Back To The Wonderful Christmas Carol

On This Day In History
1843: A Christmas Carol is published

Quote Of The Day
"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if perservered in, they must lead. But, if the courses are departed from, the ends will change."
(Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol )

Bonus Quote Of The Day
"Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn."
(Delmore Schwartz, Summer Knowledge )

I wonder if any literary critic has ever considered the possibility that A Christmas Carol is the first example of a time travel story? 

I wonder, also, if any critic has ever considered the many similiraties between A Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life and Back To The Future II?


Despite all the time travelling which Ebenezer Scrooge, George Bailey and Marty McFly do during the course of their adventures, the arrows of time on their own biological clocks continue to point relentlessly forward. And, although Einstein's Theory Of Relativity allows for the curious notion that time is relative, time can only ever move forward. Unless, that is, the universe stops expanding and begins contracting toward a Big Crunch.

L'Horloge

The Clock
Impassive clock! Terrifying, sinister god,
Whose finger threatens us and says: "Remember!
The quivering Sorrows will soon be shot
Into your fearful heart, as into a target;
Nebulous pleasure will flee toward the horizon
Like an actress who disappears into the wings;
Every instant devours a piece of the pleasure
Granted to every man for his entire season.
Three thousand six hundred times an hour, Second
Whispers: Remember! — Immediately
With his insect voice, Now says: I am the Past
And I have sucked out your life with my filthy trunk!
Remember! Souviens-toi, spendthrift! Esto memor!
(My metal throat can speak all languages.)
Minutes, blithesome mortal, are bits of ore
That you must not release without extracting the gold!
Remember, Time is a greedy player
Who wins without cheating, every round! It's the law.
The daylight wanes; the night deepens; remember!
The abyss thirsts always; the water-clock runs low.
Soon will sound the hour when divine Chance,
When august Virtue, your still virgin wife,
When even Repentance (the very last of inns!),
When all will say: Die, old coward! it is too late!"
— Charles Baudelaire, translation by William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)