Dickens December: We should be the Freds who walk this earth

“Laura.” Ryan McGinley, 2010.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.

(Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. Stave Three: “The Second of the Three Spirits.” The narrator is describing Ebenezer’s nephew Fred enjoying the company of his friends.)

I adore Fred. There should be more Freds walking this earth. We should be those Freds.