Most stage and film productions leave out the scene I quote here--though the better ones, such as the ones starring George C. Scott (my personal favorite) and Patrick Stewart, make a point of including it. I think it sums up a lot of Dickens' points and that it has special meaning even now. (If you see a political point to that, so be it).
"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking
intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not
belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?""It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Scrooge started back, appalled.
"Spirit! Are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.
"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware of this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
"Have they no refuge or resource?"
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on Scrooge for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
The bell struck twelve.
I'll be gone for the holiday weekend, but hope to post a few times in the next week. In the meanwhile, Merry Christmas, and God bless us everyone.
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