“It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter
night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could
extract the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The
fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all
round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. There
were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers
descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars,
Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his
thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient
Prophet’s rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank
at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed
fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley’s head on
every one.” – Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
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