"standing in the spirit at your elbow..."

29 November 2020: "The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow." -Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Perhaps because I've been thinking about narration a lot lately, this section from A Christmas Carol kind of leapt off the page as I reread the book this afternoon. I am sure folks have written about what Dickens is up to here, but it's a weird and lovely gesture, the author imagining himself as a spirit (in a book about spirits) standing right next to the reader. He couldn't have known that this book would endure the way it has, the way he would remain by the side of so many folks every year as they experience his story, but I really love it.