What kind of idol replaced Belle in A Christmas Carol?

Belle means that money is more important to Scrooge than she is.

When Scrooge is shown the images of his past, the ghost’s intention is to help him see how he became the man he is in the present.  The reader sees it too.  Seeing Scrooge’s childhood and young adulthood is very revealing.  We see how to begins to become obsessed with money and became the man in Stave One.

When Scrooge was apprenticed to Fezziwig, he was a kinder and more carefree person.  He met and fell in love with Belle.  She was poor though, and had no dowry.  She eventually dumped Scrooge because he became more interested in money than in her.

“It matters little … Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.”

“What Idol has displaced you?” he rejoined.

“A golden one.” (Stave 2)

Belle loved Scrooge, but she began to feel as if he did not love her.  He loved money.  She also knew that since money was more important to him than anything else, and “the master-passion, Gain, engrosses” him.  She believes that if they met then, he would never have asked her to marry him.

Scrooge protests Belle’s description of him.  He tells her that he has not changed his attitude toward her, even though he has become more successful.  However, he also tells her that the world is a hard place.

“This is the even-handed dealing of the world!” he said. “There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!” (Stave 2)

Scrooge tries to justify his behavior by saying that the world expects him to be wealthy, and all he is doing is trying to make his fortune.  For this he is condemned.  It is a sentiment that he seems to continue into the present.  It is the reason he never gets close to anyone.  Money comes between him and knowing people.

The ghost also shows Scrooge Belle a few years later, with her husband and children.  He wants Scrooge to know what he gave up for money.  It is too much for Scrooge to take, and he puts out the ghost’s light.  For Scrooge, a reminder of how close he came to a real life is too painful.  He is surrounded by money, not family.  It is a poor substitute.