The Chimes: A Goblin Story

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I know there is a sea of Time to rise one day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the good in one another." Twas the Night Before Christmas: Edited by Santa Claus for the Benefit of Children of the 21st Century" (2012) being Pamela McColl "smoke-free" edit of Clement Clarke Moore's poem

A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", 1823) attributed to Clement Clarke Moore was, if it smelt like this,’ said Meg, cheerfully.‘Make haste, for there’s a hot potato besides, and Trotty thanks the chimes for these lessons and then wakes up a new man (like Scrooge does) and like Scrooge, you feel such joy and relief that Trotty has a second chance to live life in a different way....in a more hopeful and joyful manner.The Chimes is set in Victorian London sometime during the early 1840’s. These were times of hardship and much economic instability when Europe was still suffering the effects of the Great Potato Famine. Seen the Alderman? Oh dear! Who could ever help seeing the Alderman. He was so considerate, so affable; he bore so much in mind the natural desires of folks to see him; that if he had a fault, it was the being constantly On View. And wherever the great people were, there, to be sure, attracted by the kindred sympathy between great souls, was Cute." Trotty loves the church chimes and he and Meg feel the chimes have always been their constant friend.

arm’s-length, and looking in her face imploringly.‘The worst of all, the worst of all! Strike me old, simplicity and earnestness, as he looked at the direction.‘Divide the lively turtles in the bills of mortality, by So may the New Year be a Happy one to You, Happy to many more whose Happiness depends on You! So may each Year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethern or sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy." The final words of The Chimes seem fitting So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share, in what our Great Creator formed them to enjoy. At the end of the book, Trotty finds himself awakening at home as if from a dream as the bells ring in the New Year of the day Trotty originally climbed the tower. Meg and Richard have chosen to wed, Will discovers that their kind landlady is the old family friend he was in search of and thus presumably he and Lilian will now be all right, and all of their friends have spontaneously chosen to provide a wedding feast and celebration. The author explicitly invites the reader to decide if this "awakening" is a dream-within-a-dream. The reader must choose between the harsh consequences of the behaviour of the upper classes in Trotty's vision, or the happiness of the wedding.

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They had always been his clients, they had never been forgotten in any of his books, but here nothing else was to be remembered ... he had come to have as little faith for the putting down of any serious evil, as in a then notorious city alderman's gabble for the putting down of suicide. The latter had stirred his indignation to its depths just before he came to Italy, and his increased opportunities of solitary reflection since had strengthened and extended it. When he came therefore to think of his new story for Christmas time, he resolved to make it a plea for the poor ... He was to try and convert Society, as he had converted Scrooge, by showing that its happiness rested on the same foundations as those of the individual, which are mercy and charity not less than justice. [2] Heaven preserve us, sitting snugly round the fire! It has an awful voice, that wind at Midnight, singing in a church!" Trotty's "crime", he is told, is in not taking personal responsibility, in not having any inner convictions, and in losing confidence, faith in a higher power, and hope and determination that life would improve. He is reprimanded for his condemnation of people less fortunate than himself, offering them neither help nor pity. On his walk to Sir Joseph Bowley's house he had condemned a "cutpurse" (thief), and ignored the plight of a prostitute in the power of her pimp. He had read the account in a newspaper of a woman, driven from her home by poverty and misfortune, who had killed her child and herself. Trotty had seen this as final proof of the badness of the working class, and had cursed the woman as "unnatural and cruel". The goblins and spirits tell him that he has begun to emulate the behaviour of those such as Alderman Cute,

Asking the upper classes to stop interfering with his life and leave him to die, Will Fern makes a bitter reference to the biblical Book of Ruth, deliberately misquoting Ruth's "Whither thou goest, I will go" speech. A musical adaptation of The Chimes was created in 1992 by Lisa Kofod and Gay Donat Reed, with music by Paul Johnson. A staged reading of this work was produced at The Workhouse Theatre in New York City.After trying in vain to help a couple of poor people who are in trouble, Trotty reads of a woman who killed her child and herself, and finds himself concluding that impoverished people like himself are, as he puts it, “Unnatural and cruel! None but people who were bad at heart, born bad, who had no business on the Earth, could do such deeds….We’re Bad!” (p. 54)