[
  {
    "pageContent": "Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.\nThe register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the\nundertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name\nwas good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old\nMarley was as dead as a door-nail.\n\nMind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is\nparticularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself,\nto regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the\ntrade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my\nunhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You\nwill, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as\ndead as a door-nail.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 1, "to": 13 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?\nScrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge\nwas his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole\nresiduary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge\nwas not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event but that he was an\nexcellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised\nit with an undoubted bargain.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 15, "to": 21 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started\nfrom. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly\nunderstood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to\nrelate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died\nbefore the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his\ntaking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,\nthan there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning\nout after dark in a breezy spot--say St. Paul's Churchyard, for\ninstance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 23, "to": 31 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years\nafterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was\nknown as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called\nScrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It\nwas all the same to him.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 33, "to": 37 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a\nsqueezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old\nsinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out\ngenerous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.\nThe cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose,\nshrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin\nlips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime\nwas on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his\nown low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the\ndog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 39, "to": 48 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could\nwarm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than\nhe, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain\nless open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The\nheaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the\nadvantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down'\nhandsomely, and Scrooge never did.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 50, "to": 56 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My\ndear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars\nimplored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was\no'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to\nsuch and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to\nknow him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into\ndoorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they\nsaid, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'\n\nBut what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his\nway along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep\nits distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts' to Scrooge.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 58, "to": 69 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas\nEve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,\nbiting weather; foggy withal; and he could hear the people in the court\noutside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts,\nand stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City\nclocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--it had\nnot been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the\nneighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The\nfog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense\nwithout, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses\nopposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down,",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 71, "to": 81 } } }
  },
  {
    "pageContent": "not been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the\nneighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The\nfog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense\nwithout, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses\nopposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down,\nobscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by,\nand was brewing on a large scale.",
    "metadata": { "loc": { "lines": { "from": 77, "to": 83 } } }
  }
]
