Welcome to the Hillsdale College Online Courses podcast.

My name is Jeremiah Regan, and I'm joined today, as always, by my friend Juan Davalos.

And we are back with Charles Dickens, the Christmas Carol.

On to lecture number three today. Christmas

passed his poor forgotten self. So in the last lecture, Scrooge encountered his first

apparition, the first ghost. And I reflect that while the ghosts are inherently scary and

disconcerting, it's also kind of hilarious. There's a dash of humor in the way

Dickens presents this. It takes a supernatural exposure, some horror, to get Scrooge away from his

books, away from his calculations, away from his ledgers, to think about things that many

ordinary people would think about normally,

reflections on past decisions and contemplation of what that has given him and what it's cost

him and how he should move forward. Yeah, and at least, you know, in my own life, I can look back

on times where I've had moments that seem at least too much to be coincidences, either for good

or bad, you know, things that were great that happened in my life, that you're like, well,

that's not a coincidence. And they do, or things that, you know, are tragic. And you do look back

and think about the choices that you've made, the decisions that

led you to that point.

So I think whether you know you are somebody that reflects on those things or not, it's good

to reflect on those things and that's what I think Charles Dickens is getting here.

You need to look at your past.

You need to look at the choices that you've made that have led you to your current circumstances

and that have led you to the person that you've become today.

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