes, but safe from the world and the hurt other people might inflict on him if he let his guard down for one instant. He could not afford to let even Jacob Marley’s death upset him or touch him in any way. Thus, as far as Dickens was concerned, the ghosts’ job was to show Scrooge one, he had let his fear of “the world” cut himself off from being more fully human, and two, by doing so he had lost far more than he had gained.
No, it is not that wealth itself is important, nor even how much one has, but what one does with it. The Ghost of Christmas Past reminded Scrooge of this by showing him old Fezziwig’s Christmas party:
“A small matter,” said the Ghost, “to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.”
“Small!” echoed Scrooge.
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said,
“Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?”
“It isn’t that,” said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self. “It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count ’em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.”
This agrees with Aristotle’s observation with which the Philosopher begins the Nicomachean Ethics, that all things pursue the good; if evil is pursued, it is to avoid what appears to be a greater evil, i.e., pursue good by accepting the lesser rather than the greater evil. That, of course, raises the question whether “less evil” is the same as “good” and that brings in the discussion of “the principle of double effect,” which we will spare you on this festive day.
Returning to the point of this posting — or getting to it, actually, and finishing our psychoanalysis of Scrooge — it is important to note Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in the middle of the nineteenth century. Scrooge was a member of a dying breed even then: people who sought wealth as a means to an end, not as an end in itself. Scrooge sought wealth as a protection against the world. Others sought wealth to secure their places in it, whether society, politics, or even military glory — this was still the day and age in which the British government sold officers’ commissions to raise money.
Even the presumed High Priest of Capitalism, Adam Smith, recognized this. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Smith described the rich as “greedy and rapacious.” He modified this slightly in The Wealth of Nations (1776) and toned down his rhetoric by claiming they had “inordinate desires.” The point, however, remained the same: being rich was not a virtuous act the way so many today seem to believe. It was what one did with riches that was important, not the riches. Scrooge would probably have agreed 100% with this, although what he did with his wealth was to keep “the world” — other people — at arm’s length.
We will continue this next year . . . which also happens to be next week.
#30#
