How we cite our quotes: (Stave.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."
Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. (2.51-52)
How would our understanding of Scrooge be different if we didn't get this backstory of loneliness and abandonment? Would you just be a full-on Scrooge-hater?
Quote #5
And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.
"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon. […]
"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do believe." (2.138-39,143)
The triple isolation here is a pretty neat trick—Scrooge is watching them talk about his mental and emotional isolation while actually being physically (magically? supernaturally? paranormally?) isolated from them, and while imagining how different his life could have been had he not walled himself off as much as he had.
Quote #6
Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. […]
But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself. (3.93-94)
The images of people trying their best to escape from being isolated are really quite moving, even if they are rather generic and Hallmark-card-like. Hey, if two old cruddy dudes in a lighthouse can make the best of it, well then so can Scrooge.