The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge events of his childhood and young adulthood that make him sad. As an older man, he is shown the images of his choices as a young man when he lost the love of Belle, the woman who left him when his ambition to be wealthy became more important than everything else in his life.
She recognized even then, when he was a young man, that he would turn into a man who was driven by the desire for material wealth and that he would put her and his family second, coldly. She released him from his promise to her.
Scrooge is now an old man, who has lived a lonely life in a cold house with no warmth, no family, no wife, and no children. He has money, but nothing else. He is a miserable man. When he sees Belle, he remembers what it felt like to be in love.
When the Ghost of Christmas Past shows these events to Scrooge, he is deeply saddened; he cannot bear to look at himself as a young and foolish man who let love slip away.
"'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you delight to torture me?'" (Dickens)
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