Charles Dickens: Fiction
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25. The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office The dinner-party was at the great Physician’s. Bar was there, and in full force. Ferdinand Barnacle was there, and in his most engaging state. Few ways of life were hidden from Physician, and he was oftener in its darkest places than even Bishop. There were
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24. The Evening of a Long Day That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued his shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it, could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23. Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her Dreams Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist, otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam entered on a weary day. It was in vain that he tried to control his attention by directing it to any business occupation or train
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22. Who passes by this Road so late? Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the midst of a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric Power with valuable possessions on the map of the world, had occasion for the services of one or two engineers, quick in invention and determined
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21. The History of a Self-Tormentor Ihave the misfortune of not being a fool. From a very early age I have detected what those about me thought they hid from me. If I could have been habitually imposed upon, instead of habitually discerning the truth, I might have lived as smoothly as most fools
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20. Introduces the next The passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Calais. A low-lying place and a low-spirited place Calais was, with the tide ebbing out towards low water-mark. There had been no more water on the bar than had sufficed to float the packet in; and now the bar
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19. The Storming of the Castle in the Air The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls of Rome, when Mr Dorrit’s carriage, still on its last wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary Campagna. The savage
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18. A Castle in the Air Manifold are the cares of wealth and state. Mr Dorrit’s satisfaction in remembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself to Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to his having had any knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17. Missing The term of Mr Dorrit’s visit was within two days of being out, and he was about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants of the hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr Dorrit, taking it, read:
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16. Getting on The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street, Cavendish Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That great man was not interested in them, but on the whole endured them. People must continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not be wanted. As
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15. No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should not be joined together Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted matrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her troth, received the communication at once with great dignity and with a large display of
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14. Taking Advice When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of the Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13. The Progress of an Epidemic That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12. In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the land. Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever done any good to any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; nobody knew that he had any capacity
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit Dear Mr Clennam, As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure for even
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he passed a good deal of time in company with various troublesome Convicts who were under sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, had afforded Arthur Clennam ample leisure, in three or four successive days, to exhaust the
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9. Appearance and Disappearance ‘Arthur, my dear boy,’ said Mr Meagles, on the evening of the following day, ‘Mother and I have been talking this over, and we don’t feel comfortable in remaining as we are. That elegant connection of ours—that dear lady who was here yesterday—’ ‘I understand,’ said Arthur. ‘Even that affable
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8. The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that ‘It Never Does’ While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched out of all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling pencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7. Mostly, Prunes and Prism Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well together, took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend, and Mrs General’s very dear young friend tried hard to receive it. Hard as she had tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6. Something Right Somewhere To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two powers in disgust; to want the necessary qualifications for finding promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind,
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5. Something Wrong Somewhere The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was much among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour of one day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference with Mrs General. The time he had reserved in his
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4. A Letter from Little Dorrit Dear Mr Clennam, I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be glad to hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear from me as I am to write to you; for everything about you is as you
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3. On the Road The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists had vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the new sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new existence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone, and
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2. Mrs General It is indispensable to present the accomplished lady who was of sufficient importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a line to herself in the Travellers’ Book. Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral town, where she had led the fashion until she
-
Little Dorrit: Book the Second – Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1. Fellow Travellers In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the highest ridges of the Alps. It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva. The air there was
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36. The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan And now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave the prison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know them no more. The interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its length, and had been imperious
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 35
CHAPTER 35. What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit’s Hand It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with Clennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him Little Dorrit’s fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate that had long lain unknown of,
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34. A Shoal of Barnacles Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage, and the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large family might shed as much lustre on the marriage
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33. Mrs Merdle’s Complaint Resigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those people, the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur, Mrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son’s marriage. In her progress to, and
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32. More Fortune-Telling Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side of the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 31
CHAPTER 31. Spirit Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping along with a
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30. The Word of a Gentleman When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back. ‘Death of my soul!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, how did you get here?’ Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29. Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying round of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each recurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant return of the same sequences
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28. Nobody’s Disappearance Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his lost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing nothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer coming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl by the hand
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27. Five-and-Twenty Afrequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks’s desire to collect information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible bearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return from his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this period. What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26. Nobody’s State of Mind If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not the least of these would have been a contention, always waging within it,
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 25
CHAPTER 25. Conspirators and Others The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small way, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring and starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24. Fortune-Telling Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who, having intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in a series of coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as regarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom that there are
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23. Machinery in Motion Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him, that he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at nine o’clock one morning to make his report. ‘Doyce is highly gratified by your
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22. A Puzzle Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21. Mr Merdle’s Complaint Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall than the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of the street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20. Moving in Society If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging illustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it amply in that gallant brother and that dainty
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19. The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the College-yard—of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father made it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children on the Poor side, except on
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18. Little Dorrit’s Lover Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without finding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer shot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and winged a Collegian or two. Little Dorrit’s lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17. Nobody’s Rival Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him. As the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the river by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows. When he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16. Nobody’s Weakness The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles family, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr Meagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face on a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a cottage-residence of his own. The weather
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 15
CHAPTER 15. Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot, and leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and worn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what would betide. If the sun ever touched it,
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14. Little Dorrit’s Party Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This history must sometimes see with Little Dorrit’s eyes, and shall begin that course by seeing him. Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to her, and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden,
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 13
CHAPTER 13. Patriarchal The mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam’s memory the smouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had fanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the beloved of his boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed old Christopher (so he was
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12. Bleeding Heart Yard In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of note where in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage-player, there were Royal hunting-seats—howbeit no sport is left there now but for hunters of men—Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found; a place much changed in
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11. Let Loose Alate, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone. The stream, like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected the clouds heavily; and the low banks leaned over here and there, as if they were half curious, and half afraid, to see their darkening pictures in the water.
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10. Containing the whole Science of Government The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 9
CHAPTER 9. Little Mother The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in at the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more welcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with it. But the equinoctial gales were blowing out
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 8
CHAPTER 8. The Lock Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the street, when an old man came up and turned into the
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7. The Child of the Marshalsea The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor Haggage’s brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians, like the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier stages of her existence, she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6. The Father of the Marshalsea Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there many years before, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5. Family Affairs As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall cabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself at its desk, Jeremiah withdrew—as it might be, to hang himself more effectually—and her son appeared.
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4. Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her old mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream that night, and before she had left the son of her old mistress many hours. In fact it was not at all like a
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3. Home It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who were condemned to look
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2. Fellow Travellers No more of yesterday’s howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?’ ‘I have heard none.’ ‘Then you may be sure there is none. When these people howl, they howl to be heard.’ ‘Most people do, I suppose.’ ‘Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.’ ‘Do you mean the Marseilles people?’
-
Little Dorrit: Book the First – Chapter 1
Book the First: Poverty CHAPTER 1. Sun and Shadow Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day. A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid
-
Little Dorrit: PREFACE
PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION I have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of two years. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its merits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on its being read as a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to
-
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices: Chapter V
CHAPTER V Two of the many passengers by a certain late Sunday evening train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild, yielded up their tickets at a little rotten platform (converted into artificial touchwood by smoke and ashes), deep in the manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire. A mysterious bosom it appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night,
-
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices: Chapter IV
CHAPTER IV When Mr. Goodchild had looked out of the Lancaster Inn window for two hours on end, with great perseverance, he begun to entertain a misgiving that he was growing industrious. He therefore set himself next, to explore the country from the tops of all the steep hills in the neighbourhood. He came back at
-
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices: Chapter III
CHAPTER III The Cumberland Doctor’s mention of Doncaster Races, inspired Mr. Francis Goodchild with the idea of going down to Doncaster to see the races. Doncaster being a good way off, and quite out of the way of the Idle Apprentices (if anything could be out of their way, who had no way), it necessarily followed
-
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices: Chapter II
CHAPTER II The dog-cart, with Mr. Thomas Idle and his ankle on the hanging seat behind, Mr. Francis Goodchild and the Innkeeper in front, and the rain in spouts and splashes everywhere, made the best of its way back to the little inn; the broken moor country looking like miles upon miles of Pre-Adamite sop, or
-
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices: Chapter I
CHAPTER I In the autumn month of September, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, wherein these presents bear date, two idle apprentices, exhausted by the long, hot summer, and the long, hot work it had brought with it, ran away from their employer. They were bound to a highly meritorious lady (named Literature), of fair credit and repute,
-
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.
-
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,
-
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,
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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