Charles Dickens: Hard Times
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter IX
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER IXFINAL It is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than he. Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs.
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter VIII
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER VIIIPHILOSOPHICAL They went back into the booth, Sleary shutting the door to keep intruders out. Bitzer, still holding the paralysed culprit by the collar, stood in the Ring, blinking at his old patron through the darkness of the twilight. ‘Bitzer,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and miserably submissive to him,
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter VII
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER VIIWHELP-HUNTING Before the ring formed round the Old Hell Shaft was broken, one figure had disappeared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not stood near Louisa, who held her father’s arm, but in a retired place by themselves. When Mr. Gradgrind was summoned to the couch, Sissy,
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter VI
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER VITHE STARLIGHT The Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when early in the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country. As Coketown cast ashes not only on its own head but on the neighbourhood’s too—after the manner of those pious persons who do
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter V
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER VFOUND Day and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not come back? Every night, Sissy went to Rachael’s lodging, and sat with her in her small neat room. All day, Rachael toiled as such people must toil, whatever their
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter IV
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER IVLOST The robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not cease to occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of that establishment now. In boastful proof of his promptitude and activity, as a remarkable man, and a self-made man, and a commercial wonder more
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter III
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER IIIVERY DECIDED The indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her, her voice reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by continual sneezes that it seemed in danger of dismemberment, gave chase to her patron until she found him in the metropolis; and there, majestically sweeping
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter II
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER IIVERY RIDICULOUS Mr. James Harthouse passed a whole night and a day in a state of so much hurry, that the World, with its best glass in his eye, would scarcely have recognized him during that insane interval, as the brother Jem of the honourable and jocular member. He was
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Hard Times: Book the Third – Chapter I
Book the Third – Garnering CHAPTER IANOTHER THING NEEDFUL Louisa awoke from a torpor, and her eyes languidly opened on her old bed at home, and her old room. It seemed, at first, as if all that had happened since the days when these objects were familiar to her were the shadows of a dream, but
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter XII
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER XIIDOWN The national dustmen, after entertaining one another with a great many noisy little fights among themselves, had dispersed for the present, and Mr. Gradgrind was at home for the vacation. He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical clock, proving something no doubt—probably, in the main, that
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter XI
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER XILOWER AND LOWER The figure descended the great stairs, steadily, steadily; always verging, like a weight in deep water, to the black gulf at the bottom. Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife’s decease, made an expedition from London, and buried her in a business-like manner. He then returned with promptitude
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter X
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER XMRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASE Mrs. Sparsit’s nerves being slow to recover their tone, the worthy woman made a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, where, notwithstanding her anchorite turn of mind based upon her becoming consciousness of her altered station, she resigned herself with noble fortitude to
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter IX
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER IXHEARING THE LAST OF IT Mrs. Sparsit, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, kept such a sharp look-out, night and day, under her Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an iron-bound coast, might have warned all prudent
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter VIII
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER VIIIEXPLOSION The next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome an influence on his young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter VII
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER VIIGUNPOWDER Mr. James Harthouse, ‘going in’ for his adopted party, soon began to score. With the aid of a little more coaching for the political sages, a little more genteel listlessness for the general society, and a tolerable management of the assumed honesty in dishonesty, most effective and most
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter VI
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER VIFADING AWAY It was falling dark when Stephen came out of Mr. Bounderby’s house. The shadows of night had gathered so fast, that he did not look about him when he closed the door, but plodded straight along the street. Nothing was further from his thoughts than the curious old
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter V
CHAPTER VMEN AND MASTERS ‘Well, Stephen,’ said Bounderby, in his windy manner, ‘what’s this I hear? What have these pests of the earth been doing to you? Come in, and speak up.’ It was into the drawing-room that he was thus bidden. A tea-table was set out; and Mr. Bounderby’s young wife, and her brother, and
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter IV
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER IVMEN AND BROTHERS ‘Oh, my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a grinding despotism! Oh, my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come, when we must rally round one another
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter III
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER IIITHE WHELP It was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought up under one continuous system of unnatural restraint, should be a hypocrite; but it was certainly the case with Tom. It was very strange that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter II
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER IIMR. JAMES HARTHOUSE The Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits more hopefully, than among the fine gentlemen who, having found out everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for anything? Moreover, the healthy spirits
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Hard Times: Book the Second – Chapter I
Book the Second – Reaping CHAPTER IEFFECTS IN THE BANK A sunny midsummer day. There was such a thing sometimes, even in Coketown. Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of its own, which appeared impervious to the sun’s rays. You only knew the town was there, because you
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter XVI
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER XVIHUSBAND AND WIFE Mr. Bounderby’s first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could not make up his mind how to do that, or what the consequences of the step might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter XV
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER XVFATHER AND DAUGHTER Although Mr. Gradgrind did not take after Blue Beard, his room was quite a blue chamber in its abundance of blue books. Whatever they could prove (which is usually anything you like), they proved there, in an army constantly strengthening by the arrival of new recruits. In
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter XIV
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER XIVTHE GREAT MANUFACTURER Time went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material wrought up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much money made. But, less inexorable than iron, steel, and brass, it brought its varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter XIII
CHAPTER XIIIRACHAEL A candle faintly burned in the window, to which the black ladder had often been raised for the sliding away of all that was most precious in this world to a striving wife and a brood of hungry babies; and Stephen added to his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the casualties of
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter XII
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER XIITHE OLD WOMAN Old Stephen descended the two white steps, shutting the black door with the brazen door-plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to which he gave a parting polish with the sleeve of his coat, observing that his hot hand clouded it. He crossed the street with
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter XI
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER XINO WAY OUT The Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s monotony, were at
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter X
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER XSTEPHEN BLACKPOOL I entertain a weak idea that the English people are as hard-worked as any people upon whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous idiosyncrasy, as a reason why I would give them a little more play. In the hardest working part of Coketown; in the innermost fortifications
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter IX
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER IXSISSY’S PROGRESS Sissy Jupe had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M’Choakumchild and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months of her probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long so very hard, and life in general was opened to her
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter VIII
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER VIIINEVER WONDER Let us strike the key-note again, before pursuing the tune. When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to begin a conversation with her brother one day, by saying ‘Tom, I wonder’—upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter VII
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER VIIMRS. SPARSIT Mr. Bounderby being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs. Sparsit was this lady’s name; and she was a prominent figure in attendance on Mr. Bounderby’s car, as it rolled along in triumph with the Bully of humility
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter VI
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER VISLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIP The name of the public-house was the Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse upon the sign-board, the Pegasus’s Arms was inscribed in Roman letters. Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had touched off
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter V
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER VTHE KEYNOTE Coketown, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the key-note, Coketown, before pursuing our tune. It was a town of red brick, or of brick
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter IV
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER IVMR. BOUNDERBY Not being Mrs. Grundy, who was Mr. Bounderby? Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind’s bosom friend, as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approach that spiritual relationship towards another man perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near was Mr. Bounderby—or, if the reader should prefer it, so
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter III
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER IIIA LOOPHOLE Mr. Gradgrind walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a model. He intended every child in it to be a model—just as the young Gradgrinds were all models. There were five young Gradgrinds, and
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter II
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER IIMURDERING THE INNOCENTS Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily Thomas—Thomas Gradgrind.
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Hard Times: Book the First – Chapter I
Book the First – Sowing CHAPTER ITHE ONE THING NEEDFUL ‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of