"'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, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt

 down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

 

 'Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost.

 

 They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,

 wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where

 graceful youth should have filled their features out, and

 touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled

 hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and

 pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat

 enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No

 change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any

 grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has

 monsters half so horrible and dread.

 

 Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him

 in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but

 the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie

 of such enormous magnitude.

 

 'Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.

 

 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon

 them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.

 This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,

 and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,

 for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the

 writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out

 its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye.

 Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.

 And abide the end.'

 'Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.

 

 'Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him

 for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses.'"

   - A Christmas Carol, Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

Happy  200th B-day Mr. Dickens