Charles Dickens' beloved 'A Christmas Carol' continues to spread hope and goodwill
Feverishly applying ink to paper, he "wept and laughed and wept again" - as he described his disposition in a letter - and later, "walked about the black streets of London fifteen and twenty miles many a night when all sober folks had gone to bed." More urgently, he wanted to strike "a sledgehammer blow" for the poor and disadvantaged - especially poor children, who during Great Britain's Industrial Revolution were …