from the second most famous Christmas story, and from the one of the strangest children's stories: A Christmas Carol, and Alice's Adentures in Wonderland
“A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. 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.
“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”…
“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
Charles Dickens created plenty of characters memorable for the things that they said. Ebenezer Scrooge with his ‘Bah Humbug!’ dismissal of Christmas cheer ranks alongside the half-starved Oliver Twist holding out his porridge bowl with the comment “Please sir, I want some more.” Dickens championed the poor, the underclass, the underprivileged, and many of his stories, especially A Christmas Carol, are ultimately uplifting tales of triumph over adversity.
Despite the intervention of four ghosts, A Christmas Carol makes for entertaining, light reading.
So does Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, despite a Queen who threatens to chop off people’s heads if they contradict or displease her, and a drug that shrinks people to a fraction of their normal size.
At one point, Alice happens to meet three gardeners who are painting white roses with red paint because they had originally planted the wrong ones and were frantically trying to avoid the wrath of the inaptly named Queen of Hearts.
"Would you tell me," said Alice, a little timidly, "why you are painting those roses?"
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, "Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore she comes, to——"
This witty, often absurd story plays host to a troupe of characters who have become household names: Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, The Cheshire Cat, The March Hare, The Queen and King of Hearts.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, and Humpty Dumpty, and many others were to follow in the sequel, Through the Looking Glass.
