Did an Actuary Inspire Dickens' Christmas Carol?

In the beloved Christmas ghost story, the miser Ebeneezer Scrooged is transformed by a visit from 3 ghosts:  Christmas Past, Present and Future. 

Perhaps these ghosts were inspired by a conversation old Charlie had with a young actuary over a bowl of porridge. By happy accident, we came across a lost page in Charles Dickens's diary.  Or we just asked Chat GPT to reproduce it. 

**December 18th, 1840**

This evening, I had the peculiar misfortune—or perhaps the ill fortune—to meet Mr. Thomas Harper, an actuary of no small repute. His business is to study the past—death, mostly, and the lives that preceded it—and with these cold, lifeless numbers, he seeks to predict the future. 

At first, I thought little of it, for I have often heard the term *actuary* and presumed it some harmless occupation, reserved for those with a peculiar penchant for mathematics. But his words, Mr. Harper’s, sent a chill through me that I have not yet shaken. He spoke so calmly of death—how long people lived, when they died, what caused their deaths—treating such matters as mere data. He took the past, gathered it, cataloged it, and then used it to forecast the future, as though the dead were nothing more than static entries in a ledger. *The dead*, Mr. Harper said, have no power over us, for they are gone, merely figures to be analyzed.

But how can one speak of death so easily? Can one truly speak of it without awakening something that ought to remain asleep? I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise as he continued, for it is not the data that troubles me, but the *spirit* of it—the very notion of disturbing the rest of those long gone. The spirits of the dead, those who have left us, do they not watch over us still? Does their essence truly fade so completely, to be swept into the pages of a book, to be calculated, as though their lives were no more than sums and figures?

I confess, Mr. Harper’s profession unsettles me. He speaks as though he’s dealing with nothing more than numbers. But I believe the dead have more to say than that. Their lives were not merely to be quantified, their ends not simply to be calculated. I wonder what forces he awakens in his ceaseless study of them. It is as though he calls upon spirits from their graves, dragging them back to be examined and analyzed like specimens. It feels almost like witchcraft—an unholy incantation to draw the dead into our world, to force them to reveal their secrets when they ought to remain at peace.

And yet, as I ponder these unsettling thoughts, I cannot help but wonder: is there hope in such prediction? Is it not the hope of all men to foresee their fate, to understand the patterns of life and death? If Mr. Harper’s calculations could, perhaps, prevent suffering, could guide one to avoid unnecessary peril, then mayhaps there is some greater purpose in his work. Perhaps, in this world of shadows and uncertainty, some certainty can be found—though it comes at the cost of awakening things best left untouched.

Still, I cannot entirely rid myself of the feeling that by studying the past too closely, by trying to predict the future with too much certainty, we risk disturbing what should remain undisturbed. Perhaps, in the end, it is in the mystery, the unknown, that we find the truest hope. For no amount of calculation can predict the depths of the human spirit, nor the untold possibilities of the future.

So, I will continue to hope—hope that, despite our attempts to predict and control, there will always remain a space for the wild, the untamed, and the miraculous in our lives. A space where the dead, their spirits unbound by mere numbers, can still hold sway over us in ways we cannot foresee.

*I pray we do not try to quantify that which should remain a mystery.*

—C.D.