Ah, what a transformation Scrooge experiences after his encounter with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future! He wakes up and takes to the streets on Christmas day a new person. He is so animated by joy--joy that he can still make a positive difference in the world--that people actually say good morning to him as he walks. Those words--"Good Morning" and "merry Christmas" to you--are the blithest (or happiest) he has ever heard:
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Ah, what a transformation Scrooge experiences after his encounter with the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future! He wakes up and takes to the streets on Christmas day a new person. He is so animated by joy--joy that he can still make a positive difference in the world--that people actually say good morning to him as he walks. Those words--"Good Morning" and "merry Christmas" to you--are the blithest (or happiest) he has ever heard:
He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, “Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!” And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.
Why do those simple, ordinary words make him so happy? He's heard them all before. It's only been a day since a "Merry Christmas" evoked a "bah, humbug" from this miserable misanthrope. But now, having confronted his own mortality, as well as the possibility that he can save the life of the young Tiny Tim, and having recalled long forgotten but very happy memories of Christmases gone by, back when he had friends, joys, and hopes, he is seeing the world with new eyes. It all seems wonderful. This is a core Dickens message: change hearts and change the world.
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