neous the audience, from the
front of the stalls to the back of the gallery, every one listened to
the familiar words that fell from his lips, from the beginning to the
end, with unflagging attention. There could be small room for marvel at
this, however, in the instance of the "Carol," on first reading
which, Thackeray spoke of its author as that "delightful genius!" The
_Edinburgh_ editor, Lord Jeffrey, at the very same time, namely,
towards the close of 1843, on the morrow of the little book's original
publication, avowing, in no less glowing terms, that he had been nothing
less than charmed by the exquisite apologue: "chiefly," as he declared,
"for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true
inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened." Never since he
had first--and that but a very few years previously--taken pen in hand
as a story-teller, had this "delightful genius" sat down in a happier
vein for writing anything, than when he did so for the purpose
of recounting how Scrooge was converted, by a series of ghostly
apparitions, from the error of his utterly selfish way in life, until
then, as a tough-skinned, ingrained curmudgeon.

Characters and incidents, brought before us anew in the Reading, were
all so cordially welcomed,--the former being such old friends, the
latter so familiarly within our knowledge! Insomuch that many passages
were, almost word for word, remembered by those who, nevertheless,
listened as if curious to learn what might follow, yet who could
readily, any one of them, have prompted the Reader, that is the Author
himself, supposing by some rare chance he had happened, just for one
moment, to be at fault. It is curious to observe, on turning over
the leaves of the marked copy of this Reading, the sententious little
marginal notes for his own guidance, jotted down by the hand of this
wonderful master of elocutionary effect. "Narrative" is written on the
side of p. 5 where Scrooge's office, on Christmas Eve, is described,
just before mention is made of the Clerk's dismal little cell seeming to
be "a sort of tank," and of his fire being so small that it looked like
"one coal," and of his trying at last to warm himself by the candle, "in
which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed." Again,
"Cheerful" is penned on the side of p. 6, where Scrooge's Nephew comes
in at a burst with "A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!"

After Scrooge's inhuman ret