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. “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. 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. 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. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. 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. 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 fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was narrow, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.

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.

It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy, 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. Once upon a time-of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. Read the following extract from A Christmas Carol and consider the questions below. Reading Exercise: A Christmas Carol (Extract)

Palpable: something that can be felt, or is almost physical.

Humbug: used in the past to refer to fraud/lies, though it has come (through this story) to be considered a general exclamation of displeasure.

Gaily: happily, with joy (rather old-fashioned).

Biting (weather): sharp, bitter or otherwise nasty.

Here are some words that may be useful to understand the passage (though you may need to look up some more!): It is worth continuing, or otherwise finding in film form, not least because the story starts in a negative way, but this is only the beginning, and Scrooge must, eventually, appreciate Christmas! Useful Vocabulary

And if you’d like to read more of this classic story, it is available free online, here. As before with these exercises, we’ll take a look how some of the specific language works, but this is a piece that you may benefit from merely reading through trying to understand the descriptions.

A christmas carol reading