Hard Times..........................................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

'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 any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own

children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the speaker's square forefinger

emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The

emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while

his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was

helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's

voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, which

bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all

covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouseroom for the hard

facts stored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, nay, his

very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it

The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with

their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons

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. With a rule and a pair of

scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human

nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You

might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind,

or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, nonexistent persons), but into the head of

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of

acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words 'boys and girls,' for

'sir,' Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be

Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon

loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one

discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender

'Girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, 'I don't know that girl.

'Sissy Jupe, sir,' explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.

'Sissy is not a name,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Don't call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia.'

'It's father as calls me Sissy, sir,' returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey.

'Then he has no business to do it,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is

'We don't want to know anything about that, here. You mustn't tell us about that, here. Your father breaks

'If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir.'

'You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors

'Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.'

'Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!' said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little

pitchers. 'Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in

the same ray of sunlight which, darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room,

irradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided

up the centre by a narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, came in for the

beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in

advance, caught the end. But, whereas the girl was so darkeyed and darkhaired, that she seemed to receive

a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shone upon her, the boy was so lighteyed and

lighthaired that the selfsame rays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed. His

cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into

immediate contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form. His shortcropped hair

might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so

unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.

'Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twentyfour grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisive.

Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with

She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could have blushed deeper than she had blushed

all this time. Bitzer, after rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching the

light upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennae of busy insects, put his knuckles to

The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting and drying, he was; a government officer; in

his way (and in most other people's too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with a system to

force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heard of at the bar of his little Publicoffice, ready to

fight all England. To continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to the scratch, wherever

and whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly customer. He would go in and damage any subject

whatever with his right, follow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (he always fought

All England) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind out of common sense,

and render that unlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge from high authority to

bring about the great publicoffice Millennium, when Commissioners should reign upon earth.

'Very well,' said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms. 'That's a horse. Now, let me ask you

After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, 'Yes, sir!' Upon which the other half, seeing in the

gentleman's face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, 'No, sir!' as the custom is, in these examinations.

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the answer, Because he

'You must paper it,' said Thomas Gradgrind, 'whether you like it or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it.

'I'll explain to you, then,' said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, 'why you wouldn't paper a

room with representations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in

'Of course no,' said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong half. 'Why, then, you are not to see

anywhere, what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don't have in fact. What is

called Taste, is only another name for Fact.' Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.

'This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,' said the gentleman. 'Now, I'll try you again. Suppose

you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?'

There being a general conviction by this time that 'No, sir!' was always the right answer to this gentleman, the

chorus of NO was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe.

'Girl number twenty,' said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.

'So you would carpet your room or your husband's room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband

with representations of flowers, would you?' said the gentleman. 'Why would you?'

'And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy

'It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of

'Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn't fancy,' cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point.

'You are not, Cecilia Jupe,' Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, 'to do anything of that kind.'

'Fact, fact, fact!' said the gentleman. And 'Fact, fact, fact!' repeated Thomas Gradgrind.

'You are to be in all things regulated and governed,' said the gentleman, 'by fact. We hope to have, before

long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact,

and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are

not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon

flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and

butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies

upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have

quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use,' said the gentleman, 'for all these purposes, combinations

and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and

The girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the

'Now, if Mr. M'Choakumchild,' said the gentleman, 'will proceed to give his first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind,

So, Mr. M'Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters,

had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte

legs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of headbreaking

questions. Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and general

cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, landsurveying and levelling, vocal music, and

drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way into Her

Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council's Schedule B, and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of

mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water Sheds

of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers

and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries

and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. Ah, rather overdone, M'Choakumchild. If he had

only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!

He went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in the Forty Thieves: looking into all the

vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. Say, good M'Choakumchild. When

from thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full byandby, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill

outright the robber Fancy lurking within or sometimes only maim him and distort him!

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

There were five young Gradgrinds, and they were models every one. They had been lectured at, from their

tenderest years; coursed, like little hares. Almost as soon as they could run alone, they had been made to run

to the lectureroom. The first object with which they had an association, or of which they had a

remembrance, was a large black board with a dry Ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it.

Not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an Ogre Fact forbid! I only use the word to express a

monster in a lecturing castle, with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, taking childhood

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly.

No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are!

No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old

dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven Charles's Wain like a locomotive enginedriver.

No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who

tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow

who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow

To his matteroffact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind directed his steps. He had

virtually retired from the wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now looking about

for a suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a moor

within a mile or two of a great town called Coketown in the present faithful guidebook.

A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not the least disguise toned down or

shaded off that uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening

the principal windows, as its master's heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, balanced,

and proved house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on that side; a total of twelve in this wing, a total

of twelve in the other wing; fourandtwenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden and an

infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical account book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and

waterservice, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fireproof from top to bottom; mechanical

lifts for the housemaids, with all their brushes and brooms; everything that heart could desire.

Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had cabinets in various departments of science too.

They had a little conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet;

and the specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore looked as though they might

have been broken from the parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments their own names; and,

to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found his way into their nursery, If the greedy

little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it for good gracious goodness' sake, that the greedy little

Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. He was an affectionate father, after his

manner; but he would probably have described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition)

as 'an eminently practical' father. He had a particular pride in the phrase eminently practical, which was

considered to have a special application to him. Whatsoever the public meeting held in Coketown, and

whatsoever the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his

eminently practical friend Gradgrind. This always pleased the eminently practical friend. He knew it to be his

He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was neither town nor country, and

yet was either spoiled, when his ears were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing and banging band

attached to the horseriding establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion, was in full

bray. A flag, floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was 'Sleary's

Horseriding' which claimed their suffrages. Sleary himself, a stout modern statue with a moneybox at its

elbow, in an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture, took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as some

very long and very narrow strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugurating the entertainments with her

graceful equestrian Tyrolean floweract. Among the other pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which

must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to 'elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his

highly trained performing dog Merrylegs.' He was also to exhibit 'his astounding feat of throwing

seventyfive hundredweight in rapid succession backhanded over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid

iron in midair, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such

rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn.' The same Signor Jupe was to 'enliven

the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts.' Lastly, he was to

wind them up by appearing in his favourite character of Mr. William Button, of Tooley Street, in 'the highly

Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass

on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction. But,

the turning of the road took him by the back of the booth, and at the back of the booth a number of children

were congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place.

This brought him to a stop. 'Now, to think of these vagabonds,' said he, 'attracting the young rabble from a

A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him and the young rabble, he took his eyeglass out of

his waistcoat to look for any child he knew by name, and might order off. Phenomenon almost incredible

though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but his own metallurgical Louisa, peeping with all her might

through a hole in a deal board, and his own mathematical Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but

Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand

Both rose, red and disconcerted. But, Louisa looked at her father with more boldness than Thomas did.

Indeed, Thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken home like a machine.

'In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!' said Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; 'what do you

There was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in the girl: yet, struggling through the

dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved

imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression. Not with the brightness natural

to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something painful in them,

She was a child now, of fifteen or sixteen; but at no distant day would seem to become a woman all at once.

Her father thought so as he looked at her. She was pretty. Would have been selfwilled (he thought in his

'Thomas, though I have the fact before me, I find it difficult to believe that you, with your education and

'I am sorry to hear it. I am very sorry indeed to hear it. It makes Thomas no better, and it makes you worse,

'You! Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; Thomas and you, who may be said to be

replete with facts; Thomas and you, who have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you,

'Say not another word,' returned Mr. Gradgrind. 'You are childish. I will hear no more.' He did not speak

again until they had walked some halfamile in silence, when he gravely broke out with: 'What would your

best friends say, Louisa? Do you attach no value to their good opinion? What would Mr. Bounderby say?' At

the mention of this name, his daughter stole a look at him, remarkable for its intense and searching character.

He saw nothing of it, for before he looked at her, she had again cast down her eyes!

'What,' he repeated presently, 'would Mr. Bounderby say?' All the way to Stone Lodge, as with grave

indignation he led the two delinquents home, he repeated at intervals 'What would Mr. Bounderby say?' as

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

He was a rich man: banker, merchant, manufacturer, and what not. A big, loud man, with a stare, and a

metallic laugh. A man made out of a coarse material, which seemed to have been stretched to make so much

of him. A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled veins in his temples, and such a strained skin

to his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open, and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading appearance

on him of being inflated like a balloon, and ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself

a selfmade man. A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speakingtrumpet of a voice of

his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility.

A year or two younger than his eminently practical friend, Mr. Bounderby looked older; his seven or eight

and forty might have had the seven or eight added to it again, without surprising anybody. He had not much

hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off; and that what was left, all standing up in disorder, was in

In the formal drawingroom of Stone Lodge, standing on the hearthrug, warming himself before the fire, Mr.

Bounderby delivered some observations to Mrs. Gradgrind on the circumstance of its being his birthday. He

stood before the fire, partly because it was a cool spring afternoon, though the sun shone; partly because the

shade of Stone Lodge was always haunted by the ghost of damp mortar; partly because he thus took up a

'I hadn't a shoe to my foot. As to a stocking, I didn't know such a thing by name. I passed the day in a ditch,

and the night in a pigsty. That's the way I spent my tenth birthday. Not that a ditch was new to me, for I was

Mrs. Gradgrind, a little, thin, white, pinkeyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily;

who was always taking physic without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to

life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her; Mrs. Gradgrind hoped it was a

'Cold? I was born with inflammation of the lungs, and of everything else, I believe, that was capable of

inflammation,' returned Mr. Bounderby. 'For years, ma'am, I was one of the most miserable little wretches

ever seen. I was so sickly, that I was always moaning and groaning. I was so ragged and dirty, that you

Mrs. Gradgrind faintly looked at the tongs, as the most appropriate thing her imbecility could think of doing.

'How I fought through it, I don't know,' said Bounderby. 'I was determined, I suppose. I have been a

determined character in later life, and I suppose I was then. Here I am, Mrs. Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody

'My mother left me to my grandmother,' said Bounderby; 'and, according to the best of my remembrance, my

grandmother was the wickedest and the worst old woman that ever lived. If I got a little pair of shoes by any

chance, she would take 'em off and sell 'em for drink. Why, I have known that grandmother of mine lie in her

Mrs. Gradgrind, weakly smiling, and giving no other sign of vitality, looked (as she always did) like an

indifferently executed transparency of a small female figure, without enough light behind it.

'She kept a chandler's shop,' pursued Bounderby, 'and kept me in an eggbox. That was the cot of my

infancy; an old eggbox. As soon as I was big enough to run away, of course I ran away. Then I became a

young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages

knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a

His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great social distinction as to be a nuisance, an

incumbrance, and a pest, was only to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast.

'I was to pull through it, I suppose, Mrs. Gradgrind. Whether I was to do it or not, ma'am, I did it. I pulled

through it, though nobody threw me out a rope. Vagabond, errandboy, vagabond, labourer, porter, clerk,

chief manager, small partner, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Those are the antecedents, and the

culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learnt his letters from the outsides of the shops, Mrs. Gradgrind,

and was first able to tell the time upon a dialplate, from studying the steeple clock of St. Giles's Church,

London, under the direction of a drunken cripple, who was a convicted thief, and an incorrigible vagrant. Tell

Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, of your district schools and your model schools, and your training schools,

and your whole kettleoffish of schools; and Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, tells you plainly, all right, all

correct he hadn't such advantages but let us have hardheaded, solidfisted people the education that

made him won't do for everybody, he knows well such and such his education was, however, and you may

force him to swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to suppress the facts of his life.'

Being heated when he arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown stopped. He stopped just as his

eminently practical friend, still accompanied by the two young culprits, entered the room. His eminently

practical friend, on seeing him, stopped also, and gave Louisa a reproachful look that plainly said, 'Behold

'Well!' blustered Mr. Bounderby, 'what's the matter? What is young Thomas in the dumps about?'

'We were peeping at the circus,' muttered Louisa, haughtily, without lifting up her eyes, 'and father caught us.'

'And, Mrs. Gradgrind,' said her husband in a lofty manner, 'I should as soon have expected to find my

'Dear me,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind. 'How can you, Louisa and Thomas! I wonder at you. I declare you're

enough to make one regret ever having had a family at all. I have a great mind to say I wish I hadn't. Then

Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent remarks. He frowned impatiently.

'As if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't go and look at the shells and minerals and

things provided for you, instead of circuses!' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'You know, as well as I do, no young

people have circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or attend lectures about circuses. What can you

possibly want to know of circuses then? I am sure you have enough to do, if that's what you want. With my

head in its present state, I couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts you have got to attend to.'

'Don't tell me that's the reason, because it can't be nothing of the sort,' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'Go and be

somethingological directly.' Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and usually dismissed her children

In truth, Mrs. Gradgrind's stock of facts in general was woefully defective; but Mr. Gradgrind in raising her

to her high matrimonial position, had been influenced by two reasons. Firstly, she was most satisfactory as a

question of figures; and, secondly, she had 'no nonsense' about her. By nonsense he meant fancy; and truly it

is probable she was as free from any alloy of that nature, as any human being not arrived at the perfection of

The simple circumstance of being left alone with her husband and Mr. Bounderby, was sufficient to stun this

admirable lady again without collision between herself and any other fact. So, she once more died away, and

'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, drawing a chair to the fireside, 'you are always so interested in my young

people particularly in Louisa that I make no apology for saying to you, I am very much vexed by this

discovery. I have systematically devoted myself (as you know) to the education of the reason of my family.

The reason is (as you know) the only faculty to which education should be addressed. 'And yet, Bounderby, it

would appear from this unexpected circumstance of today, though in itself a trifling one, as if something

had crept into Thomas's and Louisa's minds which is or rather, which is not I don't know that I can

express myself better than by saying which has never been intended to be developed, and in which their

'There certainly is no reason in looking with interest at a parcel of vagabonds,' returned Bounderby. 'When I

'Then comes the question; said the eminently practical father, with his eyes on the fire, 'in what has this

'I hope not,' said the eminently practical; 'I confess, however, that the misgiving has crossed me on my way

'In idle imagination, Gradgrind,' repeated Bounderby. 'A very bad thing for anybody, but a cursed bad thing

for a girl like Louisa. I should ask Mrs. Gradgrind's pardon for strong expressions, but that she knows very

well I am not a refined character. Whoever expects refinement in me will be disappointed. I hadn't a refined

'Whether,' said Gradgrind, pondering with his hands in his pockets, and his cavernous eyes on the fire,

'whether any instructor or servant can have suggested anything? Whether Louisa or Thomas can have been

reading anything? Whether, in spite of all precautions, any idle storybook can have got into the house?

Because, in minds that have been practically formed by rule and line, from the cradle upwards, this is so

'Stop a bit!' cried Bounderby, who all this time had been standing, as before, on the hearth, bursting at the

very furniture of the room with explosive humility. 'You have one of those strollers' children in the school.'

'Cecilia Jupe, by name,' said Mr. Gradgrind, with something of a stricken look at his friend.

'Why, the fact is, I saw the girl myself, for the first time, only just now. She specially applied here at the

house to be admitted, as not regularly belonging to our town, and yes, you are right, Bounderby, you are

'Louisa certainly did see her, for she mentioned the application to me. But Louisa saw her, I have no doubt, in

'Oh, my poor health!' returned Mrs. Gradgrind. 'The girl wanted to come to the school, and Mr. Gradgrind

wanted girls to come to the school, and Louisa and Thomas both said that the girl wanted to come, and that

Mr. Gradgrind wanted girls to come, and how was it possible to contradict them when such was the fact!'

'Now I tell you what, Gradgrind!' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Turn this girl to the right about, and there's an end of

'Do it at once,' said Bounderby, 'has always been my motto from a child. When I thought I would run away

from my eggbox and my grandmother, I did it at once. Do you the same. Do this at once!'

'Are you walking?' asked his friend. 'I have the father's address. Perhaps you would not mind walking to town

'Not the least in the world,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'as long as you do it at once!'

So, Mr. Bounderby threw on his hat he always threw it on, as expressing a man who had been far too busily

employed in making himself, to acquire any fashion of wearing his hat and with his hands in his pockets,

sauntered out into the hall. 'I never wear gloves,' it was his custom to say. 'I didn't climb up the ladder in

Being left to saunter in the hall a minute or two while Mr. Gradgrind went upstairs for the address, he

opened the door of the children's study and looked into that serene floorclothed apartment, which,

notwithstanding its bookcases and its cabinets and its variety of learned and philosophical appliances, had

much of the genial aspect of a room devoted to haircutting. Louisa languidly leaned upon the window

looking out, without looking at anything, while young Thomas stood sniffing revengefully at the fire. Adam

Smith and Malthus, two younger Gradgrinds, were out at lecture in custody; and little Jane, after

manufacturing a good deal of moist pipeclay on her face with slatepencil and tears, had fallen asleep over

'It's all right now, Louisa: it's all right, young Thomas,' said Mr. Bounderby; 'you won't do so any more. I'll

answer for it's being all over with father. Well, Louisa, that's worth a kiss, isn't it?'

'You can take one, Mr. Bounderby,' returned Louisa, when she had coldly paused, and slowly walked across

the room, and ungraciously raised her cheek towards him, with her face turned away.

He went his way, but she stood on the same spot, rubbing the cheek he had kissed, with her handkerchief,

'What are you about, Loo?' her brother sulkily remonstrated. 'You'll rub a hole in your face.'

'You may cut the piece out with your penknife if you like, Tom. I wouldn't cry!'

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 keynote, Coketown, before pursuing

It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as

matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of

machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and

ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with illsmelling dye, and

vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the

piston of the steamengine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of

melancholy madness. It contained several large streets all very like one another, and many small streets still

more like one another, inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same

hours, with the same sound upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and to whom every day was the

same as yesterday and tomorrow, and every year the counterpart of the last and the next.

These attributes of Coketown were in the main inseparable from the work by which it was sustained; against

them were to be set off, comforts of life which found their way all over the world, and elegancies of life

which made, we will not ask how much of the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the place mentioned.

You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful. If the members of a religious persuasion built

a chapel there as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done they made it a pious warehouse

of red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamental examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top

of it. The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door,

terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All the public inscriptions in the town were

painted alike, in severe characters of black and white. The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary

might have been the jail, the townhall might have been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that

appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construction. Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect

of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial. The M'Choakumchild school was all fact, and the

school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact

between the lyingin hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn't state in figures, or show to be

purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without

A town so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion, of course got on well? Why no, not quite well.

No. Coketown did not come out of its own furnaces, in all respects like gold that had stood the fire. First, the

perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations? Because, whoever did,

the labouring people did not. It was very strange to walk through the streets on a Sunday morning, and note

how few of them the barbarous jangling of bells that was driving the sick and nervous mad, called away from

their own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners of their own streets, where they lounged

listlessly, gazing at all the church and chapel going, as at a thing with which they had no manner of concern.

Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this, because there was a native organization in Coketown itself,

whose members were to be heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for acts

of parliament that should make these people religious by main force. Then came the Teetotal Society, who

complained that these same people would get drunk, and showed in tabular statements that they did get

drunk, and proved at tea parties that no inducement, human or Divine (except a medal), would induce them to

forego their custom of getting drunk. Then came the chemist and druggist, with other tabular statements,

showing that when they didn't get drunk, they took opium. Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail,

with more tabular statements, outdoing all the previous tabular statements, and showing that the same people

would resort to low haunts, hidden from the public eye, where they heard low singing and saw low dancing,

and mayhap joined in it; and where A. B., aged twentyfour next birthday, and committed for eighteen

months' solitary, had himself said (not that he had ever shown himself particularly worthy of belief) his ruin

began, as he was perfectly sure and confident that otherwise he would have been a tiptop moral specimen.

Then came Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby, the two gentlemen at this present moment walking through

Coketown, and both eminently practical, who could, on occasion, furnish more tabular statements derived

from their own personal experience, and illustrated by cases they had known and seen, from which it clearly

appeared in short, it was the only clear thing in the case that these same people were a bad lot altogether,

gentlemen; that do what you would for them they were never thankful for it, gentlemen; that they were

restless, gentlemen; that they never knew what they wanted; that they lived upon the best, and bought fresh

butter; and insisted on Mocha coffee, and rejected all but prime parts of meat, and yet were eternally

dissatisfied and unmanageable. In short, it was the moral of the old nursery fable:

There was an old woman, and what do you think? She lived upon nothing but victuals and drink; Victuals and

Is it possible, I wonder, that there was any analogy between the case of the Coketown population and the case

of the little Gradgrinds? Surely, none of us in our sober senses and acquainted with figures, are to be told at

this time of day, that one of the foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown workingpeople had

been for scores of years, deliberately set at nought? That there was any Fancy in them demanding to be

brought into healthy existence instead of struggling on in convulsions? That exactly in the ratio as they

worked long and monotonously, the craving grew within them for some physical relief some relaxation,

encouraging good humour and good spirits, and giving them a vent some recognized holiday, though it

were but for an honest dance to a stirring band of music some occasional light pie in which even

M'Choakumchild had no finger which craving must and would be satisfied aright, or must and would

'This man lives at Pod's End, and I don't quite know Pod's End,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Which is it, Bounderby?'

Mr. Bounderby knew it was somewhere down town, but knew no more respecting it. So they stopped for a

Almost as they did so, there came running round the corner of the street at a quick pace and with a frightened

look, a girl whom Mr. Gradgrind recognized. 'Halloa!' said he. 'Stop! Where are you going! Stop!' Girl

'Why are you tearing about the streets,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'in this improper manner?'

The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for her, by the colourless boy, Bitzer, who came

round the corner with such blind speed and so little anticipating a stoppage on the pavement, that he brought

'What do you mean, boy?' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'What are you doing? How dare you dash against everybody

in this manner?' Bitzer picked up his cap, which the concussion had knocked off; and backing, and

'No, I wasn't, sir!' cried Bitzer. 'Not till she run away from me. But the horseriders never mind what they

say, sir; they're famous for it. You know the horseriders are famous for never minding what they say,'

addressing Sissy. 'It's as well known in the town as please, sir, as the multiplication table isn't known to the

'Oh!' cried Bitzer. 'Oh! An't you one of the rest! An't you a horserider! I never looked at her, sir. I asked her

if she would know how to define a horse tomorrow, and offered to tell her again, and she ran away, and I

ran after her, sir, that she might know how to answer when she was asked. You wouldn't have thought of

'Her calling seems to be pretty well known among 'em,' observed Mr. Bounderby. 'You'd have had the whole

'Truly, I think so,' returned his friend. 'Bitzer, turn you about and take yourself home. Jupe, stay here a

moment. Let me hear of your running in this manner any more, boy, and you will hear of me through the

The boy stopped in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead again, glanced at Sissy, turned about, and

'Now, girl,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'take this gentleman and me to your father's; we are going there. What have

'Then,' said Mr. Bounderby, with a loud short laugh, 'what the devil do you rub your father with nine oils for?'

'It's what our people aways use, sir, when they get any hurts in the ring,' replied the girl, looking over her

shoulder, to assure herself that her pursuer was gone. 'They bruise themselves very bad sometimes.'

'Serve 'em right,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'for being idle.' She glanced up at his face, with mingled astonishment

'By George!' said Mr. Bounderby, 'when I was four or five years younger than you, I had worse bruises upon

me than ten oils, twenty oils, forty oils, would have rubbed off. I didn't get 'em by posturemaking, but by

being banged about. There was no rope dancing for me; I danced on the bare ground and was larruped with

Mr. Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so rough a man as Mr. Bounderby. His character was

not unkind, all things considered; it might have been a very kind one indeed, if he had only made some round

mistake in the arithmetic that balanced it, years ago. He said, in what he meant for a reassuring tone, as they

She stopped, at twilight, at the door of a mean little public house, with dim red lights in it. As haggard and

as shabby, as if, for want of custom, it had itself taken to drinking, and had gone the way all drunkards go,

'It's only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you wouldn't mind, and waiting there for a moment till I get

a candle. If you should hear a dog, sir, it's only Merrylegs, and he only barks.'

'Merrylegs and nine oils, eh!' said Mr. Bounderby, entering last with his metallic laugh. 'Pretty well this, for a

THE name of the publichouse was the Pegasus's Arms. The Pegasus's legs might have been more to the

purpose; but, underneath the winged horse upon the signboard, the Pegasus's Arms was inscribed in Roman

letters. Beneath that inscription again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had touched off the lines:

Framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy little bar, was another Pegasus a theatrical one with

real gauze let in for his wings, golden stars stuck on all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk.

As it had grown too dusky without, to see the sign, and as it had not grown light enough within to see the

picture, Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby received no offence from these idealities. They followed the girl

up some steep cornerstairs without meeting any one, and stopped in the dark while she went on for a candle.

They expected every moment to hear Merrylegs give tongue, but the highly trained performing dog had not

'Father is not in our room, sir,' she said, with a face of great surprise. 'If you wouldn't mind walking in, I'll

find him directly.' They walked in; and Sissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away with a quick light

step. It was a mean, shabbily furnished room, with a bed in it. The white nightcap, embellished with two

peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt upright, in which Signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened the

varied performances with his chaste Shaksperean quips and retorts, hung upon a nail; but no other portion of

his wardrobe, or other token of himself or his pursuits, was to be seen anywhere. As to Merrylegs, that

respectable ancestor of the highly trained animal who went aboard the ark, might have been accidentally shut

out of it, for any sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or ear in the Pegasus's Arms.

They heard the doors of rooms above, opening and shutting as Sissy went from one to another in quest of her

father; and presently they heard voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in a great hurry,

opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk, found it empty, and looked round with her hands clasped and her

'Father must have gone down to the Booth, sir. I don't know why he should go there, but he must be there; I'll

bring him in a minute!' She was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair

'What does she mean!' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Back in a minute? It's more than a mile off.'

Before Mr. Bounderby could reply, a young man appeared at the door, and introducing himself with the

words, 'By your leaves, gentlemen!' walked in with his hands in his pockets. His face, closeshaven, thin, and

sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of dark hair, brushed into a roll all round his head, and parted up the

centre. His legs were very robust, but shorter than legs of good proportions should have been. His chest and

back were as much too broad, as his legs were too short. He was dressed in a Newmarket coat and

tightfitting trousers; wore a shawl round his neck; smelt of lampoil, straw, orangepeel, horses' provender,

and sawdust; and looked a most remarkable sort of Centaur, compounded of the stable and the playhouse.

Where the one began, and the other ended, nobody could have told with any precision. This gentleman was

mentioned in the bills of the day as Mr. E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as

the Wild Huntsman of the North American Prairies; in which popular performance, a diminutive boy with an

old face, who now accompanied him, assisted as his infant son: being carried upside down over his father's

shoulder, by one foot, and held by the crown of his head, heels upwards, in the palm of his father's hand,

according to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen may be observed to fondle their offspring.

Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, white bismuth, and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so

pleasing a Cupid as to constitute the chief delight of the maternal part of the spectators; but in private, where

his characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely gruff voice, he became of the Turf, turfy.

'By your leaves, gentlemen,' said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, glancing round the room. 'It was you, I believe, that

'It was,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'His daughter has gone to fetch him, but I can't wait; therefore, if you please, I

'You see, my friend,' Mr. Bounderby put in, 'we are the kind of people who know the value of time, and you

'I have not,' retorted Mr. Childers, after surveying him from head to foot, 'the honour of knowing you, but if

you mean that you can make more money of your time than I can of mine, I should judge from your

'Kidderminster, stow that!' said Mr. Childers. (Master Kidderminster was Cupid's mortal name.)

'What does he come here cheeking us for, then?' cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible

temperament. 'If you want to cheek us, pay your ochre at the doors and take it out.'

'Kidderminster,' said Mr. Childers, raising his voice, 'stow that! Sir,' to Mr. Gradgrind, 'I was addressing

myself to you. You may or you may not be aware (for perhaps you have not been much in the audience), that

'Has what has he missed?' asked Mr. Gradgrind, glancing at the potent Bounderby for assistance.

'Offered at the Garters four times last night, and never done 'em once,' said Master Kidderminster. 'Missed his

'Didn't do what he ought to do. Was short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling,' Mr. Childers interpreted.

'Nine oils, Merrylegs, missing tips, garters, banners, and Ponging, eh!' ejaculated Bounderby, with his laugh

'Lower yourself, then,' retorted Cupid. 'Oh Lord! if you've raised yourself so high as all that comes to, let

'This is a very obtrusive lad!' said Mr. Gradgrind, turning, and knitting his brows on him.

'We'd have had a young gentleman to meet you, if we had known you were coming,' retorted Master

Kidderminster, nothing abashed. 'It's a pity you don't have a bespeak, being so particular. You're on the

'What does this unmannerly boy mean,' asked Mr. Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort of desperation, 'by

'There! Get out, get out!' said Mr. Childers, thrusting his young friend from the room, rather in the prairie

manner. 'TightJeff or SlackJeff, it don't much signify: it's only tightrope and slack rope. You were going

'Then,' continued Mr. Childers, quickly, 'my opinion is, he will never receive it. Do you know much of him?'

'Ay! I mean,' said Mr. Childers, with a nod, 'that he has cut. He was goosed last night, he was goosed the

night before last, he was goosed today. He has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he can't

'Why has he been so very much Goosed?' asked Mr. Gradgrind, forcing the word out of himself, with

'His joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up,' said Childers. 'He has his points as a Cackler still, but

'A speaker, if the gentleman likes it better,' said Mr. E. W. B. Childers, superciliously throwing the

interpretation over his shoulder, and accompanying it with a shake of his long hair which all shook at once.

'Now, it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper, to know that his daughter knew of his being

'Good!' interrupted Mr. Bounderby. 'This is good, Gradgrind! A man so fond of his daughter, that he runs

away from her! This is devilish good! Ha! ha! Now, I'll tell you what, young man. I haven't always occupied

my present station of life. I know what these things are. You may be astonished to hear it, but my mother

E. W. B. Childers replied pointedly, that he was not at all astonished to hear it.

'Very well,' said Bounderby. 'I was born in a ditch, and my mother ran away from me. Do I excuse her for it?

No. Have I ever excused her for it? Not I. What do I call her for it? I call her probably the very worst woman

that ever lived in the world, except my drunken grandmother. There's no family pride about me, there's no

imaginative sentimental humbug about me. I call a spade a spade; and I call the mother of Josiah Bounderby

of Coketown, without any fear or any favour, what I should call her if she had been the mother of Dick Jones

of Wapping. So, with this man. He is a runaway rogue and a vagabond, that's what he is, in English.'

'It's all the same to me what he is or what he is not, whether in English or whether in French,' retorted Mr. E.

W. B. Childers, facing about. 'I am telling your friend what's the fact; if you don't like to hear it, you can avail

yourself of the open air. You give it mouth enough, you do; but give it mouth in your own building at least,'

remonstrated E. W. B. with stern irony. 'Don't give it mouth in this building, till you're called upon. You have

'Then give it mouth in your own building, will you, if you please?' said Childers. 'Because this isn't a strong

Eyeing Mr. Bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from him, as from a man finally disposed of, to Mr.

'Jupe sent his daughter out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was seen to slip out himself, with his hat

over his eyes, and a bundle tied up in a handkerchief under his arm. She will never believe it of him, but he

'Because those two were one. Because they were never asunder. Because, up to this time, he seemed to dote

upon her,' said Childers, taking a step or two to look into the empty trunk. Both Mr. Childers and Master

Kidderminster walked in a curious manner; with their legs wider apart than the general run of men, and with

a very knowing assumption of being stiff in the knees. This walk was common to all the male members of

Sleary's company, and was understood to express, that they were always on horseback.

'Poor Sissy! He had better have apprenticed her,' said Childers, giving his hair another shake, as he looked up

'It is creditable to you, who have never been apprenticed, to express that opinion,' returned Mr. Gradgrind,

'Oh! Indeed?' said Mr. Gradgrind, rather resentfully, as having been defrauded of his good opinion. 'I was not

'Idleness,' Mr. Bounderby put in with a loud laugh. 'No, by the Lord Harry! Nor I!'

'Her father always had it in his head,' resumed Childers, feigning unconsciousness of Mr. Bounderby's

existence, 'that she was to be taught the deuceandall of education. How it got into his head, I can't say; I

can only say that it never got out. He has been picking up a bit of reading for her, here and a bit of writing

for her, there and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere else these seven years.'

Mr. E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands out of his pockets, stroked his face and chin, and looked, with a

good deal of doubt and a little hope, at Mr. Gradgrind. From the first he had sought to conciliate that

'When Sissy got into the school here,' he pursued, 'her father was as pleased as Punch. I couldn't altogether

make out why, myself, as we were not stationary here, being but comers and goers anywhere. I suppose,

however, he had this move in his mind he was always halfcracked and then considered her provided for.

If you should happen to have looked in tonight, for the purpose of telling him that you were going to do her

any little service,' said Mr. Childers, stroking his face again, and repeating his look, 'it would be very

'On the contrary,' returned Mr. Gradgrind. 'I came to tell him that her connections made her not an object for

the school, and that she must not attend any more. Still, if her father really has left her, without any

Upon this, Mr. Childers politely betook himself, with his equestrian walk, to the landing outside the door, and

there stood stroking his face, and softly whistling. While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in Mr.

Bounderby's voice as 'No. I say no. I advise you not. I say by no means.' While, from Mr. Gradgrind, he

heard in his much lower tone the words, 'But even as an example to Louisa, of what this pursuit which has

been the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to and ends in. Think of it, Bounderby, in that point of view.'

Meanwhile, the various members of Sleary's company gradually gathered together from the upper regions,

where they were quartered, and, from standing about, talking in low voices to one another and to Mr.

Childers, gradually insinuated themselves and him into the room. There were two or three handsome young

women among them, with their two or three husbands, and their two or three mothers, and their eight or nine

little children, who did the fairy business when required. The father of one of the families was in the habit of

balancing the father of another of the families on the top of a great pole; the father of a third family often

made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster for the apex, and himself for the base; all

the fathers could dance upon rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch knives and balls, twirl handbasins, ride

upon anything, jump over everything, and stick at nothing. All the mothers could (and did) dance, upon the

slack wire and the tightrope, and perform rapid acts on barebacked steeds; none of them were at all

particular in respect of showing their legs; and one of them, alone in a Greek chariot, drove six in hand into

every town they came to. They all assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their

private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the combined literature of the

whole company would have produced but a poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable gentleness

and childishness about these people, a special inaptitude for any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring

readiness to help and pity one another, deserving often of as much respect, and always of as much generous

Last of all appeared Mr. Sleary: a stout man as already mentioned, with one fixed eye, and one loose eye, a

voice (if it can be called so) like the efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface, and a muddled

'Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, who was troubled with asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for

the letter s, 'Your thervant! Thith ith a bad piethe of bithnith, thith ith. You've heard of my Clown and hith

'Well, Thquire,' he returned, taking off his hat, and rubbing the lining with his pockethandkerchief, which he

kept inside for the purpose. 'Ith it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?'

'I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,' said Mr. Gradgrind.

'Glad to hear it, Thquire. Not that I want to get rid of the child, any more than I want to thtand in her way. I'm

willing to take her prentith, though at her age ith late. My voithe ith a little huthky, Thquire, and not eathy

heard by them ath don't know me; but if you'd been chilled and heated, heated and chilled, chilled and heated

in the ring when you wath young, ath often ath I have been, your voithe wouldn't have lathted out, Thquire,

'What thall it be, Thquire, while you wait? Thall it be Therry? Give it a name, Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, with

'Don't thay nothing, Thquire. What doth your friend thay? If you haven't took your feed yet, have a glath of

Here his daughter Josephine a pretty fairhaired girl of eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two years

old, and had made a will at twelve, which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire to

be drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies cried, 'Father, hush! she has come back!' Then came Sissy

Jupe, running into the room as she had run out of it. And when she saw them all assembled, and saw their

looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the

most accomplished tightrope lady (herself in the familyway), who knelt down on the floor to nurse her,

'O my dear father, my good kind father, where are you gone? You are gone to try to do me some good, I

know! You are gone away for my sake, I am sure! And how miserable and helpless you will be without me,

poor, poor father, until you come back!' It was so pathetic to hear her saying many things of this kind, with

her face turned upward, and her arms stretched out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and

embrace it, that no one spoke a word until Mr. Bounderby (growing impatient) took the case in hand.

'Now, good people all,' said he, 'this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand the fact. Let her take it

from me, if you like, who have been run away from, myself. Here, what's your name! Your father has

absconded deserted you and you mustn't expect to see him again as long as you live.'

They cared so little for plain Fact, these people, and were in that advanced state of degeneracy on the subject,

that instead of being impressed by the speaker's strong common sense, they took it in extraordinary dudgeon.

The men muttered 'Shame!' and the women 'Brute!' and Sleary, in some haste, communicated the following

'I tell you what, Thquire. To thpeak plain to you, my opinion ith that you had better cut it thort, and drop it.

They're a very good natur'd people, my people, but they're accuthtomed to be quick in their movementh; and

if you don't act upon my advithe, I'm damned if I don't believe they'll pith you out o' winder.'

Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently

'It is of no moment,' said he, 'whether this person is to be expected back at any time, or the contrary. He is

gone away, and there is no present expectation of his return. That, I believe, is agreed on all hands.'

'Well then. I, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl, Jupe, that she could not be received at the

school any more, in consequence of there being practical objections, into which I need not enter, to the

reception there of the children of persons so employed, am prepared in these altered circumstances to make a

proposal. I am willing to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you. The only

condition (over and above your good behaviour) I make is, that you decide now, at once, whether to

accompany me or remain here. Also, that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate

no more with any of your friends who are here present. These observations comprise the whole of the case.'

'At the thame time,' said Sleary, 'I mutht put in my word, Thquire, tho that both thides of the banner may be

equally theen. If you like, Thethilia, to be prentitht, you know the natur of the work and you know your

companionth. Emma Gordon, in whothe lap you're a lying at prethent, would be a mother to you, and

Joth'phine would be a thithter to you. I don't pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and I don't thay but

what, when you mith'd your tip, you'd find me cut up rough, and thwear an oath or two at you. But what I

thay, Thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad tempered, I never did a horthe a injury yet, no more than

thwearing at him went, and that I don't expect I thall begin otherwithe at my time of life, with a rider. I never

The latter part of this speech was addressed to Mr. Gradgrind, who received it with a grave inclination of his

'The only observation I will make to you, Jupe, in the way of influencing your decision, is, that it is highly

desirable to have a sound practical education, and that even your father himself (from what I understand)

The last words had a visible effect upon her. She stopped in her wild crying, a little detached herself from

Emma Gordon, and turned her face full upon her patron. The whole company perceived the force of the

'Be sure you know your own mind, Jupe,' Mr. Gradgrind cautioned her; 'I say no more. Be sure you know

'When father comes back,' cried the girl, bursting into tears again after a minute's silence, 'how will he ever

'You may be quite at ease,' said Mr. Gradgrind, calmly; he worked out the whole matter like a sum: 'you may

be quite at ease, Jupe, on that score. In such a case, your father, I apprehend, must find out Mr. '

'Thleary. Thath my name, Thquire. Not athamed of it. Known all over England, and alwayth paythe ith way.'

'Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went. I should have no power of keeping

you against his wish, and he would have no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of

'Well known,' assented Mr. Sleary, rolling his loose eye. 'You're one of the thort, Thquire, that keepth a

There was another silence; and then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands before her face, 'Oh, give me my

The women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together it was soon done, for they were not many

and to pack them in a basket which had often travelled with them. Sissy sat all the time upon the ground,

still sobbing, and covering her eyes. Mr. Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby stood near the door, ready to

take her away. Mr. Sleary stood in the middle of the room, with the male members of the company about

him, exactly as he would have stood in the centre of the ring during his daughter Josephine's performance. He

The basket packed in silence, they brought her bonnet to her, and smoothed her disordered hair, and put it on.

Then they pressed about her, and bent over her in very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing her: and

brought the children to take leave of her; and were a tenderhearted, simple, foolish set of women altogether.

But she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company yet, and every one of them had to unfold his

arms (for they all assumed the professional attitude when they found themselves near Sleary), and give her a

parting kiss Master Kidderminster excepted, in whose young nature there was an original flavour of the

misanthrope, who was also known to have harboured matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mr.

Sleary was reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide he took her by both her hands, and would have

sprung her up and down, after the ridingmaster manner of congratulating young ladies on their dismounting

from a rapid act; but there was no rebound in Sissy, and she only stood before him crying.

'Goodbye, my dear!' said Sleary. 'You'll make your fortun, I hope, and none of our poor folkth will ever

trouble you, I'll pound it. I with your father hadn't taken hith dog with him; ith a ill conwenienth to have the

dog out of the billth. But on thecond thoughth, he wouldn't have performed without hith mathter, tho ith ath

With that he regarded her attentively with his fixed eye, surveyed his company with his loose one, kissed her,

'There the ith, Thquire,' he said, sweeping her with a professional glance as if she were being adjusted in her

'Goodbye, Cecilia!' 'Goodbye, Sissy!' 'God bless you, dear!' In a variety of voices from all the room.

But the ridingmaster eye had observed the bottle of the nine oils in her bosom, and he now interposed with

'Leave the bottle, my dear; ith large to carry; it will be of no uthe to you now. Give it to me!'

'No, no!' she said, in another burst of tears. 'Oh, no! Pray let me keep it for father till he comes back! He will

want it when he comes back. He had never thought of going away, when he sent me for it. I must keep it for

'Tho be it, my dear. (You thee how it ith, Thquire!) Farewell, Thethilia! My latht wordth to you ith thith,

Thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, when you're

grown up and married and well off, you come upon any hortheriding ever, don't be hard upon it, don't be

croth with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do wurth. People mutht be amuthed, Thquire,

thomehow,' continued Sleary, rendered more pursy than ever, by so much talking; 'they can't be alwayth a

working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. I've got my living out

of the hortheriding all my life, I know; but I conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I

The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs and the fixed eye of Philosophy and its

rolling eye, too soon lost the three figures and the basket in the darkness of the street.

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 inside.

For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly connected. She had a great aunt living in

these very times called Lady Scadgers. Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by the

mother's side what Mrs. Sparsit still called 'a Powler.' Strangers of limited information and dull apprehension

were sometimes observed not to know what a Powler was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might be a

business, or a political party, or a profession of faith. The better class of minds, however, did not need to be

informed that the Powlers were an ancient stock, who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back that it

was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves which they had rather frequently done, as respected

horseflesh, blindhookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the Insolvent Debtors' Court.

The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother's side a Powler, married this lady, being by the father's side a

Scadgers. Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a

mysterious leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the marriage, at a period

when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly supported on two long slim

props, and surmounted by no head worth mentioning. He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but owed it

all before he came into it, and spent it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died, at twentyfour

(the scene of his decease, Calais, and the cause, brandy), he did not leave his widow, from whom he had been

separated soon after the honeymoon, in affluent circumstances. That bereaved lady, fifteen years older than

he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, Lady Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and

partly to maintain herself, went out at a salary. And here she was now, in her elderly days, with the

Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows which had captivated Sparsit, making Mr.

If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess whom he took about as a feature in

his stateprocessions, he could not have made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it

belonged to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to it to exalt Mrs. Sparsit's. In the

measure that he would not allow his own youth to have been attended by a single favourable circumstance, he

brightened Mrs. Sparsit's juvenile career with every possible advantage, and showered waggonloads of early

roses all over that lady's path. 'And yet, sir,' he would say, 'how does it turn out after all? Why here she is at a

hundred a year (I give her a hundred, which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping the house of Josiah

Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties took it up, and handled it on some

occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he

not only sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them. There was a moral infection of

claptrap in him. Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in

quite a rampant way, of Bounderby. They made him out to be the Royal arms, the UnionJack, Magna

Charta, John Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, An Englishman's house is his castle, Church and State,

and God save the Queen, all put together. And as often (and it was very often) as an orator of this kind

'Princes and lords may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them, as a breath has made,'

it was, for certain, more or less understood among the company that he had heard of Mrs. Sparsit.

'Mr. Bounderby,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'you are unusually slow, sir, with your breakfast this morning.'

'Why, ma'am,' he returned, 'I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind's whim;' Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff

independent manner of speaking as if somebody were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense

sums to say Thomas, and he wouldn't; 'Tom Gradgrind's whim, ma'am, of bringing up the tumblinggirl.'

'The girl is now waiting to know,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'whether she is to go straight to the school, or up to the

'She must wait, ma'am,' answered Bounderby, 'till I know myself. We shall have Tom Gradgrind down here

presently, I suppose. If he should wish her to remain here a day or two longer, of course she can, ma'am.'

'I told him I would give her a shakedown here, last night, in order that he might sleep on it before he decided

'Indeed, Mr. Bounderby? Very thoughtful of you!' Mrs. Sparsit's Coriolanian nose underwent a slight

expansion of the nostrils, and her black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea.

'It's tolerably clear to me,' said Bounderby, 'that the little puss can get small good out of such companionship.'

'Your observation being limited to "little puss,"' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'and there being two little girls in question,

'You are quite another father to Louisa, sir.' Mrs. Sparsit took a little more tea; and, as she bent her again

contracted eyebrows over her steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical countenance were invoking the

'If you had said I was another father to Tom young Tom, I mean, not my friend Tom Gradgrind you

might have been nearer the mark. I am going to take young Tom into my office. Going to have him under my

'Indeed? Rather young for that, is he not, sir?' Mrs. Spirit's 'sir,' in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of

ceremony, rather exacting consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.

'I'm not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational cramming before then,' said Bounderby. 'By

the Lord Harry, he'll have enough of it, first and last! He'd open his eyes, that boy would, if he knew how

empty of learning my young maw was, at his time of life.' Which, by the by, he probably did know, for he

had heard of it often enough. 'But it's extraordinary the difficulty I have on scores of such subjects, in

speaking to any one on equal terms. Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this morning about

tumblers. Why, what do you know about tumblers? At the time when, to have been a tumbler in the mud of

the streets, would have been a godsend to me, a prize in the lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera. You

were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma'am, in white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendour, when I hadn't a

'I certainly, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely mournful, 'was familiar with the Italian Opera

'Egad, ma'am, so was I,' said Bounderby, ' with the wrong side of it. A hard bed the pavement of its Arcade

used to make, I assure you. People like you, ma'am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, have

no idea how hard a pavingstone is, without trying it. No, no, it's of no use my talking to you about tumblers.

I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West End of London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies and

'I trust, sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, 'it is not necessary that you should do anything of

that kind. I hope I have learnt how to accommodate myself to the changes of life. If I have acquired an

interest in hearing of your instructive experiences, and can scarcely hear enough of them, I claim no merit for

'Well, ma'am,' said her patron, 'perhaps some people may be pleased to say that they do like to hear, in his

own unpolished way, what Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown, has gone through. But you must confess that you

were born in the lap of luxury, yourself. Come, ma'am, you know you were born in the lap of luxury.'

Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from table, and stand with his back to the fire, looking at her; she was

'And you were in crack society. Devilish high society,' he said, warming his legs.

'It is true, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affectation of humility the very opposite of his, and therefore in

'Yes, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of social widowhood upon her. 'It is unquestionably true.'

Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally embraced his legs in his great satisfaction and laughed

aloud. Mr. and Miss Gradgrind being then announced, he received the former with a shake of the hand, and

Certainly. So Jupe was sent there. On coming in, she curtseyed to Mr. Bounderby, and to his friend Tom

Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; but in her confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit. Observing this, the

'Now, I tell you what, my girl. The name of that lady by the teapot, is Mrs. Sparsit. That lady acts as mistress

of this house, and she is a highly connected lady. Consequently, if ever you come again into any room in this

house, you will make a short stay in it if you don't behave towards that lady in your most respectful manner.

Now, I don't care a button what you do to me, because I don't affect to be anybody. So far from having high

connections I have no connections at all, and I come of the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I do care

what you do; and you shall do what is deferential and respectful, or you shall not come here.'

'I hope, Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, 'that this was merely an oversight.'

'My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit,' said Bounderby, 'that this was merely an oversight. Very

likely. However, as you are aware, ma'am, I don't allow of even oversights towards you.'

'You are very good indeed, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head with her State humility. 'It is not

Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself with tears in her eyes, was now waved over by the

master of the house to Mr. Gradgrind. She stood looking intently at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her

'Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and, when you are not in attendance at the school,

to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa this is Miss

Louisa the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to expressly understand that the whole

of that subject is past, and is not to be referred to any more. From this time you begin your history. You are,

'I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; and you will be a living proof to all who

come into communication with you, of the advantages of the training you will receive. You will be reclaimed

and formed. You have been in the habit now of reading to your father, and those people I found you among, I

dare say?' said Mr. Gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping his voice.

'Only to father and Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when Merrylegs was always there.'

'Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing frown. 'I don't ask about him. I understand

'O, yes, sir, thousands of times. They were the happiest O, of all the happy times we had together, sir!'

'And what,' asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, 'did you read to your father, Jupe?'

'About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the Genies,' she sobbed out; 'and about '

'Hush!' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that is enough. Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more.

Bounderby, this is a case for rigid training, and I shall observe it with interest.'

'Well,' returned Mr. Bounderby, 'I have given you my opinion already, and I shouldn't do as you do. But, very

So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa

never spoke one word, good or bad. And Mr. Bounderby went about his daily pursuits. And Mrs. Sparsit got

behind her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the evening.

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,

Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without stooping to the

cultivation of the sentiments and affections. Never wonder. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication,

and division, settle everything somehow, and never wonder. Bring to me, says M'Choakumchild, yonder baby

Now, besides very many babies just able to walk, there happened to be in Coketown a considerable

population of babies who had been walking against time towards the infinite world, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty

years and more. These portentous infants being alarming creatures to stalk about in any human society, the

eighteen denominations incessantly scratched one another's faces and pulled one another's hair by way of

agreeing on the steps to be taken for their improvement which they never did; a surprising circumstance,

when the happy adaptation of the means to the end is considered. Still, although they differed in every other

particular, conceivable and inconceivable (especially inconceivable), they were pretty well united on the

point that these unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body number one, said they must take everything on

trust. Body number two, said they must take everything on political economy. Body number three, wrote

leaden little books for them, showing how the good grownup baby invariably got to the Savingsbank, and

the bad grownup baby invariably got transported. Body number four, under dreary pretences of being droll

(when it was very melancholy indeed), made the shallowest pretences of concealing pitfalls of knowledge,

into which it was the duty of these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. But, all the bodies agreed that they

There was a library in Coketown, to which general access was easy. Mr. Gradgrind greatly tormented his

mind about what the people read in this library: a point whereon little rivers of tabular statements periodically

flowed into the howling ocean of tabular statements, which no diver ever got to any depth in and came up

sane. It was a disheartening circumstance, but a melancholy fact, that even these readers persisted in

wondering. They wondered about human nature, human passions, human hopes and fears, the struggles,

triumphs and defeats, the cares and joys and sorrows, the lives and deaths of common men and women! They

sometimes, after fifteen hours' work, sat down to read mere fables about men and women, more or less like

themselves, and about children, more or less like their own. They took De Foe to their bosoms, instead of

Euclid, and seemed to be on the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mr. Gradgrind was for

ever working, in print and out of print, at this eccentric sum, and he never could make out how it yielded this

'I am sick of my life, Loo. I, hate it altogether, and I hate everybody except you,' said the unnatural young

'She must,' said Tom. 'She must just hate and detest the whole setout of us. They'll bother her head off, I

think, before they have done with her. Already she's getting as pale as wax, and as heavy as I am.'

Young Thomas expressed these sentiments sitting astride of a chair before the fire, with his arms on the back,

and his sulky face on his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner by the fireside, now looking at him, now

'As to me,' said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner of ways with his sulky hands, 'I am a Donkey, that's what I

am. I am as obstinate as one, I am more stupid than one, I get as much pleasure as one, and I should like to

'No, Loo; I wouldn't hurt you. I made an exception of you at first. I don't know what this jolly old

Jaundiced Jail,' Tom had paused to find a sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the parental

roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by the strong alliteration of this one, 'would be without

'Why, of course I do. What's the use of talking about it!' returned Tom, chafing his face on his coatsleeve, as

'Because, Tom,' said his sister, after silently watching the sparks awhile, 'as I get older, and nearer growing

up, I often sit wondering here, and think how unfortunate it is for me that I can't reconcile you to home better

than I am able to do. I don't know what other girls know. I can't play to you, or sing to you. I can't talk to you

so as to lighten your mind, for I never see any amusing sights or read any amusing books that it would be a

'Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you in that respect; and I am a Mule too, which you're not. If father was

determined to make me either a Prig or a Mule, and I am not a Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be a

'It's a great pity,' said Louisa, after another pause, and speaking thoughtfully out of her dark corner: 'it's a

'Oh! You,' said Tom; 'you are a girl, Loo, and a girl comes out of it better than a boy does. I don't miss

anything in you. You are the only pleasure I have you can brighten even this place and you can always

'You are a dear brother, Tom; and while you think I can do such things, I don't so much mind knowing better.

Though I do know better, Tom, and am very sorry for it.' She came and kissed him, and went back into her

'I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear so much about,' said Tom, spitefully setting his teeth, 'and all the

Figures, and all the people who found them out: and I wish I could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder

under them, and blow them all up together! However, when I go to live with old Bounderby, I'll have my

'I mean, I'll enjoy myself a little, and go about and see something, and hear something. I'll recompense myself

'But don't disappoint yourself beforehand, Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as father thinks, and is a great deal

'Oh!' said Tom, laughing; 'I don't mind that. I shall very well know how to manage and smooth old

Their shadows were defined upon the wall, but those of the high presses in the room were all blended

together on the wall and on the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were overhung by a dark cavern. Or, a

fanciful imagination if such treason could have been there might have made it out to be the shadow of

'Oh!' said Tom, 'if it is a secret, it's not far off. It's you. You are his little pet, you are his favourite; he'll do

anything for you. When he says to me what I don't like, I shall say to him, "My sister Loo will be hurt and

disappointed, Mr. Bounderby. She always used to tell me she was sure you would be easier with me than

After waiting for some answering remark, and getting none, Tom wearily relapsed into the present time, and

twined himself yawning round and about the rails of his chair, and rumpled his head more and more, until he

'You seem to find more to look at in it than ever I could find,' said Tom. 'Another of the advantages, I

'Tom,' enquired his sister, slowly, and in a curious tone, as if she were reading what she asked in the fire, and

it was not quite plainly written there, 'do you look forward with any satisfaction to this change to Mr.

'Why, there's one thing to be said of it,' returned Tom, pushing his chair from him, and standing up; 'it will be

'There is one thing to be said of it,' Louisa repeated in her former curious tone; 'it will be getting away from

'Not but what I shall be very unwilling, both to leave you, Loo, and to leave you here. But I must go, you

know, whether I like it or not; and I had better go where I can take with me some advantage of your

The answer was so long in coming, though there was no indecision in it, that Tom went and leaned on the

back of her chair, to contemplate the fire which so engrossed her, from her point of view, and see what he

'Except that it is a fire,' said Tom, 'it looks to me as stupid and blank as everything else looks. What do you

'I don't see anything in it, Tom, particularly. But since I have been looking at it, I have been wondering about

'I have such unmanageable thoughts,' returned his sister, 'that they will wonder.'

'Then I beg of you, Louisa,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, who had opened the door without being heard, 'to do

nothing of that description, for goodness' sake, you inconsiderate girl, or I shall never hear the last of it from

your father. And, Thomas, it is really shameful, with my poor head continually wearing me out, that a boy

brought up as you have been, and whose education has cost what yours has, should be found encouraging his

sister to wonder, when he knows his father has expressly said that she is not to do it.'

Louisa denied Tom's participation in the offence; but her mother stopped her with the conclusive answer,

'Louisa, don't tell me, in my state of health; for unless you had been encouraged, it is morally and physically

'I was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the red sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening

and dying. It made me think, after all, how short my life would be, and how little I could hope to do in it.'

'Nonsense!' said Mrs. Gradgrind, rendered almost energetic. 'Nonsense! Don't stand there and tell me such

stuff, Louisa, to my face, when you know very well that if it was ever to reach your father's ears I should

never hear the last of it. After all the trouble that has been taken with you! After the lectures you have

attended, and the experiments you have seen! After I have heard you myself, when the whole of my right side

has been benumbed, going on with your master about combustion, and calcination, and calorification, and I

may say every kind of ation that could drive a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd way

about sparks and ashes! I wish,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, taking a chair, and discharging her strongest

point before succumbing under these mere shadows of facts, 'yes, I really do wish that I had never had a

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 as such a closely ruled cipheringbook, that assuredly she would

It is lamentable to think of; but this restraint was the result of no arithmetical process, was selfimposed in

defiance of all calculation, and went dead against any table of probabilities that any Actuary would have

drawn up from the premises. The girl believed that her father had not deserted her; she lived in the hope that

he would come back, and in the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she was.

The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing,

on a sound arithmetical basis, that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet,

what was to be done? M'Choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once

possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact

measurements; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful incident happened

to be connected therewith; that she would burst into tears on being required (by the mental process)

immediately to name the cost of two hundred and fortyseven muslin caps at fourteenpence halfpenny; that

she was as low down, in the school, as low could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of

Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a prattler three feet high, for returning to the

question, 'What is the first principle of this science?' the absurd answer, 'To do unto others as I would that

Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite

grinding at the mill of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular statements A to Z;

and that Jupe 'must be kept to it.' So Jupe was kept to it, and became lowspirited, but no wiser.

'It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!' she said, one night, when Louisa had endeavoured to make

'I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is difficult to me now, would be so easy then.'

Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, 'I should not be the worse, Miss Louisa.' To which Miss Louisa

There had been so little communication between these two both because life at Stone Lodge went

monotonously round like a piece of machinery which discouraged human interference, and because of the

prohibition relative to Sissy's past career that they were still almost strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes

wonderingly directed to Louisa's face, was uncertain whether to say more or to remain silent.

'You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant with her than I can ever be,' Louisa resumed. 'You are

'You don't know,' said Sissy, half crying, 'what a stupid girl I am. All through school hours I make mistakes.

Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild call me up, over and over again, regularly to make mistakes. I can't help them.

'Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild never make any mistakes themselves, I suppose, Sissy?'

'I am almost ashamed,' said Sissy, with reluctance. 'But today, for instance, Mr. M'Choakumchild was

'You had better say, National, as he said so,' returned Louisa, with her dry reserve.

'National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty

millions of money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn't this a prosperous nation, and a'n't

'Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and

whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was

mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,' said Sissy, wiping her eyes.

'Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he would try me again. And he said,

This schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only fiveandtwenty

are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my

remark was for I couldn't think of a better one that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were

starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong, too.'

'Then Mr. M'Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said, Here are the stutterings '

'Yes, Miss Louisa they always remind me of stutterings, and that's another of my mistakes of accidents

upon the sea. And I find (Mr. M'Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to

sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or burnt to death. What is the percentage?

And I said, Miss;' here Sissy fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition to her greatest error; 'I said it

'Nothing, Miss to the relations and friends of the people who were killed. I shall never learn,' said Sissy.

'And the worst of all is, that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, and although I am so

Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest head, as it drooped abashed before her, until it was raised again to

'Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well taught too, Sissy?'

Sissy hesitated before replying, and so plainly showed her sense that they were entering on forbidden ground,

that Louisa added, 'No one hears us; and if any one did, I am sure no harm could be found in such an innocent

'No, Miss Louisa,' answered Sissy, upon this encouragement, shaking her head; 'father knows very little

indeed. It's as much as he can do to write; and it's more than people in general can do to read his writing.

'Father says she was quite a scholar. She died when I was born. She was;' Sissy made the terrible

'Did your father love her?' Louisa asked these questions with a strong, wild, wandering interest peculiar to

her; an interest gone astray like a banished creature, and hiding in solitary places.

'O yes! As dearly as he loves me. Father loved me, first, for her sake. He carried me about with him when I

'Only for my good. Nobody understands him as I do; nobody knows him as I do. When he left me for my

good he never would have left me for his own I know he was almost brokenhearted with the trial. He

'Tell me more about him,' said Louisa, 'I will never ask you again. Where did you live?'

'We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place to live in. Father's a;' Sissy whispered the awful word,

'Yes. But they wouldn't laugh sometimes, and then father cried. Lately, they very often wouldn't laugh, and

he used to come home despairing. Father's not like most. Those who didn't know him as well as I do, and

didn't love him as dearly as I do, might believe he was not quite right. Sometimes they played tricks upon

him; but they never knew how he felt them, and shrunk up, when he was alone with me. He was far, far

She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. 'I hope so, and father said I was. It was because he grew so

scared and trembling, and because he felt himself to be a poor, weak, ignorant, helpless man (those used to be

his words), that he wanted me so much to know a great deal, and be different from him. I used to read to him

to cheer his courage, and he was very fond of that. They were wrong books I am never to speak of them

'O very much! They kept him, many times, from what did him real harm. And often and often of a night, he

used to forget all his troubles in wondering whether the Sultan would let the lady go on with the story, or

'And your father was always kind? To the last?' asked Louisa contravening the great principle, and wondering

'Always, always!' returned Sissy, clasping her hands. 'Kinder and kinder than I can tell. He was angry only

one night, and that was not to me, but Merrylegs. Merrylegs;' she whispered the awful fact; 'is his performing

'Father, soon after they came home from performing, told Merrylegs to jump up on the backs of the two

chairs and stand across them which is one of his tricks. He looked at father, and didn't do it at once.

Everything of father's had gone wrong that night, and he hadn't pleased the public at all. He cried out that the

very dog knew he was failing, and had no compassion on him. Then he beat the dog, and I was frightened,

and said, "Father, father! Pray don't hurt the creature who is so fond of you! O Heaven forgive you, father,

stop!" And he stopped, and the dog was bloody, and father lay down crying on the floor with the dog in his

Louisa saw that she was sobbing; and going to her, kissed her, took her hand, and sat down beside her.

'Finish by telling me how your father left you, Sissy. Now that I have asked you so much, tell me the end.

'Dear Miss Louisa,' said Sissy, covering her eyes, and sobbing yet; 'I came home from the school that

afternoon, and found poor father just come home too, from the booth. And he sat rocking himself over the

fire, as if he was in pain. And I said, "Have you hurt yourself, father?" (as he did sometimes, like they all

did), and he said, "A little, my darling." And when I came to stoop down and look up at his face, I saw that he

was crying. The more I spoke to him, the more he hid his face; and at first he shook all over, and said nothing

Here Tom came lounging in, and stared at the two with a coolness not particularly savouring of interest in

'I am asking Sissy a few questions, Tom,' observed his sister. 'You have no occasion to go away; but don't

'Oh! very well!' returned Tom. 'Only father has brought old Bounderby home, and I want you to come into

the drawingroom. Because if you come, there's a good chance of old Bounderby's asking me to dinner; and

Sissy resumed in a lower voice. 'At last poor father said that he had given no satisfaction again, and never did

give any satisfaction now, and that he was a shame and disgrace, and I should have done better without him

all along. I said all the affectionate things to him that came into my heart, and presently he was quiet and I sat

down by him, and told him all about the school and everything that had been said and done there. When I had

no more left to tell, he put his arms round my neck, and kissed me a great many times. Then he asked me to

fetch some of the stuff he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it at the best place, which was at the

other end of town from there; and then, after kissing me again, he let me go. When I had gone downstairs, I

turned back that I might be a little bit more company to him yet, and looked in at the door, and said, "Father

dear, shall I take Merrylegs?" Father shook his head and said, "No, Sissy, no; take nothing that's known to be

mine, my darling;" and I left him sitting by the fire. Then the thought must have come upon him, poor, poor

father! of going away to try something for my sake; for when I came back, he was gone.'

'There's no more to tell, Miss Louisa. I keep the nine oils ready for him, and I know he will come back. Every

letter that I see in Mr. Gradgrind's hand takes my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I think it comes from

father, or from Mr. Sleary about father. Mr. Sleary promised to write as soon as ever father should be heard

'Do look sharp for old Bounderby, Loo!' said Tom, with an impatient whistle. 'He'll be off if you don't look

After this, whenever Sissy dropped a curtsey to Mr. Gradgrind in the presence of his family, and said in a

faltering way, 'I beg your pardon, sir, for being troublesome but have you had any letter yet about me?'

Louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, whatever it was, and look for the reply as earnestly as

Sissy did. And when Mr. Gradgrind regularly answered, 'No, Jupe, nothing of the sort,' the trembling of

Sissy's lip would be repeated in Louisa's face, and her eyes would follow Sissy with compassion to the door.

Mr. Gradgrind usually improved these occasions by remarking, when she was gone, that if Jupe had been

properly trained from an early age she would have remonstrated to herself on sound principles the

baselessness of these fantastic hopes. Yet it did seem (though not to him, for he saw nothing of it) as if

This observation must be limited exclusively to his daughter. As to Tom, he was becoming that not

unprecedented triumph of calculation which is usually at work on number one. As to Mrs. Gradgrind, if she

said anything on the subject, she would come a little way out of her wrappers, like a feminine dormouse, and

'Good gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and worried by that girl Jupe's so perseveringly asking,

over and over again, about her tiresome letters! Upon my word and honour I seem to be fated, and destined,

and ordained, to live in the midst of things that I am never to hear the last of. It really is a most extraordinary

At about this point, Mr. Gradgrind's eye would fall upon her; and under the influence of that wintry piece of

I ENTERTAIN a weak idea that the English people are as hardworked 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 of that ugly citadel, where Nature

was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in; at the heart of the labyrinth of narrow

courts upon courts, and close streets upon streets, which had come into existence piecemeal, every piece in a

violent hurry for some one man's purpose, and the whole an unnatural family, shouldering, and trampling,

and pressing one another to death; in the last close nook of this great exhausted receiver, where the chimneys,

for want of air to make a draught, were built in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes, as though

every house put out a sign of the kind of people who might be expected to be born in it; among the multitude

of Coketown, generically called 'the Hands,' a race who would have found more favour with some people,

if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands, or, like the lower creatures of the seashore, only hands

Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life. It is said that every life has its roses and thorns; there

seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake in Stephen's case, whereby somebody else had

become possessed of his roses, and he had become possessed of the same somebody else's thorns in addition

to his own. He had known, to use his words, a peck of trouble. He was usually called Old Stephen, in a kind

A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of face, and a hardlooking head

sufficiently capacious, on which his irongrey hair lay long and thin, Old Stephen might have passed for a

particularly intelligent man in his condition. Yet he was not. He took no place among those remarkable

'Hands,' who, piecing together their broken intervals of leisure through many years, had mastered difficult

sciences, and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely things. He held no station among the Hands who could

make speeches and carry on debates. Thousands of his compeers could talk much better than he, at any time.

He was a good powerloom weaver, and a man of perfect integrity. What more he was, or what else he had in

The lights in the great factories, which looked, when they were illuminated, like Fairy palaces or the

travellers by express train said so were all extinguished; and the bells had rung for knocking off for the

night, and had ceased again; and the Hands, men and women, boy and girl, were clattering home. Old

Stephen was standing in the street, with the old sensation upon him which the stoppage of the machinery

It was a wet night, and many groups of young women passed him, with their shawls drawn over their bare

heads and held close under their chins to keep the rain out. He knew Rachael well, for a glance at any one of

these groups was sufficient to show him that she was not there. At last, there were no more to come; and then

he turned away, saying in a tone of disappointment, 'Why, then, ha' missed her!'

But, he had not gone the length of three streets, when he saw another of the shawled figures in advance of

him, at which he looked so keenly that perhaps its mere shadow indistinctly reflected on the wet pavement

if he could have seen it without the figure itself moving along from lamp to lamp, brightening and fading as it

went would have been enough to tell him who was there. Making his pace at once much quicker and much

softer, he darted on until he was very near this figure, then fell into his former walk, and called 'Rachael!'

She turned, being then in the brightness of a lamp; and raising her hood a little, showed a quiet oval face,

dark and rather delicate, irradiated by a pair of very gentle eyes, and further set off by the perfect order of her

shining black hair. It was not a face in its first bloom; she was a woman five and thirty years of age.

'Ah, lad! 'Tis thou?' When she had said this, with a smile which would have been quite expressed, though

nothing of her had been seen but her pleasant eyes, she replaced her hood again, and they went on together.

''Times I'm a little early, Stephen! 'times a little late. I'm never to be counted on, going home.'

He looked at her with some disappointment in his face, but with a respectful and patient conviction that she

must be right in whatever she did. The expression was not lost upon her; she laid her hand lightly on his arm

'We are such true friends, lad, and such old friends, and getting to be such old folk, now.'

'One of us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephen, without 't other getting so too, both being alive,' she

answered, laughing; 'but, anyways, we're such old friends, and t' hide a word of honest truth fro' one another

would be a sin and a pity. 'Tis better not to walk too much together. 'Times, yes! 'Twould be hard, indeed, if

'twas not to be at all,' she said, with a cheerfulness she sought to communicate to him.

'I've tried a long time, and 'ta'nt got better. But thou'rt right; 't might mak fok talk, even of thee. Thou hast

been that to me, Rachael, through so many year: thou hast done me so much good, and heartened of me in

that cheering way, that thy word is a law to me. Ah, lass, and a bright good law! Better than some real ones.'

'Never fret about them, Stephen,' she answered quickly, and not without an anxious glance at his face. 'Let the

'Yes,' he said, with a slow nod or two. 'Let 'em be. Let everything be. Let all sorts alone. 'Tis a muddle, and

'Always a muddle?' said Rachael, with another gentle touch upon his arm, as if to recall him out of the

thoughtfulness, in which he was biting the long ends of his loose neckerchief as he walked along. The touch

had its instantaneous effect. He let them fall, turned a smiling face upon her, and said, as he broke into a

goodhumoured laugh, 'Ay, Rachael, lass, awlus a muddle. That's where I stick. I come to the muddle many

They had walked some distance, and were near their own homes. The woman's was the first reached. It was

in one of the many small streets for which the favourite undertaker (who turned a handsome sum out of the

one poor ghastly pomp of the neighbourhood) kept a black ladder, in order that those who had done their

daily groping up and down the narrow stairs might slide out of this working world by the windows. She

She went, with her neat figure and her sober womanly step, down the dark street, and he stood looking after

her until she turned into one of the small houses. There was not a flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, but had

its interest in this man's eyes; not a tone of her voice but had its echo in his innermost heart.

When she was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward way, glancing up sometimes at the sky, where the

clouds were sailing fast and wildly. But, they were broken now, and the rain had ceased, and the moon shone,

looking down the high chimneys of Coketown on the deep furnaces below, and casting Titanic shadows of

the steamengines at rest, upon the walls where they were lodged. The man seemed to have brightened with

His home, in such another street as the first, saving that it was narrower, was over a little shop. How it came

to pass that any people found it worth their while to sell or buy the wretched little toys, mixed up in its

window with cheap newspapers and pork (there was a leg to be raffled for tomorrownight), matters not

here. He took his end of candle from a shelf, lighted it at another end of candle on the counter, without

disturbing the mistress of the shop who was asleep in her little room, and went upstairs into his lodging.

It was a room, not unacquainted with the black ladder under various tenants; but as neat, at present, as such a

room could be. A few books and writings were on an old bureau in a corner, the furniture was decent and

Going to the hearth to set the candle down upon a round three legged table standing there, he stumbled

against something. As he recoiled, looking down at it, it raised itself up into the form of a woman in a sitting

'Heaven's mercy, woman!' he cried, falling farther off from the figure. 'Hast thou come back again!'

Such a woman! A disabled, drunken creature, barely able to preserve her sitting posture by steadying herself

with one begrimed hand on the floor, while the other was so purposeless in trying to push away her tangled

hair from her face, that it only blinded her the more with the dirt upon it. A creature so foul to look at, in her

tatters, stains and splashes, but so much fouler than that in her moral infamy, that it was a shameful thing

After an impatient oath or two, and some stupid clawing of herself with the hand not necessary to her support,

she got her hair away from her eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then she sat swaying her body to

and fro, and making gestures with her unnerved arm, which seemed intended as the accompaniment to a fit of

'Eigh, lad? What, yo'r there?' Some hoarse sounds meant for this, came mockingly out of her at last; and her

'Back agen?' she screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that moment said it. 'Yes! And back agen. Back

Roused by the unmeaning violence with which she cried it out, she scrambled up, and stood supporting

herself with her shoulders against the wall; dangling in one hand by the string, a dunghill fragment of a

'I'll sell thee off again, and I'll sell thee off again, and I'll sell thee off a score of times!' she cried, with

something between a furious menace and an effort at a defiant dance. 'Come awa' from th' bed!' He was

sitting on the side of it, with his face hidden in his hands. 'Come awa! from 't. 'Tis mine, and I've a right to t'!'

As she staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder, and passed his face still hidden to the opposite end

of the room. She threw herself upon the bed heavily, and soon was snoring hard. He sunk into a chair, and

moved but once all that night. It was to throw a covering over her; as if his hands were not enough to hide

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 their heavy exercise

Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful, and steady. A special contrast, as every man was in the forest of

looms where Stephen worked, to the crashing, smashing, tearing piece of mechanism at which he laboured.

Never fear, good people of an anxious turn of mind, that Art will consign Nature to oblivion. Set anywhere,

side by side, the work of GOD and the work of man; and the former, even though it be a troop of Hands of

So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam Power. It is known, to the force of a

single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the

capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into

vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with the composed

faces and the regulated actions. There is no mystery in it; there is an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of

them, for ever. Supposing we were to reverse our arithmetic for material objects, and to govern these awful

The day grew strong, and showed itself outside, even against the flaming lights within. The lights were turned

out, and the work went on. The rain fell, and the Smokeserpents, submissive to the curse of all that tribe,

trailed themselves upon the earth. In the wasteyard outside, the steam from the escape pipe, the litter of

barrels and old iron, the shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere, were shrouded in a veil of mist and

The work went on, until the noonbell rang. More clattering upon the pavements. The looms, and wheels,

Stephen came out of the hot mill into the damp wind and cold wet streets, haggard and worn. He turned from

his own class and his own quarter, taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along, towards the hill on

which his principal employer lived, in a red house with black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black

street door, up two white steps, BOUNDERBY (in letters very like himself) upon a brazen plate, and a round

Mr. Bounderby was at his lunch. So Stephen had expected. Would his servant say that one of the Hands

begged leave to speak to him? Message in return, requiring name of such Hand. Stephen Blackpool. There

Stephen Blackpool in the parlour. Mr. Bounderby (whom he just knew by sight), at lunch on chop and sherry.

Mrs. Sparsit netting at the fireside, in a sidesaddle attitude, with one foot in a cotton stirrup. It was a part, at

once of Mrs. Sparsit's dignity and service, not to lunch. She supervised the meal officially, but implied that in

Stephen made a bow. Not a servile one these Hands will never do that! Lord bless you, sir, you'll never

catch them at that, if they have been with you twenty years! and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit,

'Now, you know,' said Mr. Bounderby, taking some sherry, 'we have never had any difficulty with you, and

you have never been one of the unreasonable ones. You don't expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be

fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a good many of 'em do!' Mr. Bounderby always

represented this to be the sole, immediate, and direct object of any Hand who was not entirely satisfied; 'and

therefore I know already that you have not come here to make a complaint. Now, you know, I am certain of

Mr. Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised, notwithstanding his previous strong conviction. 'Very well,' he

returned. 'You're a steady Hand, and I was not mistaken. Now, let me hear what it's all about. As it's not that,

Stephen happened to glance towards Mrs. Sparsit. 'I can go, Mr. Bounderby, if you wish it,' said that

Mr. Bounderby stayed her, by holding a mouthful of chop in suspension before swallowing it, and putting out

his left hand. Then, withdrawing his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he said to Stephen:

'Now you know, this good lady is a born lady, a high lady. You are not to suppose because she keeps my

house for me, that she hasn't been very high up the tree ah, up at the top of the tree! Now, if you have got

anything to say that can't be said before a born lady, this lady will leave the room. If what you have got to say

'Sir, I hope I never had nowt to say, not fitten for a born lady to year, sin' I were born mysen',' was the reply,

'Very well,' said Mr. Bounderby, pushing away his plate, and leaning back. 'Fire away!'

'I ha' coom,' Stephen began, raising his eyes from the floor, after a moment's consideration, 'to ask yo yor

advice. I need 't overmuch. I were married on Eas'r Monday nineteen year sin, long and dree. She were a

young lass pretty enow wi' good accounts of herseln. Well! She went bad soon. Not along of me.

'I have heard all this before,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'She took to drinking, left off working, sold the furniture,

('The more fool you, I think,' said Mr. Bounderby, in confidence to his wineglass.)

'I were very patient wi' her. I tried to wean her fra 't ower and ower agen. I tried this, I tried that, I tried

t'other. I ha' gone home, many's the time, and found all vanished as I had in the world, and her without a

sense left to bless herseln lying on bare ground. I ha' dun 't not once, not twice twenty time!'

Every line in his face deepened as he said it, and put in its affecting evidence of the suffering he had

'From bad to worse, from worse to worsen. She left me. She disgraced herseln everyways, bitter and bad. She

coom back, she coom back, she coom back. What could I do t' hinder her? I ha' walked the streets nights

long, ere ever I'd go home. I ha' gone t' th' brigg, minded to fling myseln ower, and ha' no more on't. I ha' bore

Mrs. Sparsit, easily ambling along with her nettingneedles, raised the Coriolanian eyebrows and shook her

head, as much as to say, 'The great know trouble as well as the small. Please to turn your humble eye in My

'I ha' paid her to keep awa' fra' me. These five year I ha' paid her. I ha' gotten decent fewtrils about me agen. I

ha' lived hard and sad, but not ashamed and fearfo' a' the minnits o' my life. Last night, I went home. There

In the strength of his misfortune, and the energy of his distress, he fired for the moment like a proud man. In

another moment, he stood as he had stood all the time his usual stoop upon him; his pondering face

addressed to Mr. Bounderby, with a curious expression on it, half shrewd, half perplexed, as if his mind were

set upon unravelling something very difficult; his hat held tight in his left hand, which rested on his hip; his

right arm, with a rugged propriety and force of action, very earnestly emphasizing what he said: not least so

'I was acquainted with all this, you know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'except the last clause, long ago. It's a bad

job; that's what it is. You had better have been satisfied as you were, and not have got married. However, it's

'You hear what this lady asks. Was it an unequal marriage in point of years, this unlucky job of yours?' said

'Indeed, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit to her Chief, with great placidity. 'I inferred, from its being so miserable a

Mr. Bounderby looked very hard at the good lady in a sidelong way that had an odd sheepishness about it.

'Well? Why don't you go on?' he then asked, turning rather irritably on Stephen Blackpool.

'I ha' coom to ask yo, sir, how I am to be ridded o' this woman.' Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the

mixed expression of his attentive face. Mrs. Sparsit uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having received a moral

'What do you mean?' said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against the chimneypiece. 'What are you

'I mun' be ridden o' her. I cannot bear 't nommore. I ha' lived under 't so long, for that I ha' had'n the pity and

comforting words o' th' best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I should ha' gone battering mad.'

'He wishes to be free, to marry the female of whom he speaks, I fear, sir,' observed Mrs. Sparsit in an

'I do. The lady says what's right. I do. I were a coming to 't. I ha' read i' th' papers that great folk (fair faw 'em

a'! I wishes 'em no hurt!) are not bonded together for better for worst so fast, but that they can be set free fro'

their misfortnet marriages, an' marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers is illsorted,

they has rooms o' one kind an' another in their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. We fok ha'

only one room, and we can't. When that won't do, they ha' gowd an' other cash, an' they can say "This for yo'

an' that for me," an' they can go their separate ways. We can't. Spite o' all that, they can be set free for smaller

'If I was to live wi' her an' not marry her saying such a thing could be, which it never could or would, an'

her so good there's a law to punish me, in every innocent child belonging to me?'

'Hem! There's a sanctity in this relation of life,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'and and it must be kept up.'

'No no, dunnot say that, sir. 'Tan't kep' up that way. Not that way. 'Tis kep' down that way. I'm a weaver, I

were in a fact'ry when a chilt, but I ha' gotten een to see wi' and eern to year wi'. I read in th' papers every

'Sizes, every Sessions and you read too I know it! with dismay how th' supposed unpossibility o' ever

getting unchained from one another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings many

common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let us ha' this, right understood. Mine's a grievous

'Now, I tell you what!' said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his pockets. 'There is such a law.'

Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in his attention, gave a nod.

'Why, you'd have to go to Doctors' Commons with a suit, and you'd have to go to a court of Common Law

with a suit, and you'd have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, and you'd have to get an Act of Parliament

to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you (if it was a case of very plain sailing), I suppose from a

thousand to fifteen hundred pound,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Perhaps twice the money.'

'Why then, sir,' said Stephen, turning white, and motioning with that right hand of his, as if he gave

everything to the four winds, ''tis a muddle. 'Tis just a muddle a'toogether, an' the sooner I am dead, the

'Pooh, pooh! Don't you talk nonsense, my good fellow,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'about things you don't

understand; and don't you call the Institutions of your country a muddle, or you'll get yourself into a real

muddle one of these fine mornings. The institutions of your country are not your piecework, and the only

thing you have got to do, is, to mind your piecework. You didn't take your wife for fast and for loose; but

for better for worse. If she has turned out worse why, all we have got to say is, she might have turned out

''Tis a muddle,' said Stephen, shaking his head as he moved to the door. ''Tis a' a muddle!'

'Now, I'll tell you what!' Mr. Bounderby resumed, as a valedictory address. 'With what I shall call your

unhallowed opinions, you have been quite shocking this lady: who, as I have already told you, is a born lady,

and who, as I have not already told you, has had her own marriage misfortunes to the tune of tens of

thousands of pounds tens of Thousands of Pounds!' (he repeated it with great relish). 'Now, you have

always been a steady Hand hitherto; but my opinion is, and so I tell you plainly, that you are turning into the

wrong road. You have been listening to some mischievous stranger or other they're always about and the

best thing you can do is, to come out of that. Now you know;' here his countenance expressed marvellous

acuteness; 'I can see as far into a grindstone as another man; farther than a good many, perhaps, because I had

my nose well kept to it when I was young. I see traces of the turtle soup, and venison, and gold spoon in this.

Yes, I do!' cried Mr. Bounderby, shaking his head with obstinate cunning. 'By the Lord Harry, I do!'

With a very different shake of the head and deep sigh, Stephen said, 'Thank you, sir, I wish you good day.' So

he left Mr. Bounderby swelling at his own portrait on the wall, as if he were going to explode himself into it;

and Mrs. Sparsit still ambling on with her foot in her stirrup, looking quite cast down by the popular vices.

OLD STEPHEN descended the two white steps, shutting the black door with the brazen doorplate, by the

aid of the brazen fullstop, 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 his eyes bent upon the ground, and thus was walking

It was not the touch he needed most at such a moment the touch that could calm the wild waters of his soul,

as the uplifted hand of the sublimest love and patience could abate the raging of the sea yet it was a

woman's hand too. It was an old woman, tall and shapely still, though withered by time, on whom his eyes

fell when he stopped and turned. She was very cleanly and plainly dressed, had country mud upon her shoes,

and was newly come from a journey. The flutter of her manner, in the unwonted noise of the streets; the spare

shawl, carried unfolded on her arm; the heavy umbrella, and little basket; the loose longfingered gloves, to

which her hands were unused; all bespoke an old woman from the country, in her plain holiday clothes, come

into Coketown on an expedition of rare occurrence. Remarking this at a glance, with the quick observation of

his class, Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face his face, which, like the faces of many of his order, by

dint of long working with eyes and hands in the midst of a prodigious noise, had acquired the concentrated

look with which we are familiar in the countenances of the deaf the better to hear what she asked him.

'Pray, sir,' said the old woman, 'didn't I see you come out of that gentleman's house?' pointing back to Mr.

Bounderby's. 'I believe it was you, unless I have had the bad luck to mistake the person in following?'

'And how did he look, sir? Was he portly, bold, outspoken, and hearty?' As she straightened her own figure,

and held up her head in adapting her action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that he had seen this old

'Yes,' returned Stephen. 'He were ett'n and drinking as large and as loud as a Hummobee.'

He certainly never had seen this old woman before. Yet there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if he

She walked along at his side, and, gently accommodating himself to her humour, he said Coketown was a

busy place, was it not? To which she answered 'Eigh sure! Dreadful busy!' Then he said, she came from the

'By Parliamentary, this morning. I came forty mile by Parliamentary this morning, and I'm going back the

same forty mile this afternoon. I walked nine mile to the station this morning, and if I find nobody on the

road to give me a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back tonight. That's pretty well, sir, at my age!' said the

'No, no. Once a year,' she answered, shaking her head. 'I spend my savings so, once every year. I come

'That's enough for me,' she replied, with great earnestness and interest of manner. 'I ask no more! I have been

standing about, on this side of the way, to see that gentleman,' turning her head back towards Mr.

Bounderby's again, 'come out. But, he's late this year, and I have not seen him. You came out instead. Now, if

I am obliged to go back without a glimpse of him I only want a glimpse well! I have seen you, and you

have seen him, and I must make that do.' Saying this, she looked at Stephen as if to fix his features in her

With a large allowance for difference of tastes, and with all submission to the patricians of Coketown, this

seemed so extraordinary a source of interest to take so much trouble about, that it perplexed him. But they

were passing the church now, and as his eye caught the clock, he quickened his pace.

He was going to his work? the old woman said, quickening hers, too, quite easily. Yes, time was nearly out.

On his telling her where he worked, the old woman became a more singular old woman than before.

'Why there's awmost nobbody but has their troubles, missus.' He answered evasively, because the old

woman appeared to take it for granted that he would be very happy indeed, and he had not the heart to

disappoint her. He knew that there was trouble enough in the world; and if the old woman had lived so long,

and could count upon his having so little, why so much the better for her, and none the worse for him.

No, no; they didn't follow him there, said Stephen. All correct there. Everything accordant there. (He did not

go so far as to say, for her pleasure, that there was a sort of Divine Right there; but, I have heard claims

They were now in the black byroad near the place, and the Hands were crowding in. The bell was ringing,

and the Serpent was a Serpent of many coils, and the Elephant was getting ready. The strange old woman was

delighted with the very bell. It was the beautifullest bell she had ever heard, she said, and sounded grand!

She asked him, when he stopped goodnaturedly to shake hands with her before going in, how long he had

'I must kiss the hand,' said she, 'that has worked in this fine factory for a dozen year!' And she lifted it, though

he would have prevented her, and put it to her lips. What harmony, besides her age and her simplicity,

surrounded her, he did not know, but even in this fantastic action there was a something neither out of time

nor place: a something which it seemed as if nobody else could have made as serious, or done with such a

He had been at his loom full half an hour, thinking about this old woman, when, having occasion to move

round the loom for its adjustment, he glanced through a window which was in his corner, and saw her still

looking up at the pile of building, lost in admiration. Heedless of the smoke and mud and wet, and of her two

long journeys, she was gazing at it, as if the heavy thrum that issued from its many stories were proud music

She was gone by and by, and the day went after her, and the lights sprung up again, and the Express whirled

in full sight of the Fairy Palace over the arches near: little felt amid the jarring of the machinery, and scarcely

heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then his thoughts had gone back to the dreary room above the

little shop, and to the shameful figure heavy on the bed, but heavier on his heart.

Machinery slackened; throbbing feebly like a fainting pulse; stopped. The bell again; the glare of light and

heat dispelled; the factories, looming heavy in the black wet night their tall chimneys rising up into the air

He had spoken to Rachael only last night, it was true, and had walked with her a little way; but he had his

new misfortune on him, in which no one else could give him a moment's relief, and, for the sake of it, and

because he knew himself to want that softening of his anger which no voice but hers could effect, he felt he

might so far disregard what she had said as to wait for her again. He waited, but she had eluded him. She was

gone. On no other night in the year could he so ill have spared her patient face.

O! Better to have no home in which to lay his head, than to have a home and dread to go to it, through such a

cause. He ate and drank, for he was exhausted but he little knew or cared what; and he wandered about in

No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them; but Rachael had taken great pity on him years

ago, and to her alone he had opened his closed heart all this time, on the subject of his miseries; and he knew

very well that if he were free to ask her, she would take him. He thought of the home he might at that moment

have been seeking with pleasure and pride; of the different man he might have been that night; of the

lightness then in his now heavy laden breast; of the then restored honour, selfrespect, and tranquillity all

torn to pieces. He thought of the waste of the best part of his life, of the change it made in his character for

the worse every day, of the dreadful nature of his existence, bound hand and foot, to a dead woman, and

tormented by a demon in her shape. He thought of Rachael, how young when they were first brought together

in these circumstances, how mature now, how soon to grow old. He thought of the number of girls and

women she had seen marry, how many homes with children in them she had seen grow up around her, how

she had contentedly pursued her own lone quiet path for him and how he had sometimes seen a shade of

melancholy on her blessed face, that smote him with remorse and despair. He set the picture of her up, beside

the infamous image of last night; and thought, Could it be, that the whole earthly course of one so gentle,

Filled with these thoughts so filled that he had an unwholesome sense of growing larger, of being placed in

some new and diseased relation towards the objects among which he passed, of seeing the iris round every

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 this existence upon earth, not one

was dealt out with so unequal a hand as Death. The inequality of Birth was nothing to it. For, say that the

child of a King and the child of a Weaver were born tonight in the same moment, what was that disparity, to

the death of any human creature who was serviceable to, or beloved by, another, while this abandoned

From the outside of his home he gloomily passed to the inside, with suspended breath and with a slow

She turned her head, and the light of her face shone in upon the midnight of his mind. She sat by the bed,

watching and tending his wife. That is to say, he saw that some one lay there, and he knew too well it must be

she; but Rachael's hands had put a curtain up, so that she was screened from his eyes. Her disgraceful

garments were removed, and some of Rachael's were in the room. Everything was in its place and order as he

had always kept it, the little fire was newly trimmed, and the hearth was freshly swept. It appeared to him that

he saw all this in Rachael's face, and looked at nothing besides. While looking at it, it was shut out from his

view by the softened tears that filled his eyes; but not before he had seen how earnestly she looked at him,

She turned again towards the bed, and satisfying herself that all was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm,

'I thought so. But 'tis too bad a night for that. The rain falls very heavy, and the wind has risen.'

The wind? True. It was blowing hard. Hark to the thundering in the chimney, and the surging noise! To have

'I have been here once before, today, Stephen. Landlady came round for me at dinnertime. There was some

one here that needed looking to, she said. And 'deed she was right. All wandering and lost, Stephen.

'I came to do what little I could, Stephen; first, for that she worked with me when we were girls both, and for

'And next, for that I know your heart, and am right sure and certain that 'tis far too merciful to let her die, or

even so much as suffer, for want of aid. Thou knowest who said, "Let him who is without sin among you cast

the first stone at her!" There have been plenty to do that. Thou art not the man to cast the last stone, Stephen,

'Thou hast been a cruel sufferer, Heaven reward thee!' she said, in compassionate accents. 'I am thy poor

The wounds of which she had spoken, seemed to be about the neck of the selfmade outcast. She dressed

them now, still without showing her. She steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into which she poured some

liquid from a bottle, and laid it with a gentle hand upon the sore. The threelegged table had been drawn

It was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her hands with his eyes, could read what was printed on it in

large letters. He turned of a deadly hue, and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon him.

'I will stay here, Stephen,' said Rachael, quietly resuming her seat, 'till the bells go Three. 'Tis to be done

'I slept sound last night. I can wake many nights, when I am put to it. 'Tis thou who art in need of rest so

white and tired. Try to sleep in the chair there, while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep last night, I can well

He heard the thundering and surging out of doors, and it seemed to him as if his late angry mood were going

about trying to get at him. She had cast it out; she would keep it out; he trusted to her to defend him from

'She don't know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. I have spoken to her times and again, but

she don't notice! 'Tis as well so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall have done what I can,

His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him, causing him to shiver in every limb. She

thought he was chilled with the wet. 'No,' he said, 'it was not that. He had had a fright.'

'Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking. When I ' It seized him again; and he stood

up, holding by the mantelshelf, as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook as if it were

'No! Don't, please; don't. Let me see thee setten by the bed. Let me see thee, a' so good, and so forgiving. Let

me see thee as I see thee when I coom in. I can never see thee better than so. Never, never, never!'

He had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into his chair. After a time he controlled himself, and, resting

with an elbow on one knee, and his head upon that hand, could look towards Rachael. Seen across the dim

candle with his moistened eyes, she looked as if she had a glory shining round her head. He could have

believed she had. He did believe it, as the noise without shook the window, rattled at the door below, and

'When she gets better, Stephen, 'tis to be hoped she'll leave thee to thyself again, and do thee no more hurt.

Anyways we will hope so now. And now I shall keep silence, for I want thee to sleep.'

He closed his eyes, more to please her than to rest his weary head; but, by slow degrees as he listened to the

great noise of the wind, he ceased to hear it, or it changed into the working of his loom, or even into the

voices of the day (his own included) saying what had been really said. Even this imperfect consciousness

He thought that he, and some one on whom his heart had long been set but she was not Rachael, and that

surprised him, even in the midst of his imaginary happiness stood in the church being married. While the

ceremony was performing, and while he recognized among the witnesses some whom he knew to be living,

and many whom he knew to be dead, darkness came on, succeeded by the shining of a tremendous light. It

broke from one line in the table of commandments at the altar, and illuminated the building with the words.

They were sounded through the church, too, as if there were voices in the fiery letters. Upon this, the whole

appearance before him and around him changed, and nothing was left as it had been, but himself and the

clergyman. They stood in the daylight before a crowd so vast, that if all the people in the world could have

been brought together into one space, they could not have looked, he thought, more numerous; and they all

abhorred him, and there was not one pitying or friendly eye among the millions that were fastened on his

face. He stood on a raised stage, under his own loom; and, looking up at the shape the loom took, and hearing

the burial service distinctly read, he knew that he was there to suffer death. In an instant what he stood on fell

Out of what mystery he came back to his usual life, and to places that he knew, he was unable to consider;

but he was back in those places by some means, and with this condemnation upon him, that he was never, in

this world or the next, through all the unimaginable ages of eternity, to look on Rachael's face or hear her

voice. Wandering to and fro, unceasingly, without hope, and in search of he knew not what (he only knew

that he was doomed to seek it), he was the subject of a nameless, horrible dread, a mortal fear of one

particular shape which everything took. Whatsoever he looked at, grew into that form sooner or later. The

object of his miserable existence was to prevent its recognition by any one among the various people he

encountered. Hopeless labour! If he led them out of rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and closets

where it stood, if he drew the curious from places where he knew it to be secreted, and got them out into the

streets, the very chimneys of the mills assumed that shape, and round them was the printed word.

The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on the housetops, and the larger spaces through which he

had strayed contracted to the four walls of his room. Saving that the fire had died out, it was as his eyes had

closed upon it. Rachael seemed to have fallen into a doze, in the chair by the bed. She sat wrapped in her

shawl, perfectly still. The table stood in the same place, close by the bedside, and on it, in its real proportions

He thought he saw the curtain move. He looked again, and he was sure it moved. He saw a hand come forth

and grope about a little. Then the curtain moved more perceptibly, and the woman in the bed put it back, and

With her woful eyes, so haggard and wild, so heavy and large, she looked all round the room, and passed the

corner where he slept in his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner, and she put her hand over them as a

shade, while she looked into it. Again they went all round the room, scarcely heeding Rachael if at all, and

returned to that corner. He thought, as she once more shaded them not so much looking at him, as looking

for him with a brutish instinct that he was there that no single trace was left in those debauched features, or

in the mind that went along with them, of the woman he had married eighteen years before. But that he had

seen her come to this by inches, he never could have believed her to be the same.

All this time, as if a spell were on him, he was motionless and powerless, except to watch her.

Stupidly dozing, or communing with her incapable self about nothing, she sat for a little while with her hands

at her ears, and her head resting on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round the room. And now, for

Straightway she turned her eyes back to his corner, with the defiance of last night, and moving very

cautiously and softly, stretched out her greedy hand. She drew a mug into the bed, and sat for a while

considering which of the two bottles she should choose. Finally, she laid her insensate grasp upon the bottle

that had swift and certain death in it, and, before his eyes, pulled out the cork with her teeth.

Dream or reality, he had no voice, nor had he power to stir. If this be real, and her allotted time be not yet

She thought of that, too. She looked at Rachael, and very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents.

The draught was at her lips. A moment and she would be past all help, let the whole world wake and come

about her with its utmost power. But in that moment Rachael started up with a suppressed cry. The creature

Stephen broke out of his chair. 'Rachael, am I wakin' or dreamin' this dreadfo' night?'

''Tis all well, Stephen. I have been asleep, myself. 'Tis near three. Hush! I hear the bells.'

The wind brought the sounds of the church clock to the window. They listened, and it struck three. Stephen

looked at her, saw how pale she was, noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks of fingers on her

forehead, and felt assured that his senses of sight and hearing had been awake. She held the cup in her hand

'I thought it must be near three,' she said, calmly pouring from the cup into the basin, and steeping the linen as

before. 'I am thankful I stayed! 'Tis done now, when I have put this on. There! And now she's quiet again.

The few drops in the basin I'll pour away, for 'tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so little of it.' As she

spoke, she drained the basin into the ashes of the fire, and broke the bottle on the hearth.

She had nothing to do, then, but to cover herself with her shawl before going out into the wind and rain.

'Thou'rt not fearfo';' he said it in a low voice, as they went out at the door; 'to leave me alone wi' her!'

As she looked at him, saying, 'Stephen?' he went down on his knee before her, on the poor mean stairs, and

'I am, as I have told thee, Stephen, thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them, and a working

woman fu' of faults, there is a deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but she is changed.'

She raised her eyes for a moment as she said the words; and then they fell again, in all their gentleness and

'Thou changest me from bad to good. Thou mak'st me humbly wishfo' to be more like thee, and fearfo' to lose

thee when this life is ower, and a' the muddle cleared awa'. Thou'rt an Angel; it may be, thou hast saved my

She looked at him, on his knee at her feet, with her shawl still in his hand, and the reproof on her lips died

'I coom home desp'rate. I coom home wi'out a hope, and mad wi' thinking that when I said a word o'

complaint I was reckoned a unreasonable Hand. I told thee I had had a fright. It were the Poisonbottle on

table. I never hurt a livin' creetur; but happenin' so suddenly upon 't, I thowt, "How can I say what I might ha'

She put her two hands on his mouth, with a face of terror, to stop him from saying more. He caught them in

his unoccupied hand, and holding them, and still clasping the border of her shawl, said hurriedly:

'But I see thee, Rachael, setten by the bed. I ha' seen thee, aw this night. In my troublous sleep I ha' known

thee still to be there. Evermore I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her or think o' her, but thou shalt be

beside her. I nevermore will see or think o' anything that angers me, but thou, so much better than me, shalt

be by th' side on't. And so I will try t' look t' th' time, and so I will try t' trust t' th' time, when thou and me at

last shall walk together far awa', beyond the deep gulf, in th' country where thy little sister is.'

He kissed the border of her shawl again, and let her go. She bade him good night in a broken voice, and went

The wind blew from the quarter where the day would soon appear, and still blew strongly. It had cleared the

sky before it, and the rain had spent itself or travelled elsewhere, and the stars were bright. He stood

bareheaded in the road, watching her quick disappearance. As the shining stars were to the heavy candle in

the window, so was Rachael, in the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his life.

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, steal, and brass, it brought

its varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick, and made the only stand that ever was made

Time, with his innumerable horsepower, worked away, not minding what anybody said, and presently

turned out young Thomas a foot taller than when his father had last taken particular notice of him.

Time passed Thomas on in the mill, while his father was thinking about it, and there he stood in a longtailed

'Really,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'the period has arrived when Thomas ought to go to Bounderby.'

Time, sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby's Bank, made him an inmate of Bounderby's house,

necessitated the purchase of his first razor, and exercised him diligently in his calculations relative to number

The same great manufacturer, always with an immense variety of work on hand, in every stage of

development, passed Sissy onward in his mill, and worked her up into a very pretty article indeed.

'I fear, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'that your continuance at the school any longer would be useless.'

'I cannot disguise from you, Jupe,' said Mr. Gradgrind, knitting his brow, 'that the result of your probation

there has disappointed me; has greatly disappointed me. You have not acquired, under Mr. and Mrs.

M'Choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact knowledge which I looked for. You are extremely

deficient in your facts. Your acquaintance with figures is very limited. You are altogether backward, and

'I am sorry, sir,' she returned; 'but I know it is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir.'

'Yes,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'yes, I believe you have tried hard; I have observed you, and I can find no fault in

'Thank you, sir. I have thought sometimes;' Sissy very timid here; 'that perhaps I tried to learn too much, and

'No, Jupe, no,' said Mr. Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest and most eminently practical way.

'No. The course you pursued, you pursued according to the system the system and there is no more to be

said about it. I can only suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too unfavourable to the

development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. Still, as I have said already, I am

'I wish I could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no

'Don't shed tears,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Don't shed tears. I don't complain of you. You are an affectionate,

'You are useful to Mrs. Gradgrind, and (in a generally pervading way) you are serviceable in the family also;

so I understand from Miss Louisa, and, indeed, so I have observed myself. I therefore hope,' said Mr.

'I understand you,' said Mr. Gradgrind; 'you still refer to your father. I have heard from Miss Louisa that you

still preserve that bottle. Well! If your training in the science of arriving at exact results had been more

He really liked Sissy too well to have a contempt for her; otherwise he held her calculating powers in such

very slight estimation that he must have fallen upon that conclusion. Somehow or other, he had become

possessed by an idea that there was something in this girl which could hardly be set forth in a tabular form.

Her capacity of definition might be easily stated at a very low figure, her mathematical knowledge at nothing;

yet he was not sure that if he had been required, for example, to tick her off into columns in a parliamentary

In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric, the processes of Time are very rapid. Young Thomas

and Sissy being both at such a stage of their working up, these changes were effected in a year or two; while

Mr. Gradgrind himself seemed stationary in his course, and underwent no alteration.

Except one, which was apart from his necessary progress through the mill. Time hustled him into a little

noisy and rather dirty machinery, in a bycomer, and made him Member of Parliament for Coketown: one of

the respected members for ounce weights and measures, one of the representatives of the multiplication table,

one of the deaf honourable gentlemen, dumb honourable gentlemen, blind honourable gentlemen, lame

honourable gentlemen, dead honourable gentlemen, to every other consideration. Else wherefore live we in a

All this while, Louisa had been passing on, so quiet and reserved, and so much given to watching the bright

ashes at twilight as they fell into the grate, and became extinct, that from the period when her father had said

she was almost a young woman which seemed but yesterday she had scarcely attracted his notice again,

Soon after this discovery, he became more thoughtful than usual for several days, and seemed much

engrossed by one subject. On a certain night, when he was going out, and Louisa came to bid him goodbye

before his departure as he was not to be home until late and she would not see him again until the morning

She answered with the old, quick, searching look of the night when she was found at the Circus; then cast

'My dear,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'I must speak with you alone and seriously. Come to me in my room after

She looked at him again, and smiled in her peculiar manner. 'I am as cheerful, father, as I usually am, or

'That's well,' said Mr. Gradgrind. So, he kissed her and went away; and Louisa returned to the serene

apartment of the haircutting character, and leaning her elbow on her hand, looked again at the shortlived

'Are you there, Loo?' said her brother, looking in at the door. He was quite a young gentleman of pleasure

'Dear Tom,' she answered, rising and embracing him, 'how long it is since you have been to see me!'

'Why, I have been otherwise engaged, Loo, in the evenings; and in the daytime old Bounderby has been

keeping me at it rather. But I touch him up with you when he comes it too strong, and so we preserve an

understanding. I say! Has father said anything particular to you today or yesterday, Loo?'

'Ah! That's what I mean,' said Tom. 'Do you know where he is to night?' with a very deep expression.

'Then I'll tell you. He's with old Bounderby. They are having a regular confab together up at the Bank. Why

at the Bank, do you think? Well, I'll tell you again. To keep Mrs. Sparsit's ears as far off as possible, I expect.'

With her hand upon her brother's shoulder, Louisa still stood looking at the fire. Her brother glanced at her

face with greater interest than usual, and, encircling her waist with his arm, drew her coaxingly to him.

'Indeed I am, Tom, though you do let such long intervals go by without coming to see me.'

'Well, sister of mine,' said Tom, 'when you say that, you are near my thoughts. We might be so much oftener

together mightn't we? Always together, almost mightn't we? It would do me a great deal of good if you

were to make up your mind to I know what, Loo. It would be a splendid thing for me. It would be

Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He could make nothing of her face. He pressed her in his

'I say, Loo! I thought I'd come, and just hint to you what was going on: though I supposed you'd most likely

guess, even if you didn't know. I can't stay, because I'm engaged to some fellows to night. You won't forget

She gave him an affectionate goodnight, and went out with him to the door, whence the fires of Coketown

could be seen, making the distance lurid. She stood there, looking steadfastly towards them, and listening to

his departing steps. They retreated quickly, as glad to get away from Stone Lodge; and she stood there yet,

when he was gone and all was quiet. It seemed as if, first in her own fire within the house, and then in the

fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind of woof Old Time, that greatest and longest established

Spinner of all, would weave from the threads he had already spun into a woman. But his factory is a secret

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 that charmed apartment, the most

complicated social questions were cast up, got into exact totals, and finally settled if those concerned could

only have been brought to know it. As if an astronomical observatory should be made without any windows,

and the astronomer within should arrange the starry universe solely by pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind,

in his Observatory (and there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye upon the teeming myriads of

human beings around him, but could settle all their destinies on a slate, and wipe out all their tears with one

To this Observatory, then: a stern room, with a deadly statistical clock in it, which measured every second

with a beat like a rap upon a coffinlid; Louisa repaired on the appointed morning. A window looked towards

Coketown; and when she sat down near her father's table, she saw the high chimneys and the long tracts of

'My dear Louisa,' said her father, 'I prepared you last night to give me your serious attention in the

conversation we are now going to have together. You have been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to

say, so much justice to the education you have received, that I have perfect confidence in your good sense.

You are not impulsive, you are not romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the strong

dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone, I know you will view and consider

He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said something. But she said never a word.

'Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has been made to me.'

Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. This so far surprised him, as to induce him gently to

repeat, 'a proposal of marriage, my dear.' To which she returned, without any visible emotion whatever:

'Well!' said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for the moment at a loss, 'you are even more

dispassionate than I expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the announcement I have it in

'I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared or unprepared, I wish to hear it all from you. I wish to hear

Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this moment as his daughter was. He took a

paperknife in his hand, turned it over, laid it down, took it up again, and even then had to look along the

'What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reasonable. I have undertaken then to let you know that in

short, that Mr. Bounderby has informed me that he has long watched your progress with particular interest

and pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ultimately arrive when he should offer you his hand in

marriage. That time, to which he has so long, and certainly with great constancy, looked forward, is now

come. Mr. Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage to me, and has entreated me to make it known to

you, and to express his hope that you will take it into your favourable consideration.'

Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very hollow. The distant smoke very black and heavy.

Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected question. 'Well, my child,' he returned, 'I

'Father,' pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, 'do you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?'

'Really, my dear,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'it is difficult to answer your question '

'Certainly, my dear. Because;' here was something to demonstrate, and it set him up again; 'because the reply

depends so materially, Louisa, on the sense in which we use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not do

you the injustice, and does not do himself the injustice, of pretending to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I am

using synonymous terms) sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have seen you grow up under his eyes, to very

little purpose, if he could so far forget what is due to your good sense, not to say to his, as to address you

from any such ground. Therefore, perhaps the expression itself I merely suggest this to you, my dear may

'Why, my dear Louisa,' said Mr. Gradgrind, completely recovered by this time, 'I would advise you (since

you ask me) to consider this question, as you have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply

as one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass such subjects with irrelevant fancies, and

other absurdities that have no existence, properly viewed really no existence but it is no compliment to

you to say, that you know better. Now, what are the Facts of this case? You are, we will say in round

numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. Bounderby is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity

in your respective years, but in your means and positions there is none; on the contrary, there is a great

suitability. Then the question arises, Is this one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage? In

considering this question, it is not unimportant to take into account the statistics of marriage, so far as they

have yet been obtained, in England and Wales. I find, on reference to the figures, that a large proportion of

these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages, and that the elder of these contracting

parties is, in rather more than threefourths of these instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable as showing

the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the British possessions in India, also in a

considerable part of China, and among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet furnished

us by travellers, yield similar results. The disparity I have mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity,

'What do you recommend, father,' asked Louisa, her reserved composure not in the least affected by these

gratifying results, 'that I should substitute for the term I used just now? For the misplaced expression?'

'Louisa,' returned her father, 'it appears to me that nothing can be plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to Fact,

the question of Fact you state to yourself is: Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he does. The

sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him? I think nothing can be plainer than that?'

'Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear Louisa, to know that you do not come to the

consideration of that question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that belong to many young

'I now leave you to judge for yourself,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'I have stated the case, as such cases are usually

stated among practical minds; I have stated it, as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its time.

From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his

deepset eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was

impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pentup confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he

must have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, between himself

and all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last

trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for

such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, matteroffact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot

away into the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are drowned there.

Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently towards the town, that he said, at length: 'Are

'There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts

'Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of the remark.' To do him justice he did not, at all.

She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating her attention upon him again, said,

'Father, I have often thought that life is very short.' This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he

'It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human life is proved to have increased of late

years. The calculations of various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures which cannot go

'O indeed? Still,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'I need not point out to you, Louisa, that it is governed by the laws

'While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am fit for. What does it matter?'

Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words; replying, 'How, matter? What matter,

'Mr. Bounderby,' she went on in a steady, straight way, without regarding this, 'asks me to marry him. The

question I have to ask myself is, shall I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so, father.

'Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him,

father, as soon as you please, that this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I should

'It is quite right, my dear,' retorted her father approvingly, 'to be exact. I will observe your very proper

request. Have you any wish in reference to the period of your marriage, my child?'

Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken her hand. But, her repetition of these words

seemed to strike with some little discord on his ear. He paused to look at her, and, still holding her hand, said:

'Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you one question, because the possibility implied in it

appeared to me to be too remote. But perhaps I ought to do so. You have never entertained in secret any other

'Father,' she returned, almost scornfully, 'what other proposal can have been made to me? Whom have I seen?

'My dear Louisa,' returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured and satisfied. 'You correct me justly. I merely wished to

'What do I know, father,' said Louisa in her quiet manner, 'of tastes and fancies; of aspirations and affections;

of all that part of my nature in which such light things might have been nourished? What escape have I had

from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be grasped?' As she said it, she

unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon a solid object, and slowly opened it as though she were releasing

'Why, father,' she pursued, 'what a strange question to ask me! The babypreference that even I have heard of

as common among children, has never had its innocent restingplace in my breast. You have been so careful

of me, that I never had a child's heart. You have trained me so well, that I never dreamed a child's dream. You

have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child's belief or a child's

Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to it. 'My dear Louisa,' said he, 'you

So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his embrace, he said, 'I may assure you now, my favourite child,

that I am made happy by the sound decision at which you have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very remarkable

man; and what little disparity can be said to exist between you if any is more than counterbalanced by the

tone your mind has acquired. It has always been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still in

your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age. Kiss me once more, Louisa. Now, let us go

Accordingly, they went down to the drawingroom, where the esteemed lady with no nonsense about her,

was recumbent as usual, while Sissy worked beside her. She gave some feeble signs of returning animation

when they entered, and presently the faint transparency was presented in a sitting attitude.

'Mrs. Gradgrind,' said her husband, who had waited for the achievement of this feat with some impatience,

'Oh!' said Mrs. Gradgrind, 'so you have settled it! Well, I'm sure I hope your health may be good, Louisa; for

if your head begins to split as soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider that

you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as all girls do. However, I give you joy, my

dear and I hope you may now turn all your ological studies to good account, I am sure I do! I must give you

a kiss of congratulation, Louisa; but don't touch my right shoulder, for there's something running down it all

day long. And now you see,' whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the affectionate

ceremony, 'I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, and night, to know what I am to call him!'

'Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! I must call him something. It's

impossible,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, 'to be constantly addressing

him and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me. You yourself

wouldn't hear of Joe, you very well know. Am I to call my own son inlaw, Mister! Not, I believe, unless

the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations. Then, what am I to call

Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this

life for the time being, after delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed:

'As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is, and I ask it with a fluttering in my chest, which actually extends to

the soles of my feet, that it may take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall never

When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned her head, and looked, in

wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and

seen it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud and cold held Sissy at a

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 baggage, to Lady Scadgers, or would positively

refuse to budge from the premises; whether she would be plaintive or abusive, tearful or tearing; whether she

would break her heart, or break the looking glass; Mr. Bounderby could not all foresee. However, as it must

be done, he had no choice but to do it; so, after attempting several letters, and failing in them all, he resolved

On his way home, on the evening he set aside for this momentous purpose, he took the precaution of stepping

into a chemist's shop and buying a bottle of the very strongest smellingsalts. 'By George!' said Mr.

Bounderby, 'if she takes it in the fainting way, I'll have the skin off her nose, at all events!' But, in spite of

being thus forearmed, he entered his own house with anything but a courageous air; and appeared before the

object of his misgivings, like a dog who was conscious of coming direct from the pantry.

'Good evening, ma'am, good evening.' He drew up his chair, and Mrs. Sparsit drew back hers, as who should

say, 'Your fireside, sir. I freely admit it. It is for you to occupy it all, if you think proper.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, and returned, though short of her former position.

Mr. Bounderby sat looking at her, as, with the points of a stiff, sharp pair of scissors, she picked out holes for

some inscrutable ornamental purpose, in a piece of cambric. An operation which, taken in connexion with the

bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the

eyes of a tough little bird. She was so steadfastly occupied, that many minutes elapsed before she looked up

from her work; when she did so Mr. Bounderby bespoke her attention with a hitch of his head.

'Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his pockets, and assuring himself with his

right hand that the cork of the little bottle was ready for use, 'I have no occasion to say to you, that you are

'Sir,' returned the lady, 'this is indeed not the first time that you have honoured me with similar expressions of

'Yes, sir?' returned Mrs. Sparsit, interrogatively, and in the most tranquil manner possible. She generally wore

'Yes, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'I hope you may be happy, Mr. Bounderby. Oh, indeed I hope you may be

happy, sir!' And she said it with such great condescension as well as with such great compassion for him, that

Bounderby, far more disconcerted than if she had thrown her workbox at the mirror, or swooned on the

hearthrug, corked up the smellingsalts tight in his pocket, and thought, 'Now confound this woman, who

'I wish with all my heart, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, in a highly superior manner; somehow she seemed, in a

moment, to have established a right to pity him ever afterwards; 'that you may be in all respects very happy.'

'Well, ma'am,' returned Bounderby, with some resentment in his tone: which was clearly lowered, though in

'Do you, sir!' said Mrs. Sparsit, with great affability. 'But naturally you do; of course you do.'

A very awkward pause on Mr. Bounderby's part, succeeded. Mrs. Sparsit sedately resumed her work and

occasionally gave a small cough, which sounded like the cough of conscious strength and forbearance.

'Well, ma'am,' resumed Bounderby, 'under these circumstances, I imagine it would not be agreeable to a

'Oh, dear no, sir, I could on no account think of that!' Mrs. Sparsit shook her head, still in her highly superior

manner, and a little changed the small cough coughing now, as if the spirit of prophecy rose within her, but

'However, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'there are apartments at the Bank, where a born and bred lady, as keeper

'I beg your pardon, sir. You were so good as to promise that you would always substitute the phrase, annual

'Well, ma'am, annual compliment. If the same annual compliment would be acceptable there, why, I see

'Sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'The proposal is like yourself, and if the position I shall assume at the Bank is one

'Why, of course it is,' said Bounderby. 'If it was not, ma'am, you don't suppose that I should offer it to a lady

who has moved in the society you have moved in. Not that I care for such society, you know! But you do.'

'You'll have your own private apartments, and you'll have your coals and your candles, and all the rest of it,

and you'll have your maid to attend upon you, and you'll have your light porter to protect you, and you'll be

'Sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, 'say no more. In yielding up my trust here, I shall not be freed from the necessity

of eating the bread of dependence:' she might have said the sweetbread, for that delicate article in a savoury

brown sauce was her favourite supper: 'and I would rather receive it from your hand, than from any other.

Therefore, sir, I accept your offer gratefully, and with many sincere acknowledgments for past favours. And I

hope, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, concluding in an impressively compassionate manner, 'I fondly hope that Miss

Nothing moved Mrs. Sparsit from that position any more. It was in vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert

himself in any of his explosive ways; Mrs. Sparsit was resolved to have compassion on him, as a Victim. She

was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful; but, the more polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful, the more

hopeful, the more exemplary altogether, she; the forlorner Sacrifice and Victim, he. She had that tenderness

for his melancholy fate, that his great red countenance used to break out into cold perspirations when she

Meanwhile the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight weeks' time, and Mr. Bounderby went

every evening to Stone Lodge as an accepted wooer. Love was made on these occasions in the form of

bracelets; and, on all occasions during the period of betrothal, took a manufacturing aspect. Dresses were

made, jewellery was made, cakes and gloves were made, settlements were made, and an extensive assortment

of Facts did appropriate honour to the contract. The business was all Fact, from first to last. The Hours did

not go through any of those rosy performances, which foolish poets have ascribed to them at such times;

neither did the clocks go any faster, or any slower, than at other seasons. The deadly statistical recorder in the

Gradgrind observatory knocked every second on the head as it was born, and buried it with his accustomed

So the day came, as all other days come to people who will only stick to reason; and when it came, there were

married in the church of the florid wooden legs that popular order of architecture Josiah Bounderby

Esquire of Coketown, to Louisa eldest daughter of Thomas Gradgrind Esquire of Stone Lodge, M.P. for that

borough. And when they were united in holy matrimony, they went home to breakfast at Stone Lodge

There was an improving party assembled on the auspicious occasion, who knew what everything they had to

eat and drink was made of, and how it was imported or exported, and in what quantities, and in what bottoms,

whether native or foreign, and all about it. The bridesmaids, down to little Jane Gradgrind, were, in an

intellectual point of view, fit helpmates for the calculating boy; and there was no nonsense about any of the

'Ladies and gentlemen, I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Since you have done my wife and myself the

honour of drinking our healths and happiness, I suppose I must acknowledge the same; though, as you all

know me, and know what I am, and what my extraction was, you won't expect a speech from a man who,

when he sees a Post, says "that's a Post," and when he sees a Pump, says "that's a Pump," and is not to be got

to call a Post a Pump, or a Pump a Post, or either of them a Toothpick. If you want a speech this morning, my

friend and fatherinlaw, Tom Gradgrind, is a Member of Parliament, and you know where to get it. I am not

your man. However, if I feel a little independent when I look around this table today, and reflect how little I

thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind's daughter when I was a ragged streetboy, who never washed his face

unless it was at a pump, and that not oftener than once a fortnight, I hope I may be excused. So, I hope you

like my feeling independent; if you don't, I can't help it. I do feel independent. Now I have mentioned, and

you have mentioned, that I am this day married to Tom Gradgrind's daughter. I am very glad to be so. It has

long been my wish to be so. I have watched her bringingup, and I believe she is worthy of me. At the same

time not to deceive you I believe I am worthy of her. So, I thank you, on both our parts, for the goodwill

you have shown towards us; and the best wish I can give the unmarried part of the present company, is this: I

hope every bachelor may find as good a wife as I have found. And I hope every spinster may find as good a

Shortly after which oration, as they were going on a nuptial trip to Lyons, in order that Mr. Bounderby might

take the opportunity of seeing how the Hands got on in those parts, and whether they, too, required to be fed

with gold spoons; the happy pair departed for the railroad. The bride, in passing downstairs, dressed for her

journey, found Tom waiting for her flushed, either with his feelings, or the vinous part of the breakfast.

She clung to him as she should have clung to some far better nature that day, and was a little shaken in her

'Old Bounderby's quite ready,' said Tom. 'Time's up. Goodbye! I shall be on the lookout for you, when you

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 knew there could have been no

such sulky blotch upon the prospect without a town. A blur of soot and smoke, now confusedly tending this

way, now that way, now aspiring to the vault of Heaven, now murkily creeping along the earth, as the wind

rose and fell, or changed its quarter: a dense formless jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, that showed

nothing but masses of darkness: Coketown in the distance was suggestive of itself, though not a brick of it

The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so many

shocks. Surely there never was such fragile chinaware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made.

Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having

been flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they

were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors

considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they

were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke.

Besides Mr. Bounderby's gold spoon which was generally received in Coketown, another prevalent fiction

was very popular there. It took the form of a threat. Whenever a Coketowner felt he was illused that is to

say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the

consequences of any of his acts he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would 'sooner pitch

his property into the Atlantic.' This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several

However, the Coketowners were so patriotic after all, that they never had pitched their property into the

Atlantic yet, but, on the contrary, had been kind enough to take mighty good care of it. So there it was, in the

The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day, and the sun was so bright that it even shone through the

heavy vapour drooping over Coketown, and could not be looked at steadily. Stokers emerged from low

underground doorways into factory yards, and sat on steps, and posts, and palings, wiping their swarthy

visages, and contemplating coals. The whole town seemed to be frying in oil. There was a stifling smell of

hot oil everywhere. The steam engines shone with it, the dresses of the Hands were soiled with it, the mills

throughout their many stories oozed and trickled it. The atmosphere of those Fairy palaces was like the breath

of the simoom: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled languidly in the desert. But no temperature

made the melancholy mad elephants more mad or more sane. Their wearisome heads went up and down at

the same rate, in hot weather and cold, wet weather and dry, fair weather and foul. The measured motion of

their shadows on the walls, was the substitute Coketown had to show for the shadows of rustling woods;

while, for the summer hum of insects, it could offer, all the year round, from the dawn of Monday to the night

Drowsily they whirred all through this sunny day, making the passenger more sleepy and more hot as he

passed the humming walls of the mills. Sunblinds, and sprinklings of water, a little cooled the main streets

and the shops; but the mills, and the courts and alleys, baked at a fierce heat. Down upon the river that was

black and thick with dye, some Coketown boys who were at large a rare sight there rowed a crazy boat,

which made a spumous track upon the water as it jogged along, while every dip of an oar stirred up vile

smells. But the sun itself, however beneficent, generally, was less kind to Coketown than hard frost, and

rarely looked intently into any of its closer regions without engendering more death than life. So does the eye

of Heaven itself become an evil eye, when incapable or sordid hands are interposed between it and the things

Mrs. Sparsit sat in her afternoon apartment at the Bank, on the shadier side of the frying street. Officehours

were over: and at that period of the day, in warm weather, she usually embellished with her genteel presence,

a managerial boardroom over the public office. Her own private sittingroom was a story higher, at the

window of which post of observation she was ready, every morning, to greet Mr. Bounderby, as he came

across the road, with the sympathizing recognition appropriate to a Victim. He had been married now a year;

The Bank offered no violence to the wholesome monotony of the town. It was another red brick house, with

black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black streetdoor up two white steps, a brazen doorplate, and a

brazen doorhandle full stop. It was a size larger than Mr. Bounderby's house, as other houses were from a

size to halfadozen sizes smaller; in all other particulars, it was strictly according to pattern.

Mrs. Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the eveningtide among the desks and writing implements, she

shed a feminine, not to say also aristocratic, grace upon the office. Seated, with her needlework or netting

apparatus, at the window, she had a self laudatory sense of correcting, by her ladylike deportment, the rude

business aspect of the place. With this impression of her interesting character upon her, Mrs. Sparsit

considered herself, in some sort, the Bank Fairy. The townspeople who, in their passing and repassing, saw

her there, regarded her as the Bank Dragon keeping watch over the treasures of the mine.

What those treasures were, Mrs. Sparsit knew as little as they did. Gold and silver coin, precious paper,

secrets that if divulged would bring vague destruction upon vague persons (generally, however, people whom

she disliked), were the chief items in her ideal catalogue thereof. For the rest, she knew that after office

hours, she reigned supreme over all the office furniture, and over a lockedup iron room with three locks,

against the door of which strong chamber the light porter laid his head every night, on a truckle bed, that

disappeared at cockcrow. Further, she was lady paramount over certain vaults in the basement, sharply spiked

off from communication with the predatory world; and over the relics of the current day's work, consisting of

blots of ink, wornout pens, fragments of wafers, and scraps of paper torn so small, that nothing interesting

could ever be deciphered on them when Mrs. Sparsit tried. Lastly, she was guardian over a little armoury of

cutlasses and carbines, arrayed in vengeful order above one of the official chimneypieces; and over that

respectable tradition never to be separated from a place of business claiming to be wealthy a row of

firebuckets vessels calculated to be of no physical utility on any occasion, but observed to exercise a fine

A deaf servingwoman and the light porter completed Mrs. Sparsit's empire. The deaf servingwoman was

rumoured to be wealthy; and a saying had for years gone about among the lower orders of Coketown, that she

would be murdered some night when the Bank was shut, for the sake of her money. It was generally

considered, indeed, that she had been due some time, and ought to have fallen long ago; but she had kept her

life, and her situation, with an illconditioned tenacity that occasioned much offence and disappointment.

Mrs. Sparsit's tea was just set for her on a pert little table, with its tripod of legs in an attitude, which she

insinuated after officehours, into the company of the stern, leatherntopped, long boardtable that bestrode

the middle of the room. The light porter placed the teatray on it, knuckling his forehead as a form of

'Thank you, ma'am,' returned the light porter. He was a very light porter indeed; as light as in the days when

'And what,' said Mrs. Sparsit, pouring out her tea, 'is the news of the day? Anything?'

'Well, ma'am, I can't say that I have heard anything particular. Our people are a bad lot, ma'am; but that is no

'Merely going on in the old way, ma'am. Uniting, and leaguing, and engaging to stand by one another.'

'It is much to be regretted,' said Mrs. Sparsit, making her nose more Roman and her eyebrows more

Coriolanian in the strength of her severity, 'that the united masters allow of any such class combinations.'

'Being united themselves, they ought one and all to set their faces against employing any man who is united

'They have done that, ma'am,' returned Bitzer; 'but it rather fell through, ma'am.'

'I do not pretend to understand these things,' said Mrs. Sparsit, with dignity, 'my lot having been signally cast

in a widely different sphere; and Mr. Sparsit, as a Powler, being also quite out of the pale of any such

dissensions. I only know that these people must be conquered, and that it's high time it was done, once for

'Yes, ma'am,' returned Bitzer, with a demonstration of great respect for Mrs. Sparsit's oracular authority. 'You

As this was his usual hour for having a little confidential chat with Mrs. Sparsit, and as he had already caught

her eye and seen that she was going to ask him something, he made a pretence of arranging the rulers,

inkstands, and so forth, while that lady went on with her tea, glancing through the open window, down into

'Not a very busy day, my lady. About an average day.' He now and then slided into my lady, instead of

ma'am, as an involuntary acknowledgment of Mrs. Sparsit's personal dignity and claims to reverence.

'The clerks,' said Mrs. Sparsit, carefully brushing an imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her

He held the respectable office of general spy and informer in the establishment, for which volunteer service

he received a present at Christmas, over and above his weekly wage. He had grown into an extremely

clearheaded, cautious, prudent young man, who was safe to rise in the world. His mind was so exactly

regulated, that he had no affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result of the nicest and coldest

calculation; and it was not without cause that Mrs. Sparsit habitually observed of him, that he was a young

man of the steadiest principle she had ever known. Having satisfied himself, on his father's death, that his

mother had a right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young economist had asserted that right for her

with such a steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she had been shut up in the workhouse ever

since. It must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound of tea a year, which was weak in him: first,

because all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperise the recipient, and secondly, because his only

reasonable transaction in that commodity would have been to buy it for as little as he could possibly give, and

sell it for as much as he could possibly get; it having been clearly ascertained by philosophers that in this is

'Ah h!' said Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head over her teacup, and taking a long gulp.

'Mr. Thomas, ma'am, I doubt Mr. Thomas very much, ma'am, I don't like his ways at all.'

'Bitzer,' said Mrs. Sparsit, in a very impressive manner, 'do you recollect my having said anything to you

'I beg your pardon, ma'am. It's quite true that you did object to names being used, and they're always best

'Please to remember that I have a charge here,' said Mrs. Sparsit, with her air of state. 'I hold a trust here,

Bitzer, under Mr. Bounderby. However improbable both Mr. Bounderby and myself might have deemed it

years ago, that he would ever become my patron, making me an annual compliment, I cannot but regard him

in that light. From Mr. Bounderby I have received every acknowledgment of my social station, and every

recognition of my family descent, that I could possibly expect. More, far more. Therefore, to my patron I will

be scrupulously true. And I do not consider, I will not consider, I cannot consider,' said Mrs. Sparsit, with a

most extensive stock on hand of honour and morality, 'that I should be scrupulously true, if I allowed names

to be mentioned under this roof, that are unfortunately most unfortunately no doubt of that connected

'No, Bitzer,' continued Mrs. Sparsit, 'say an individual, and I will hear you; say Mr. Thomas, and you must

'With the usual exception, ma'am,' said Bitzer, trying back, 'of an individual.'

'Ah h!' Mrs. Sparsit repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the head over her teacup, and the long gulp, as

'An individual, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'has never been what he ought to have been, since he first came into the

place. He is a dissipated, extravagant idler. He is not worth his salt, ma'am. He wouldn't get it either, if he

'I only hope, ma'am,' pursued Bitzer, 'that his friend and relation may not supply him with the means of

'He is to be pitied, ma'am. The last party I have alluded to, is to be pitied, ma'am,' said Bitzer.

'As to an individual, ma'am,' said Bitzer, dropping his voice and drawing nearer, 'he is as improvident as any

of the people in this town. And you know what their improvidence is, ma'am. No one could wish to know it

'Thank you, ma'am. But, since you do refer to me, now look at me, ma'am. I have put by a little, ma'am,

already. That gratuity which I receive at Christmas, ma'am: I never touch it. I don't even go the length of my

wages, though they're not high, ma'am. Why can't they do as I have done, ma'am? What one person can do,

This, again, was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there, who had made sixty thousand pounds

out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn't each make sixty

thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little

'As to their wanting recreations, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'it's stuff and nonsense. I don't want recreations. I never

did, and I never shall; I don't like 'em. As to their combining together; there are many of them, I have no

doubt, that by watching and informing upon one another could earn a trifle now and then, whether in money

or good will, and improve their livelihood. Then, why don't they improve it, ma'am! It's the first consideration

'I am sure we are constantly hearing, ma'am, till it becomes quite nauseous, concerning their wives and

families,' said Bitzer. 'Why look at me, ma'am! I don't want a wife and family. Why should they?'

'Yes, ma'am,' returned Bitzer, 'that's where it is. If they were more provident and less perverse, ma'am, what

would they do? They would say, "While my hat covers my family," or "while my bonnet covers my family,"

as the case might be, ma'am "I have only one to feed, and that's the person I most like to feed."'

'Thank you, ma'am,' said Bitzer, knuckling his forehead again, in return for the favour of Mrs. Sparsit's

improving conversation. 'Would you wish a little more hot water, ma'am, or is there anything else that I could

'Thank you, ma'am. I shouldn't wish to disturb you at your meals, ma'am, particularly tea, knowing your

partiality for it,' said Bitzer, craning a little to look over into the street from where he stood; 'but there's a

gentleman been looking up here for a minute or so, ma'am, and he has come across as if he was going to

He stepped to the window; and looking out, and drawing in his head again, confirmed himself with, 'Yes,

'I don't know who it can be,' said Mrs. Sparsit, wiping her mouth and arranging her mittens.

'What a stranger can want at the Bank at this time of the evening, unless he comes upon some business for

which he is too late, I don't know,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'but I hold a charge in this establishment from Mr.

Bounderby, and I will never shrink from it. If to see him is any part of the duty I have accepted, I will see

Here the visitor, all unconscious of Mrs. Sparsit's magnanimous words, repeated his knock so loudly that the

light porter hastened down to open the door; while Mrs. Sparsit took the precaution of concealing her little

table, with all its appliances upon it, in a cupboard, and then decamped upstairs, that she might appear, if

'If you please, ma'am, the gentleman would wish to see you,' said Bitzer, with his light eye at Mrs. Sparsit's

keyhole. So, Mrs. Sparsit, who had improved the interval by touching up her cap, took her classical features

downstairs again, and entered the board room in the manner of a Roman matron going outside the city

The visitor having strolled to the window, and being then engaged in looking carelessly out, was as unmoved

by this impressive entry as man could possibly be. He stood whistling to himself with all imaginable

coolness, with his hat still on, and a certain air of exhaustion upon him, in part arising from excessive

summer, and in part from excessive gentility. For it was to be seen with half an eye that he was a thorough

gentleman, made to the model of the time; weary of everything, and putting no more faith in anything than

'Humph!' thought Mrs. Sparsit, as she made a stately bend. 'Five and thirty, goodlooking, good figure, good

teeth, good voice, good breeding, welldressed, dark hair, bold eyes.' All which Mrs. Sparsit observed in her

womanly way like the Sultan who put his head in the pail of water merely in dipping down and coming

'Thank you. Allow me.' He placed a chair for her, but remained himself carelessly lounging against the table.

'I left my servant at the railway looking after the luggage very heavy train and vast quantity of it in the van

and strolled on, looking about me. Exceedingly odd place. Will you allow me to ask you if it's always as

'No, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'It was once my good or ill fortune, as it may be before I became a widow

'Powler Family,' said the stranger, after reflecting a few moments. Mrs. Sparsit signified assent. The stranger

'You must be very much bored here?' was the inference he drew from the communication.

'I am the servant of circumstances, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'and I have long adapted myself to the governing

'Very philosophical,' returned the stranger, 'and very exemplary and laudable, and ' It seemed to be scarcely

worth his while to finish the sentence, so he played with his watchchain wearily.

'May I be permitted to ask, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'to what I am indebted for the favour of '

'Assuredly,' said the stranger. 'Much obliged to you for reminding me. I am the bearer of a letter of

introduction to Mr. Bounderby, the banker. Walking through this extraordinarily black town, while they were

getting dinner ready at the hotel, I asked a fellow whom I met; one of the working people; who appeared to

have been taking a showerbath of something fluffy, which I assume to be the raw material '

' Raw material where Mr. Bounderby, the banker, might reside. Upon which, misled no doubt by the

word Banker, he directed me to the Bank. Fact being, I presume, that Mr. Bounderby the Banker does not

'Thank you. I had no intention of delivering my letter at the present moment, nor have I. But strolling on to

the Bank to kill time, and having the good fortune to observe at the window,' towards which he languidly

waved his hand, then slightly bowed, 'a lady of a very superior and agreeable appearance, I considered that I

could not do better than take the liberty of asking that lady where Mr. Bounderby the Banker does live.

The inattention and indolence of his manner were sufficiently relieved, to Mrs. Sparsit's thinking, by a certain

gallantry at ease, which offered her homage too. Here he was, for instance, at this moment, all but sitting on

the table, and yet lazily bending over her, as if he acknowledged an attraction in her that made her charming

'Banks, I know, are always suspicious, and officially must be,' said the stranger, whose lightness and

smoothness of speech were pleasant likewise; suggesting matter far more sensible and humorous than it ever

contained which was perhaps a shrewd device of the founder of this numerous sect, whosoever may have

been that great man: 'therefore I may observe that my letter here it is is from the member for this place

Mrs. Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated that such confirmation was quite unnecessary, and gave Mr.

'Yes, sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit. 'In my dependent relation towards him, I have known him ten years.'

'Excuse my impertinent curiosity,' pursued the stranger, fluttering over Mrs. Sparsit's eyebrows, with a

propitiatory air, 'but you know the family, and know the world. I am about to know the family, and may have

much to do with them. Is the lady so very alarming? Her father gives her such a portentously hardheaded

reputation, that I have a burning desire to know. Is she absolutely unapproachable? Repellently and

stunningly clever? I see, by your meaning smile, you think not. You have poured balm into my anxious soul.

Mrs. Sparsit laughed outright. 'A chit,' said she. 'Not twenty when she was married.'

'I give you my honour, Mrs. Powler,' returned the stranger, detaching himself from the table, 'that I never was

It really did seem to impress him, to the utmost extent of his capacity of being impressed. He looked at his

informant for full a quarter of a minute, and appeared to have the surprise in his mind all the time. 'I assure

you, Mrs. Powler,' he then said, much exhausted, 'that the father's manner prepared me for a grim and stony

maturity. I am obliged to you, of all things, for correcting so absurd a mistake. Pray excuse my intrusion.

He bowed himself out; and Mrs. Sparsit, hiding in the window curtain, saw him languishing down the street

'What do you think of the gentleman, Bitzer?' she asked the light porter, when he came to take away.

'Besides which, ma'am,' resumed Bitzer, while he was polishing the table, 'he looks to me as if he gamed.'

'It's ridiculous, ma'am,' said Bitzer, 'because the chances are against the players.'

Whether it was that the heat prevented Mrs. Sparsit from working, or whether it was that her hand was out,

she did no work that night. She sat at the window, when the sun began to sink behind the smoke; she sat

there, when the smoke was burning red, when the colour faded from it, when darkness seemed to rise slowly

out of the ground, and creep upward, upward, up to the housetops, up the church steeple, up to the summits

of the factory chimneys, up to the sky. Without a candle in the room, Mrs. Sparsit sat at the window, with her

hands before her, not thinking much of the sounds of evening; the whooping of boys, the barking of dogs, the

rumbling of wheels, the steps and voices of passengers, the shrill street cries, the clogs upon the pavement

when it was their hour for going by, the shuttingup of shopshutters. Not until the light porter announced

that her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did Mrs. Sparsit arouse herself from her reverie, and convey her

dense black eyebrows by that time creased with meditation, as if they needed ironing outupstairs.

'O, you Fool!' said Mrs. Sparsit, when she was alone at her supper. Whom she meant, she did not say; but she

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

Moreover, the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height were attractive to many of the

Gradgrind school. They liked fine gentlemen; they pretended that they did not, but they did. They became

exhausted in imitation of them; and they yawyawed in their speech like them; and they served out, with an

enervated air, the little mouldy rations of political economy, on which they regaled their disciples. There

never before was seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as was thus produced.

Among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging to the Gradgrind school, there was one of a good family

and a better appearance, with a happy turn of humour which had told immensely with the House of Commons

on the occasion of his entertaining it with his (and the Board of Directors) view of a railway accident, in

which the most careful officers ever known, employed by the most liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by

the finest mechanical contrivances ever devised, the whole in action on the best line ever constructed, had

killed five people and wounded thirtytwo, by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole system

would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was a cow, and among the scattered articles

unowned, a widow's cap. And the honourable member had so tickled the House (which has a delicate sense of

humour) by putting the cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any serious reference to the Coroner's

Now, this gentleman had a younger brother of still better appearance than himself, who had tried life as a

Cornet of Dragoons, and found it a bore; and had afterwards tried it in the train of an English minister abroad,

and found it a bore; and had then strolled to Jerusalem, and got bored there; and had then gone yachting about

the world, and got bored everywhere. To whom this honourable and jocular, member fraternally said one day,

'Jem, there's a good opening among the hard Fact fellows, and they want men. I wonder you don't go in for

statistics.' Jem, rather taken by the novelty of the idea, and very hard up for a change, was as ready to 'go in'

for statistics as for anything else. So, he went in. He coached himself up with a bluebook or two; and his

brother put it about among the hard Fact fellows, and said, 'If you want to bring in, for any place, a handsome

dog who can make you a devilish good speech, look after my brother Jem, for he's your man.' After a few

dashes in the public meeting way, Mr. Gradgrind and a council of political sages approved of Jem, and it was

resolved to send him down to Coketown, to become known there and in the neighbourhood. Hence the letter

Jem had last night shown to Mrs. Sparsit, which Mr. Bounderby now held in his hand; superscribed, 'Josiah

Bounderby, Esquire, Banker, Coketown. Specially to introduce James Harthouse, Esquire. Thomas

Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and Mr. James Harthouse's card, Mr. Bounderby put on his hat

and went down to the Hotel. There he found Mr. James Harthouse looking out of window, in a state of mind

so disconsolate, that he was already half disposed to 'go in' for something else.

Mr. James Harthouse was very happy indeed (though he scarcely looked so) to have a pleasure he had long

'Coketown, sir,' said Bounderby, obstinately taking a chair, 'is not the kind of place you have been

accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me or whether you will or not, for I am a plain man I'll tell

'Don't be too sure of that,' said Bounderby. 'I don't promise it. First of all, you see our smoke. That's meat and

drink to us. It's the healthiest thing in the world in all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are one of

those who want us to consume it, I differ from you. We are not going to wear the bottoms of our boilers out

any faster than we wear 'em out now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain and Ireland.'

By way of 'going in' to the fullest extent, Mr. Harthouse rejoined, 'Mr. Bounderby, I assure you I am entirely

'I am glad to hear it,' said Bounderby. 'Now, you have heard a lot of talk about the work in our mills, no

doubt. You have? Very good. I'll state the fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is, and it's the

lightest work there is, and it's the best paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't improve the mills

themselves, unless we laid down Turkey carpets on the floors. Which we're not agoing to do.'

'Lastly,' said Bounderby, 'as to our Hands. There's not a Hand in this town, sir, man, woman, or child, but has

one ultimate object in life. That object is, to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Now,

they're not agoing none of 'em ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. And now

Mr. Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree instructed and refreshed, by this condensed epitome of

'Why, you see,' replied Mr. Bounderby, 'it suits my disposition to have a full understanding with a man,

particularly with a public man, when I make his acquaintance. I have only one thing more to say to you, Mr.

Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which I shall respond, to the utmost of my poor ability, to

my friend Tom Gradgrind's letter of introduction. You are a man of family. Don't you deceive yourself by

supposing for a moment that I am a man of family. I am a bit of dirty riffraff, and a genuine scrap of tag,

If anything could have exalted Jem's interest in Mr. Bounderby, it would have been this very circumstance.

'So now,' said Bounderby, 'we may shake hands on equal terms. I say, equal terms, because although I know

what I am, and the exact depth of the gutter I have lifted myself out of, better than any man does, I am as

proud as you are. I am just as proud as you are. Having now asserted my independence in a proper manner, I

The better, Mr. Harthouse gave him to understand as they shook hands, for the salubrious air of Coketown.

'Perhaps you know,' said he, 'or perhaps you don't know, I married Tom Gradgrind's daughter. If you have

nothing better to do than to walk up town with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to Tom Gradgrind's

They went out without further discourse; and Mr. Bounderby piloted the new acquaintance who so strongly

contrasted with him, to the private red brick dwelling, with the black outside shutters, the green inside blinds,

and the black street door up the two white steps. In the drawingroom of which mansion, there presently

entered to them the most remarkable girl Mr. James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained, and yet

so careless; so reserved, and yet so watchful; so cold and proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of her

husband's braggart humility from which she shrunk as if every example of it were a cut or a blow; that it

was quite a new sensation to observe her. In face she was no less remarkable than in manner. Her features

were handsome; but their natural play was so locked up, that it seemed impossible to guess at their genuine

expression. Utterly indifferent, perfectly self reliant, never at a loss, and yet never at her ease, with her

figure in company with them there, and her mind apparently quite alone it was of no use 'going in' yet

From the mistress of the house, the visitor glanced to the house itself. There was no mute sign of a woman in

the room. No graceful little adornment, no fanciful little device, however trivial, anywhere expressed her

influence. Cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich, there the room stared at its present

occupants, unsoftened and unrelieved by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As Mr. Bounderby stood

in the midst of his household gods, so those unrelenting divinities occupied their places around Mr.

'This, sir,' said Bounderby, 'is my wife, Mrs. Bounderby: Tom Gradgrind's eldest daughter. Loo, Mr. James

Harthouse. Mr. Harthouse has joined your father's musterroll. If he is not Torn Gradgrind's colleague before

long, I believe we shall at least hear of him in connexion with one of our neighbouring towns. You observe,

Mr. Harthouse, that my wife is my junior. I don't know what she saw in me to marry me, but she saw

something in me, I suppose, or she wouldn't have married me. She has lots of expensive knowledge, sir,

political and otherwise. If you want to cram for anything, I should be troubled to recommend you to a better

To a more agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more likely to learn, Mr. Harthouse could never

'Come!' said his host. 'If you're in the complimentary line, you'll get on here, for you'll meet with no

competition. I have never been in the way of learning compliments myself, and I don't profess to understand

the art of paying 'em. In fact, despise 'em. But, your bringingup was different from mine; mine was a real

thing, by George! You're a gentleman, and I don't pretend to be one. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown,

and that's enough for me. However, though I am not influenced by manners and station, Loo Bounderby may

be. She hadn't my advantages disadvantages you would call 'em, but I call 'em advantages so you'll not

'Mr. Bounderby,' said Jem, turning with a smile to Louisa, 'is a noble animal in a comparatively natural state,

'You respect Mr. Bounderby very much,' she quietly returned. 'It is natural that you should.'

He was disgracefully thrown out, for a gentleman who had seen so much of the world, and thought, 'Now,

'You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from what Mr. Bounderby has said, to the service of your

country. You have made up your mind,' said Louisa, still standing before him where she had first stopped in

all the singular contrariety of her self possession, and her being obviously very ill at ease 'to show the

'Mrs. Bounderby,' he returned, laughing, 'upon my honour, no. I will make no such pretence to you. I have

seen a little, here and there, up and down; I have found it all to be very worthless, as everybody has, and as

some confess they have, and some do not; and I am going in for your respected father's opinions really

because I have no choice of opinions, and may as well back them as anything else.'

'I have not so much as the slightest predilection left. I assure you I attach not the least importance to any

opinions. The result of the varieties of boredom I have undergone, is a conviction (unless conviction is too

industrious a word for the lazy sentiment I entertain on the subject), that any set of ideas will do just as much

good as any other set, and just as much harm as any other set. There's an English family with a charming

This vicious assumption of honesty in dishonesty a vice so dangerous, so deadly, and so common

seemed, he observed, a little to impress her in his favour. He followed up the advantage, by saying in his

pleasantest manner: a manner to which she might attach as much or as little meaning as she pleased: 'The side

that can prove anything in a line of units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, Mrs. Bounderby, seems to me to

afford the most fun, and to give a man the best chance. I am quite as much attached to it as if I believed it. I

am quite ready to go in for it, to the same extent as if I believed it. And what more could I possibly do, if I

'Pardon me; I have not even that merit. We are the largest party in the state, I assure you, Mrs. Bounderby, if

Mr. Bounderby, who had been in danger of bursting in silence, interposed here with a project for postponing

the family dinner till halfpast six, and taking Mr. James Harthouse in the meantime on a round of visits to

the voting and interesting notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity. The round of visits was made; and Mr.

James Harthouse, with a discreet use of his blue coaching, came off triumphantly, though with a considerable

In the evening, he found the dinnertable laid for four, but they sat down only three. It was an appropriate

occasion for Mr. Bounderby to discuss the flavour of the hap'orth of stewed eels he had purchased in the

streets at eight years old; and also of the inferior water, specially used for laying the dust, with which he had

washed down that repast. He likewise entertained his guest over the soup and fish, with the calculation that he

(Bounderby) had eaten in his youth at least three horses under the guise of polonies and saveloys. These

recitals, Jem, in a languid manner, received with 'charming!' every now and then; and they probably would

have decided him to 'go in' for Jerusalem again tomorrow morning, had he been less curious respecting

'Is there nothing,' he thought, glancing at her as she sat at the head of the table, where her youthful figure,

small and slight, but very graceful, looked as pretty as it looked misplaced; 'is there nothing that will move

Yes! By Jupiter, there was something, and here it was, in an unexpected shape. Tom appeared. She changed

A beautiful smile. Mr. James Harthouse might not have thought so much of it, but that he had wondered so

long at her impassive face. She put out her hand a pretty little soft hand; and her fingers closed upon her

'Ay, ay?' thought the visitor. 'This whelp is the only creature she cares for. So, so!'

The whelp was presented, and took his chair. The appellation was not flattering, but not unmerited.

'When I was your age, young Tom,' said Bounderby, 'I was punctual, or I got no dinner!'

'When you were my age,' resumed Tom, 'you hadn't a wrong balance to get right, and hadn't to dress

'Mrs. Bounderby,' said Harthouse, perfectly hearing this under strain as it went on; 'your brother's face is

quite familiar to me. Can I have seen him abroad? Or at some public school, perhaps?'

'No,' she resumed, quite interested, 'he has never been abroad yet, and was educated here, at home. Tom,

There was little enough in him to brighten her face, for he was a sullen young fellow, and ungracious in his

manner even to her. So much the greater must have been the solitude of her heart, and her need of some one

on whom to bestow it. 'So much the more is this whelp the only creature she has ever cared for,' thought Mr.

James Harthouse, turning it over and over. 'So much the more. So much the more.'

Both in his sister's presence, and after she had left the room, the whelp took no pains to hide his contempt for

Mr. Bounderby, whenever he could indulge it without the observation of that independent man, by making

wry faces, or shutting one eye. Without responding to these telegraphic communications, Mr. Harthouse

encouraged him much in the course of the evening, and showed an unusual liking for him. At last, when he

rose to return to his hotel, and was a little doubtful whether he knew the way by night, the whelp immediately

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 guidance for five consecutive minutes, should be

incapable at last of governing himself; but so it was with Tom. It was altogether unaccountable that a young

gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle, should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in

the form of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, was Tom.

He could do no less than ask Tom up; and Tom could do no less than go up. What with a cooling drink

adapted to the weather, but not so weak as cool; and what with a rarer tobacco than was to be bought in those

parts; Tom was soon in a highly free and easy state at his end of the sofa, and more than ever disposed to

Tom blew his smoke aside, after he had been smoking a little while, and took an observation of his friend.

'He don't seem to care about his dress,' thought Tom, 'and yet how capitally he does it. What an easy swell he

Mr. James Harthouse, happening to catch Tom's eye, remarked that he drank nothing, and filled his glass with

'Thank'ee,' said Tom. 'Thank'ee. Well, Mr. Harthouse, I hope you have had about a dose of old Bounderby

tonight.' Tom said this with one eye shut up again, and looking over his glass knowingly, at his entertainer.

Mr. James Harthouse smiled; and rising from his end of the sofa, and lounging with his back against the

chimneypiece, so that he stood before the empty firegrate as he smoked, in front of Tom and looking down

There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate with such a waistcoat; in being called Tom, in

such an intimate way, by such a voice; in being on such offhand terms so soon, with such a pair of whiskers;

'Oh! I don't care for old Bounderby,' said he, 'if you mean that. I have always called old Bounderby by the

same name when I have talked about him, and I have always thought of him in the same way. I am not going

to begin to be polite now, about old Bounderby. It would be rather late in the day.'

'His wife?' said Tom. 'My sister Loo? O yes!' And he laughed, and took a little more of the cooling drink.

James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same place and attitude, smoking his cigar in his own easy way,

and looking pleasantly at the whelp, as if he knew himself to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only to

hover over him, and he must give up his whole soul if required. It certainly did seem that the whelp yielded to

this influence. He looked at his companion sneakingly, he looked at him admiringly, he looked at him boldly,

'That's the past tense, Tom,' returned Mr. James Harthouse, striking the ash from his cigar with his little

'Verb neuter, not to care. Indicative mood, present tense. First person singular, I do not care; second person

singular, thou dost not care; third person singular, she does not care,' returned Tom.

'But I do mean it,' cried Tom. 'Upon my honour! Why, you won't tell me, Mr. Harthouse, that you really

'My dear fellow,' returned the other, 'what am I bound to suppose, when I find two married people living in

Tom had by this time got both his legs on the sofa. If his second leg had not been already there when he was

called a dear fellow, he would have put it up at that great stage of the conversation. Feeling it necessary to do

something then, he stretched himself out at greater length, and, reclining with the back of his head on the end

of the sofa, and smoking with an infinite assumption of negligence, turned his common face, and not too

sober eyes, towards the face looking down upon him so carelessly yet so potently.

'You know our governor, Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom, 'and therefore, you needn't be surprised that Loo married

old Bounderby. She never had a lover, and the governor proposed old Bounderby, and she took him.'

'Yes, but she wouldn't have been as dutiful, and it would not have come off as easily,' returned the whelp, 'if it

'I persuaded her,' he said, with an edifying air of superiority. 'I was stuck into old Bounderby's bank (where I

never wanted to be), and I knew I should get into scrapes there, if she put old Bounderby's pipe out; so I told

her my wishes, and she came into them. She would do anything for me. It was very game of her, wasn't it?'

'Not that it was altogether so important to her as it was to me,' continued Tom coolly, 'because my liberty and

comfort, and perhaps my getting on, depended on it; and she had no other lover, and staying at home was like

staying in jail especially when I was gone. It wasn't as if she gave up another lover for old Bounderby; but

'Oh,' returned Tom, with contemptuous patronage, 'she's a regular girl. A girl can get on anywhere. She has

settled down to the life, and she don't mind. It does just as well as another. Besides, though Loo is a girl, she's

not a common sort of girl. She can shut herself up within herself, and think as I have often known her sit

'Not so much of that as you may suppose,' returned Tom; 'for our governor had her crammed with all sorts of

'He did, though,' said Tom, shaking his head. 'I mean to say, Mr. Harthouse, that when I first left home and

went to old Bounderby's, I was as flat as a warmingpan, and knew no more about life, than any oyster does.'

'Upon my soul!' said the whelp. 'I am serious; I am indeed!' He smoked with great gravity and dignity for a

little while, and then added, in a highly complacent tone, 'Oh! I have picked up a little since. I don't deny that.

'My intelligent sister is about where she was. She used to complain to me that she had nothing to fall back

upon, that girls usually fall back upon; and I don't see how she is to have got over that since. But she don't

mind,' he sagaciously added, puffing at his cigar again. 'Girls can always get on, somehow.'

'Calling at the Bank yesterday evening, for Mr. Bounderby's address, I found an ancient lady there, who

seems to entertain great admiration for your sister,' observed Mr. James Harthouse, throwing away the last

His friend nodded. Tom took his cigar out of his mouth, to shut up his eye (which had grown rather

unmanageable) with the greater expression, and to tap his nose several times with his finger.

'Mother Sparsit's feeling for Loo is more than admiration, I should think,' said Tom. 'Say affection and

devotion. Mother Sparsit never set her cap at Bounderby when he was a bachelor. Oh no!'

These were the last words spoken by the whelp, before a giddy drowsiness came upon him, followed by

complete oblivion. He was roused from the latter state by an uneasy dream of being stirred up with a boot,

'Well!' he said, scrambling from the sofa. 'I must take my leave of you though. I say. Yours is very good

'He had another odd dream of being taken by a waiter through a mist, which, after giving him some trouble

and difficulty, resolved itself into the main street, in which he stood alone. He then walked home pretty

easily, though not yet free from an impression of the presence and influence of his new friend as if he were

lounging somewhere in the air, in the same negligent attitude, regarding him with the same look.

The whelp went home, and went to bed. If he had had any sense of what he had done that night, and had been

less of a whelp and more of a brother, he might have turned short on the road, might have gone down to the

illsmelling river that was dyed black, might have gone to bed in it for good and all, and have curtained his

'OH, my friends, the downtrodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my friends and fellowcountrymen, the

slaves of an ironhanded and a grinding despotism! Oh, my friends and fellowsufferers, and

fellowworkmen, and fellowmen! I tell you that the hour is come, when we must rally round one another as

One united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have battened upon the plunder of our

families, upon the sweat of our brows, upon the labour of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon

the God created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon the holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood!'

'Good!' 'Hear, hear, hear!' 'Hurrah!' and other cries, arose in many voices from various parts of the densely

crowded and suffocatingly close Hall, in which the orator, perched on a stage, delivered himself of this and

what other froth and fume he had in him. He had declaimed himself into a violent heat, and was as hoarse as

he was hot. By dint of roaring at the top of his voice under a flaring gaslight, clenching his fists, knitting his

brows, setting his teeth, and pounding with his arms, he had taken so much out of himself by this time, that

As he stood there, trying to quench his fiery face with his drink of water, the comparison between the orator

and the crowd of attentive faces turned towards him, was extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him by

Nature's evidence, he was above the mass in very little but the stage on which he stood. In many great

respects he was essentially below them. He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not so

goodhumoured; he substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe solid sense. An

illmade, highshouldered man, with lowering brows, and his features crushed into an habitually sour

expression, he contrasted most unfavourably, even in his mongrel dress, with the great body of his hearers in

their plain working clothes. Strange as it always is to consider any assembly in the act of submissively

resigning itself to the dreariness of some complacent person, lord or commoner, whom threefourths of it

could, by no human means, raise out of the slough of inanity to their own intellectual level, it was particularly

strange, and it was even particularly affecting, to see this crowd of earnest faces, whose honesty in the main

Good! Hear, hear! Hurrah! The eagerness both of attention and intention, exhibited in all the countenances,

made them a most impressive sight. There was no carelessness, no languor, no idle curiosity; none of the

many shades of indifference to be seen in all other assemblies, visible for one moment there. That every man

felt his condition to be, somehow or other, worse than it might be; that every man considered it incumbent on

him to join the rest, towards the making of it better; that every man felt his only hope to be in his allying

himself to the comrades by whom he was surrounded; and that in this belief, right or wrong (unhappily wrong

then), the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, faithfully in earnest; must have been as plain to any one

who chose to see what was there, as the bare beams of the roof and the whitened brick walls. Nor could any

such spectator fail to know in his own breast, that these men, through their very delusions, showed great

qualities, susceptible of being turned to the happiest and best account; and that to pretend (on the strength of

sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried) that they went astray wholly without cause, and of their own

irrational wills, was to pretend that there could be smoke without fire, death without birth, harvest without

The orator having refreshed himself, wiped his corrugated forehead from left to right several times with his

handkerchief folded into a pad, and concentrated all his revived forces, in a sneer of great disdain and

'But oh, my friends and brothers! Oh, men and Englishmen, the downtrodden operatives of Coketown! What

shall we say of that man that workingman, that I should find it necessary so to libel the glorious name

who, being practically and well acquainted with the grievances and wrongs of you, the injured pith and

marrow of this land, and having heard you, with a noble and majestic unanimity that will make Tyrants

tremble, resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the United Aggregate Tribunal, and to abide by the

injunctions issued by that body for your benefit, whatever they may be what, I ask you, will you say of that

workingman, since such I must acknowledge him to be, who, at such a time, deserts his post, and sells his

flag; who, at such a time, turns a traitor and a craven and a recreant, who, at such a time, is not ashamed to

make to you the dastardly and humiliating avowal that he will hold himself aloof, and will not be one of those

The assembly was divided at this point. There were some groans and hisses, but the general sense of honour

was much too strong for the condemnation of a man unheard. 'Be sure you're right, Slackbridge!' 'Put him up!'

'Let's hear him!' Such things were said on many sides. Finally, one strong voice called out, 'Is the man heer?

If the man's heer, Slackbridge, let's hear the man himseln, 'stead o' yo.' Which was received with a round of

Slackbridge, the orator, looked about him with a withering smile; and, holding out his right hand at arm's

length (as the manner of all Slackbridges is), to still the thundering sea, waited until there was a profound

'Oh, my friends and fellowmen!' said Slackbridge then, shaking his head with violent scorn, 'I do not

wonder that you, the prostrate sons of labour, are incredulous of the existence of such a man. But he who sold

his birthright for a mess of pottage existed, and Judas Iscariot existed, and Castlereagh existed, and this man

Here, a brief press and confusion near the stage, ended in the man himself standing at the orator's side before

the concourse. He was pale and a little moved in the face his lips especially showed it; but he stood quiet,

with his left hand at his chin, waiting to be heard. There was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and this

'My friends,' said he, 'by virtue o' my office as your president, I askes o' our friend Slackbridge, who may be a

little over hetter in this business, to take his seat, whiles this man Stephen Blackpool is heern. You all know

this man Stephen Blackpool. You know him awlung o' his misfort'ns, and his good name.'

With that, the chairman shook him frankly by the hand, and sat down again. Slackbridge likewise sat down,

'My friends,' Stephen began, in the midst of a dead calm; 'I ha' hed what's been spok'n o' me, and 'tis lickly

that I shan't mend it. But I'd liefer you'd hearn the truth concernin myseln, fro my lips than fro onny other

man's, though I never cud'n speak afore so monny, wi'out bein moydert and muddled.'

'I'm th' one single Hand in Bounderby's mill, o' a' the men theer, as don't coom in wi' th' proposed reg'lations.

I canna coom in wi' 'em. My friends, I doubt their doin' yo onny good. Licker they'll do yo hurt.'

'But 't an't sommuch for that as I stands out. If that were aw, I'd coom in wi' th' rest. But I ha' my reasons

Slackbridge jumped up and stood beside him, gnashing and tearing. 'Oh, my friends, what but this did I tell

you? Oh, my fellow countrymen, what warning but this did I give you? And how shows this recreant

conduct in a man on whom unequal laws are known to have fallen heavy? Oh, you Englishmen, I ask you

how does this subornation show in one of yourselves, who is thus consenting to his own undoing and to

There was some applause, and some crying of Shame upon the man; but the greater part of the audience were

quiet. They looked at Stephen's worn face, rendered more pathetic by the homely emotions it evinced; and, in

''Tis this Delegate's trade for t' speak,' said Stephen, 'an' he's paid for 't, an' he knows his work. Let him keep

to 't. Let him give no heed to what I ha had'n to bear. That's not for him. That's not for nobbody but me.'

There was a propriety, not to say a dignity in these words, that made the hearers yet more quiet and attentive.

The same strong voice called out, 'Slackbridge, let the man be heern, and howd thee tongue!' Then the place

'My brothers,' said Stephen, whose low voice was distinctly heard, 'and my fellowworkmen for that yo are

to me, though not, as I knows on, to this delegate here I ha but a word to sen, and I could sen nommore if I

was to speak till Strike o' day. I know weel, aw what's afore me. I know weel that yo aw resolve to ha

nommore ado wi' a man who is not wi' yo in this matther. I know weel that if I was a lyin parisht i' th' road,

yo'd feel it right to pass me by, as a forrenner and stranger. What I ha getn, I mun mak th' best on.'

'Stephen Blackpool,' said the chairman, rising, 'think on 't agen. Think on 't once agen, lad, afore thou'rt

There was an universal murmur to the same effect, though no man articulated a word. Every eye was fixed on

Stephen's face. To repent of his determination, would be to take a load from all their minds. He looked

around him, and knew that it was so. Not a grain of anger with them was in his heart; he knew them, far

below their surface weaknesses and misconceptions, as no one but their fellow labourer could.

'I ha thowt on 't, above a bit, sir. I simply canna coom in. I mun go th' way as lays afore me. I mun tak my

He made a sort of reverence to them by holding up his arms, and stood for the moment in that attitude; not

'Monny's the pleasant word as soom heer has spok'n wi' me; monny's the face I see heer, as I first seen when I

were yoong and lighter heart'n than now. I ha' never had no fratch afore, sin ever I were born, wi' any o' my

like; Gonnows I ha' none now that's o' my makin'. Yo'll ca' me traitor and that yo I mean t' say,' addressing

He had moved away a pace or two to come down from the platform, when he remembered something he had

'Haply,' he said, turning his furrowed face slowly about, that he might as it were individually address the

whole audience, those both near and distant; 'haply, when this question has been tak'n up and discoosed,

there'll be a threat to turn out if I'm let to work among yo. I hope I shall die ere ever such a time cooms, and I

shall work solitary among yo unless it cooms truly, I mun do 't, my friends; not to brave yo, but to live. I ha

nobbut work to live by; and wheerever can I go, I who ha worked sin I were no heighth at aw, in Coketown

heer? I mak' no complaints o' bein turned to the wa', o' bein outcasten and overlooken fro this time forrard,

but hope I shall be let to work. If there is any right for me at aw, my friends, I think 'tis that.'

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound was audible in the building, but the slight rustle of men moving a little

apart, all along the centre of the room, to open a means of passing out, to the man with whom they had all

bound themselves to renounce companionship. Looking at no one, and going his way with a lowly steadiness

upon him that asserted nothing and sought nothing, Old Stephen, with all his troubles on his head, left the

Then Slackbridge, who had kept his oratorical arm extended during the going out, as if he were repressing

with infinite solicitude and by a wonderful moral power the vehement passions of the multitude, applied

himself to raising their spirits. Had not the Roman Brutus, oh, my British countrymen, condemned his son to

death; and had not the Spartan mothers, oh my soon to be victorious friends, driven their flying children on

the points of their enemies' swords? Then was it not the sacred duty of the men of Coketown, with forefathers

before them, an admiring world in company with them, and a posterity to come after them, to hurl out traitors

from the tents they had pitched in a sacred and a Godlike cause? The winds of heaven answered Yes; and

bore Yes, east, west, north, and south. And consequently three cheers for the United Aggregate Tribunal!

Slackbridge acted as fugleman, and gave the time. The multitude of doubtful faces (a little

consciencestricken) brightened at the sound, and took it up. Private feeling must yield to the common cause.

Thus easily did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the life of solitude among a familiar crowd.

The stranger in the land who looks into ten thousand faces for some answering look and never finds it, is in

cheering society as compared with him who passes ten averted faces daily, that were once the countenances

of friends. Such experience was to be Stephen's now, in every waking moment of his life; at his work, on his

way to it and from it, at his door, at his window, everywhere. By general consent, they even avoided that side

of the street on which he habitually walked; and left it, of all the working men, to him only.

He had been for many years, a quiet silent man, associating but little with other men, and used to

companionship with his own thoughts. He had never known before the strength of the want in his heart for

the frequent recognition of a nod, a look, a word; or the immense amount of relief that had been poured into it

by drops through such small means. It was even harder than he could have believed possible, to separate in

his own conscience his abandonment by all his fellows from a baseless sense of shame and disgrace.

The first four days of his endurance were days so long and heavy, that he began to be appalled by the

prospect before him. Not only did he see no Rachael all the time, but he avoided every chance of seeing her;

for, although he knew that the prohibition did not yet formally extend to the women working in the factories,

he found that some of them with whom he was acquainted were changed to him, and he feared to try others,

and dreaded that Rachael might be even singled out from the rest if she were seen in his company. So, he had

been quite alone during the four days, and had spoken to no one, when, as he was leaving his work at night, a

Stephen coloured to find himself with his hat in his hand, in his gratitude for being spoken to, or in the

suddenness of it, or both. He made a feint of adjusting the lining, and said, 'Yes.'

'You are the Hand they have sent to Coventry, I mean?' said Bitzer, the very light young man in question.

'I supposed so, from their all appearing to keep away from you. Mr. Bounderby wants to speak to you. You

'Then go straight up there, will you?' said Bitzer. 'You're expected, and have only to tell the servant it's you. I

belong to the Bank; so, if you go straight up without me (I was sent to fetch you), you'll save me a walk.'

Stephen, whose way had been in the contrary direction, turned about, and betook himself as in duty bound, to

'WELL, Stephen,' said Bounderby, in his windy manner, 'what's this I hear? What have these pests of the

It was into the drawingroom that he was thus bidden. A teatable was set out; and Mr. Bounderby's young

wife, and her brother, and a great gentleman from London, were present. To whom Stephen made his

'This is the man I was telling you about, Harthouse,' said Mr. Bounderby. The gentleman he addressed, who

was talking to Mrs. Bounderby on the sofa, got up, saying in an indolent way, 'Oh really?' and dawdled to the

After the four days he had passed, this address fell rudely and discordantly on Stephen's ear. Besides being a

rough handling of his wounded mind, it seemed to assume that he really was the self interested deserter he

'Why, I have told you,' returned Bounderby. 'Speak up like a man, since you are a man, and tell us about

Mr. Bounderby, who was always more or less like a Wind, finding something in his way here, began to blow

'Now, look here, Harthouse,' said he, 'here's a specimen of 'em. When this man was here once before, I

warned this man against the mischievous strangers who are always about and who ought to be hanged

wherever they are found and I told this man that he was going in the wrong direction. Now, would you

believe it, that although they have put this mark upon him, he is such a slave to them still, that he's afraid to

'You said! Ah! I know what you said; more than that, I know what you mean, you see. Not always the same

thing, by the Lord Harry! Quite different things. You had better tell us at once, that that fellow Slackbridge is

not in the town, stirring up the people to mutiny; and that he is not a regular qualified leader of the people:

that is, a most confounded scoundrel. You had better tell us so at once; you can't deceive me. You want to tell

'I'm as sooary as yo, sir, when the people's leaders is bad,' said Stephen, shaking his head. 'They taks such as

offers. Haply 'tis na' the sma'est o' their misfortuns when they can get no better.'

'Now, you'll think this pretty well, Harthouse,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'You'll think this tolerably strong. You'll

say, upon my soul this is a tidy specimen of what my friends have to deal with; but this is nothing, sir! You

shall hear me ask this man a question. Pray, Mr. Blackpool' wind springing up very fast 'may I take the

liberty of asking you how it happens that you refused to be in this Combination?'

'Ah!' said Mr. Bounderby, with his thumbs in the arms of his coat, and jerking his head and shutting his eyes

'I'd leefer not coom to 't, sir; but sin you put th' question an' not want'n t' be illmanner'n I'll answer. I ha

'Not to me, you know,' said Bounderby. (Gusty weather with deceitful calms. One now prevailing.)

'As for me, any consideration for me has had just nothing at all to do with it,' said Bounderby, still in

confidence with the wall. 'If only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown had been in question, you would have

'Though he knows,' said Mr. Bounderby, now blowing a gale, 'that there are a set of rascals and rebels whom

transportation is too good for! Now, Mr. Harthouse, you have been knocking about in the world some time.

Did you ever meet with anything like that man out of this blessed country?' And Mr. Bounderby pointed him

'Nay, ma'am,' said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against the words that had been used, and

instinctively addressing himself to Louisa, after glancing at her face. 'Not rebels, nor yet rascals. Nowt o' th'

kind, ma'am, nowt o' th' kind. They've not doon me a kindness, ma'am, as I know and feel. But there's not a

dozen men amoong 'em, ma'am a dozen? Not six but what believes as he has doon his duty by the rest

and by himseln. God forbid as I, that ha' known, and had'n experience o' these men aw my life I, that ha'

ett'n an' droonken wi' 'em, an' seet'n wi' 'em, and toil'n wi' 'em, and lov'n 'em, should fail fur to stan by 'em wi'

He spoke with the rugged earnestness of his place and character deepened perhaps by a proud

consciousness that he was faithful to his class under all their mistrust; but he fully remembered where he was,

'No, ma'am, no. They're true to one another, faithfo' to one another, 'fectionate to one another, e'en to death.

Be poor amoong 'em, be sick amoong 'em, grieve amoong 'em for onny o' th' monny causes that carries grief

to the poor man's door, an' they'll be tender wi' yo, gentle wi' yo, comfortable wi' yo, Chrisen wi' yo. Be sure

'In short,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'it's because they are so full of virtues that they have turned you adrift. Go

'How 'tis, ma'am,' resumed Stephen, appearing still to find his natural refuge in Louisa's face, 'that what is

best in us fok, seems to turn us most to trouble an' misfort'n an' mistake, I dunno. But 'tis so. I know 'tis, as I

know the heavens is over me ahint the smoke. We're patient too, an' wants in general to do right. An' I canna

'Now, my friend,' said Mr. Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated more, quite unconscious of it

though he was, than by seeming to appeal to any one else, 'if you will favour me with your attention for half a

minute, I should like to have a word or two with you. You said just now, that you had nothing to tell us about

'Here's a gentleman from London present,' Mr. Bounderby made a backhanded point at Mr. James Harthouse

with his thumb, 'a Parliament gentleman. I should like him to hear a short bit of dialogue between you and

me, instead of taking the substance of it for I know precious well, beforehand, what it will be; nobody

knows better than I do, take notice! instead of receiving it on trust from my mouth.'

Stephen bent his head to the gentleman from London, and showed a rather more troubled mind than usual. He

turned his eyes involuntarily to his former refuge, but at a look from that quarter (expressive though

'I ha' not coom here, sir,' Stephen reminded him, 'to complain. I coom for that I were sent for.'

'What,' repeated Mr. Bounderby, folding his arms, 'do you people, in a general way, complain of?'

Stephen looked at him with some little irresolution for a moment, and then seemed to make up his mind.

'Sir, I were never good at showin o 't, though I ha had'n my share in feeling o 't. 'Deed we are in a muddle, sir.

Look round town so rich as 'tis and see the numbers o' people as has been broughten into bein heer, fur to

weave, an' to card, an' to piece out a livin', aw the same one way, somehows, 'twixt their cradles and their

graves. Look how we live, an' wheer we live, an' in what numbers, an' by what chances, and wi' what

sameness; and look how the mills is awlus a goin, and how they never works us no nigher to ony dis'ant

object ceptin awlus, Death. Look how you considers of us, and writes of us, and talks of us, and goes up wi'

yor deputations to Secretaries o' State 'bout us, and how yo are awlus right, and how we are awlus wrong, and

never had'n no reason in us sin ever we were born. Look how this ha growen an' growen, sir, bigger an'

bigger, broader an' broader, harder an' harder, fro year to year, fro generation unto generation. Who can look

'Of course,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Now perhaps you'll let the gentleman know, how you would set this muddle

'I donno, sir. I canna be expecten to 't. 'Tis not me as should be looken to for that, sir. 'Tis them as is put ower

me, and ower aw the rest of us. What do they tak upon themseln, sir, if not to do't?'

'I'll tell you something towards it, at any rate,' returned Mr. Bounderby. 'We will make an example of half a

dozen Slackbridges. We'll indict the blackguards for felony, and get 'em shipped off to penal settlements.'

'Don't tell me we won't, man,' said Mr. Bounderby, by this time blowing a hurricane, 'because we will, I tell

'Sir,' returned Stephen, with the quiet confidence of absolute certainty, 'if yo was t' tak a hundred

Slackbridges aw as there is, and aw the number ten times towd an' was t' sew 'em up in separate sacks, an'

sink 'em in the deepest ocean as were made ere ever dry land coom to be, yo'd leave the muddle just wheer

'tis. Mischeevous strangers!' said Stephen, with an anxious smile; 'when ha we not heern, I am sure, sin ever

we can call to mind, o' th' mischeevous strangers! 'Tis not by them the trouble's made, sir. 'Tis not wi' them 't

commences. I ha no favour for 'em I ha no reason to favour 'em but 'tis hopeless and useless to dream o'

takin them fro their trade, 'stead o' takin their trade fro them! Aw that's now about me in this room were heer

afore I coom, an' will be heer when I am gone. Put that clock aboard a ship an' pack it off to Norfolk Island,

Reverting for a moment to his former refuge, he observed a cautionary movement of her eyes towards the

door. Stepping back, he put his hand upon the lock. But he had not spoken out of his own will and desire; and

he felt it in his heart a noble return for his late injurious treatment to be faithful to the last to those who had

'Sir, I canna, wi' my little learning an' my common way, tell the genelman what will better aw this though

some working men o' this town could, above my powers but I can tell him what I know will never do 't. The

strong hand will never do 't. Vict'ry and triumph will never do 't. Agreeing fur to mak one side unnat'rally

awlus and for ever right, and toother side unnat'rally awlus and for ever wrong, will never, never do 't. Nor

yet lettin alone will never do 't. Let thousands upon thousands alone, aw leading the like lives and aw faw'en

into the like muddle, and they will be as one, and yo will be as anoother, wi' a black unpassable world betwixt

yo, just as long or short a time as sichlike misery can last. Not drawin nigh to fok, wi' kindness and patience

an' cheery ways, that so draws nigh to one another in their monny troubles, and so cherishes one another in

their distresses wi' what they need themseln like, I humbly believe, as no people the genelman ha seen in

aw his travels can beat will never do 't till th' Sun turns t' ice. Most o' aw, rating 'em as so much Power, and

reg'latin 'em as if they was figures in a soom, or machines: wi'out loves and likens, wi'out memories and

inclinations, wi'out souls to weary and souls to hope when aw goes quiet, draggin on wi' 'em as if they'd

nowt o' th' kind, and when aw goes onquiet, reproachin 'em for their want o' sitch humanly feelins in their

Stephen stood with the open door in his hand, waiting to know if anything more were expected of him.

'Just stop a moment,' said Mr. Bounderby, excessively red in the face. 'I told you, the last time you were here

with a grievance, that you had better turn about and come out of that. And I also told you, if you remember,

'Now it's clear to me,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'that you are one of those chaps who have always got a grievance.

And you go about, sowing it and raising crops. That's the business of your life, my friend.'

Stephen shook his head, mutely protesting that indeed he had other business to do for his life.

'You are such a waspish, raspish, illconditioned chap, you see,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'that even your own

Union, the men who know you best, will have nothing to do with you. I never thought those fellows could be

right in anything; but I tell you what! I so far go along with them for a novelty, that I'll have nothing to do

'You can finish off what you're at,' said Mr. Bounderby, with a meaning nod, 'and then go elsewhere.'

'Sir, yo know weel,' said Stephen expressively, 'that if I canna get work wi' yo, I canna get it elsewheer.'

The reply was, 'What I know, I know; and what you know, you know. I have no more to say about it.'

Stephen glanced at Louisa again, but her eyes were raised to his no more; therefore, with a sigh, and saying,

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 woman he had encountered on his previous visit to the

same house, when he heard a step behind him that he knew, and turning, saw her in Rachael's company.

'Well, and now you are surprised to be sure, and with reason I must say,' the old woman returned. 'Here I am

'But how wi' Rachael?' said Stephen, falling into their step, walking between them, and looking from the one

'Why, I come to be with this good lass pretty much as I came to be with you,' said the old woman, cheerfully,

taking the reply upon herself. 'My visiting time is later this year than usual, for I have been rather troubled

with shortness of breath, and so put it off till the weather was fine and warm. For the same reason I don't

make all my journey in one day, but divide it into two days, and get a bed tonight at the Travellers' Coffee

House down by the railroad (a nice clean house), and go back Parliamentary, at six in the morning. Well, but

what has this to do with this good lass, says you? I'm going to tell you. I have heard of Mr. Bounderby being

married. I read it in the paper, where it looked grand oh, it looked fine!' the old woman dwelt on it with

strange enthusiasm: 'and I want to see his wife. I have never seen her yet. Now, if you'll believe me, she

hasn't come out of that house since noon to day. So not to give her up too easily, I was waiting about, a little

last bit more, when I passed close to this good lass two or three times; and her face being so friendly I spoke

to her, and she spoke to me. There!' said the old woman to Stephen, 'you can make all the rest out for yourself

Once again, Stephen had to conquer an instinctive propensity to dislike this old woman, though her manner

was as honest and simple as a manner possibly could be. With a gentleness that was as natural to him as he

knew it to be to Rachael, he pursued the subject that interested her in her old age.

'Well, missus,' said he, 'I ha seen the lady, and she were young and hansom. Wi' fine dark thinkin eyes, and a

'Young and handsome. Yes!' cried the old woman, quite delighted. 'As bonny as a rose! And what a happy

'Aye, missus, I suppose she be,' said Stephen. But with a doubtful glance at Rachael.

'Suppose she be? She must be. She's your master's wife,' returned the old woman.

Stephen nodded assent. 'Though as to master,' said he, glancing again at Rachael, 'not master onny more.

'Why, Rachael,' he replied, 'whether I ha lef'n his work, or whether his work ha lef'n me, cooms t' th' same.

His work and me are parted. 'Tis as weel so better, I were thinkin when yo coom up wi' me. It would ha

brought'n trouble upon trouble if I had stayed theer. Haply 'tis a kindness to monny that I go; haply 'tis a

kindness to myseln; anyways it mun be done. I mun turn my face fro Coketown fur th' time, and seek a fort'n,

'I donno t'night,' said he, lifting off his hat, and smoothing his thin hair with the flat of his hand. 'But I'm not

goin t'night, Rachael, nor yet t'morrow. 'Tan't easy overmuch t' know wheer t' turn, but a good heart will

Herein, too, the sense of even thinking unselfishly aided him. Before he had so much as closed Mr.

Bounderby's door, he had reflected that at least his being obliged to go away was good for her, as it would

save her from the chance of being brought into question for not withdrawing from him. Though it would cost

him a hard pang to leave her, and though he could think of no similar place in which his condemnation would

not pursue him, perhaps it was almost a relief to be forced away from the endurance of the last four days,

So he said, with truth, 'I'm more leetsome, Rachael, under 't, than I could'n ha believed.' It was not her part to

make his burden heavier. She answered with her comforting smile, and the three walked on together.

Age, especially when it strives to be selfreliant and cheerful, finds much consideration among the poor. The

old woman was so decent and contented, and made so light of her infirmities, though they had increased upon

her since her former interview with Stephen, that they both took an interest in her. She was too sprightly to

allow of their walking at a slow pace on her account, but she was very grateful to be talked to, and very

willing to talk to any extent: so, when they came to their part of the town, she was more brisk and vivacious

'Come to my poor place, missus,' said Stephen, 'and tak a coop o' tea. Rachael will coom then; and arterwards

I'll see thee safe t' thy Travellers' lodgin. 'T may be long, Rachael, ere ever I ha th' chance o' thy coompany

They complied, and the three went on to the house where he lodged. When they turned into a narrow street,

Stephen glanced at his window with a dread that always haunted his desolate home; but it was open, as he

had left it, and no one was there. The evil spirit of his life had flitted away again, months ago, and he had

heard no more of her since. The only evidence of her last return now, were the scantier moveables in his

He lighted a candle, set out his little teaboard, got hot water from below, and brought in small portions of

tea and sugar, a loaf, and some butter from the nearest shop. The bread was new and crusty, the butter fresh,

and the sugar lump, of course in fulfilment of the standard testimony of the Coketown magnates, that these

people lived like princes, sir. Rachael made the tea (so large a party necessitated the borrowing of a cup), and

the visitor enjoyed it mightily. It was the first glimpse of sociality the host had had for many days. He too,

with the world a wide heath before him, enjoyed the meal again in corroboration of the magnates, as

'Oh, many long years!' Mrs. Pegler's husband (one of the best on record) was already dead, by Mrs. Pegler's

Mrs. Pegler's cup, rattling against her saucer as she held it, denoted some nervousness on her part. 'No,' she

'I'm sooary I ha spok'n on 't,' said Stephen, 'I ought t' hadn in my mind as I might touch a sore place. I I

While he excused himself, the old lady's cup rattled more and more. 'I had a son,' she said, curiously

distressed, and not by any of the usual appearances of sorrow; 'and he did well, wonderfully well. But he is

not to be spoken of if you please. He is ' Putting down her cup, she moved her hands as if she would have

Stephen had not yet got the better of his having given the old lady pain, when his landlady came stumbling up

the narrow stairs, and calling him to the door, whispered in his ear. Mrs. Pegler was by no means deaf, for she

'Bounderby!' she cried, in a suppressed voice, starting up from the table. 'Oh hide me! Don't let me be seen

for the world. Don't let him come up till I've got away. Pray, pray!' She trembled, and was excessively

agitated; getting behind Rachael, when Rachael tried to reassure her; and not seeming to know what she was

'But hearken, missus, hearken,' said Stephen, astonished. "Tisn't Mr. Bounderby; 'tis his wife. Yo'r not fearfo'

'But are you sure it's the lady, and not the gentleman?' she asked, still trembling.

'Well then, pray don't speak to me, nor yet take any notice of me,' said the old woman. 'Let me be quite to

Stephen nodded; looking to Rachael for an explanation, which she was quite unable to give him; took the

candle, went downstairs, and in a few moments returned, lighting Louisa into the room. She was followed by

Rachael had risen, and stood apart with her shawl and bonnet in her hand, when Stephen, himself profoundly

astonished by this visit, put the candle on the table. Then he too stood, with his doubled hand upon the table

For the first time in her life Louisa had come into one of the dwellings of the Coketown Hands; for the first

time in her life she was face to face with anything like individuality in connection with them. She knew of

their existence by hundreds and by thousands. She knew what results in work a given number of them would

produce in a given space of time. She knew them in crowds passing to and from their nests, like ants or

beetles. But she knew from her reading infinitely more of the ways of toiling insects than of these toiling men

Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; something to be infallibly settled by

laws of supply and demand; something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into difficulty;

something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and overate itself when wheat was cheap;

something that increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and such

another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made; something that

occasionally rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew the

Coketown Hands to be. But, she had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating

She stood for some moments looking round the room. From the few chairs, the few books, the common

'I have come to speak to you, in consequence of what passed just now. I should like to be serviceable to you,

'I remember,' said Louisa, reddening at her mistake; 'I recollect, now, to have heard your domestic

misfortunes spoken of, though I was not attending to the particulars at the time. It was not my meaning to ask

a question that would give pain to any one here. If I should ask any other question that may happen to have

that result, give me credit, if you please, for being in ignorance how to speak to you as I ought.'

As Stephen had but a little while ago instinctively addressed himself to her, so she now instinctively

addressed herself to Rachael. Her manner was short and abrupt, yet faltering and timid.

'He has told you what has passed between himself and my husband? You would be his first resource, I think.'

'Did I understand, that, being rejected by one employer, he would probably be rejected by all? I thought he

'The chances are very small, young lady next to nothing for a man who gets a bad name among them.'

'Then, by the prejudices of his own class, and by the prejudices of the other, he is sacrificed alike? Are the

two so deeply separated in this town, that there is no place whatever for an honest workman between them?'

'He fell into suspicion,' said Louisa, 'with his fellowweavers, because he had made a promise not to be one

of them. I think it must have been to you that he made that promise. Might I ask you why he made it?'

Rachael burst into tears. 'I didn't seek it of him, poor lad. I prayed him to avoid trouble for his own good,

little thinking he'd come to it through me. But I know he'd die a hundred deaths, ere ever he'd break his word.

Stephen had remained quietly attentive, in his usual thoughtful attitude, with his hand at his chin. He now

'No one, excepting myseln, can ever know what honour, an' what love, an' respect, I bear to Rachael, or wi'

what cause. When I passed that promess, I towd her true, she were th' Angel o' my life. 'Twere a solemn

Louisa turned her head to him, and bent it with a deference that was new in her. She looked from him to

Rachael, and her features softened. 'What will you do?' she asked him. And her voice had softened too.

'Weel, ma'am,' said Stephen, making the best of it, with a smile; 'when I ha finished off, I mun quit this part,

and try another. Fortnet or misfortnet, a man can but try; there's nowt to be done wi'out tryin' cept laying

Louisa coloured, and a purse appeared in her hand. The rustling of a banknote was audible, as she unfolded

'Rachael, will you tell him for you know how, without offence that this is freely his, to help him on his

'I canna do that, young lady,' she answered, turning her head aside. 'Bless you for thinking o' the poor lad wi'

such tenderness. But 'tis for him to know his heart, and what is right according to it.'

Louisa looked, in part incredulous, in part frightened, in part overcome with quick sympathy, when this man

of so much self command, who had been so plain and steady through the late interview, lost his composure

in a moment, and now stood with his hand before his face. She stretched out hers, as if she would have

'Not e'en Rachael,' said Stephen, when he stood again with his face uncovered, 'could mak sitch a kind

offerin, by onny words, kinder. T' show that I'm not a man wi'out reason and gratitude, I'll tak two pound. I'll

borrow 't for t' pay 't back. 'Twill be the sweetest work as ever I ha done, that puts it in my power t'

She was fain to take up the note again, and to substitute the much smaller sum he had named. He was neither

courtly, nor handsome, nor picturesque, in any respect; and yet his manner of accepting it, and of expressing

his thanks without more words, had a grace in it that Lord Chesterfield could not have taught his son in a

Tom had sat upon the bed, swinging one leg and sucking his walking stick with sufficient unconcern, until

the visit had attained this stage. Seeing his sister ready to depart, he got up, rather hurriedly, and put in a

'Just wait a moment, Loo! Before we go, I should like to speak to him a moment. Something comes into my

head. If you'll step out on the stairs, Blackpool, I'll mention it. Never mind a light, man!' Tom was

remarkably impatient of his moving towards the cupboard, to get one. 'It don't want a light.'

Stephen followed him out, and Tom closed the room door, and held the lock in his hand.

'I say!' he whispered. 'I think I can do you a good turn. Don't ask me what it is, because it may not come to

'That was our light porter at the Bank,' said Tom, 'who brought you the message tonight. I call him our light

'T' day's Monday,' replied Stephen, considering. 'Why, sir, Friday or Saturday, nigh 'bout.'

'Friday or Saturday,' said Tom. 'Now look here! I am not sure that I can do you the good turn I want to do you

that's my sister, you know, in your room but I may be able to, and if I should not be able to, there's no

'Very well,' returned Tom. 'When you leave work of a night, between this and your going away, just hang

about the Bank an hour or so, will you? Don't take on, as if you meant anything, if he should see you hanging

about there; because I shan't put him up to speak to you, unless I find I can do you the service I want to do

you. In that case he'll have a note or a message for you, but not else. Now look here! You are sure you

He had wormed a finger, in the darkness, through a buttonhole of Stephen's coat, and was screwing that

'Now look here!' repeated Tom. 'Be sure you don't make any mistake then, and don't forget. I shall tell my

sister as we go home, what I have in view, and she'll approve, I know. Now look here! You're all right, are

He pushed the door open as he called to her, but did not return into the room, or wait to be lighted down the

narrow stairs. He was at the bottom when she began to descend, and was in the street before she could take

Mrs. Pegler remained in her corner until the brother and sister were gone, and until Stephen came back with

the candle in his hand. She was in a state of inexpressible admiration of Mrs. Bounderby, and, like an

unaccountable old woman, wept, 'because she was such a pretty dear.' Yet Mrs. Pegler was so flurried lest the

object of her admiration should return by chance, or anybody else should come, that her cheerfulness was

ended for that night. It was late too, to people who rose early and worked hard; therefore the party broke up;

and Stephen and Rachael escorted their mysterious acquaintance to the door of the Travellers' Coffee House,

They walked back together to the corner of the street where Rachael lived, and as they drew nearer and nearer

to it, silence crept upon them. When they came to the dark corner where their unfrequent meetings always

'Thou wilt not, Stephen, I know. 'Tis better that we make up our minds to be open wi' one another.'

'Thou'rt awlus right. 'Tis bolder and better. I ha been thinkin then, Rachael, that as 'tis but a day or two that

remains, 'twere better for thee, my dear, not t' be seen wi' me. 'T might bring thee into trouble, fur no good.'

''Tis not for that, Stephen, that I mind. But thou know'st our old agreement. 'Tis for that.'

'Yes. What can I say now, but Heaven be wi' thee, Heaven bless thee, Heaven thank thee and reward thee!'

'May it bless thee, Stephen, too, in all thy wanderings, and send thee peace and rest at last!'

'I towd thee, my dear,' said Stephen Blackpool 'that night that I would never see or think o' onnything that

angered me, but thou, so much better than me, should'st be beside it. Thou'rt beside it now. Thou mak'st me

It was but a hurried parting in a common street, yet it was a sacred remembrance to these two common

people. Utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, Commissioners of Fact, genteel and usedup

infidels, gabblers of many little dog'seared creeds, the poor you will have always with you. Cultivate in

them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in

need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they

and a bare existence stand face to face, Reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you.

Stephen worked the next day, and the next, uncheered by a word from any one, and shunned in all his

comings and goings as before. At the end of the second day, he saw land; at the end of the third, his loom

He had overstayed his hour in the street outside the Bank, on each of the two first evenings; and nothing had

happened there, good or bad. That he might not be remiss in his part of the engagement, he resolved to wait

There was the lady who had once kept Mr. Bounderby's house, sitting at the firstfloor window as he had

seen her before; and there was the light porter, sometimes talking with her there, and sometimes looking over

the blind below which had BANK upon it, and sometimes coming to the door and standing on the steps for a

breath of air. When he first came out, Stephen thought he might be looking for him, and passed near; but the

Two hours were a long stretch of lounging about, after a long day's labour. Stephen sat upon the step of a

door, leaned against a wall under an archway, strolled up and down, listened for the church clock, stopped

and watched children playing in the street. Some purpose or other is so natural to every one, that a mere

loiterer always looks and feels remarkable. When the first hour was out, Stephen even began to have an

uncomfortable sensation upon him of being for the time a disreputable character.

Then came the lamplighter, and two lengthening lines of light all down the long perspective of the street,

until they were blended and lost in the distance. Mrs. Sparsit closed the firstfloor window, drew down the

blind, and went upstairs. Presently, a light went upstairs after her, passing first the fanlight of the door, and

afterwards the two staircase windows, on its way up. By and by, one corner of the secondfloor blind was

disturbed, as if Mrs. Sparsit's eye were there; also the other corner, as if the light porter's eye were on that

side. Still, no communication was made to Stephen. Much relieved when the two hours were at last

accomplished, he went away at a quick pace, as a recompense for so much loitering.

He had only to take leave of his landlady, and lie down on his temporary bed upon the floor; for his bundle

was made up for to morrow, and all was arranged for his departure. He meant to be clear of the town very

It was barely daybreak, when, with a parting look round his room, mournfully wondering whether he should

ever see it again, he went out. The town was as entirely deserted as if the inhabitants had abandoned it, rather

than hold communication with him. Everything looked wan at that hour. Even the coming sun made but a

By the place where Rachael lived, though it was not in his way; by the red brick streets; by the great silent

factories, not trembling yet; by the railway, where the dangerlights were waning in the strengthening day;

by the railway's crazy neighbourhood, half pulled down and half built up; by scattered red brick villas, where

the besmoked evergreens were sprinkled with a dirty powder, like untidy snufftakers; by coaldust paths

and many varieties of ugliness; Stephen got to the top of the hill, and looked back.

Day was shining radiantly upon the town then, and the bells were going for the morning work. Domestic fires

were not yet lighted, and the high chimneys had the sky to themselves. Puffing out their poisonous volumes,

they would not be long in hiding it; but, for half an hour, some of the many windows were golden, which

showed the Coketown people a sun eternally in eclipse, through a medium of smoked glass.

So strange to turn from the chimneys to the birds. So strange, to have the roaddust on his feet instead of the

coalgrit. So strange to have lived to his time of life, and yet to be beginning like a boy this summer

morning! With these musings in his mind, and his bundle under his arm, Stephen took his attentive face along

the high road. And the trees arched over him, whispering that he left a true and loving heart behind.

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 patronized of the polite deadly

sins, he speedily came to be considered of much promise. The not being troubled with earnestness was a

grand point in his favour, enabling him to take to the hard Fact fellows with as good a grace as if he had been

born one of the tribe, and to throw all other tribes overboard, as conscious hypocrites.

'Whom none of us believe, my dear Mrs. Bounderby, and who do not believe themselves. The only difference

between us and the professors of virtue or benevolence, or philanthropy never mind the name is, that we

know it is all meaningless, and say so; while they know it equally and will never say so.'

Why should she be shocked or warned by this reiteration? It was not so unlike her father's principles, and her

early training, that it need startle her. Where was the great difference between the two schools, when each

chained her down to material realities, and inspired her with no faith in anything else? What was there in her

soul for James Harthouse to destroy, which Thomas Gradgrind had nurtured there in its state of innocence!

It was even the worse for her at this pass, that in her mind implanted there before her eminently practical

father began to form it a struggling disposition to believe in a wider and nobler humanity than she had ever

heard of, constantly strove with doubts and resentments. With doubts, because the aspiration had been so laid

waste in her youth. With resentments, because of the wrong that had been done her, if it were indeed a

whisper of the truth. Upon a nature long accustomed to selfsuppression, thus torn and divided, the

Harthouse philosophy came as a relief and justification. Everything being hollow and worthless, she had

missed nothing and sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had said to her father, when he proposed her

husband. What did it matter, she said still. With a scornful selfreliance, she asked herself, What did anything

Towards what? Step by step, onward and downward, towards some end, yet so gradually, that she believed

herself to remain motionless. As to Mr. Harthouse, whither he tended, he neither considered nor cared. He

had no particular design or plan before him: no energetic wickedness ruffled his lassitude. He was as much

amused and interested, at present, as it became so fine a gentleman to be; perhaps even more than it would

have been consistent with his reputation to confess. Soon after his arrival he languidly wrote to his brother,

the honourable and jocular member, that the Bounderbys were 'great fun;' and further, that the female

Bounderby, instead of being the Gorgon he had expected, was young, and remarkably pretty. After that, he

wrote no more about them, and devoted his leisure chiefly to their house. He was very often in their house, in

his flittings and visitings about the Coketown district; and was much encouraged by Mr. Bounderby. It was

quite in Mr. Bounderby's gusty way to boast to all his world that he didn't care about your highly connected

people, but that if his wife Tom Gradgrind's daughter did, she was welcome to their company.

Mr. James Harthouse began to think it would be a new sensation, if the face which changed so beautifully for

He was quick enough to observe; he had a good memory, and did not forget a word of the brother's

revelations. He interwove them with everything he saw of the sister, and he began to understand her. To be

sure, the better and profounder part of her character was not within his scope of perception; for in natures, as

in seas, depth answers unto depth; but he soon began to read the rest with a student's eye.

Mr. Bounderby had taken possession of a house and grounds, about fifteen miles from the town, and

accessible within a mile or two, by a railway striding on many arches over a wild country, undermined by

deserted coalshafts, and spotted at night by fires and black shapes of stationary engines at pits' mouths. This

country, gradually softening towards the neighbourhood of Mr. Bounderby's retreat, there mellowed into a

rustic landscape, golden with heath, and snowy with hawthorn in the spring of the year, and tremulous with

leaves and their shadows all the summer time. The bank had foreclosed a mortgage effected on the property

thus pleasantly situated, by one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his determination to make a shorter cut

than usual to an enormous fortune, overspeculated himself by about two hundred thousand pounds. These

accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated families of Coketown, but the bankrupts had no

It afforded Mr. Bounderby supreme satisfaction to instal himself in this snug little estate, and with

demonstrative humility to grow cabbages in the flowergarden. He delighted to live, barrack fashion,

among the elegant furniture, and he bullied the very pictures with his origin. 'Why, sir,' he would say to a

visitor, 'I am told that Nickits,' the late owner, 'gave seven hundred pound for that Seabeach. Now, to be plain

with you, if I ever, in the whole course of my life, take seven looks at it, at a hundred pound a look, it will be

as much as I shall do. No, by George! I don't forget that I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. For years upon

years, the only pictures in my possession, or that I could have got into my possession, by any means, unless I

stole 'em, were the engravings of a man shaving himself in a boot, on the blacking bottles that I was

overjoyed to use in cleaning boots with, and that I sold when they were empty for a farthing apiece, and

'Harthouse, you have a couple of horses down here. Bring half a dozen more if you like, and we'll find room

for 'em. There's stabling in this place for a dozen horses; and unless Nickits is belied, he kept the full number.

A round dozen of 'em, sir. When that man was a boy, he went to Westminster School. Went to Westminster

School as a King's Scholar, when I was principally living on garbage, and sleeping in market baskets. Why, if

I wanted to keep a dozen horses which I don't, for one's enough for me I couldn't bear to see 'em in their

stalls here, and think what my own lodging used to be. I couldn't look at 'em, sir, and not order 'em out. Yet

so things come round. You see this place; you know what sort of a place it is; you are aware that there's not a

completer place of its size in this kingdom or elsewhere I don't care where and here, got into the middle

of it, like a maggot into a nut, is Josiah Bounderby. While Nickits (as a man came into my office, and told me

yesterday), Nickits, who used to act in Latin, in the Westminster School plays, with the chief justices and

nobility of this country applauding him till they were black in the face, is drivelling at this minute

It was among the leafy shadows of this retirement, in the long sultry summer days, that Mr. Harthouse began

to prove the face which had set him wondering when he first saw it, and to try if it would change for him.

'Mrs. Bounderby, I esteem it a most fortunate accident that I find you alone here. I have for some time had a

It was not by any wonderful accident that he found her, the time of day being that at which she was always

alone, and the place being her favourite resort. It was an opening in a dark wood, where some felled trees lay,

and where she would sit watching the fallen leaves of last year, as she had watched the falling ashes at home.

Her colour brightened, and she turned to him with a look of interest. 'I never in my life,' he thought, 'saw

anything so remarkable and so captivating as the lighting of those features!' His face betrayed his thoughts

perhaps without betraying him, for it might have been according to its instructions so to do.

'Pardon me. The expression of your sisterly interest is so beautiful Tom should be so proud of it I know

'Mrs. Bounderby, no: you know I make no pretence with you. You know I am a sordid piece of human nature,

ready to sell myself at any time for any reasonable sum, and altogether incapable of any Arcadian proceeding

'You are rigid with me, and I deserve it. I am as worthless a dog as you will find, except that I am not false

not false. But you surprised and started me from my subject, which was your brother. I have an interest in

'Have you an interest in anything, Mr. Harthouse?' she asked, half incredulously and half gratefully.

'If you had asked me when I first came here, I should have said no. I must say now even at the hazard of

She made a slight movement, as if she were trying to speak, but could not find voice; at length she said, 'Mr.

'Thank you. I claim to deserve it. You know how little I do claim, but I will go that length. You have done so

much for him, you are so fond of him; your whole life, Mrs. Bounderby, expresses such charming

selfforgetfulness on his account pardon me again I am running wide of the subject. I am interested in

She had made the slightest action possible, as if she would have risen in a hurry and gone away. He had

'Mrs. Bounderby,' he resumed, in a lighter manner, and yet with a show of effort in assuming it, which was

even more expressive than the manner he dismissed; 'it is no irrevocable offence in a young fellow of your

brother's years, if he is heedless, inconsiderate, and expensive a little dissipated, in the common phrase. Is

'I think he makes bets.' Mr. Harthouse waiting, as if that were not her whole answer, she added, 'I know he

'Everybody does lose who bets. May I hint at the probability of your sometimes supplying him with money

She sat, looking down; but, at this question, raised her eyes searchingly and a little resentfully.

'Acquit me of impertinent curiosity, my dear Mrs. Bounderby. I think Tom may be gradually falling into

trouble, and I wish to stretch out a helping hand to him from the depths of my wicked experience. Shall I

'Candidly to confess everything that has occurred to me,' said James Harthouse, again gliding with the same

appearance of effort into his more airy manner; 'I will confide to you my doubt whether he has had many

advantages. Whether forgive my plainness whether any great amount of confidence is likely to have been

'I do not,' said Louisa, flushing with her own great remembrance in that wise, 'think it likely.'

'Or, between himself, and I may trust to your perfect understanding of my meaning, I am sure and his

She flushed deeper and deeper, and was burning red when she replied in a fainter voice, 'I do not think that

'Mrs. Bounderby,' said Harthouse, after a short silence, 'may there be a better confidence between yourself

'You will understand, Mr. Harthouse,' she returned, after some indecision: she had been more or less

uncertain, and troubled throughout the conversation, and yet had in the main preserved her selfcontained

manner; 'you will understand that if I tell you what you press to know, it is not by way of complaint or regret.

I would never complain of anything, and what I have done I do not in the least regret.'

'When I married, I found that my brother was even at that time heavily in debt. Heavily for him, I mean.

Heavily enough to oblige me to sell some trinkets. They were no sacrifice. I sold them very willingly. I

Either she saw in his face that he knew, or she only feared in her conscience that he knew, that she spoke of

some of her husband's gifts. She stopped, and reddened again. If he had not known it before, he would have

'Since then, I have given my brother, at various times, what money I could spare: in short, what money I have

had. Confiding in you at all, on the faith of the interest you profess for him, I will not do so by halves. Since

you have been in the habit of visiting here, he has wanted in one sum as much as a hundred pounds. I have

not been able to give it to him. I have felt uneasy for the consequences of his being so involved, but I have

kept these secrets until now, when I trust them to your honour. I have held no confidence with any one,

He was a ready man, and he saw, and seized, an opportunity here of presenting her own image to her, slightly

'Mrs. Bounderby, though a graceless person, of the world worldly, I feel the utmost interest, I assure you, in

what you tell me. I cannot possibly be hard upon your brother. I understand and share the wise consideration

with which you regard his errors. With all possible respect both for Mr. Gradgrind and for Mr. Bounderby, I

think I perceive that he has not been fortunate in his training. Bred at a disadvantage towards the society in

which he has his part to play, he rushes into these extremes for himself, from opposite extremes that have

long been forced with the very best intentions we have no doubt upon him. Mr. Bounderby's fine bluff

English independence, though a most charming characteristic, does not as we have agreed invite

confidence. If I might venture to remark that it is the least in the world deficient in that delicacy to which a

youth mistaken, a character misconceived, and abilities misdirected, would turn for relief and guidance, I

As she sat looking straight before her, across the changing lights upon the grass into the darkness of the wood

beyond, he saw in her face her application of his very distinctly uttered words.

'All allowance,' he continued, 'must be made. I have one great fault to find with Tom, however, which I

'Perhaps,' he returned, 'I have said enough. Perhaps it would have been better, on the whole, if no allusion to

'To relieve you from needless apprehension and as this confidence regarding your brother, which I prize I

am sure above all possible things, has been established between us I obey. I cannot forgive him for not

being more sensible in every word, look, and act of his life, of the affection of his best friend; of the devotion

of his best friend; of her unselfishness; of her sacrifice. The return he makes her, within my observation, is a

very poor one. What she has done for him demands his constant love and gratitude, not his ill humour and

caprice. Careless fellow as I am, I am not so indifferent, Mrs. Bounderby, as to be regardless of this vice in

The wood floated before her, for her eyes were suffused with tears. They rose from a deep well, long

concealed, and her heart was filled with acute pain that found no relief in them.

'In a word, it is to correct your brother in this, Mrs. Bounderby, that I must aspire. My better knowledge of his

circumstances, and my direction and advice in extricating them rather valuable, I hope, as coming from a

scapegrace on a much larger scale will give me some influence over him, and all I gain I shall certainly use

towards this end. I have said enough, and more than enough. I seem to be protesting that I am a sort of good

fellow, when, upon my honour, I have not the least intention to make any protestation to that effect, and

openly announce that I am nothing of the sort. Yonder, among the trees,' he added, having lifted up his eyes

and looked about; for he had watched her closely until now; 'is your brother himself; no doubt, just come

down. As he seems to be loitering in this direction, it may be as well, perhaps, to walk towards him, and

throw ourselves in his way. He has been very silent and doleful of late. Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is

touched if there are such things as consciences. Though, upon my honour, I hear of them much too often to

He assisted her to rise, and she took his arm, and they advanced to meet the whelp. He was idly beating the

branches as he lounged along: or he stooped viciously to rip the moss from the trees with his stick. He was

startled when they came upon him while he was engaged in this latter pastime, and his colour changed.

'Whose name, Tom,' said Mr. Harthouse, putting his hand upon his shoulder and turning him, so that they all

'You have a suspicious appearance of inscribing some fair creature's on the bark, Tom.'

'Not much of that, Mr. Harthouse, unless some fair creature with a slashing fortune at her own disposal would

take a fancy to me. Or she might be as ugly as she was rich, without any fear of losing me. I'd carve her name

'Have you so proved it to be a failing of mine, Tom?' said Louisa, showing no other sense of his discontent

'You know whether the cap fits you, Loo,' returned her brother sulkily. 'If it does, you can wear it.'

'Tom is misanthropical today, as all bored people are now and then,' said Mr. Harthouse. 'Don't believe him,

Mrs. Bounderby. He knows much better. I shall disclose some of his opinions of you, privately expressed to

'At all events, Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom, softening in his admiration of his patron, but shaking his head

sullenly too, 'you can't tell her that I ever praised her for being mercenary. I may have praised her for being

the contrary, and I should do it again, if I had as good reason. However, never mind this now; it's not very

They walked on to the house, where Louisa quitted her visitor's arm and went in. He stood looking after her,

as she ascended the steps, and passed into the shadow of the door; then put his hand upon her brother's

shoulder again, and invited him with a confidential nod to a walk in the garden.

They had stopped among a disorder of roses it was part of Mr. Bounderby's humility to keep Nickits's roses

on a reduced scale and Tom sat down on a terraceparapet, plucking buds and picking them to pieces;

while his powerful Familiar stood over him, with a foot upon the parapet, and his figure easily resting on the

arm supported by that knee. They were just visible from her window. Perhaps she saw them.

'Oh! Mr. Harthouse,' said Tom with a groan, 'I am hard up, and bothered out of my life.'

'You!' returned Tom. 'You are the picture of independence. Mr. Harthouse, I am in a horrible mess. You have

no idea what a state I have got myself into what a state my sister might have got me out of, if she would

He took to biting the rosebuds now, and tearing them away from his teeth with a hand that trembled like an

infirm old man's. After one exceedingly observant look at him, his companion relapsed into his lightest air.

'Tom, you are inconsiderate: you expect too much of your sister. You have had money of her, you dog, you

'Well, Mr. Harthouse, I know I have. How else was I to get it? Here's old Bounderby always boasting that at

my age he lived upon twopence a month, or something of that sort. Here's my father drawing what he calls a

line, and tying me down to it from a baby, neck and heels. Here's my mother who never has anything of her

own, except her complaints. What is a fellow to do for money, and where am I to look for it, if not to my

He was almost crying, and scattered the buds about by dozens. Mr. Harthouse took him persuasively by the

'Not got it, Mr. Harthouse? I don't say she has got it. I may have wanted more than she was likely to have got.

But then she ought to get it. She could get it. It's of no use pretending to make a secret of matters now, after

what I have told you already; you know she didn't marry old Bounderby for her own sake, or for his sake, but

for my sake. Then why doesn't she get what I want, out of him, for my sake? She is not obliged to say what

she is going to do with it; she is sharp enough; she could manage to coax it out of him, if she chose. Then

why doesn't she choose, when I tell her of what consequence it is? But no. There she sits in his company like

a stone, instead of making herself agreeable and getting it easily. I don't know what you may call this, but I

There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr.

James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind junior, as the injured men of

Coketown threatened to pitch their property into the Atlantic. But he preserved his easy attitude; and nothing

more solid went over the stone balustrades than the accumulated rosebuds now floating about, a little

'For God's sake,' replied Tom, suddenly, 'don't talk about bankers!' And very white he looked, in contrast with

Mr. Harthouse, as a thoroughly wellbred man, accustomed to the best society, was not to be surprised he

could as soon have been affected but he raised his eyelids a little more, as if they were lifted by a feeble

touch of wonder. Albeit it was as much against the precepts of his school to wonder, as it was against the

'What is the present need, Tom? Three figures? Out with them. Say what they are.'

'Mr. Harthouse,' returned Tom, now actually crying; and his tears were better than his injuries, however

pitiful a figure he made: 'it's too late; the money is of no use to me at present. I should have had it before to be

A true friend! 'Whelp, whelp!' thought Mr. Harthouse, lazily; 'what an Ass you are!'

'And I take your offer as a great kindness,' said Tom, grasping his hand. 'As a great kindness, Mr. Harthouse.'

'Well,' returned the other, 'it may be of more use by and by. And, my good fellow, if you will open your

bedevilments to me when they come thick upon you, I may show you better ways out of them than you can

'Thank you,' said Tom, shaking his head dismally, and chewing rosebuds. 'I wish I had known you sooner,

'Now, you see, Tom,' said Mr. Harthouse in conclusion, himself tossing over a rose or two, as a contribution

to the island, which was always drifting to the wall as if it wanted to become a part of the mainland: 'every

man is selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly like the rest of my fellowcreatures. I am desperately

intent;' the languor of his desperation being quite tropical; 'on your softening towards your sister which you

ought to do; and on your being a more loving and agreeable sort of brother which you ought to be.'

'Having made which bargain, Tom,' said Harthouse, clapping him on the shoulder again, with an air which

left him at liberty to infer as he did, poor fool that this condition was imposed upon him in mere careless

good nature to lessen his sense of obligation, 'we will tear ourselves asunder until dinnertime.'

When Tom appeared before dinner, though his mind seemed heavy enough, his body was on the alert; and he

appeared before Mr. Bounderby came in. 'I didn't mean to be cross, Loo,' he said, giving her his hand, and

After this, there was a smile upon Louisa's face that day, for some one else. Alas, for some one else!

'So much the less is the whelp the only creature that she cares for,' thought James Harthouse, reversing the

reflection of his first day's knowledge of her pretty face. 'So much the less, so much the less.'

THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the

pleasant bay window of his dressingroom, smoking the rare tobacco that had had so wholesome an

influence on his young friend. Reposing in the sunlight, with the fragrance of his eastern pipe about him, and

the dreamy smoke vanishing into the air, so rich and soft with summer odours, he reckoned up his advantages

as an idle winner might count his gains. He was not at all bored for the time, and could give his mind to it.

He had established a confidence with her, from which her husband was excluded. He had established a

confidence with her, that absolutely turned upon her indifference towards her husband, and the absence, now

and at all times, of any congeniality between them. He had artfully, but plainly, assured her that he knew her

heart in its last most delicate recesses; he had come so near to her through its tenderest sentiment; he had

associated himself with that feeling; and the barrier behind which she lived, had melted away. All very odd,

And yet he had not, even now, any earnest wickedness of purpose in him. Publicly and privately, it were

much better for the age in which he lived, that he and the legion of whom he was one were designedly bad,

than indifferent and purposeless. It is the drifting icebergs setting with any current anywhere, that wreck the

When the Devil goeth about like a roaring lion, he goeth about in a shape by which few but savages and

hunters are attracted. But, when he is trimmed, smoothed, and varnished, according to the mode; when he is

aweary of vice, and aweary of virtue, used up as to brimstone, and used up as to bliss; then, whether he take

to the serving out of red tape, or to the kindling of red fire, he is the very Devil.

So James Harthouse reclined in the window, indolently smoking, and reckoning up the steps he had taken on

the road by which he happened to be travelling. The end to which it led was before him, pretty plainly; but he

As he had rather a long ride to take that day for there was a public occasion 'to do' at some distance, which

afforded a tolerable opportunity of going in for the Gradgrind men he dressed early and went down to

breakfast. He was anxious to see if she had relapsed since the previous evening. No. He resumed where he

He got through the day as much (or as little) to his own satisfaction, as was to be expected under the fatiguing

circumstances; and came riding back at six o'clock. There was a sweep of some halfmile between the lodge

and the house, and he was riding along at a foot pace over the smooth gravel, once Nickits's, when Mr.

Bounderby burst out of the shrubbery, with such violence as to make his horse shy across the road.

'Heard what?' said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly favouring Mr. Bounderby with no good

Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the path before the horse's head, to explode his

'Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary manner. Robbed with a false key.'

Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really seemed mortified by being obliged to reply, 'Why,

'Oh! as a sum if you stick to a sum of not more than a hundred and fifty pound,' said Bounderby, with

impatience. 'But it's not the sum; it's the fact. It's the fact of the Bank being robbed, that's the important

'My dear Bounderby,' said James, dismounting, and giving his bridle to his servant, 'I do see it; and am as

overcome as you can possibly desire me to be, by the spectacle afforded to my mental view. Nevertheless, I

may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you which I do with all my soul, I assure you on your not having

'Thank'ee,' replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious manner. 'But I tell you what. It might have been twenty

'Suppose it might! By the Lord, you may suppose so. By George!' said Mr. Bounderby, with sundry menacing

nods and shakes of his head. 'It might have been twice twenty. There's no knowing what it would have been,

'Here's Tom Gradgrind's daughter knows pretty well what it might have been, if you don't,' blustered

Bounderby. 'Dropped, sir, as if she was shot when I told her! Never knew her do such a thing before. Does

She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse begged her to take his arm; and as they moved on very

'Why, I am going to tell you,' said Bounderby, irritably giving his arm to Mrs. Sparsit. 'If you hadn't been so

mighty particular about the sum, I should have begun to tell you before. You know this lady (for she is a

'Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw him too on the same occasion?' Mr. Harthouse inclined his

'Very well. They live at the Bank. You know they live at the Bank, perhaps? Very well. Yesterday afternoon,

at the close of business hours, everything was put away as usual. In the iron room that this young fellow

sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. In the little safe in young Tom's closet, the safe used for

'Come!' retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel round upon him, 'let's have none of your interruptions. It's

enough to be robbed while you're snoring because you're too comfortable, without being put right with your

four seven ones. I didn't snore, myself, when I was your age, let me tell you. I hadn't victuals enough to snore.

Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and seemed at once particularly impressed and

'A hundred and fifty odd pound,' resumed Mr. Bounderby. 'That sum of money, young Tom locked in his

safe, not a very strong safe, but that's no matter now. Everything was left, all right. Some time in the night,

while this young fellow snored Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, you say you have heard him snore?'

'Sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I cannot say that I have heard him precisely snore, and therefore must not make

that statement. But on winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what I should

prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar

to what may be sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,' said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict

evidence, 'that I would convey any imputation on his moral character. Far from it. I have always considered

Bitzer a young man of the most upright principle; and to that I beg to bear my testimony.'

'Well!' said the exasperated Bounderby, 'while he was snoring, or choking, or Dutchclocking, or something

or other being asleep some fellows, somehow, whether previously concealed in the house or not remains

to be seen, got to young Tom's safe, forced it, and abstracted the contents. Being then disturbed, they made

off; letting themselves out at the main door, and doublelocking it again (it was doublelocked, and the key

under Mrs. Sparsit's pillow) with a false key, which was picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve

o'clock today. No alarm takes place, till this chap, Bitzer, turns out this morning, and begins to open and

prepare the offices for business. Then, looking at Tom's safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced,

'He has been helping the police,' said Bounderby, 'and stays behind at the Bank. I wish these fellows had tried

to rob me when I was at his time of life. They would have been out of pocket if they had invested

'Suspected? I should think there was somebody suspected. Egod!' said Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs.

Sparsit's arm to wipe his heated head. 'Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is not to be plundered and nobody

'Well,' said Bounderby, stopping and facing about to confront them all, 'I'll tell you. It's not to be mentioned

everywhere; it's not to be mentioned anywhere: in order that the scoundrels concerned (there's a gang of 'em)

may be thrown off their guard. So take this in confidence. Now wait a bit.' Mr. Bounderby wiped his head

again. 'What should you say to;' here he violently exploded: 'to a Hand being in it?'

'O yes! I know!' said Bounderby, immediately catching at the sound. 'I know! I am used to that. I know all

about it. They are the finest people in the world, these fellows are. They have got the gift of the gab, they

have. They only want to have their rights explained to them, they do. But I tell you what. Show me a

dissatisfied Hand, and I'll show you a man that's fit for anything bad, I don't care what it is.'

Another of the popular fictions of Coketown, which some pains had been taken to disseminate and which

'But I am acquainted with these chaps,' said Bounderby. 'I can read 'em off, like books. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, I

appeal to you. What warning did I give that fellow, the first time he set foot in the house, when the express

object of his visit was to know how he could knock Religion over, and floor the Established Church? Mrs.

Sparsit, in point of high connexions, you are on a level with the aristocracy, did I say, or did I not say, to

that fellow, "you can't hide the truth from me: you are not the kind of fellow I like; you'll come to no good"?'

'Assuredly, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'you did, in a highly impressive manner, give him such an admonition.'

'Yes, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a meek shake of her head, 'he certainly did so. Though I do not mean to

say but that my feelings may be weaker on such points more foolish if the term is preferred than they

Mr. Bounderby stared with a bursting pride at Mr. Harthouse, as much as to say, 'I am the proprietor of this

'You can recall for yourself, Harthouse, what I said to him when you saw him. I didn't mince the matter with

him. I am never mealy with 'em. I KNOW 'em. Very well, sir. Three days after that, he bolted. Went off,

nobody knows where: as my mother did in my infancy only with this difference, that he is a worse subject

than my mother, if possible. What did he do before he went? What do you say;' Mr. Bounderby, with his hat

in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every little division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine; 'to

his being seen night after night watching the Bank? to his lurking about there after dark? To its

striking Mrs. Sparsit that he could be lurking for no good To her calling Bitzer's attention to him, and

their both taking notice of him And to its appearing on inquiry today that he was also noticed by the

neighbours?' Having come to the climax, Mr. Bounderby, like an oriental dancer, put his tambourine on his

'I think so, sir,' said Bounderby, with a defiant nod. 'I think so. But there are more of 'em in it. There's an old

woman. One never hears of these things till the mischief's done; all sorts of defects are found out in the stable

door after the horse is stolen; there's an old woman turns up now. An old woman who seems to have been

flying into town on a broomstick, every now and then. She watches the place a whole day before this fellow

begins, and on the night when you saw him, she steals away with him and holds a council with him I

There was such a person in the room that night, and she shrunk from observation, thought Louisa.

'This is not all of 'em, even as we already know 'em,' said Bounderby, with many nods of hidden meaning.

'But I have said enough for the present. You'll have the goodness to keep it quiet, and mention it to no one. It

may take time, but we shall have 'em. It's policy to give 'em line enough, and there's no objection to that.'

'Of course, they will be punished with the utmost rigour of the law, as noticeboards observe,' replied James

Harthouse, 'and serve them right. Fellows who go in for Banks must take the consequences. If there were no

consequences, we should all go in for Banks.' He had gently taken Louisa's parasol from her hand, and had

put it up for her; and she walked under its shade, though the sun did not shine there.

'For the present, Loo Bounderby,' said her husband, 'here's Mrs. Sparsit to look after. Mrs. Sparsit's nerves

have been acted upon by this business, and she'll stay here a day or two. So make her comfortable.'

'Thank you very much, sir,' that discreet lady observed, 'but pray do not let My comfort be a consideration.

It soon appeared that if Mrs. Sparsit had a failing in her association with that domestic establishment, it was

that she was so excessively regardless of herself and regardful of others, as to be a nuisance. On being shown

her chamber, she was so dreadfully sensible of its comforts as to suggest the inference that she would have

preferred to pass the night on the mangle in the laundry. True, the Powlers and the Scadgerses were

accustomed to splendour, 'but it is my duty to remember,' Mrs. Sparsit was fond of observing with a lofty

grace: particularly when any of the domestics were present, 'that what I was, I am no longer. Indeed,' said she,

'if I could altogether cancel the remembrance that Mr. Sparsit was a Powler, or that I myself am related to the

Scadgers family; or if I could even revoke the fact, and make myself a person of common descent and

ordinary connexions; I would gladly do so. I should think it, under existing circumstances, right to do so.' The

same Hermitical state of mind led to her renunciation of made dishes and wines at dinner, until fairly

commanded by Mr. Bounderby to take them; when she said, 'Indeed you are very good, sir;' and departed

from a resolution of which she had made rather formal and public announcement, to 'wait for the simple

mutton.' She was likewise deeply apologetic for wanting the salt; and, feeling amiably bound to bear out Mr.

Bounderby to the fullest extent in the testimony he had borne to her nerves, occasionally sat back in her chair

and silently wept; at which periods a tear of large dimensions, like a crystal earring, might be observed (or

But Mrs. Sparsit's greatest point, first and last, was her determination to pity Mr. Bounderby. There were

occasions when in looking at him she was involuntarily moved to shake her head, as who would say, 'Alas,

poor Yorick!' After allowing herself to be betrayed into these evidences of emotion, she would force a

lambent brightness, and would be fitfully cheerful, and would say, 'You have still good spirits, sir, I am

thankful to find;' and would appear to hail it as a blessed dispensation that Mr. Bounderby bore up as he did.

One idiosyncrasy for which she often apologized, she found it excessively difficult to conquer. She had a

curious propensity to call Mrs. Bounderby 'Miss Gradgrind,' and yielded to it some three or four score times

in the course of the evening. Her repetition of this mistake covered Mrs. Sparsit with modest confusion; but

indeed, she said, it seemed so natural to say Miss Gradgrind: whereas, to persuade herself that the young lady

whom she had had the happiness of knowing from a child could be really and truly Mrs. Bounderby, she

found almost impossible. It was a further singularity of this remarkable case, that the more she thought about

it, the more impossible it appeared; 'the differences,' she observed, 'being such.'

In the drawingroom after dinner, Mr. Bounderby tried the case of the robbery, examined the witnesses,

made notes of the evidence, found the suspected persons guilty, and sentenced them to the extreme

punishment of the law. That done, Bitzer was dismissed to town with instructions to recommend Tom to

When candles were brought, Mrs. Sparsit murmured, 'Don't be low, sir. Pray let me see you cheerful, sir, as I

used to do.' Mr. Bounderby, upon whom these consolations had begun to produce the effect of making him,

in a bullheaded blundering way, sentimental, sighed like some large seaanimal. 'I cannot bear to see you

so, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Try a hand at backgammon, sir, as you used to do when I had the honour of living

under your roof.' 'I haven't played backgammon, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'since that time.' 'No, sir,' said

Mrs. Sparsit, soothingly, 'I am aware that you have not. I remember that Miss Gradgrind takes no interest in

They played near a window, opening on the garden. It was a fine night: not moonlight, but sultry and

fragrant. Louisa and Mr. Harthouse strolled out into the garden, where their voices could be heard in the

stillness, though not what they said. Mrs. Sparsit, from her place at the backgammon board, was constantly

straining her eyes to pierce the shadows without. 'What's the matter, ma'am? ' said Mr. Bounderby; 'you don't

see a Fire, do you?' 'Oh dear no, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I was thinking of the dew.' 'What have you got to

do with the dew, ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby. 'It's not myself, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I am fearful of

Miss Gradgrind's taking cold.' 'She never takes cold,' said Mr. Bounderby. 'Really, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit.

When the time drew near for retiring, Mr. Bounderby took a glass of water. 'Oh, sir?' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Not

your sherry warm, with lemonpeel and nutmeg?' 'Why, I have got out of the habit of taking it now, ma'am,'

said Mr. Bounderby. 'The more's the pity, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit; 'you are losing all your good old habits.

Cheer up, sir! If Miss Gradgrind will permit me, I will offer to make it for you, as I have often done.'

Miss Gradgrind readily permitting Mrs. Sparsit to do anything she pleased, that considerate lady made the

beverage, and handed it to Mr. Bounderby. 'It will do you good, sir. It will warm your heart. It is the sort of

thing you want, and ought to take, sir.' And when Mr. Bounderby said, 'Your health, ma'am!' she answered

with great feeling, 'Thank you, sir. The same to you, and happiness also.' Finally, she wished him good night,

with great pathos; and Mr. Bounderby went to bed, with a maudlin persuasion that he had been crossed in

something tender, though he could not, for his life, have mentioned what it was.

Long after Louisa had undressed and lain down, she watched and waited for her brother's coming home. That

could hardly be, she knew, until an hour past midnight; but in the country silence, which did anything but

calm the trouble of her thoughts, time lagged wearily. At last, when the darkness and stillness had seemed for

hours to thicken one another, she heard the bell at the gate. She felt as though she would have been glad that

it rang on until daylight; but it ceased, and the circles of its last sound spread out fainter and wider in the air,

She waited yet some quarter of an hour, as she judged. Then she arose, put on a loose robe, and went out of

her room in the dark, and up the staircase to her brother's room. His door being shut, she softly opened it and

She kneeled down beside it, passed her arm over his neck, and drew his face to hers. She knew that he only

He started by and by as if he were just then awakened, and asked who that was, and what was the matter?

'Tom, have you anything to tell me? If ever you loved me in your life, and have anything concealed from

'My dear brother:' she laid her head down on his pillow, and her hair flowed over him as if she would hide

him from every one but herself: 'is there nothing that you have to tell me? Is there nothing you can tell me if

you will? You can tell me nothing that will change me. O Tom, tell me the truth!'

'As you lie here alone, my dear, in the melancholy night, so you must lie somewhere one night, when even I,

if I am living then, shall have left you. As I am here beside you, barefoot, unclothed, undistinguishable in

darkness, so must I lie through all the night of my decay, until I am dust. In the name of that time, Tom, tell

'You may be certain;' in the energy of her love she took him to her bosom as if he were a child; 'that I will not

reproach you. You may be certain that I will be compassionate and true to you. You may be certain that I will

save you at whatever cost. O Tom, have you nothing to tell me? Whisper very softly. Say only "yes," and I

'How can I say Yes, or how can I say No, when I don't know what you mean? Loo, you are a brave, kind girl,

worthy I begin to think of a better brother than I am. But I have nothing more to say. Go to bed, go to bed.'

'You have been so hurried and disturbed today. Have any fresh discoveries been made?'

'Tom, have you said to any one that we made a visit to those people, and that we saw those three together?'

'No. Didn't you yourself particularly ask me to keep it quiet when you asked me to go there with you?'

'Ought I to say, after what has happened,' said his sister, standing by the bed she had gradually withdrawn

'Good Heavens, Loo,' returned her brother, 'you are not in the habit of asking my advice. say what you like. If

you keep it to yourself, I shall keep it to myself. If you disclose it, there's an end of it.'

It was too dark for either to see the other's face; but each seemed very attentive, and to consider before

'Tom, do you believe the man I gave the money to, is really implicated in this crime?'

'Another person may seem to you dishonest, and yet not be so.' There was a pause, for he had hesitated and

'In short,' resumed Tom, as if he had made up his mind, 'if you come to that, perhaps I was so far from being

altogether in his favour, that I took him outside the door to tell him quietly, that I thought he might consider

himself very well off to get such a windfall as he had got from my sister, and that I hoped he would make

good use of it. You remember whether I took him out or not. I say nothing against the man; he may be a very

'No, he took it pretty well; he was civil enough. Where are you, Loo?' He sat up in bed and kissed her. 'Good

'I wouldn't have you do that tonight, Tom, of all the nights in your life; many and much happier as I hope

'Thank you, my dear Loo. I am so tired, that I am sure I wonder I don't say anything to get to sleep. Go to

Kissing her again, he turned round, drew the coverlet over his head, and lay as still as if that time had come

by which she had adjured him. She stood for some time at the bedside before she slowly moved away. She

stopped at the door, looked back when she had opened it, and asked him if he had called her? But he lay still,

Then the wretched boy looked cautiously up and found her gone, crept out of bed, fastened his door, and

threw himself upon his pillow again: tearing his hair, morosely crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but

impenitently spurning himself, and no less hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the good in the world.

MRS. SPARSIT, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr. Bounderby's retreat, kept such a sharp

lookout, night and day, under her Coriolanian eyebrows, that her eyes, like a couple of lighthouses on an

ironbound coast, might have warned all prudent mariners from that bold rock her Roman nose and the dark

and craggy region in its neighbourhood, but for the placidity of her manner. Although it was hard to believe

that her retiring for the night could be anything but a form, so severely wide awake were those classical eyes

of hers, and so impossible did it seem that her rigid nose could yield to any relaxing influence, yet her manner

of sitting, smoothing her uncomfortable, not to say, gritty mittens (they were constructed of a cool fabric like

a meatsafe), or of ambling to unknown places of destination with her foot in her cotton stirrup, was so

perfectly serene, that most observers would have been constrained to suppose her a dove, embodied by some

She was a most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from story to story was a

mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of

dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the

wild idea. Another noticeable circumstance in Mrs. Sparsit was, that she was never hurried. She would shoot

with consummate velocity from the roof to the hall, yet would be in full possession of her breath and dignity

on the moment of her arrival there. Neither was she ever seen by human vision to go at a great pace.

She took very kindly to Mr. Harthouse, and had some pleasant conversation with him soon after her arrival.

'It appears but yesterday, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that I had the honour of receiving you at the Bank, when you

'An occasion, I am sure, not to be forgotten by myself in the course of Ages,' said Mr. Harthouse, inclining

'I have had the honour, by a coincidence of which I am proud, to have made a remark, similar in effect,

'A singular world, I would say, sir,' pursued Mrs. Sparsit; after acknowledging the compliment with a

drooping of her dark eyebrows, not altogether so mild in its expression as her voice was in its dulcet tones; 'as

regards the intimacies we form at one time, with individuals we were quite ignorant of, at another. I recall,

sir, that on that occasion you went so far as to say you were actually apprehensive of Miss Gradgrind.'

'Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves. I availed myself of your obliging hints

to correct my timidity, and it is unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate. Mrs. Sparsit's talent for

in fact for anything requiring accuracy with a combination of strength of mind and Family is too

habitually developed to admit of any question.' He was almost falling asleep over this compliment; it took

him so long to get through, and his mind wandered so much in the course of its execution.

'You found Miss Gradgrind I really cannot call her Mrs. Bounderby; it's very absurd of me as youthful as

'You drew her portrait perfectly,' said Mr. Harthouse. 'Presented her dead image.'

'Very engaging, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly to revolve over one another.

'It used to be considered,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'that Miss Gradgrind was wanting in animation, but I confess she

appears to me considerably and strikingly improved in that respect. Ay, and indeed here is Mr. Bounderby!'

cried Mrs. Sparsit, nodding her head a great many times, as if she had been talking and thinking of no one

else. 'How do you find yourself this morning, sir? Pray let us see you cheerful, sir.'

Now, these persistent assuagements of his misery, and lightenings of his load, had by this time begun to have

the effect of making Mr. Bounderby softer than usual towards Mrs. Sparsit, and harder than usual to most

other people from his wife downward. So, when Mrs. Sparsit said with forced lightness of heart, 'You want

your breakfast, sir, but I dare say Miss Gradgrind will soon be here to preside at the table,' Mr. Bounderby

replied, 'If I waited to be taken care of by my wife, ma'am, I believe you know pretty well I should wait till

Doomsday, so I'll trouble you to take charge of the teapot.' Mrs. Sparsit complied, and assumed her old

This again made the excellent woman vastly sentimental. She was so humble withal, that when Louisa

appeared, she rose, protesting she never could think of sitting in that place under existing circumstances,

often as she had had the honour of making Mr. Bounderby's breakfast, before Mrs. Gradgrind she begged

pardon, she meant to say Miss Bounderby she hoped to be excused, but she really could not get it right yet,

though she trusted to become familiar with it by and by had assumed her present position. It was only (she

observed) because Miss Gradgrind happened to be a little late, and Mr. Bounderby's time was so very

precious, and she knew it of old to be so essential that he should breakfast to the moment, that she had taken

the liberty of complying with his request; long as his will had been a law to her.

'There! Stop where you are, ma'am,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'stop where you are! Mrs. Bounderby will be very

'Don't say that, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, almost with severity, 'because that is very unkind to Mrs.

'You may set your mind at rest, ma'am. You can take it very quietly, can't you, Loo?' said Mr. Bounderby,

'Why should it be of any importance to any one, Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am?' said Mr. Bounderby, swelling with a

sense of slight. 'You attach too much importance to these things, ma'am. By George, you'll be corrupted in

some of your notions here. You are old fashioned, ma'am. You are behind Tom Gradgrind's children's time.'

'What is the matter with you?' asked Louisa, coldly surprised. 'What has given you offence?'

'Offence!' repeated Bounderby. 'Do you suppose if there was any offence given me, I shouldn't name it, and

request to have it corrected? I am a straightforward man, I believe. I don't go beating about for sidewinds.'

'I suppose no one ever had occasion to think you too diffident, or too delicate,' Louisa answered him

composedly: 'I have never made that objection to you, either as a child or as a woman. I don't understand

'Have?' returned Mr. Bounderby. 'Nothing. Otherwise, don't you, Loo Bounderby, know thoroughly well that

She looked at him, as he struck the table and made the teacups ring, with a proud colour in her face that was a

new change, Mr. Harthouse thought. 'You are incomprehensible this morning,' said Louisa. 'Pray take no

further trouble to explain yourself. I am not curious to know your meaning. What does it matter?'

Nothing more was said on this theme, and Mr. Harthouse was soon idly gay on indifferent subjects. But from

this day, the Sparsit action upon Mr. Bounderby threw Louisa and James Harthouse more together, and

strengthened the dangerous alienation from her husband and confidence against him with another, into which

she had fallen by degrees so fine that she could not retrace them if she tried. But whether she ever tried or no,

Mrs. Sparsit was so much affected on this particular occasion, that, assisting Mr. Bounderby to his hat after

breakfast, and being then alone with him in the hall, she imprinted a chaste kiss upon his hand, murmured

'My benefactor!' and retired, overwhelmed with grief. Yet it is an indubitable fact, within the cognizance of

this history, that five minutes after he had left the house in the selfsame hat, the same descendant of the

Scadgerses and connexion by matrimony of the Powlers, shook her righthand mitten at his portrait, made a

contemptuous grimace at that work of art, and said 'Serve you right, you Noodle, and I am glad of it.'

Mr. Bounderby had not been long gone, when Bitzer appeared. Bitzer had come down by train, shrieking and

rattling over the long line of arches that bestrode the wild country of past and present coal pits, with an

express from Stone Lodge. It was a hasty note to inform Louisa that Mrs. Gradgrind lay very ill. She had

never been well within her daughter's knowledge; but, she had declined within the last few days, had

continued sinking all through the night, and was now as nearly dead, as her limited capacity of being in any

Accompanied by the lightest of porters, fit colourless servitor at Death's door when Mrs. Gradgrind knocked,

Louisa rumbled to Coketown, over the coalpits past and present, and was whirled into its smoky jaws. She

She had seldom been there since her marriage. Her father was usually sifting and sifting at his parliamentary

cinderheap in London (without being observed to turn up many precious articles among the rubbish), and

was still hard at it in the national dust yard. Her mother had taken it rather as a disturbance than otherwise,

to be visited, as she reclined upon her sofa; young people, Louisa felt herself all unfit for; Sissy she had never

softened to again, since the night when the stroller's child had raised her eyes to look at Mr. Bounderby's

Neither, as she approached her old home now, did any of the best influences of old home descend upon her.

The dreams of childhood its airy fables; its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the

world beyond: so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown, for then the least

among them rises to the stature of a great Charity in the heart, suffering little children to come into the midst

of it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in the stony ways of this world, wherein it were better for all

the children of Adam that they should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and not worldlywise

what had she to do with these? Remembrances of how she had journeyed to the little that she knew, by the

enchanted roads of what she and millions of innocent creatures had hoped and imagined; of how, first coming

upon Reason through the tender light of Fancy, she had seen it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as

itself; not a grim Idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and its big dumb shape set up with

a sightless stare, never to be moved by anything but so many calculated tons of leverage what had she to do

with these? Her remembrances of home and childhood were remembrances of the drying up of every spring

and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. The golden waters were not there. They were flowing for the

fertilization of the land where grapes are gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles.

She went, with a heavy, hardened kind of sorrow upon her, into the house and into her mother's room. Since

the time of her leaving home, Sissy had lived with the rest of the family on equal terms. Sissy was at her

mother's side; and Jane, her sister, now ten or twelve years old, was in the room.

There was great trouble before it could be made known to Mrs. Gradgrind that her eldest child was there. She

reclined, propped up, from mere habit, on a couch: as nearly in her old usual attitude, as anything so helpless

could be kept in. She had positively refused to take to her bed; on the ground that if she did, she would never

Her feeble voice sounded so far away in her bundle of shawls, and the sound of another voice addressing her

seemed to take such a long time in getting down to her ears, that she might have been lying at the bottom of a

well. The poor lady was nearer Truth than she ever had been: which had much to do with it.

On being told that Mrs. Bounderby was there, she replied, at cross purposes, that she had never called him

by that name since he married Louisa; that pending her choice of an objectionable name, she had called him

J; and that she could not at present depart from that regulation, not being yet provided with a permanent

substitute. Louisa had sat by her for some minutes, and had spoken to her often, before she arrived at a clear

'Well, my dear,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, 'and I hope you are going on satisfactorily to yourself. It was all your

'You want to hear of me, my dear? That's something new, I am sure, when anybody wants to hear of me. Not

'I think there's a pain somewhere in the room,' said Mrs. Gradgrind, 'but I couldn't positively say that I have

After this strange speech, she lay silent for some time. Louisa, holding her hand, could feel no pulse; but

'You very seldom see your sister,' said Mrs. Gradgrind. 'She grows like you. I wish you would look at her.

She was brought, and stood with her hand in her sister's. Louisa had observed her with her arm round Sissy's

'Eh! Yes, I always say so,' Mrs. Gradgrind cried, with unexpected quickness. 'And that reminds me. I I want

to speak to you, my dear. Sissy, my good girl, leave us alone a minute.' Louisa had relinquished the hand: had

thought that her sister's was a better and brighter face than hers had ever been: had seen in it, not without a

rising feeling of resentment, even in that place and at that time, something of the gentleness of the other face

in the room; the sweet face with the trusting eyes, made paler than watching and sympathy made it, by the

Left alone with her mother, Louisa saw her lying with an awful lull upon her face, like one who was floating

away upon some great water, all resistance over, content to be carried down the stream. She put the shadow

'Eh? Yes, to be sure, my dear. You know your father is almost always away now, and therefore I must write

'You must remember, my dear, that whenever I have said anything, on any subject, I have never heard the last

'I can hear you, mother.' But, it was only by dint of bending down to her ear, and at the same time attentively

watching the lips as they moved, that she could link such faint and broken sounds into any chain of

'You learnt a great deal, Louisa, and so did your brother. Ologies of all kinds from morning to night. If there

is any Ology left, of any description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all I can say is, I hope I

'I can hear you, mother, when you have strength to go on.' This, to keep her from floating away.

'But there is something not an Ology at all that your father has missed, or forgotten, Louisa. I don't know

what it is. I have often sat with Sissy near me, and thought about it. I shall never get its name now. But your

father may. It makes me restless. I want to write to him, to find out for God's sake, what it is. Give me a pen,

Even the power of restlessness was gone, except from the poor head, which could just turn from side to side.

She fancied, however, that her request had been complied with, and that the pen she could not have held was

in her hand. It matters little what figures of wonderful nomeaning she began to trace upon her wrappers. The

hand soon stopped in the midst of them; the light that had always been feeble and dim behind the weak

transparency, went out; and even Mrs. Gradgrind, emerged from the shadow in which man walketh and

disquieteth himself in vain, took upon her the dread solemnity of the sages and patriarchs.

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 lodging, as one

may say, in clover, and feeding on the fat of the land. During the whole term of this recess from the

guardianship of the Bank, Mrs. Sparsit was a pattern of consistency; continuing to take such pity on Mr.

Bounderby to his face, as is rarely taken on man, and to call his portrait a Noodle to its face, with the greatest

Mr. Bounderby, having got it into his explosive composition that Mrs. Sparsit was a highly superior woman

to perceive that he had that general cross upon him in his deserts (for he had not yet settled what it was), and

further that Louisa would have objected to her as a frequent visitor if it had comported with his greatness that

she should object to anything he chose to do, resolved not to lose sight of Mrs. Sparsit easily. So when her

nerves were strung up to the pitch of again consuming sweetbreads in solitude, he said to her at the

dinnertable, on the day before her departure, 'I tell you what, ma'am; you shall come down here of a

Saturday, while the fine weather lasts, and stay till Monday.' To which Mrs. Sparsit returned, in effect,

Now, Mrs. Sparsit was not a poetical woman; but she took an idea in the nature of an allegorical fancy, into

her head. Much watching of Louisa, and much consequent observation of her impenetrable demeanour, which

keenly whetted and sharpened Mrs. Sparsit's edge, must have given her as it were a lift, in the way of

inspiration. She erected in her mind a mighty Staircase, with a dark pit of shame and ruin at the bottom; and

It became the business of Mrs. Sparsit's life, to look up at her staircase, and to watch Louisa coming down.

Sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, sometimes several steps at one bout, sometimes stopping, never

turning back. If she had once turned back, it might have been the death of Mrs. Sparsit in spleen and grief.

She had been descending steadily, to the day, and on the day, when Mr. Bounderby issued the weekly

invitation recorded above. Mrs. Sparsit was in good spirits, and inclined to be conversational.

'And pray, sir,' said she, 'if I may venture to ask a question appertaining to any subject on which you show

reserve which is indeed hardy in me, for I well know you have a reason for everything you do have you

'Why, ma'am, no; not yet. Under the circumstances, I didn't expect it yet. Rome wasn't built in a day, ma'am.'

'In a similar manner, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'I can wait, you know. If Romulus and Remus could wait,

Josiah Bounderby can wait. They were better off in their youth than I was, however. They had a shewolf for

a nurse; I had only a shewolf for a grandmother. She didn't give any milk, ma'am; she gave bruises. She was

'No, ma'am,' continued Bounderby, 'I have not heard anything more about it. It's in hand, though; and young

Tom, who rather sticks to business at present something new for him; he hadn't the schooling I had is

helping. My injunction is, Keep it quiet, and let it seem to blow over. Do what you like under the rose, but

don't give a sign of what you're about; or half a hundred of 'em will combine together and get this fellow who

has bolted, out of reach for good. Keep it quiet, and the thieves will grow in confidence by little and little, and

'Very sagacious indeed, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Very interesting. The old woman you mentioned, sir '

'The old woman I mentioned, ma'am,' said Bounderby, cutting the matter short, as it was nothing to boast

about, 'is not laid hold of; but, she may take her oath she will be, if that is any satisfaction to her villainous

old mind. In the mean time, ma'am, I am of opinion, if you ask me my opinion, that the less she is talked

The same evening, Mrs. Sparsit, in her chamber window, resting from her packing operations, looked

She sat by Mr. Harthouse, in an alcove in the garden, talking very low; he stood leaning over her, as they

whispered together, and his face almost touched her hair. 'If not quite!' said Mrs. Sparsit, straining her hawk's

eyes to the utmost. Mrs. Sparsit was too distant to hear a word of their discourse, or even to know that they

were speaking softly, otherwise than from the expression of their figures; but what they said was this:

'Perfectly. And an infinitely dreary person he appeared to me to be. Lengthy and prosy in the extreme. It was

knowing to hold forth, in the humblevirtue school of eloquence; but, I assure you I thought at the time, "My

'My dear Louisa as Tom says.' Which he never did say. 'You know no good of the fellow?'

'How can I,' she returned, with more of her first manner on her than he had lately seen, 'when I know nothing

'My dear Louisa, then consent to receive the submissive representation of your devoted friend, who knows

something of several varieties of his excellent fellowcreatures for excellent they are, I am quite ready to

believe, in spite of such little foibles as always helping themselves to what they can get hold of. This fellow

talks. Well; every fellow talks. He professes morality. Well; all sorts of humbugs profess morality. From the

House of Commons to the House of Correction, there is a general profession of morality, except among our

people; it really is that exception which makes our people quite reviving. You saw and heard the case. Here

was one of the fluffy classes pulled up extremely short by my esteemed friend Mr. Bounderby who, as we

know, is not possessed of that delicacy which would soften so tight a hand. The member of the fluffy classes

was injured, exasperated, left the house grumbling, met somebody who proposed to him to go in for some

share in this Bank business, went in, put something in his pocket which had nothing in it before, and relieved

his mind extremely. Really he would have been an uncommon, instead of a common, fellow, if he had not

availed himself of such an opportunity. Or he may have originated it altogether, if he had the cleverness.'

'I almost feel as though it must be bad in me,' returned Louisa, after sitting thoughtful awhile, 'to be so ready

'I only say what is reasonable; nothing worse. I have talked it over with my friend Tom more than once of

course I remain on terms of perfect confidence with Tom and he is quite of my opinion, and I am quite of

They strolled away, among the lanes beginning to be indistinct in the twilight she leaning on his arm and

she little thought how she was going down, down, down, Mrs. Sparsit's staircase.

Night and day, Mrs. Sparsit kept it standing. When Louisa had arrived at the bottom and disappeared in the

gulf, it might fall in upon her if it would; but, until then, there it was to be, a Building, before Mrs. Sparsit's

Mrs. Sparsit saw James Harthouse come and go; she heard of him here and there; she saw the changes of the

face he had studied; she, too, remarked to a nicety how and when it clouded, how and when it cleared; she

kept her black eyes wide open, with no touch of pity, with no touch of compunction, all absorbed in interest.

In the interest of seeing her, ever drawing, with no hand to stay her, nearer and nearer to the bottom of this

With all her deference for Mr. Bounderby as contradistinguished from his portrait, Mrs. Sparsit had not the

smallest intention of interrupting the descent. Eager to see it accomplished, and yet patient, she waited for the

last fall, as for the ripeness and fulness of the harvest of her hopes. Hushed in expectancy, she kept her wary

gaze upon the stairs; and seldom so much as darkly shook her right mitten (with her fist in it), at the figure

THE figure descended the great stairs, steadily, steadily; always verging, like a weight in deep water, to the

Mr. Gradgrind, apprised of his wife's decease, made an expedition from London, and buried her in a

businesslike manner. He then returned with promptitude to the national cinderheap, and resumed his

sifting for the odds and ends he wanted, and his throwing of the dust about into the eyes of other people who

In the meantime, Mrs. Sparsit kept unwinking watch and ward. Separated from her staircase, all the week, by

the length of iron road dividing Coketown from the country house, she yet maintained her catlike

observation of Louisa, through her husband, through her brother, through James Harthouse, through the

outsides of letters and packets, through everything animate and inanimate that at any time went near the

stairs. 'Your foot on the last step, my lady,' said Mrs. Sparsit, apostrophizing the descending figure, with the

Art or nature though, the original stock of Louisa's character or the graft of circumstances upon it, her

curious reserve did baffle, while it stimulated, one as sagacious as Mrs. Sparsit. There were times when Mr.

James Harthouse was not sure of her. There were times when he could not read the face he had studied so

long; and when this lonely girl was a greater mystery to him, than any woman of the world with a ring of

So the time went on; until it happened that Mr. Bounderby was called away from home by business which

required his presence elsewhere, for three or four days. It was on a Friday that he intimated this to Mrs.

Sparsit at the Bank, adding: 'But you'll go down tomorrow, ma'am, all the same. You'll go down just as if I

'Pray, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, reproachfully, 'let me beg you not to say that. Your absence will make a vast

'Well, ma'am, then you must get on in my absence as well as you can,' said Mr. Bounderby, not displeased.

'Mr. Bounderby,' retorted Mrs. Sparsit, 'your will is to me a law, sir; otherwise, it might be my inclination to

dispute your kind commands, not feeling sure that it will be quite so agreeable to Miss Gradgrind to receive

me, as it ever is to your own munificent hospitality. But you shall say no more, sir. I will go, upon your

'Why, when I invite you to my house, ma'am,' said Bounderby, opening his eyes, 'I should hope you want no

'No, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit, 'I should hope not. Say no more, sir. I would, sir, I could see you gay

'Sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, 'there was wont to be an elasticity in you which I sadly miss. Be buoyant, sir!'

Mr. Bounderby, under the influence of this difficult adjuration, backed up by her compassionate eye, could

only scratch his head in a feeble and ridiculous manner, and afterwards assert himself at a distance, by being

'Bitzer,' said Mrs. Sparsit that afternoon, when her patron was gone on his journey, and the Bank was closing,

'present my compliments to young Mr. Thomas, and ask him if he would step up and partake of a lamb chop

and walnut ketchup, with a glass of India ale?' Young Mr. Thomas being usually ready for anything in that

way, returned a gracious answer, and followed on its heels. 'Mr. Thomas,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'these plain

'Where may he be at present?' Mrs. Sparsit asked in a light conversational manner, after mentally devoting

'He is shooting in Yorkshire,' said Tom. 'Sent Loo a basket half as big as a church, yesterday.'

'The kind of gentleman, now,' said Mrs. Sparsit, sweetly, 'whom one might wager to be a good shot!'

He had long been a downlooking young fellow, but this characteristic had so increased of late, that he never

raised his eyes to any face for three seconds together. Mrs. Sparsit consequently had ample means of

'Mr. Harthouse is a great favourite of mine,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'as indeed he is of most people. May we expect

'I have got an appointment with him to meet him in the evening at the station here,' said Tom, 'and I am going

to dine with him afterwards, I believe. He is not coming down to the country house for a week or so, being

due somewhere else. At least, he says so; but I shouldn't wonder if he was to stop here over Sunday, and stray

'Which reminds me!' said Mrs. Sparsit. 'Would you remember a message to your sister, Mr. Tom, if I was to

'It is merely my respectful compliments,' said Mrs. Sparsit, 'and I fear I may not trouble her with my society

'Oh! If that's all,' observed Tom, 'it wouldn't much matter, even if I was to forget it, for Loo's not likely to

Having paid for his entertainment with this agreeable compliment, he relapsed into a hangdog silence until

there was no more India ale left, when he said, 'Well, Mrs. Sparsit, I must be off!' and went off.

Next day, Saturday, Mrs. Sparsit sat at her window all day long looking at the customers coming in and out,

watching the postmen, keeping an eye on the general traffic of the street, revolving many things in her mind,

but, above all, keeping her attention on her staircase. The evening come, she put on her bonnet and shawl,

and went quietly out: having her reasons for hovering in a furtive way about the station by which a passenger

would arrive from Yorkshire, and for preferring to peep into it round pillars and corners, and out of ladies'

Tom was in attendance, and loitered about until the expected train came in. It brought no Mr. Harthouse. Tom

waited until the crowd had dispersed, and the bustle was over; and then referred to a posted list of trains, and

took counsel with porters. That done, he strolled away idly, stopping in the street and looking up it and down

it, and lifting his hat off and putting it on again, and yawning and stretching himself, and exhibiting all the

symptoms of mortal weariness to be expected in one who had still to wait until the next train should come in,

'This is a device to keep him out of the way,' said Mrs. Sparsit, starting from the dull office window whence

It was the conception of an inspired moment, and she shot off with her utmost swiftness to work it out. The

station for the country house was at the opposite end of the town, the time was short, the road not easy; but

she was so quick in pouncing on a disengaged coach, so quick in darting out of it, producing her money,

seizing her ticket, and diving into the train, that she was borne along the arches spanning the land of coalpits

All the journey, immovable in the air though never left behind; plain to the dark eyes of her mind, as the

electric wires which ruled a colossal strip of musicpaper out of the evening sky, were plain to the dark eyes

of her body; Mrs. Sparsit saw her staircase, with the figure coming down. Very near the bottom now. Upon

An overcast September evening, just at nightfall, saw beneath its drooping eyelids Mrs. Sparsit glide out of

her carriage, pass down the wooden steps of the little station into a stony road, cross it into a green lane, and

become hidden in a summergrowth of leaves and branches. One or two late birds sleepily chirping in their

nests, and a bat heavily crossing and recrossing her, and the reek of her own tread in the thick dust that felt

like velvet, were all Mrs. Sparsit heard or saw until she very softly closed a gate.

She went up to the house, keeping within the shrubbery, and went round it, peeping between the leaves at the

lower windows. Most of them were open, as they usually were in such warm weather, but there were no

lights yet, and all was silent. She tried the garden with no better effect. She thought of the wood, and stole

towards it, heedless of long grass and briers: of worms, snails, and slugs, and all the creeping things that be.

With her dark eyes and her hook nose warily in advance of her, Mrs. Sparsit softly crushed her way through

the thick undergrowth, so intent upon her object that she probably would have done no less, if the wood had

The smaller birds might have tumbled out of their nests, fascinated by the glittering of Mrs. Sparsit's eyes in

Low voices close at hand. His voice and hers. The appointment was a device to keep the brother away! There

Bending low among the dewy grass, Mrs. Sparsit advanced closer to them. She drew herself up, and stood

behind a tree, like Robinson Crusoe in his ambuscade against the savages; so near to them that at a spring,

and that no great one, she could have touched them both. He was there secretly, and had not shown himself at

the house. He had come on horseback, and must have passed through the neighbouring fields; for his horse

'My dearest love,' said he, 'what could I do? Knowing you were alone, was it possible that I could stay away?'

'You may hang your head, to make yourself the more attractive; I don't know what they see in you when you

hold it up,' thought Mrs. Sparsit; 'but you little think, my dearest love, whose eyes are on you!'

That she hung her head, was certain. She urged him to go away, she commanded him to go away; but she

neither turned her face to him, nor raised it. Yet it was remarkable that she sat as still as ever the amiable

woman in ambuscade had seen her sit, at any period in her life. Her hands rested in one another, like the

'My dear child,' said Harthouse; Mrs. Sparsit saw with delight that his arm embraced her; 'will you not bear

'But we have so little time to make so much of, and I have come so far, and am altogether so devoted, and

distracted. There never was a slave at once so devoted and illused by his mistress. To look for your sunny

welcome that has warmed me into life, and to be received in your frozen manner, is heartrending.'

They both started. The listener started, guiltily, too; for she thought there was another listener among the

'Shall I ride up to the house a few minutes hence, innocently supposing that its master is at home and will be

'Your cruel commands are implicitly to be obeyed; though I am the most unfortunate fellow in the world, I

believe, to have been insensible to all other women, and to have fallen prostrate at last under the foot of the

most beautiful, and the most engaging, and the most imperious. My dearest Louisa, I cannot go myself, or let

Mrs. Sparsit saw him detain her with his encircling arm, and heard him then and there, within her (Mrs.

Sparsit's) greedy hearing, tell her how he loved her, and how she was the stake for which he ardently desired

to play away all that he had in life. The objects he had lately pursued, turned worthless beside her; such

success as was almost in his grasp, he flung away from him like the dirt it was, compared with her. Its

pursuit, nevertheless, if it kept him near her, or its renunciation if it took him from her, or flight if she shared

it, or secrecy if she commanded it, or any fate, or every fate, all was alike to him, so that she was true to him,

the man who had seen how cast away she was, whom she had inspired at their first meeting with an

admiration, an interest, of which he had thought himself incapable, whom she had received into her

confidence, who was devoted to her and adored her. All this, and more, in his hurry, and in hers, in the whirl

of her own gratified malice, in the dread of being discovered, in the rapidly increasing noise of heavy rain

among the leaves, and a thunderstorm rolling up Mrs. Sparsit received into her mind, set off with such an

unavoidable halo of confusion and indistinctness, that when at length he climbed the fence and led his horse

away, she was not sure where they were to meet, or when, except that they had said it was to be that night.

But one of them yet remained in the darkness before her; and while she tracked that one she must be right.

'Oh, my dearest love,' thought Mrs. Sparsit, 'you little think how well attended you are!'

Mrs. Sparsit saw her out of the wood, and saw her enter the house. What to do next? It rained now, in a sheet

of water. Mrs. Sparsit's white stockings were of many colours, green predominating; prickly things were in

her shoes; caterpillars slung themselves, in hammocks of their own making, from various parts of her dress;

rills ran from her bonnet, and her Roman nose. In such condition, Mrs. Sparsit stood hidden in the density of

Lo, Louisa coming out of the house! Hastily cloaked and muffled, and stealing away. She elopes! She falls

Indifferent to the rain, and moving with a quick determined step, she struck into a sidepath parallel with the

ride. Mrs. Sparsit followed in the shadow of the trees, at but a short distance; for it was not easy to keep a

When she stopped to close the sidegate without noise, Mrs. Sparsit stopped. When she went on, Mrs. Sparsit

went on. She went by the way Mrs. Sparsit had come, emerged from the green lane, crossed the stony road,

and ascended the wooden steps to the railroad. A train for Coketown would come through presently, Mrs.

In Mrs. Sparsit's limp and streaming state, no extensive precautions were necessary to change her usual

appearance; but, she stopped under the lee of the station wall, tumbled her shawl into a new shape, and put it

on over her bonnet. So disguised she had no fear of being recognized when she followed up the railroad steps,

and paid her money in the small office. Louisa sat waiting in a corner. Mrs. Sparsit sat waiting in another

corner. Both listened to the thunder, which was loud, and to the rain, as it washed off the roof, and pattered

on the parapets of the arches. Two or three lamps were rained out and blown out; so, both saw the lightning to

The seizure of the station with a fit of trembling, gradually deepening to a complaint of the heart, announced

the train. Fire and steam, and smoke, and red light; a hiss, a crash, a bell, and a shriek; Louisa put into one

carriage, Mrs. Sparsit put into another: the little station a desert speck in the thunderstorm.

Though her teeth chattered in her head from wet and cold, Mrs. Sparsit exulted hugely. The figure had

plunged down the precipice, and she felt herself, as it were, attending on the body. Could she, who had been

so active in the getting up of the funeral triumph, do less than exult? 'She will be at Coketown long before

him,' thought Mrs. Sparsit, 'though his horse is never so good. Where will she wait for him? And where will

The tremendous rain occasioned infinite confusion, when the train stopped at its destination. Gutters and

pipes had burst, drains had overflowed, and streets were under water. In the first instant of alighting, Mrs.

Sparsit turned her distracted eyes towards the waiting coaches, which were in great request. 'She will get into

one,' she considered, 'and will be away before I can follow in another. At all risks of being run over, I must

But, Mrs. Sparsit was wrong in her calculation. Louisa got into no coach, and was already gone. The black

eyes kept upon the railroadcarriage in which she had travelled, settled upon it a moment too late. The door

not being opened after several minutes, Mrs. Sparsit passed it and repassed it, saw nothing, looked in, and

found it empty. Wet through and through: with her feet squelching and squashing in her shoes whenever she

moved; with a rash of rain upon her classical visage; with a bonnet like an overripe fig; with all her clothes

spoiled; with damp impressions of every button, string, and hookandeye she wore, printed off upon her

highly connected back; with a stagnant verdure on her general exterior, such as accumulates on an old park

fence in a mouldy lane; Mrs. Sparsit had no resource but to burst into tears of bitterness and say, 'I have lost

THE national dustmen, after entertaining one another with a great many noisy little fights among themselves,

He sat writing in the room with the deadly statistical clock, proving something no doubt probably, in the

main, that the Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist. The noise of the rain did not disturb him much; but it

attracted his attention sufficiently to make him raise his head sometimes, as if he were rather remonstrating

with the elements. When it thundered very loudly, he glanced towards Coketown, having it in his mind that

The thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain was pouring down like a deluge, when the door of his

room opened. He looked round the lamp upon his table, and saw, with amazement, his eldest daughter.

'What is the matter? How strange you look! And good Heaven,' said Mr. Gradgrind, wondering more and

She put her hands to her dress, as if she hardly knew. 'Yes.' Then she uncovered her head, and letting her

cloak and hood fall where they might, stood looking at him: so colourless, so dishevelled, so defiant and

He looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating: 'Curse the hour? Curse the hour?'

'How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of

conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you

done, O father, what have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness

'If it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the void in which my whole life sinks. I did not

mean to say this; but, father, you remember the last time we conversed in this room?'

He had been so wholly unprepared for what he heard now, that it was with difficulty he answered, 'Yes,

'What has risen to my lips now, would have risen to my lips then, if you had given me a moment's help. I

don't reproach you, father. What you have never nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself; but O!

if you had only done so long ago, or if you had only neglected me, what a much better and much happier

On hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon his hand and groaned aloud.

'Father, if you had known, when we were last together here, what even I feared while I strove against it as it

has been my task from infancy to strive against every natural prompting that has arisen in my heart; if you

had known that there lingered in my breast, sensibilities, affections, weaknesses capable of being cherished

into strength, defying all the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to his arithmetic than his

Creator is, would you have given me to the husband whom I am now sure that I hate?'

'Would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost and blight that have hardened and spoiled me? Would

you have robbed me for no one's enrichment only for the greater desolation of this world of the

immaterial part of my life, the spring and summer of my belief, my refuge from what is sordid and bad in the

real things around me, my school in which I should have learned to be more humble and more trusting with

'Yet, father, if I had been stone blind; if I had groped my way by my sense of touch, and had been free, while

I knew the shapes and surfaces of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat, in regard to them; I should have

been a million times wiser, happier, more loving, more contented, more innocent and human in all good

He moved, to support her with his arm. She rising as he did so, they stood close together: she, with a hand

'With a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which have never been for a moment appeased; with an ardent

impulse towards some region where rules, and figures, and definitions were not quite absolute; I have grown

'Father, I always knew it. In this strife I have almost repulsed and crushed my better angel into a demon.

What I have learned has left me doubting, misbelieving, despising, regretting, what I have not learned; and

my dismal resource has been to think that life would soon go by, and that nothing in it could be worth the

'And I so young. In this condition, father for I show you now, without fear or favour, the ordinary deadened

state of my mind as I know it you proposed my husband to me. I took him. I never made a pretence to him

or you that I loved him. I knew, and, father, you knew, and he knew, that I never did. I was not wholly

indifferent, for I had a hope of being pleasant and useful to Tom. I made that wild escape into something

visionary, and have slowly found out how wild it was. But Tom had been the subject of all the little

tenderness of my life; perhaps he became so because I knew so well how to pity him. It matters little now,

As her father held her in his arms, she put her other hand upon his other shoulder, and still looking fixedly in

'When I was irrevocably married, there rose up into rebellion against the tie, the old strife, made fiercer by all

those causes of disparity which arise out of our two individual natures, and which no general laws shall ever

rule or state for me, father, until they shall be able to direct the anatomist where to strike his knife into the

'Louisa!' he said, and said imploringly; for he well remembered what had passed between them in their

'I do not reproach you, father, I make no complaint. I am here with another object.'

'I am coming to it. Father, chance then threw into my way a new acquaintance; a man such as I had had no

experience of; used to the world; light, polished, easy; making no pretences; avowing the low estimate of

everything, that I was half afraid to form in secret; conveying to me almost immediately, though I don't know

how or by what degrees, that he understood me, and read my thoughts. I could not find that he was worse

than I. There seemed to be a near affinity between us. I only wondered it should be worth his while, who

Her father might instinctively have loosened his hold, but that he felt her strength departing from her, and

'I say nothing of his plea for claiming my confidence. It matters very little how he gained it. Father, he did

gain it. What you know of the story of my marriage, he soon knew, just as well.'

'I have done no worse, I have not disgraced you. But if you ask me whether I have loved him, or do love him,

She took her hands suddenly from his shoulders, and pressed them both upon her side; while in her face, not

like itself and in her figure, drawn up, resolute to finish by a last effort what she had to say the feelings

'This night, my husband being away, he has been with me, declaring himself my lover. This minute he

expects me, for I could release myself of his presence by no other means. I do not know that I am sorry, I do

not know that I am ashamed, I do not know that I am degraded in my own esteem. All that I know is, your

philosophy and your teaching will not save me. Now, father, you have brought me to this. Save me by some

He tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking on the floor, but she cried out in a terrible voice, 'I shall

die if you hold me! Let me fall upon the ground!' And he laid her down there, and saw the pride of his heart

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 gradually, as the objects became more real to her sight, the events became more real

She could scarcely move her head for pain and heaviness, her eyes were strained and sore, and she was very

weak. A curious passive inattention had such possession of her, that the presence of her little sister in the

room did not attract her notice for some time. Even when their eyes had met, and her sister had approached

the bed, Louisa lay for minutes looking at her in silence, and suffering her timidly to hold her passive hand,

'Because I found her here this morning. She didn't come to my bedside to wake me, as she always does; and I

went to look for her. She was not in her own room either; and I went looking for her all over the house, until I

found her here taking care of you and cooling your head. Will you see father? Sissy said I was to tell him

'What a beaming face you have, Jane!' said Louisa, as her young sister timidly still bent down to kiss her.

The arm Louisa had begun to twine around her neck, unbent itself. 'You can tell father if you will.' Then,

staying her for a moment, she said, 'It was you who made my room so cheerful, and gave it this look of

Louisa turned upon her pillow, and heard no more. When her sister had withdrawn, she turned her head back

again, and lay with her face towards the door, until it opened and her father entered.

He had a jaded anxious look upon him, and his hand, usually steady, trembled in hers. He sat down at the side

of the bed, tenderly asking how she was, and dwelling on the necessity of her keeping very quiet after her

agitation and exposure to the weather last night. He spoke in a subdued and troubled voice, very different

'My dear Louisa. My poor daughter.' He was so much at a loss at that place, that he stopped altogether. He

'My unfortunate child.' The place was so difficult to get over, that he tried again.

'It would be hopeless for me, Louisa, to endeavour to tell you how overwhelmed I have been, and still am, by

what broke upon me last night. The ground on which I stand has ceased to be solid under my feet. The only

support on which I leaned, and the strength of which it seemed, and still does seem, impossible to question,

has given way in an instant. I am stunned by these discoveries. I have no selfish meaning in what I say; but I

She could give him no comfort herein. She had suffered the wreck of her whole life upon the rock.

'I will not say, Louisa, that if you had by any happy chance undeceived me some time ago, it would have

been better for us both; better for your peace, and better for mine. For I am sensible that it may not have been

a part of my system to invite any confidence of that kind. I had proved my my system to myself, and I have

rigidly administered it; and I must bear the responsibility of its failures. I only entreat you to believe, my

He said it earnestly, and to do him justice he had. In gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean

exciserod, and in staggering over the universe with his rusty stifflegged compasses, he had meant to do

great things. Within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers of existence

with greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept.

'I am well assured of what you say, father. I know I have been your favourite child. I know you have intended

'My dear, I have remained all night at my table, pondering again and again on what has so painfully passed

between us. When I consider your character; when I consider that what has been known to me for hours, has

been concealed by you for years; when I consider under what immediate pressure it has been forced from you

He might have added more than all, when he saw the face now looking at him. He did add it in effect,

perhaps, as he softly moved her scattered hair from her forehead with his hand. Such little actions, slight in

another man, were very noticeable in him; and his daughter received them as if they had been words of

'But,' said Mr. Gradgrind, slowly, and with hesitation, as well as with a wretched sense of happiness, 'if I see

reason to mistrust myself for the past, Louisa, I should also mistrust myself for the present and the future. To

speak unreservedly to you, I do. I am far from feeling convinced now, however differently I might have felt

only this time yesterday, that I am fit for the trust you repose in me; that I know how to respond to the appeal

you have come home to make to me; that I have the right instinct supposing it for the moment to be some

She had turned upon her pillow, and lay with her face upon her arm, so that he could not see it. All her

wildness and passion had subsided; but, though softened, she was not in tears. Her father was changed in

nothing so much as in the respect that he would have been glad to see her in tears.

'Some persons hold,' he pursued, still hesitating, 'that there is a wisdom of the Head, and that there is a

wisdom of the Heart. I have not supposed so; but, as I have said, I mistrust myself now. I have supposed the

head to be allsufficient. It may not be all sufficient; how can I venture this morning to say it is! If that

other kind of wisdom should be what I have neglected, and should be the instinct that is wanted, Louisa '

He suggested it very doubtfully, as if he were half unwilling to admit it even now. She made him no answer,

lying before him on her bed, still halfdressed, much as he had seen her lying on the floor of his room last

'Louisa,' and his hand rested on her hair again, 'I have been absent from here, my dear, a good deal of late;

and though your sister's training has been pursued according to the system,' he appeared to come to that

word with great reluctance always, 'it has necessarily been modified by daily associations begun, in her case,

at an early age. I ask you ignorantly and humbly, my daughter for the better, do you think?'

'Father,' she replied, without stirring, 'if any harmony has been awakened in her young breast that was mute in

mine until it turned to discord, let her thank Heaven for it, and go upon her happier way, taking it as her

'O my child, my child!' he said, in a forlorn manner, 'I am an unhappy man to see you thus! What avails it to

me that you do not reproach me, if I so bitterly reproach myself!' He bent his head, and spoke low to her.

'Louisa, I have a misgiving that some change may have been slowly working about me in this house, by mere

love and gratitude: that what the Head had left undone and could not do, the Heart may have been doing

'I am not too proud to believe it, Louisa. How could I be arrogant, and you before me! Can it be so? Is it so,

my dear?' He looked upon her once more, lying cast away there; and without another word went out of the

room. He had not been long gone, when she heard a light tread near the door, and knew that some one stood

She did not raise her head. A dull anger that she should be seen in her distress, and that the involuntary look

she had so resented should come to this fulfilment, smouldered within her like an unwholesome fire. All

closely imprisoned forces rend and destroy. The air that would be healthful to the earth, the water that would

enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it when caged up. So in her bosom even now; the strongest qualities

she possessed, long turned upon themselves, became a heap of obduracy, that rose against a friend.

It was well that soft touch came upon her neck, and that she understood herself to be supposed to have fallen

asleep. The sympathetic hand did not claim her resentment. Let it lie there, let it lie.

It lay there, warming into life a crowd of gentler thoughts; and she rested. As she softened with the quiet, and

the consciousness of being so watched, some tears made their way into her eyes. The face touched hers, and

As Louisa feigned to rouse herself, and sat up, Sissy retired, so that she stood placidly near the bedside.

'I hope I have not disturbed you. I have come to ask if you would let me stay with you?'

'Why should you stay with me? My sister will miss you. You are everything to her.'

'Am I?' returned Sissy, shaking her head. 'I would be something to you, if I might.'

'Whatever you want most, if I could be that. At all events, I would like to try to be as near it as I can. And

'No indeed,' replied Sissy. 'He told me that I might come in now, but he sent me away from the room this

'I thought it best myself that I should be sent away, for I felt very uncertain whether you would like to find

'I hope not, for I have always loved you, and have always wished that you should know it. But you changed

to me a little, shortly before you left home. Not that I wondered at it. You knew so much, and I knew so little,

and it was so natural in many ways, going as you were among other friends, that I had nothing to complain

Her colour rose as she said it modestly and hurriedly. Louisa understood the loving pretence, and her heart

'May I try?' said Sissy, emboldened to raise her hand to the neck that was insensibly drooping towards her.

Louisa, taking down the hand that would have embraced her in another moment, held it in one of hers, and

'First, Sissy, do you know what I am? I am so proud and so hardened, so confused and troubled, so resentful

and unjust to every one and to myself, that everything is stormy, dark, and wicked to me. Does not that repel

'I am so unhappy, and all that should have made me otherwise is so laid waste, that if I had been bereft of

sense to this hour, and instead of being as learned as you think me, had to begin to acquire the simplest truths,

I could not want a guide to peace, contentment, honour, all the good of which I am quite devoid, more

In the innocence of her brave affection, and the brimming up of her old devoted spirit, the once deserted girl

Louisa raised the hand that it might clasp her neck and join its fellow there. She fell upon her knees, and

'Forgive me, pity me, help me! Have compassion on my great need, and let me lay this head of mine upon a

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 positively agitated. He several times spoke with an emphasis,

similar to the vulgar manner. He went in and went out in an unaccountable way, like a man without an object.

He rode like a highwayman. In a word, he was so horribly bored by existing circumstances, that he forgot to

After putting his horse at Coketown through the storm, as if it were a leap, he waited up all night: from time

to time ringing his bell with the greatest fury, charging the porter who kept watch with delinquency in

withholding letters or messages that could not fail to have been entrusted to him, and demanding restitution

on the spot. The dawn coming, the morning coming, and the day coming, and neither message nor letter

coming with either, he went down to the country house. There, the report was, Mr. Bounderby away, and

Mrs. Bounderby in town. Left for town suddenly last evening. Not even known to be gone until receipt of

In these circumstances he had nothing for it but to follow her to town. He went to the house in town. Mrs.

Bounderby not there. He looked in at the Bank. Mr. Bounderby away and Mrs. Sparsit away. Mrs. Sparsit

away? Who could have been reduced to sudden extremity for the company of that griffin!

'Well! I don't know,' said Tom, who had his own reasons for being uneasy about it. 'She was off somewhere

at daybreak this morning. She's always full of mystery; I hate her. So I do that white chap; he's always got his

'Where was I last night!' said Tom. 'Come! I like that. I was waiting for you, Mr. Harthouse, till it came down

'Detained!' murmured Tom. 'Two of us were detained. I was detained looking for you, till I lost every train

but the mail. It would have been a pleasant job to go down by that on such a night, and have to walk home

'How the deuce,' returned Tom, staring, 'could I see my sister when she was fifteen miles off?'

Cursing these quick retorts of the young gentleman to whom he was so true a friend, Mr. Harthouse

disembarrassed himself of that interview with the smallest conceivable amount of ceremony, and debated for

the hundredth time what all this could mean? He made only one thing clear. It was, that whether she was in

town or out of town, whether he had been premature with her who was so hard to comprehend, or she had lost

courage, or they were discovered, or some mischance or mistake, at present incomprehensible, had occurred,

he must remain to confront his fortune, whatever it was. The hotel where he was known to live when

condemned to that region of blackness, was the stake to which he was tied. As to all the rest What will be,

'So, whether I am waiting for a hostile message, or an assignation, or a penitent remonstrance, or an

impromptu wrestle with my friend Bounderby in the Lancashire manner which would seem as likely as

anything else in the present state of affairs I'll dine,' said Mr. James Harthouse. 'Bounderby has the

advantage in point of weight; and if anything of a British nature is to come off between us, it may be as well

Therefore he rang the bell, and tossing himself negligently on a sofa, ordered 'Some dinner at six with a

beefsteak in it,' and got through the intervening time as well as he could. That was not particularly well; for

he remained in the greatest perplexity, and, as the hours went on, and no kind of explanation offered itself, his

However, he took affairs as coolly as it was in human nature to do, and entertained himself with the facetious

idea of the training more than once. 'It wouldn't be bad,' he yawned at one time, 'to give the waiter five

shillings, and throw him.' At another time it occurred to him, 'Or a fellow of about thirteen or fourteen stone

might be hired by the hour.' But these jests did not tell materially on the afternoon, or his suspense; and, sooth

It was impossible, even before dinner, to avoid often walking about in the pattern of the carpet, looking out of

the window, listening at the door for footsteps, and occasionally becoming rather hot when any steps

approached that room. But, after dinner, when the day turned to twilight, and the twilight turned to night, and

still no communication was made to him, it began to be as he expressed it, 'like the Holy Office and slow

torture.' However, still true to his conviction that indifference was the genuine highbreeding (the only

conviction he had), he seized this crisis as the opportunity for ordering candles and a newspaper.

He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at

A general recollection that this was the kind of thing the Police said to the swell mob, caused Mr. Harthouse

to ask the waiter in return, with bristling indignation, what the Devil he meant by 'wanted'?

Giving the waiter to the personage before mentioned, as a block head duly qualified for that consignment,

Mr. Harthouse hurried into the gallery. A young woman whom he had never seen stood there. Plainly

dressed, very quiet, very pretty. As he conducted her into the room and placed a chair for her, he observed, by

the light of the candles, that she was even prettier than he had at first believed. Her face was innocent and

youthful, and its expression remarkably pleasant. She was not afraid of him, or in any way disconcerted; she

seemed to have her mind entirely preoccupied with the occasion of her visit, and to have substituted that

'To Mr. Harthouse.' He added in his mind, 'And you speak to him with the most confiding eyes I ever saw,

'If I do not understand and I do not, sir' said Sissy, 'what your honour as a gentleman binds you to, in

other matters:' the blood really rose in his face as she began in these words: 'I am sure I may rely upon it to

keep my visit secret, and to keep secret what I am going to say. I will rely upon it, if you will tell me I may so

'I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see. In coming to you, sir, I have no advice or encouragement

beyond my own hope.' He thought, 'But that is very strong,' as he followed the momentary upward glance of

her eyes. He thought besides, 'This is a very odd beginning. I don't see where we are going.'

'I have been in the greatest concern and uneasiness during the last fourandtwenty hours (which have

appeared as many years),' he returned, 'on a lady's account. The hopes I have been encouraged to form that

Mr. Harthouse's face lengthened in spite of his coolness, and his perplexity increased. 'Then I certainly,' he

'She hurried there last night. She arrived there in great agitation, and was insensible all through the night. I

live at her father's, and was with her. You may be sure, sir, you will never see her again as long as you live.'

Mr. Harthouse drew a long breath; and, if ever man found himself in the position of not knowing what to say,

made the discovery beyond all question that he was so circumstanced. The childlike ingenuousness with

which his visitor spoke, her modest fearlessness, her truthfulness which put all artifice aside, her entire

forgetfulness of herself in her earnest quiet holding to the object with which she had come; all this, together

with her reliance on his easily given promise which in itself shamed him presented something in which

he was so inexperienced, and against which he knew any of his usual weapons would fall so powerless; that

'So startling an announcement, so confidently made, and by such lips, is really disconcerting in the last

degree. May I be permitted to inquire, if you are charged to convey that information to me in those hopeless

'The drowning man catches at the straw. With no disrespect for your judgment, and with no doubt of your

sincerity, excuse my saying that I cling to the belief that there is yet hope that I am not condemned to

'There is not the least hope. The first object of my coming here, sir, is to assure you that you must believe that

there is no more hope of your ever speaking with her again, than there would be if she had died when she

'Must believe? But if I can't or if I should, by infirmity of nature, be obstinate and won't '

James Harthouse looked at her with an incredulous smile upon his lips; but her mind looked over and beyond

'Well! If it should unhappily appear,' he said, 'after due pains and duty on my part, that I am brought to a

position so desolate as this banishment, I shall not become the lady's persecutor. But you said you had no

'I have only the commission of my love for her, and her love for me. I have no other trust, than that I have

been with her since she came home, and that she has given me her confidence. I have no further trust, than

that I know something of her character and her marriage. O Mr. Harthouse, I think you had that trust too!'

He was touched in the cavity where his heart should have been in that nest of addled eggs, where the birds

of heaven would have lived if they had not been whistled away by the fervour of this reproach.

'I am not a moral sort of fellow,' he said, 'and I never make any pretensions to the character of a moral sort of

fellow. I am as immoral as need be. At the same time, in bringing any distress upon the lady who is the

subject of the present conversation, or in unfortunately compromising her in any way, or in committing

myself by any expression of sentiments towards her, not perfectly reconcilable with in fact with the

domestic hearth; or in taking any advantage of her father's being a machine, or of her brother's being a whelp,

or of her husband's being a bear; I beg to be allowed to assure you that I have had no particularly evil

intentions, but have glided on from one step to another with a smoothness so perfectly diabolical, that I had

not the slightest idea the catalogue was half so long until I began to turn it over. Whereas I find,' said Mr.

Though he said all this in his frivolous way, the way seemed, for that once, a conscious polishing of but an

ugly surface. He was silent for a moment; and then proceeded with a more selfpossessed air, though with

'After what has been just now represented to me, in a manner I find it impossible to doubt I know of hardly

any other source from which I could have accepted it so readily I feel bound to say to you, in whom the

confidence you have mentioned has been reposed, that I cannot refuse to contemplate the possibility

(however unexpected) of my seeing the lady no more. I am solely to blame for the thing having come to this

and and, I cannot say,' he added, rather hard up for a general peroration, 'that I have any sanguine

expectation of ever becoming a moral sort of fellow, or that I have any belief in any moral sort of fellow

'You spoke,' he resumed, as she raised her eyes to him again, 'of your first object. I may assume that there is a

'Mr. Harthouse,' returned Sissy, with a blending of gentleness and steadiness that quite defeated him, and with

a simple confidence in his being bound to do what she required, that held him at a singular disadvantage, 'the

only reparation that remains with you, is to leave here immediately and finally. I am quite sure that you can

mitigate in no other way the wrong and harm you have done. I am quite sure that it is the only compensation

you have left it in your power to make. I do not say that it is much, or that it is enough; but it is something,

and it is necessary. Therefore, though without any other authority than I have given you, and even without the

knowledge of any other person than yourself and myself, I ask you to depart from this place tonight, under

If she had asserted any influence over him beyond her plain faith in the truth and right of what she said; if she

had concealed the least doubt or irresolution, or had harboured for the best purpose any reserve or pretence; if

she had shown, or felt, the lightest trace of any sensitiveness to his ridicule or his astonishment, or any

remonstrance he might offer; he would have carried it against her at this point. But he could as easily have

'But do you know,' he asked, quite at a loss, 'the extent of what you ask? You probably are not aware that I

am here on a public kind of business, preposterous enough in itself, but which I have gone in for, and sworn

by, and am supposed to be devoted to in quite a desperate manner? You probably are not aware of that, but I

'Besides which,' said Mr. Harthouse, taking a turn or two across the room, dubiously, 'it's so alarmingly

absurd. It would make a man so ridiculous, after going in for these fellows, to back out in such an

'I am quite sure,' repeated Sissy, 'that it is the only reparation in your power, sir. I am quite sure, or I would

He glanced at her face, and walked about again. 'Upon my soul, I don't know what to say. So immensely

'If I were to do such a very ridiculous thing,' he said, stopping again presently, and leaning against the

His leaning against the chimneypiece reminded him of the night with the whelp. It was the selfsame

chimneypiece, and somehow he felt as if he were the whelp tonight. He could make no way at all.

'I suppose a man never was placed in a more ridiculous position,' he said, after looking down, and looking up,

and laughing, and frowning, and walking off, and walking back again. 'But I see no way out of it. What will

be, will be. This will be, I suppose. I must take off myself, I imagine in short, I engage to do it.'

Sissy rose. She was not surprised by the result, but she was happy in it, and her face beamed brightly.

'You will permit me to say,' continued Mr. James Harthouse, 'that I doubt if any other ambassador, or

ambassadress, could have addressed me with the same success. I must not only regard myself as being in a

very ridiculous position, but as being vanquished at all points. Will you allow me the privilege of

'I am only a poor girl,' returned Sissy. 'I was separated from my father he was only a stroller and taken

'It wanted this to complete the defeat,' said Mr. James Harthouse, sinking, with a resigned air, on the sofa,

after standing transfixed a little while. 'The defeat may now be considered perfectly accomplished. Only a

poor girl only a stroller only James Harthouse made nothing of only James Harthouse a Great Pyramid

The Great Pyramid put it into his head to go up the Nile. He took a pen upon the instant, and wrote the

Dear Jack, All up at Coketown. Bored out of the place, and going in for camels. Affectionately, JEM,

He wrote two more notes. One, to Mr. Bounderby, announcing his retirement from that part of the country,

and showing where he would be found for the next fortnight. The other, similar in effect, to Mr. Gradgrind.

Almost as soon as the ink was dry upon their superscriptions, he had left the tall chimneys of Coketown

behind, and was in a railway carriage, tearing and glaring over the dark landscape.

The moral sort of fellows might suppose that Mr. James Harthouse derived some comfortable reflections

afterwards, from this prompt retreat, as one of his few actions that made any amends for anything, and as a

token to himself that he had escaped the climax of a very bad business. But it was not so, at all. A secret

sense of having failed and been ridiculous a dread of what other fellows who went in for similar sorts of

things, would say at his expense if they knew it so oppressed him, that what was about the very best

passage in his life was the one of all others he would not have owned to on any account, and the only one that

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 in upon him at his hotel in St. James's

Street, exploded the combustibles with which she was charged, and blew up. Having executed her mission

with infinite relish, this highminded woman then fainted away on Mr. Bounderby's coatcollar.

Mr. Bounderby's first procedure was to shake Mrs. Sparsit off, and leave her to progress as she might through

various stages of suffering on the floor. He next had recourse to the administration of potent restoratives, such

as screwing the patient's thumbs, smiting her hands, abundantly watering her face, and inserting salt in her

mouth. When these attentions had recovered her (which they speedily did), he hustled her into a fast train

without offering any other refreshment, and carried her back to Coketown more dead than alive.

Regarded as a classical ruin, Mrs. Sparsit was an interesting spectacle on her arrival at her journey's end; but

considered in any other light, the amount of damage she had by that time sustained was excessive, and

impaired her claims to admiration. Utterly heedless of the wear and tear of her clothes and constitution, and

adamant to her pathetic sneezes, Mr. Bounderby immediately crammed her into a coach, and bore her off to

'Now, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby, bursting into his fatherin law's room late at night; 'here's a lady

here Mrs. Sparsit you know Mrs. Sparsit who has something to say to you that will strike you dumb.'

'You have missed my letter!' exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, surprised by the apparition.

'Missed your letter, sir!' bawled Bounderby. 'The present time is no time for letters. No man shall talk to

Josiah Bounderby of Coketown about letters, with his mind in the state it's in now.'

'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, in a tone of temperate remonstrance, 'I speak of a very special letter I have

'Tom Gradgrind,' replied Bounderby, knocking the flat of his hand several times with great vehemence on the

table, 'I speak of a very special messenger that has come to me, in reference to Louisa. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am,

That unfortunate lady hereupon essaying to offer testimony, without any voice and with painful gestures

expressive of an inflamed throat, became so aggravating and underwent so many facial contortions, that Mr.

'If you can't get it out, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'leave me to get it out. This is not a time for a lady, however

highly connected, to be totally inaudible, and seemingly swallowing marbles. Tom Gradgrind, Mrs. Sparsit

latterly found herself, by accident, in a situation to overhear a conversation out of doors between your

'You do? Perhaps,' said Bounderby, staring with all his might at his so quiet and assuasive fatherinlaw,

'My dear Bounderby, let me beg you to restrain these loud out breaks, on all accounts. Louisa is here. The

moment she could detach herself from that interview with the person of whom you speak, and whom I deeply

regret to have been the means of introducing to you, Louisa hurried here, for protection. I myself had not

been at home many hours, when I received her here, in this room. She hurried by the train to town, she ran

from town to this house, through a raging storm, and presented herself before me in a state of distraction. Of

course, she has remained here ever since. Let me entreat you, for your own sake and for hers, to be more

Mr. Bounderby silently gazed about him for some moments, in every direction except Mrs. Sparsit's

direction; and then, abruptly turning upon the niece of Lady Scadgers, said to that wretched woman:

'Now, ma'am! We shall be happy to hear any little apology you may think proper to offer, for going about the

'Sir,' whispered Mrs. Sparsit, 'my nerves are at present too much shaken, and my health is at present too much

impaired, in your service, to admit of my doing more than taking refuge in tears.' (Which she did.)

'Well, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'without making any observation to you that may not be made with propriety

to a woman of good family, what I have got to add to that, is that there is something else in which it appears

to me you may take refuge, namely, a coach. And the coach in which we came here being at the door, you'll

allow me to hand you down to it, and pack you home to the Bank: where the best course for you to pursue,

will be to put your feet into the hottest water you can bear, and take a glass of scalding rum and butter after

you get into bed.' With these words, Mr. Bounderby extended his right hand to the weeping lady, and

escorted her to the conveyance in question, shedding many plaintive sneezes by the way. He soon returned

'Now, as you showed me in your face, Tom Gradgrind, that you wanted to speak to me,' he resumed, 'here I

am. But, I am not in a very agreeable state, I tell you plainly: not relishing this business, even as it is, and not

considering that I am at any time as dutifully and submissively treated by your daughter, as Josiah Bounderby

of Coketown ought to be treated by his wife. You have your opinion, I dare say; and I have mine, I know. If

you mean to say anything to me tonight, that goes against this candid remark, you had better let it alone.'

Mr. Gradgrind, it will be observed, being much softened, Mr. Bounderby took particular pains to harden

'Now, you'll excuse me,' said Bounderby, 'but I don't want to be too dear. That, to start with. When I begin to

be dear to a man, I generally find that his intention is to come over me. I am not speaking to you politely; but,

as you are aware, I am not polite. If you like politeness, you know where to get it. You have your

gentlemanfriends, you know, and they'll serve you with as much of the article as you want. I don't keep it

'Perhaps I thought so. But, I say we are all liable to mistakes and I should feel sensible of your delicacy, and

grateful for it, if you would spare me these references to Harthouse. I shall not associate him in our

conversation with your intimacy and encouragement; pray do not persist in connecting him with mine.'

'Well, well!' returned Mr. Gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive, air. And he sat for a little while

pondering. 'Bounderby, I see reason to doubt whether we have ever quite understood Louisa.'

'Let me say I, then,' he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted question; 'I doubt whether I have

understood Louisa. I doubt whether I have been quite right in the manner of her education.'

'There you hit it,' returned Bounderby. 'There I agree with you. You have found it out at last, have you?

Education! I'll tell you what education is To be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the

'I think your good sense will perceive,' Mr. Gradgrind remonstrated in all humility, 'that whatever the merits

of such a system may be, it would be difficult of general application to girls.'

'Well,' sighed Mr. Gradgrind, 'we will not enter into the question. I assure you I have no desire to be

controversial. I seek to repair what is amiss, if I possibly can; and I hope you will assist me in a good spirit,

'I don't understand you, yet,' said Bounderby, with determined obstinacy, 'and therefore I won't make any

'In the course of a few hours, my dear Bounderby,' Mr. Gradgrind proceeded, in the same depressed and

propitiatory manner, 'I appear to myself to have become better informed as to Louisa's character, than in

previous years. The enlightenment has been painfully forced upon me, and the discovery is not mine. I think

there are Bounderby, you will be surprised to hear me say this I think there are qualities in Louisa, which

which have been harshly neglected, and and a little perverted. And and I would suggest to you, that

that if you would kindly meet me in a timely endeavour to leave her to her better nature for a while and to

encourage it to develop itself by tenderness and consideration it it would be the better for the happiness of

all of us. Louisa,' said Mr. Gradgrind, shading his face with his hand, 'has always been my favourite child.'

The blustrous Bounderby crimsoned and swelled to such an extent on hearing these words, that he seemed to

be, and probably was, on the brink of a fit. With his very ears a bright purple shot with crimson, he pent up

'I I had intended to recommend, my dear Bounderby, that you should allow Louisa to remain here on a

visit, and be attended by Sissy (I mean of course Cecilia Jupe), who understands her, and in whom she trusts.'

'I gather from all this, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby, standing up with his hands in his pockets, 'that you

are of opinion that there's what people call some incompatibility between Loo Bounderby and myself.'

'I fear there is at present a general incompatibility between Louisa, and and and almost all the relations in

'Now, look you here, Tom Gradgrind,' said Bounderby the flushed, confronting him with his legs wide apart,

his hands deeper in his pockets, and his hair like a hayfield wherein his windy anger was boisterous. 'You

have said your say; I am going to say mine. I am a Coketown man. I am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. I

know the bricks of this town, and I know the works of this town, and I know the chimneys of this town, and I

know the smoke of this town, and I know the Hands of this town. I know 'em all pretty well. They're real.

When a man tells me anything about imaginative qualities, I always tell that man, whoever he is, that I know

what he means. He means turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, and that he wants to be set up with a

coach and six. That's what your daughter wants. Since you are of opinion that she ought to have what she

wants, I recommend you to provide it for her. Because, Tom Gradgrind, she will never have it from me.'

'Bounderby,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'I hoped, after my entreaty, you would have taken a different tone.'

'Just wait a bit,' retorted Bounderby; 'you have said your say, I believe. I heard you out; hear me out, if you

please. Don't make yourself a spectacle of unfairness as well as inconsistency, because, although I am sorry

to see Tom Gradgrind reduced to his present position, I should be doubly sorry to see him brought so low as

that. Now, there's an incompatibility of some sort or another, I am given to understand by you, between your

daughter and me. I'll give you to understand, in reply to that, that there unquestionably is an incompatibility

of the first magnitude to be summed up in this that your daughter don't properly know her husband's

merits, and is not impressed with such a sense as would become her, by George! of the honour of his alliance.

'Is it?' said Bounderby. 'I am glad to hear you say so. Because when Tom Gradgrind, with his new lights, tells

me that what I say is unreasonable, I am convinced at once it must be devilish sensible. With your permission

I am going on. You know my origin; and you know that for a good many years of my life I didn't want a

shoeinghorn, in consequence of not having a shoe. Yet you may believe or not, as you think proper, that

there are ladies born ladies belonging to families Families! who next to worship the ground I walk

'Whereas your daughter,' proceeded Bounderby, 'is far from being a born lady. That you know, yourself. Not

that I care a pinch of candlesnuff about such things, for you are very well aware I don't; but that such is the

'Hear me out,' said Bounderby, 'and refrain from cutting in till your turn comes round. I say this, because

highly connected females have been astonished to see the way in which your daughter has conducted herself,

and to witness her insensibility. They have wondered how I have suffered it. And I wonder myself now, and I

'Bounderby,' returned Mr. Gradgrind, rising, 'the less we say to night the better, I think.'

'On the contrary, Tom Gradgrind, the more we say tonight, the better, I think. That is,' the consideration

checked him, 'till I have said all I mean to say, and then I don't care how soon we stop. I come to a question

that may shorten the business. What do you mean by the proposal you made just now?'

'By your visiting proposition,' said Bounderby, with an inflexible jerk of the hayfield.

'I mean that I hope you may be induced to arrange in a friendly manner, for allowing Louisa a period of

repose and reflection here, which may tend to a gradual alteration for the better in many respects.'

'I have already said, I fear Louisa has not been understood. Is it asking too much, Bounderby, that you, so far

her elder, should aid in trying to set her right? You have accepted a great charge of her; for better for worse,

Mr. Bounderby may have been annoyed by the repetition of his own words to Stephen Blackpool, but he cut

'Come!' said he, 'I don't want to be told about that. I know what I took her for, as well as you do. Never you

'I was merely going on to remark, Bounderby, that we may all be more or less in the wrong, not even

excepting you; and that some yielding on your part, remembering the trust you have accepted, may not only

'I think differently,' blustered Bounderby. 'I am going to finish this business according to my own opinions.

Now, I don't want to make a quarrel of it with you, Tom Gradgrind. To tell you the truth, I don't think it

would be worthy of my reputation to quarrel on such a subject. As to your gentlemanfriend, he may take

himself off, wherever he likes best. If he falls in my way, I shall tell him my mind; if he don't fall in my way,

I shan't, for it won't be worth my while to do it. As to your daughter, whom I made Loo Bounderby, and

might have done better by leaving Loo Gradgrind, if she don't come home tomorrow, by twelve o'clock at

noon, I shall understand that she prefers to stay away, and I shall send her wearing apparel and so forth over

here, and you'll take charge of her for the future. What I shall say to people in general, of the incompatibility

that led to my so laying down the law, will be this. I am Josiah Bounderby, and I had my bringing up; she's

the daughter of Tom Gradgrind, and she had her bringing up; and the two horses wouldn't pull together. I

am pretty well known to be rather an uncommon man, I believe; and most people will understand fast enough

that it must be a woman rather out of the common, also, who, in the long run, would come up to my mark.'

'Let me seriously entreat you to reconsider this, Bounderby,' urged Mr. Gradgrind, 'before you commit

'I always come to a decision,' said Bounderby, tossing his hat on: 'and whatever I do, I do at once. I should be

surprised at Tom Gradgrind's addressing such a remark to Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, knowing what he

knows of him, if I could be surprised by anything Tom Gradgrind did, after his making himself a party to

sentimental humbug. I have given you my decision, and I have got no more to say. Good night!'

So Mr. Bounderby went home to his town house to bed. At five minutes past twelve o'clock next day, he

directed Mrs. Bounderby's property to be carefully packed up and sent to Tom Gradgrind's; advertised his

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 selfmade man, and a commercial wonder more admirable than Venus, who had risen out of the

mud instead of the sea, he liked to show how little his domestic affairs abated his business ardour.

Consequently, in the first few weeks of his resumed bachelorhood, he even advanced upon his usual display

of bustle, and every day made such a rout in renewing his investigations into the robbery, that the officers

They were at fault too, and off the scent. Although they had been so quiet since the first outbreak of the

matter, that most people really did suppose it to have been abandoned as hopeless, nothing new occurred. No

implicated man or woman took untimely courage, or made a selfbetraying step. More remarkable yet,

Stephen Blackpool could not be heard of, and the mysterious old woman remained a mystery.

Things having come to this pass, and showing no latent signs of stirring beyond it, the upshot of Mr.

Bounderby's investigations was, that he resolved to hazard a bold burst. He drew up a placard, offering

Twenty Pounds reward for the apprehension of Stephen Blackpool, suspected of complicity in the robbery of

Coketown Bank on such a night; he described the said Stephen Blackpool by dress, complexion, estimated

height, and manner, as minutely as he could; he recited how he had left the town, and in what direction he

had been last seen going; he had the whole printed in great black letters on a staring broadsheet; and he

caused the walls to be posted with it in the dead of night, so that it should strike upon the sight of the whole

The factorybells had need to ring their loudest that morning to disperse the groups of workers who stood in

the tardy daybreak, collected round the placards, devouring them with eager eyes. Not the least eager of the

eyes assembled, were the eyes of those who could not read. These people, as they listened to the friendly

voice that read aloud there was always some such ready to help them stared at the characters which meant

so much with a vague awe and respect that would have been half ludicrous, if any aspect of public ignorance

could ever be otherwise than threatening and full of evil. Many ears and eyes were busy with a vision of the

matter of these placards, among turning spindles, rattling looms, and whirling wheels, for hours afterwards;

and when the Hands cleared out again into the streets, there were still as many readers as before.

Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that night; and Slackbridge had obtained a clean

bill from the printer, and had brought it in his pocket. Oh, my friends and fellow countrymen, the

downtrodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow brothers and fellowworkmen and fellowcitizens

and fellowmen, what a todo was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called 'that damning document,'

and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the workingman community! 'Oh, my fellowmen,

behold of what a traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and

of Union, is appropriately capable! Oh, my prostrate friends, with the galling yoke of tyrants on your necks

and the iron foot of despotism treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which right

glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your bellies all the days of your lives, like the serpent

in the garden oh, my brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you say, now, of

Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this

degrading and disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable

advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you crush the viper, who would bring this stain

and shame upon the Godlike race that happily has cast him out for ever! Yes, my compatriots, happily cast

him out and sent him forth! For you remember how he stood here before you on this platform; you remember

how, face to face and foot to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember how he

sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with not an inch of ground to which to cling, I

hurled him out from amongst us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the avenging

fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar! And now, my friends my labouring friends, for I

rejoice and triumph in that stigma my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose

scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my friends, what appellation has that

dastard craven taken to himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his

native deformity, a What? A thief! A plunderer! A proscribed fugitive, with a price upon his head; a fester

and a wound upon the noble character of the Coketown operative! Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred

bond, to which your children and your children's children yet unborn have set their infant hands and seals, I

propose to you on the part of the United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous for

your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool, weaver, referred to in this placard,

having been already solemnly disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the

shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his dishonest actions!'

Thus Slackbridge; gnashing and perspiring after a prodigious sort. A few stern voices called out 'No!' and a

score or two hailed, with assenting cries of 'Hear, hear!' the caution from one man, 'Slackbridge, y'or over

hetter in't; y'or a goen too fast!' But these were pigmies against an army; the general assemblage subscribed to

the gospel according to Slackbridge, and gave three cheers for him, as he sat demonstratively panting at them.

These men and women were yet in the streets, passing quietly to their homes, when Sissy, who had been

'It is Mr. Bounderby,' said Sissy, timid of the name, 'and your brother Mr. Tom, and a young woman who

'Father,' said Louisa, for he was present, 'I cannot refuse to see them, for a reason that will explain itself. Shall

As he answered in the affirmative, Sissy went away to bring them. She reappeared with them directly. Tom

was last; and remained standing in the obscurest part of the room, near the door.

'Mrs. Bounderby,' said her husband, entering with a cool nod, 'I don't disturb you, I hope. This is an

unseasonable hour, but here is a young woman who has been making statements which render my visit

necessary. Tom Gradgrind, as your son, young Tom, refuses for some obstinate reason or other to say

anything at all about those statements, good or bad, I am obliged to confront her with your daughter.'

'You have seen me once before, young lady,' said Rachael, standing in front of Louisa.

'You have seen me, young lady,' repeated Rachael, as she did not answer, 'once before.'

Rachael cast her eyes proudly towards Mr. Bounderby, and said, 'Will you make it known, young lady,

'I went to the house where Stephen Blackpool lodged, on the night of his discharge from his work, and I saw

you there. He was there too; and an old woman who did not speak, and whom I could scarcely see, stood in a

'I promised my sister I wouldn't.' Which Louisa hastily confirmed. 'And besides,' said the whelp bitterly, 'she

tells her own story so precious well and so full that what business had I to take it out of her mouth!'

'Say, young lady, if you please,' pursued Rachael, 'why, in an evil hour, you ever came to Stephen's that

'I felt compassion for him,' said Louisa, her colour deepening, 'and I wished to know what he was going to

'Oh, certainly!' said Bounderby. 'If you put the question whether your ridiculous and improbable account was

'Young lady,' said Rachael, 'Stephen Blackpool is now named as a thief in public print all over this town, and

where else! There have been a meeting tonight where he have been spoken of in the same shameful way.

Stephen! The honestest lad, the truest lad, the best!' Her indignation failed her, and she broke off sobbing.

'Oh, young lady, young lady,' returned Rachael, 'I hope you may be, but I don't know! I can't say what you

may ha' done! The like of you don't know us, don't care for us, don't belong to us. I am not sure why you may

ha' come that night. I can't tell but what you may ha' come wi' some aim of your own, not mindin to what

trouble you brought such as the poor lad. I said then, Bless you for coming; and I said it of my heart, you

Louisa could not reproach her for her unjust suspicions; she was so faithful to her idea of the man, and so

'And when I think,' said Rachael through her sobs, 'that the poor lad was so grateful, thinkin you so good to

him when I mind that he put his hand over his hardworken face to hide the tears that you brought up there

Oh, I hope you may be sorry, and ha' no bad cause to be it; but I don't know, I don't know!'

'You're a pretty article,' growled the whelp, moving uneasily in his dark corner, 'to come here with these

precious imputations! You ought to be bundled out for not knowing how to behave yourself, and you would

She said nothing in reply; and her low weeping was the only sound that was heard, until Mr. Bounderby

'Come!' said he, 'you know what you have engaged to do. You had better give your mind to that; not this.'

''Deed, I am loath,' returned Rachael, drying her eyes, 'that any here should see me like this; but I won't be

seen so again. Young lady, when I had read what's put in print of Stephen and what has just as much truth

in it as if it had been put in print of you I went straight to the Bank to say I knew where Stephen was, and to

give a sure and certain promise that he should be here in two days. I couldn't meet wi' Mr. Bounderby then,

and your brother sent me away, and I tried to find you, but you was not to be found, and I went back to work.

Soon as I come out of the Mill tonight, I hastened to hear what was said of Stephen for I know wi' pride

he will come back to shame it! and then I went again to seek Mr. Bounderby, and I found him, and I told

'So far, that's true enough,' assented Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets and his hat on. 'But I have

known you people before today, you'll observe, and I know you never die for want of talking. Now, I

recommend you not so much to mind talking just now, as doing. You have undertaken to do something; all I

'I have written to Stephen by the post that went out this afternoon, as I have written to him once before sin' he

'Then, I'll tell you something. You are not aware perhaps,' retorted Mr. Bounderby, 'that you yourself have

been looked after now and then, not being considered quite free from suspicion in this business, on account of

most people being judged according to the company they keep. The postoffice hasn't been forgotten either.

What I'll tell you is, that no letter to Stephen Blackpool has ever got into it. Therefore, what has become of

'He hadn't been gone from here, young lady,' said Rachael, turning appealingly to Louisa, 'as much as a week,

when he sent me the only letter I have had from him, saying that he was forced to seek work in another

'Oh, by George!' cried Bounderby, shaking his head, with a whistle, 'he changes his name, does he! That's

rather unlucky, too, for such an immaculate chap. It's considered a little suspicious in Courts of Justice, I

'What,' said Rachael, with the tears in her eyes again, 'what, young lady, in the name of Mercy, was left the

poor lad to do! The masters against him on one hand, the men against him on the other, he only wantin to

work hard in peace, and do what he felt right. Can a man have no soul of his own, no mind of his own? Must

he go wrong all through wi' this side, or must he go wrong all through wi' that, or else be hunted like a hare?'

'Indeed, indeed, I pity him from my heart,' returned Louisa; 'and I hope that he will clear himself.'

'All the surer, I suppose,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'for your refusing to tell where he is? Eh?'

'He shall not, through any act of mine, come back wi' the unmerited reproach of being brought back. He shall

come back of his own accord to clear himself, and put all those that have injured his good character, and he

not here for its defence, to shame. I have told him what has been done against him,' said Rachael, throwing

off all distrust as a rock throws of the sea, 'and he will be here, at furthest, in two days.'

'Notwithstanding which,' added Mr. Bounderby, 'if he can be laid hold of any sooner, he shall have an earlier

opportunity of clearing himself. As to you, I have nothing against you; what you came and told me turns out

to be true, and I have given you the means of proving it to be true, and there's an end of it. I wish you good

Tom came out of his corner when Mr. Bounderby moved, moved with him, kept close to him, and went away

with him. The only parting salutation of which he delivered himself was a sulky 'Good night, father!' With a

Since his sheetanchor had come home, Mr. Gradgrind had been sparing of speech. He still sat silent, when

'It goes against me,' Rachael answered, in a gentler manner, 'to mistrust any one; but when I am so mistrusted

when we all are I cannot keep such things quite out of my mind. I ask your pardon for having done you

an injury. I don't think what I said now. Yet I might come to think it again, wi' the poor lad so wronged.'

'Did you tell him in your letter,' inquired Sissy, 'that suspicion seemed to have fallen upon him, because he

had been seen about the Bank at night? He would then know what he would have to explain on coming back,

'Yes, dear,' she returned; 'but I can't guess what can have ever taken him there. He never used to go there. It

Sissy had already been at her side asking her where she lived, and whether she might come tomorrow night,

When Rachael, assenting to this, was gone, Mr. Gradgrind lifted up his head, and said to his daughter:

'Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man. Do you believe him to be implicated?'

'I think I have believed it, father, though with great difficulty. I do not believe it now.'

'That is to say, you once persuaded yourself to believe it, from knowing him to be suspected. His appearance

'And her confidence not to be shaken! I ask myself,' said Mr. Gradgrind, musing, 'does the real culprit know

His hair had latterly began to change its colour. As he leaned upon his hand again, looking gray and old,

Louisa, with a face of fear and pity, hurriedly went over to him, and sat close at his side. Her eyes by accident

met Sissy's at the moment. Sissy flushed and started, and Louisa put her finger on her lip.

Next night, when Sissy returned home and told Louisa that Stephen was not come, she told it in a whisper.

Next night again, when she came home with the same account, and added that he had not been heard of, she

spoke in the same low frightened tone. From the moment of that interchange of looks, they never uttered his

name, or any reference to him, aloud; nor ever pursued the subject of the robbery, when Mr. Gradgrind spoke

The two appointed days ran out, three days and nights ran out, and Stephen Blackpool was not come, and

remained unheard of. On the fourth day, Rachael, with unabated confidence, but considering her despatch to

have miscarried, went up to the Bank, and showed her letter from him with his address, at a working colony,

one of many, not upon the main road, sixty miles away. Messengers were sent to that place, and the whole

During this whole time the whelp moved about with Mr. Bounderby like his shadow, assisting in all the

proceedings. He was greatly excited, horribly fevered, bit his nails down to the quick, spoke in a hard rattling

voice, and with lips that were black and burnt up. At the hour when the suspected man was looked for, the

whelp was at the station; offering to wager that he had made off before the arrival of those who were sent in

The whelp was right. The messengers returned alone. Rachael's letter had gone, Rachael's letter had been

delivered. Stephen Blackpool had decamped in that same hour; and no soul knew more of him. The only

doubt in Coketown was, whether Rachael had written in good faith, believing that he really would come

Six days, seven days, far on into another week. The wretched whelp plucked up a ghastly courage, and began

to grow defiant. 'Was the suspected fellow the thief? A pretty question! If not, where was the man, and why

Where was the man, and why did he not come back? In the dead of night the echoes of his own words, which

had rolled Heaven knows how far away in the daytime, came back instead, and abided by him until morning.

DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not

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 anxieties. The smokeserpents were indifferent who was lost or

found, who turned out bad or good; the melancholy mad elephants, like the Hard Fact men, abated nothing of

their set routine, whatever happened. Day and night again, day and night again. The monotony was unbroken.

Even Stephen Blackpool's disappearance was falling into the general way, and becoming as monotonous a

'I misdoubt,' said Rachael, 'if there is as many as twenty left in all this place, who have any trust in the poor

She said it to Sissy, as they sat in her lodging, lighted only by the lamp at the street corner. Sissy had come

there when it was already dark, to await her return from work; and they had since sat at the window where

Rachael had found her, wanting no brighter light to shine on their sorrowful talk.

'If it hadn't been mercifully brought about, that I was to have you to speak to,' pursued Rachael, 'times are,

when I think my mind would not have kept right. But I get hope and strength through you; and you believe

'I do believe so,' returned Sissy, 'with my whole heart. I feel so certain, Rachael, that the confidence you hold

in yours against all discouragement, is not like to be wrong, that I have no more doubt of him than if I had

'And I, my dear,' said Rachel, with a tremble in her voice, 'have known him through them all, to be, according

to his quiet ways, so faithful to everything honest and good, that if he was never to be heard of more, and I

was to live to be a hundred years old, I could say with my last breath, God knows my heart. I have never once

'We all believe, up at the Lodge, Rachael, that he will be freed from suspicion, sooner or later.'

'The better I know it to be so believed there, my dear,' said Rachael, 'and the kinder I feel it that you come

away from there, purposely to comfort me, and keep me company, and be seen wi' me when I am not yet free

from all suspicion myself, the more grieved I am that I should ever have spoken those mistrusting words to

'Now that you have brought us more together, no. But I can't at all times keep out of my mind '

Her voice so sunk into a low and slow communing with herself, that Sissy, sitting by her side, was obliged to

'I can't at all times keep out of my mind, mistrustings of some one. I can't think who 'tis, I can't think how or

why it may be done, but I mistrust that some one has put Stephen out of the way. I mistrust that by his

coming back of his own accord, and showing himself innocent before them all, some one would be

'When it makes its way into my mind, dear,' said Rachael, 'and it will come sometimes, though I do all I can

to keep it out, wi' counting on to high numbers as I work, and saying over and over again pieces that I knew

when I were a child I fall into such a wild, hot hurry, that, however tired I am, I want to walk fast, miles

and miles. I must get the better of this before bedtime. I'll walk home wi' you.'

'He might fall ill upon the journey back,' said Sissy, faintly offering a wornout scrap of hope; 'and in such a

'He'd walk the journey in two days. If he was footsore and couldn't walk, I sent him, in the letter he got, the

'Let us hope that tomorrow will bring something better, Rachael. Come into the air!'

Her gentle hand adjusted Rachael's shawl upon her shining black hair in the usual manner of her wearing it,

and they went out. The night being fine, little knots of Hands were here and there lingering at street corners;

but it was suppertime with the greater part of them, and there were but few people in the streets.

'I get better, dear, if I can only walk, and breathe a little fresh. 'Times when I can't, I turn weak and confused.'

'But you must not begin to fail, Rachael, for you may be wanted at any time to stand by Stephen. Tomorrow

is Saturday. If no news comes tomorrow, let us walk in the country on Sunday morning, and strengthen you

They were by this time in the street where Mr. Bounderby's house stood. The way to Sissy's destination led

them past the door, and they were going straight towards it. Some train had newly arrived in Coketown,

which had put a number of vehicles in motion, and scattered a considerable bustle about the town. Several

coaches were rattling before them and behind them as they approached Mr. Bounderby's, and one of the latter

drew up with such briskness as they were in the act of passing the house, that they looked round

involuntarily. The bright gaslight over Mr. Bounderby's steps showed them Mrs. Sparsit in the coach, in an

ecstasy of excitement, struggling to open the door; Mrs. Sparsit seeing them at the same moment, called to

'It's a coincidence,' exclaimed Mrs. Sparsit, as she was released by the coachman. 'It's a Providence! Come

out, ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit, to some one inside, 'come out, or we'll have you dragged out!'

Hereupon, no other than the mysterious old woman descended. Whom Mrs. Sparsit incontinently collared.

'Leave her alone, everybody!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, with great energy. 'Let nobody touch her. She belongs to

me. Come in, ma'am!' then said Mrs. Sparsit, reversing her former word of command. 'Come in, ma'am, or

The spectacle of a matron of classical deportment, seizing an ancient woman by the throat, and hauling her

into a dwellinghouse, would have been under any circumstances, sufficient temptation to all true English

stragglers so blest as to witness it, to force a way into that dwellinghouse and see the matter out. But when

the phenomenon was enhanced by the notoriety and mystery by this time associated all over the town with

the Bank robbery, it would have lured the stragglers in, with an irresistible attraction, though the roof had

been expected to fall upon their heads. Accordingly, the chance witnesses on the ground, consisting of the

busiest of the neighbours to the number of some fiveandtwenty, closed in after Sissy and Rachael, as they

closed in after Mrs. Sparsit and her prize; and the whole body made a disorderly irruption into Mr.

Bounderby's diningroom, where the people behind lost not a moment's time in mounting on the chairs, to

'Fetch Mr. Bounderby down!' cried Mrs. Sparsit. 'Rachael, young woman; you know who this is?'

'I should think it is!' cried Mrs. Sparsit, exulting. 'Fetch Mr. Bounderby. Stand away, everybody!' Here old

Mrs. Pegler, muffling herself up, and shrinking from observation, whispered a word of entreaty. 'Don't tell

me,' said Mrs. Sparsit, aloud. 'I have told you twenty times, coming along, that I will not leave you till I have

Mr. Bounderby now appeared, accompanied by Mr. Gradgrind and the whelp, with whom he had been

holding conference upstairs. Mr. Bounderby looked more astonished than hospitable, at sight of this

'Sir,' explained that worthy woman, 'I trust it is my good fortune to produce a person you have much desired

to find. Stimulated by my wish to relieve your mind, sir, and connecting together such imperfect clues to the

part of the country in which that person might be supposed to reside, as have been afforded by the young

woman, Rachael, fortunately now present to identify, I have had the happiness to succeed, and to bring that

person with me I need not say most unwillingly on her part. It has not been, sir, without some trouble that I

have effected this; but trouble in your service is to me a pleasure, and hunger, thirst, and cold a real

Here Mrs. Sparsit ceased; for Mr. Bounderby's visage exhibited an extraordinary combination of all possible

colours and expressions of discomfiture, as old Mrs. Pegler was disclosed to his view.

'Why, what do you mean by this?' was his highly unexpected demand, in great warmth. 'I ask you, what do

'Why don't you mind your own business, ma'am?' roared Bounderby. 'How dare you go and poke your

This allusion to her favourite feature overpowered Mrs. Sparsit. She sat down stiffly in a chair, as if she were

frozen; and with a fixed stare at Mr. Bounderby, slowly grated her mittens against one another, as if they

'My dear Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, trembling. 'My darling boy! I am not to blame. It's not my fault, Josiah. I

told this lady over and over again, that I knew she was doing what would not be agreeable to you, but she

'What did you let her bring you for? Couldn't you knock her cap off, or her tooth out, or scratch her, or do

'My own boy! She threatened me that if I resisted her, I should be brought by constables, and it was better to

come quietly than make that stir in such a' Mrs. Pegler glanced timidly but proudly round the walls 'such

a fine house as this. Indeed, indeed, it is not my fault! My dear, noble, stately boy! I have always lived quiet,

and secret, Josiah, my dear. I have never broken the condition once. I have never said I was your mother. I

have admired you at a distance; and if I have come to town sometimes, with long times between, to take a

Mr. Bounderby, with his hands in his pockets, walked in impatient mortification up and down at the side of

the long diningtable, while the spectators greedily took in every syllable of Mrs. Pegler's appeal, and at each

succeeding syllable became more and more roundeyed. Mr. Bounderby still walking up and down when

'I am surprised, madam,' he observed with severity, 'that in your old age you have the face to claim Mr.

'Dear!' repeated Mr. Gradgrind. 'Yes; dear in his selfmade prosperity, madam, I dare say. Not very dear,

however, when you deserted him in his infancy, and left him to the brutality of a drunken grandmother.'

'I deserted my Josiah!' cried Mrs. Pegler, clasping her hands. 'Now, Lord forgive you, sir, for your wicked

imaginations, and for your scandal against the memory of my poor mother, who died in my arms before

She was so very earnest and injured, that Mr. Gradgrind, shocked by the possibility which dawned upon him,

'Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to to be brought up in the gutter?'

'Josiah in the gutter!' exclaimed Mrs. Pegler. 'No such a thing, sir. Never! For shame on you! My dear boy

knows, and will give you to know, that though he come of humble parents, he come of parents that loved him

as dear as the best could, and never thought it hardship on themselves to pinch a bit that he might write and

cipher beautiful, and I've his books at home to show it! Aye, have I!' said Mrs. Pegler, with indignant pride.

'And my dear boy knows, and will give you to know, sir, that after his beloved father died, when he was eight

years old, his mother, too, could pinch a bit, as it was her duty and her pleasure and her pride to do it, to help

him out in life, and put him 'prentice. And a steady lad he was, and a kind master he had to lend him a hand,

and well he worked his own way forward to be rich and thriving. And I'll give you to know, sir for this my

dear boy won't that though his mother kept but a little village shop, he never forgot her, but pensioned me

on thirty pound a year more than I want, for I put by out of it only making the condition that I was to

keep down in my own part, and make no boasts about him, and not trouble him. And I never have, except

with looking at him once a year, when he has never knowed it. And it's right,' said poor old Mrs. Pegler, in

affectionate championship, 'that I should keep down in my own part, and I have no doubts that if I was here I

should do a many unbefitting things, and I am well contented, and I can keep my pride in my Josiah to

myself, and I can love for love's own sake! And I am ashamed of you, sir,' said Mrs. Pegler, lastly, 'for your

slanders and suspicions. And I never stood here before, nor never wanted to stand here when my dear son

said no. And I shouldn't be here now, if it hadn't been for being brought here. And for shame upon you, Oh,

for shame, to accuse me of being a bad mother to my son, with my son standing here to tell you so different!'

The bystanders, on and off the diningroom chairs, raised a murmur of sympathy with Mrs. Pegler, and Mr.

Gradgrind felt himself innocently placed in a very distressing predicament, when Mr. Bounderby, who had

never ceased walking up and down, and had every moment swelled larger and larger, and grown redder and

'I don't exactly know,' said Mr. Bounderby, 'how I come to be favoured with the attendance of the present

company, but I don't inquire. When they're quite satisfied, perhaps they'll be so good as to disperse; whether

they're satisfied or not, perhaps they'll be so good as to disperse. I'm not bound to deliver a lecture on my

family affairs, I have not undertaken to do it, and I'm not a going to do it. Therefore those who expect any

explanation whatever upon that branch of the subject, will be disappointed particularly Tom Gradgrind, and

he can't know it too soon. In reference to the Bank robbery, there has been a mistake made, concerning my

mother. If there hadn't been overofficiousness it wouldn't have been made, and I hate overofficiousness at

Although Mr. Bounderby carried it off in these terms, holding the door open for the company to depart, there

was a blustering sheepishness upon him, at once extremely crestfallen and superlatively absurd. Detected as

the Bully of humility, who had built his windy reputation upon lies, and in his boastfulness had put the honest

truth as far away from him as if he had advanced the mean claim (there is no meaner) to tack himself on to a

pedigree, he cut a most ridiculous figure. With the people filing off at the door he held, who he knew would

carry what had passed to the whole town, to be given to the four winds, he could not have looked a Bully

more shorn and forlorn, if he had had his ears cropped. Even that unlucky female, Mrs. Sparsit, fallen from

her pinnacle of exultation into the Slough of Despond, was not in so bad a plight as that remarkable man and

Rachael and Sissy, leaving Mrs. Pegler to occupy a bed at her son's for that night, walked together to the gate

of Stone Lodge and there parted. Mr. Gradgrind joined them before they had gone very far, and spoke with

much interest of Stephen Blackpool; for whom he thought this signal failure of the suspicions against Mrs.

As to the whelp; throughout this scene as on all other late occasions, he had stuck close to Bounderby. He

seemed to feel that as long as Bounderby could make no discovery without his knowledge, he was so far safe.

He never visited his sister, and had only seen her once since she went home: that is to say on the night when

There was one dim unformed fear lingering about his sister's mind, to which she never gave utterance, which

surrounded the graceless and ungrateful boy with a dreadful mystery. The same dark possibility had

presented itself in the same shapeless guise, this very day, to Sissy, when Rachael spoke of some one who

would be confounded by Stephen's return, having put him out of the way. Louisa had never spoken of

harbouring any suspicion of her brother in connexion with the robbery, she and Sissy had held no confidence

on the subject, save in that one interchange of looks when the unconscious father rested his gray head on his

hand; but it was understood between them, and they both knew it. This other fear was so awful, that it

hovered about each of them like a ghostly shadow; neither daring to think of its being near herself, far less of

And still the forced spirit which the whelp had plucked up, throve with him. If Stephen Blackpool was not the

Another night. Another day and night. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not come

THE Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when early in the morning Sissy and Rachael

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 penance for their own sins by putting other people into sackcloth it was customary

for those who now and then thirsted for a draught of pure air, which is not absolutely the most wicked among

the vanities of life, to get a few miles away by the railroad, and then begin their walk, or their lounge in the

fields. Sissy and Rachael helped themselves out of the smoke by the usual means, and were put down at a

Though the green landscape was blotted here and there with heaps of coal, it was green elsewhere, and there

were trees to see, and there were larks singing (though it was Sunday), and there were pleasant scents in the

air, and all was overarched by a bright blue sky. In the distance one way, Coketown showed as a black mist;

in another distance hills began to rise; in a third, there was a faint change in the light of the horizon where it

shone upon the faroff sea. Under their feet, the grass was fresh; beautiful shadows of branches flickered

upon it, and speckled it; hedgerows were luxuriant; everything was at peace. Engines at pits' mouths, and lean

old horses that had worn the circle of their daily labour into the ground, were alike quiet; wheels had ceased

for a short space to turn; and the great wheel of earth seemed to revolve without the shocks and noises of

They walked on across the fields and down the shady lanes, sometimes getting over a fragment of a fence so

rotten that it dropped at a touch of the foot, sometimes passing near a wreck of bricks and beams overgrown

with grass, marking the site of deserted works. They followed paths and tracks, however slight. Mounds

where the grass was rank and high, and where brambles, dockweed, and suchlike vegetation, were

confusedly heaped together, they always avoided; for dismal stories were told in that country of the old pits

The sun was high when they sat down to rest. They had seen no one, near or distant, for a long time; and the

solitude remained unbroken. 'It is so still here, Rachael, and the way is so untrodden, that I think we must be

As Sissy said it, her eyes were attracted by another of those rotten fragments of fence upon the ground. She

got up to look at it. 'And yet I don't know. This has not been broken very long. The wood is quite fresh where

'I don't know. There is a hat lying in the grass.' They went forward together. Rachael took it up, shaking from

head to foot. She broke into a passion of tears and lamentations: Stephen Blackpool was written in his own

'O the poor lad, the poor lad! He has been made away with. He is lying murdered here!'

They were afraid to look; but they did examine it, and found no mark of violence, inside or out. It had been

lying there some days, for rain and dew had stained it, and the mark of its shape was on the grass where it had

fallen. They looked fearfully about them, without moving, but could see nothing more. 'Rachael,' Sissy

She had unclasped her hand, and was in the act of stepping forward, when Rachael caught her in both arms

with a scream that resounded over the wide landscape. Before them, at their very feet, was the brink of a

black ragged chasm hidden by the thick grass. They sprang back, and fell upon their knees, each hiding her

'O, my good Lord! He's down there! Down there!' At first this, and her terrific screams, were all that could be

got from Rachael, by any tears, by any prayers, by any representations, by any means. It was impossible to

hush her; and it was deadly necessary to hold her, or she would have flung herself down the shaft.

'Rachael, dear Rachael, good Rachael, for the love of Heaven, not these dreadful cries! Think of Stephen,

By an earnest repetition of this entreaty, poured out in all the agony of such a moment, Sissy at last brought

'Rachael, Stephen may be living. You wouldn't leave him lying maimed at the bottom of this dreadful place, a

She shuddered to approach the pit; but she crept towards it on her hands and knees, and called to him as loud

as she could call. She listened, but no sound replied. She called again and listened; still no answering sound.

She did this, twenty, thirty times. She took a little clod of earth from the broken ground where he had

The wide prospect, so beautiful in its stillness but a few minutes ago, almost carried despair to her brave

heart, as she rose and looked all round her, seeing no help. 'Rachael, we must lose not a moment. We must go

in different directions, seeking aid. You shall go by the way we have come, and I will go forward by the path.

Tell any one you see, and every one what has happened. Think of Stephen, think of Stephen!'

She knew by Rachael's face that she might trust her now. And after standing for a moment to see her running,

wringing her hands as she ran, she turned and went upon her own search; she stopped at the hedge to tie her

shawl there as a guide to the place, then threw her bonnet aside, and ran as she had never run before.

Run, Sissy, run, in Heaven's name! Don't stop for breath. Run, run! Quickening herself by carrying such

entreaties in her thoughts, she ran from field to field, and lane to lane, and place to place, as she had never run

before; until she came to a shed by an enginehouse, where two men lay in the shade, asleep on straw.

First to wake them, and next to tell them, all so wild and breathless as she was, what had brought her there,

were difficulties; but they no sooner understood her than their spirits were on fire like hers. One of the men

was in a drunken slumber, but on his comrade's shouting to him that a man had fallen down the Old Hell

Shaft, he started out to a pool of dirty water, put his head in it, and came back sober.

With these two men she ran to another halfamile further, and with that one to another, while they ran

elsewhere. Then a horse was found; and she got another man to ride for life or death to the railroad, and send

a message to Louisa, which she wrote and gave him. By this time a whole village was up: and windlasses,

ropes, poles, candles, lanterns, all things necessary, were fast collecting and being brought into one place, to

It seemed now hours and hours since she had left the lost man lying in the grave where he had been buried

alive. She could not bear to remain away from it any longer it was like deserting him and she hurried

swiftly back, accompanied by halfadozen labourers, including the drunken man whom the news had

sobered, and who was the best man of all. When they came to the Old Hell Shaft, they found it as lonely as

she had left it. The men called and listened as she had done, and examined the edge of the chasm, and settled

how it had happened, and then sat down to wait until the implements they wanted should come up.

Every sound of insects in the air, every stirring of the leaves, every whisper among these men, made Sissy

tremble, for she thought it was a cry at the bottom of the pit. But the wind blew idly over it, and no sound

arose to the surface, and they sat upon the grass, waiting and waiting. After they had waited some time,

straggling people who had heard of the accident began to come up; then the real help of implements began to

arrive. In the midst of this, Rachael returned; and with her party there was a surgeon, who brought some wine

and medicines. But, the expectation among the people that the man would be found alive was very slight

There being now people enough present to impede the work, the sobered man put himself at the head of the

rest, or was put there by the general consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed

men to keep it. Besides such volunteers as were accepted to work, only Sissy and Rachael were at first

permitted within this ring; but, later in the day, when the message brought an express from Coketown, Mr.

The sun was four hours lower than when Sissy and Rachael had first sat down upon the grass, before a means

of enabling two men to descend securely was rigged with poles and ropes. Difficulties had arisen in the

construction of this machine, simple as it was; requisites had been found wanting, and messages had had to

go and return. It was five o'clock in the afternoon of the bright autumnal Sunday, before a candle was sent

down to try the air, while three or four rough faces stood crowded close together, attentively watching it: the

man at the windlass lowering as they were told. The candle was brought up again, feebly burning, and then

some water was cast in. Then the bucket was hooked on; and the sobered man and another got in with lights,

As the rope went out, tight and strained, and the windlass creaked, there was not a breath among the one or

two hundred men and women looking on, that came as it was wont to come. The signal was given and the

windlass stopped, with abundant rope to spare. Apparently so long an interval ensued with the men at the

windlass standing idle, that some women shrieked that another accident had happened! But the surgeon who

held the watch, declared five minutes not to have elapsed yet, and sternly admonished them to keep silence.

He had not well done speaking, when the windlass was reversed and worked again. Practised eyes knew that

it did not go as heavily as it would if both workmen had been coming up, and that only one was returning.

The rope came in tight and strained; and ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass, and all

eyes were fastened on the pit. The sobered man was brought up and leaped out briskly on the grass. There

'But he's hurt very bad,' he added, as soon as he could make himself heard again. 'Where's doctor? He's hurt

They all consulted together, and looked anxiously at the surgeon, as he asked some questions, and shook his

head on receiving the replies. The sun was setting now; and the red light in the evening sky touched every

The consultation ended in the men returning to the windlass, and the pitman going down again, carrying the

wine and some other small matters with him. Then the other man came up. In the meantime, under the

surgeon's directions, some men brought a hurdle, on which others made a thick bed of spare clothes covered

with loose straw, while he himself contrived some bandages and slings from shawls and handkerchiefs. As

these were made, they were hung upon an arm of the pitman who had last come up, with instructions how to

use them: and as he stood, shown by the light he carried, leaning his powerful loose hand upon one of the

poles, and sometimes glancing down the pit, and sometimes glancing round upon the people, he was not the

least conspicuous figure in the scene. It was dark now, and torches were kindled.

It appeared from the little this man said to those about him, which was quickly repeated all over the circle,

that the lost man had fallen upon a mass of crumbled rubbish with which the pit was half choked up, and that

his fall had been further broken by some jagged earth at the side. He lay upon his back with one arm doubled

under him, and according to his own belief had hardly stirred since he fell, except that he had moved his free

hand to a side pocket, in which he remembered to have some bread and meat (of which he had swallowed

crumbs), and had likewise scooped up a little water in it now and then. He had come straight away from his

work, on being written to, and had walked the whole journey; and was on his way to Mr. Bounderby's

country house after dark, when he fell. He was crossing that dangerous country at such a dangerous time,

because he was innocent of what was laid to his charge, and couldn't rest from coming the nearest way to

deliver himself up. The Old Hell Shaft, the pitman said, with a curse upon it, was worthy of its bad name to

the last; for though Stephen could speak now, he believed it would soon be found to have mangled the life

When all was ready, this man, still taking his last hurried charges from his comrades and the surgeon after the

windlass had begun to lower him, disappeared into the pit. The rope went out as before, the signal was made

as before, and the windlass stopped. No man removed his hand from it now. Every one waited with his grasp

set, and his body bent down to the work, ready to reverse and wind in. At length the signal was given, and all

For, now, the rope came in, tightened and strained to its utmost as it appeared, and the men turned heavily,

and the windlass complained. It was scarcely endurable to look at the rope, and think of its giving way. But,

ring after ring was coiled upon the barrel of the windlass safely, and the connecting chains appeared, and

finally the bucket with the two men holding on at the sides a sight to make the head swim, and oppress the

heart and tenderly supporting between them, slung and tied within, the figure of a poor, crushed, human

A low murmur of pity went round the throng, and the women wept aloud, as this form, almost without form,

was moved very slowly from its iron deliverance, and laid upon the bed of straw. At first, none but the

surgeon went close to it. He did what he could in its adjustment on the couch, but the best that he could do

was to cover it. That gently done, he called to him Rachael and Sissy. And at that time the pale, worn, patient

face was seen looking up at the sky, with the broken right hand lying bare on the outside of the covering

They gave him drink, moistened his face with water, and administered some drops of cordial and wine.

Though he lay quite motionless looking up at the sky, he smiled and said, 'Rachael.' She stooped down on the

grass at his side, and bent over him until her eyes were between his and the sky, for he could not so much as

'I ha' been, but not now. I ha' been dreadful, and dree, and long, my dear but 'tis ower now. Ah, Rachael,

'I ha' fell into th' pit, my dear, as have cost wi'in the knowledge o' old fok now livin, hundreds and hundreds o'

men's lives fathers, sons, brothers, dear to thousands an' thousands, an' keeping 'em fro' want and hunger. I

ha' fell into a pit that ha' been wi' th' Firedamp crueller than battle. I ha' read on 't in the public petition, as

onny one may read, fro' the men that works in pits, in which they ha' pray'n and pray'n the lawmakers for

Christ's sake not to let their work be murder to 'em, but to spare 'em for th' wives and children that they loves

as well as gentlefok loves theirs. When it were in work, it killed wi'out need; when 'tis let alone, it kills wi'out

'Thy little sister, Rachael, thou hast not forgot her. Thou'rt not like to forget her now, and me so nigh her.

Thou know'st poor, patient, suff'rin, dear how thou didst work for her, seet'n all day long in her little chair

at thy winder, and how she died, young and misshapen, awlung o' sickly air as had'n no need to be, an'

Louisa approached him; but he could not see her, lying with his face turned up to the night sky.

'If aw th' things that tooches us, my dear, was not so muddled, I should'n ha' had'n need to coom heer. If we

was not in a muddle among ourseln, I should'n ha' been, by my own fellow weavers and workin' brothers, so

mistook. If Mr. Bounderby had ever know'd me right if he'd ever know'd me at aw he would'n ha' took'n

offence wi' me. He would'n ha' suspect'n me. But look up yonder, Rachael! Look aboove!'

'It ha' shined upon me,' he said reverently, 'in my pain and trouble down below. It ha' shined into my mind. I

ha' look'n at 't and thowt o' thee, Rachael, till the muddle in my mind have cleared awa, above a bit, I hope. If

soom ha' been wantin' in unnerstan'in me better, I, too, ha' been wantin' in unnerstan'in them better. When I

got thy letter, I easily believen that what the yoong ledy sen and done to me, and what her brother sen and

done to me, was one, and that there were a wicked plot betwixt 'em. When I fell, I were in anger wi' her, an'

hurryin on t' be as onjust t' her as oothers was t' me. But in our judgments, like as in our doins, we mun bear

and forbear. In my pain an' trouble, lookin up yonder, wi' it shinin on me I ha' seen more clear, and ha'

made it my dyin prayer that aw th' world may on'y coom toogether more, an' get a better unnerstan'in o' one

Louisa hearing what he said, bent over him on the opposite side to Rachael, so that he could see her.

'You ha' heard?' he said, after a few moments' silence. 'I ha' not forgot you, ledy.'

Louisa returned with her father. Standing handinhand, they both looked down upon the solemn

'Sir,' was the reply: 'yor son will tell yo how. Ask him. I mak no charges: I leave none ahint me: not a single

word. I ha' seen an' spok'n wi' yor son, one night. I ask no more o' yo than that yo clear me an' I trust to yo

The bearers being now ready to carry him away, and the surgeon being anxious for his removal, those who

had torches or lanterns, prepared to go in front of the litter. Before it was raised, and while they were

'Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin' on me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the star as

They lifted him up, and he was overjoyed to find that they were about to take him in the direction whither the

'Rachael, beloved lass! Don't let go my hand. We may walk toogether t'night, my dear!'

They carried him very gently along the fields, and down the lanes, and over the wide landscape; Rachael

always holding the hand in hers. Very few whispers broke the mournful silence. It was soon a funeral

procession. The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; and through humility, and sorrow, and

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, attentive to all that happened, slipped

behind that wicked shadow a sight in the horror of his face, if there had been eyes there for any sight but

one and whispered in his ear. Without turning his head, he conferred with her a few moments, and

When the father reached home, he sent a message to Mr. Bounderby's, desiring his son to come to him

directly. The reply was, that Mr. Bounderby having missed him in the crowd, and seeing nothing of him

'I believe, father,' said Louisa, 'he will not come back to town tonight.' Mr. Gradgrind turned away, and said

In the morning, he went down to the Bank himself as soon as it was opened, and seeing his son's place empty

(he had not the courage to look in at first) went back along the street to meet Mr. Bounderby on his way

there. To whom he said that, for reasons he would soon explain, but entreated not then to be asked for, he had

found it necessary to employ his son at a distance for a little while. Also, that he was charged with the duty of

vindicating Stephen Blackpool's memory, and declaring the thief. Mr. Bounderby quite confounded, stood

stockstill in the street after his fatherinlaw had left him, swelling like an immense soapbubble, without

Mr. Gradgrind went home, locked himself in his room, and kept it all that day. When Sissy and Louisa tapped

at his door, he said, without opening it, 'Not now, my dears; in the evening.' On their return in the evening, he

said, 'I am not able yet tomorrow.' He ate nothing all day, and had no candle after dark; and they heard

But, in the morning he appeared at breakfast at the usual hour, and took his usual place at the table. Aged and

bent he looked, and quite bowed down; and yet he looked a wiser man, and a better man, than in the days

when in this life he wanted nothing but Facts. Before he left the room, he appointed a time for them to

'Dear father,' said Louisa, when they kept their appointment, 'you have three young children left. They will be

'Your wretched brother,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'Do you think he had planned this robbery, when he went with

'I fear so, father. I know he had wanted money very much, and had spent a great deal.'

'The poor man being about to leave the town, it came into his evil brain to cast suspicion on him?'

'I think it must have flashed upon him while he sat there, father. For I asked him to go there with me. The

'He took him out of the room. I asked him afterwards, why he had done so, and he made a plausible excuse;

but since last night, father, and when I remember the circumstances by its light, I am afraid I can imagine too

'Let me know,' said her father, 'if your thoughts present your guilty brother in the same dark view as mine.'

'I fear, father,' hesitated Louisa, 'that he must have made some representation to Stephen Blackpool perhaps

in my name, perhaps in his own which induced him to do in good faith and honesty, what he had never

done before, and to wait about the Bank those two or three nights before he left the town.'

He shaded his face, and remained silent for some moments. Recovering himself, he said:

'And now, how is he to be found? How is he to be saved from justice? In the few hours that I can possibly

allow to elapse before I publish the truth, how is he to be found by us, and only by us? Ten thousand pounds

He raised his eyes to where she stood, like a good fairy in his house, and said in a tone of softened gratitude

'We had our fears,' Sissy explained, glancing at Louisa, 'before yesterday; and when I saw you brought to the

side of the litter last night, and heard what passed (being close to Rachael all the time), I went to him when no

one saw, and said to him, "Don't look at me. See where your father is. Escape at once, for his sake and your

own!" He was in a tremble before I whispered to him, and he started and trembled more then, and said,

"Where can I go? I have very little money, and I don't know who will hide me!" I thought of father's old

circus. I have not forgotten where Mr. Sleary goes at this time of year, and I read of him in a paper only the

other day. I told him to hurry there, and tell his name, and ask Mr. Sleary to hide him till I came. "I'll get to

It was the more hopeful as the town to which Sissy had directed him was within three hours' journey of

Liverpool, whence he could be swiftly dispatched to any part of the world. But, caution being necessary in

communicating with him for there was a greater danger every moment of his being suspected now, and

nobody could be sure at heart but that Mr. Bounderby himself, in a bullying vein of public zeal, might play a

Roman part it was consented that Sissy and Louisa should repair to the place in question, by a circuitous

course, alone; and that the unhappy father, setting forth in an opposite direction, should get round to the same

bourne by another and wider route. It was further agreed that he should not present himself to Mr. Sleary, lest

his intentions should be mistrusted, or the intelligence of his arrival should cause his son to take flight anew;

but, that the communication should be left to Sissy and Louisa to open; and that they should inform the cause

of so much misery and disgrace, of his father's being at hand and of the purpose for which they had come.

When these arrangements had been well considered and were fully understood by all three, it was time to

begin to carry them into execution. Early in the afternoon, Mr. Gradgrind walked direct from his own house

into the country, to be taken up on the line by which he was to travel; and at night the remaining two set forth

The two travelled all night, except when they were left, for odd numbers of minutes, at branchplaces, up

illimitable flights of steps, or down wells which was the only variety of those branches and, early in the

morning, were turned out on a swamp, a mile or two from the town they sought. From this dismal spot they

were rescued by a savage old postilion, who happened to be up early, kicking a horse in a fly: and so were

smuggled into the town by all the back lanes where the pigs lived: which, although not a magnificent or even

The first thing they saw on entering the town was the skeleton of Sleary's Circus. The company had departed

for another town more than twenty miles off, and had opened there last night. The connection between the

two places was by a hilly turnpikeroad, and the travelling on that road was very slow. Though they took but

a hasty breakfast, and no rest (which it would have been in vain to seek under such anxious circumstances), it

was noon before they began to find the bills of Sleary's Horseriding on barns and walls, and one o'clock

A Grand Morning Performance by the Riders, commencing at that very hour, was in course of announcement

by the bellman as they set their feet upon the stones of the street. Sissy recommended that, to avoid making

inquiries and attracting attention in the town, they should present themselves to pay at the door. If Mr. Sleary

were taking the money, he would be sure to know her, and would proceed with discretion. If he were not, he

would be sure to see them inside; and, knowing what he had done with the fugitive, would proceed with

Therefore, they repaired, with fluttering hearts, to the well remembered booth. The flag with the inscription

SLEARY'S HORSE RIDING was there; and the Gothic niche was there; but Mr. Sleary was not there.

Master Kidderminster, grown too maturely turfy to be received by the wildest credulity as Cupid any more,

had yielded to the invincible force of circumstances (and his beard), and, in the capacity of a man who made

himself generally useful, presided on this occasion over the exchequer having also a drum in reserve, on

which to expend his leisure moments and superfluous forces. In the extreme sharpness of his look out for

base coin, Mr. Kidderminster, as at present situated, never saw anything but money; so Sissy passed him

The Emperor of Japan, on a steady old white horse stencilled with black spots, was twirling five washhand

basins at once, as it is the favourite recreation of that monarch to do. Sissy, though well acquainted with his

Royal line, had no personal knowledge of the present Emperor, and his reign was peaceful. Miss Josephine

Sleary, in her celebrated graceful Equestrian Tyrolean Flower Act, was then announced by a new clown (who

Mr. Sleary had only made one cut at the Clown with his long whip lash, and the Clown had only said, 'If

you do it again, I'll throw the horse at you!' when Sissy was recognised both by father and daughter. But they

got through the Act with great selfpossession; and Mr. Sleary, saving for the first instant, conveyed no more

expression into his locomotive eye than into his fixed one. The performance seemed a little long to Sissy and

Louisa, particularly when it stopped to afford the Clown an opportunity of telling Mr. Sleary (who said

'Indeed, sir!' to all his observations in the calmest way, and with his eye on the house) about two legs sitting

on three legs looking at one leg, when in came four legs, and laid hold of one leg, and up got two legs, caught

hold of three legs, and threw 'em at four legs, who ran away with one leg. For, although an ingenious

Allegory relating to a butcher, a three legged stool, a dog, and a leg of mutton, this narrative consumed

time; and they were in great suspense. At last, however, little fairhaired Josephine made her curtsey amid

great applause; and the Clown, left alone in the ring, had just warmed himself, and said, 'Now I'll have a

She took Louisa with her; and they were received by Mr. Sleary in a very little private apartment, with canvas

sides, a grass floor, and a wooden ceiling all aslant, on which the box company stamped their approbation, as

if they were coming through. 'Thethilia,' said Mr. Sleary, who had brandy and water at hand, 'it doth me good

to thee you. You wath alwayth a favourite with uth, and you've done uth credith thinth the old timeth I'm

thure. You mutht thee our people, my dear, afore we thpeak of bithnith, or they'll break their hearth

ethpethially the women. Here'th Jothphine hath been and got married to E. W. B. Childerth, and thee hath got

a boy, and though he'th only three yearth old, he thtickth on to any pony you can bring againtht him. He'th

named The Little Wonder of Thcolathtic Equitation; and if you don't hear of that boy at Athley'th, you'll hear

of him at Parith. And you recollect Kidderminthter, that wath thought to be rather thweet upon yourthelf?

Well. He'th married too. Married a widder. Old enough to be hith mother. Thee wath Tightrope, thee wath,

and now thee'th nothing on accounth of fat. They've got two children, tho we're thtrong in the Fairy bithnith

and the Nurthery dodge. If you wath to thee our Children in the Wood, with their father and mother both a

dyin' on a horthe their uncle a retheiving of 'em ath hith wardth, upon a horthe themthelvth both a goin' a

black berryin' on a horthe and the Robinth a coming in to cover 'em with leavth, upon a horthe you'd

thay it wath the completetht thing ath ever you thet your eyeth on! And you remember Emma Gordon, my

dear, ath wath a'motht a mother to you? Of courthe you do; I needn't athk. Well! Emma, thee lotht her

huthband. He wath throw'd a heavy backfall off a Elephant in a thort of a Pagoda thing ath the Thultan of

the Indieth, and he never got the better of it; and thee married a thecond time married a Cheethemonger ath

fell in love with her from the front and he'th a Overtheer and makin' a fortun.'

These various changes, Mr. Sleary, very short of breath now, related with great heartiness, and with a

wonderful kind of innocence, considering what a bleary and brandyandwatery old veteran he was.

Afterwards he brought in Josephine, and E. W. B. Childers (rather deeply lined in the jaws by daylight), and

the Little Wonder of Scholastic Equitation, and in a word, all the company. Amazing creatures they were in

Louisa's eyes, so white and pink of complexion, so scant of dress, and so demonstrative of leg; but it was

very agreeable to see them crowding about Sissy, and very natural in Sissy to be unable to refrain from tears.

'There! Now Thethilia hath kithd all the children, and hugged all the women, and thaken handth all round

with all the men, clear, every one of you, and ring in the band for the thecond part!'

As soon as they were gone, he continued in a low tone. 'Now, Thethilia, I don't athk to know any thecreth, but

'And t'other on'th daughter. That'h what I mean. Hope I thee you well, mith. And I hope the Thquire'th well?'

'My father will be here soon,' said Louisa, anxious to bring him to the point. 'Is my brother safe?'

'Thafe and thound!' he replied. 'I want you jutht to take a peep at the Ring, mith, through here. Thethilia, you

'That'h Jack the Giant Killer piethe of comic infant bithnith,' said Sleary. 'There'th a propertyhouthe, you

thee, for Jack to hide in; there'th my Clown with a thauthepanlid and a thpit, for Jack'th thervant; there'th

little Jack himthelf in a thplendid thoot of armour; there'th two comic black thervanth twithe ath big ath the

houthe, to thtand by it and to bring it in and clear it; and the Giant (a very ecthpenthive bathket one), he an't

'Look at 'em again,' said Sleary, 'look at 'em well. You thee em all? Very good. Now, mith;' he put a form for

them to sit on; 'I have my opinionth, and the Thquire your father hath hith. I don't want to know what your

brother'th been up to; ith better for me not to know. All I thay ith, the Thquire hath thtood by Thethilia, and

'Ith a fact,' said Sleary, 'and even knowin' it, you couldn't put your finger on him. Let the Thquire come. I

thall keep your brother here after the performanth. I thant undreth him, nor yet wath hith paint off. Let the

Thquire come here after the performanth, or come here yourthelf after the performanth, and you thall find

your brother, and have the whole plathe to talk to him in. Never mind the lookth of him, ath long ath he'th

Louisa, with many thanks and with a lightened load, detained Mr. Sleary no longer then. She left her love for

her brother, with her eyes full of tears; and she and Sissy went away until later in the afternoon.

Mr. Gradgrind arrived within an hour afterwards. He too had encountered no one whom he knew; and was

now sanguine with Sleary's assistance, of getting his disgraced son to Liverpool in the night. As neither of the

three could be his companion without almost identifying him under any disguise, he prepared a letter to a

correspondent whom he could trust, beseeching him to ship the bearer off at any cost, to North or South

America, or any distant part of the world to which he could be the most speedily and privately dispatched.

This done, they walked about, waiting for the Circus to be quite vacated; not only by the audience, but by the

company and by the horses. After watching it a long time, they saw Mr. Sleary bring out a chair and sit down

'Your thervant, Thquire,' was his cautious salutation as they passed in. 'If you want me you'll find me here.

They all three went in; and Mr. Gradgrind sat down forlorn, on the Clown's performing chair in the middle of

the ring. On one of the back benches, remote in the subdued light and the strangeness of the place, sat the

In a preposterous coat, like a beadle's, with cuffs and flaps exaggerated to an unspeakable extent; in an

immense waistcoat, kneebreeches, buckled shoes, and a mad cocked hat; with nothing fitting him, and

everything of coarse material, motheaten and full of holes; with seams in his black face, where fear and heat

had started through the greasy composition daubed all over it; anything so grimly, detestably, ridiculously

shameful as the whelp in his comic livery, Mr. Gradgrind never could by any other means have believed in,

weighable and measurable fact though it was. And one of his model children had come to this!

At first the whelp would not draw any nearer, but persisted in remaining up there by himself. Yielding at

length, if any concession so sullenly made can be called yielding, to the entreaties of Sissy for Louisa he

disowned altogether he came down, bench by bench, until he stood in the sawdust, on the verge of the

'I forced the safe myself over night, and shut it up ajar before I went away. I had had the key that was found,

made long before. I dropped it that morning, that it might be supposed to have been used. I didn't take the

money all at once. I pretended to put my balance away every night, but I didn't. Now you know all about it.'

'If a thunderbolt had fallen on me,' said the father, 'it would have shocked me less than this!'

'I don't see why,' grumbled the son. 'So many people are employed in situations of trust; so many people, out

of so many, will be dishonest. I have heard you talk, a hundred times, of its being a law. How can I help

The father buried his face in his hands, and the son stood in his disgraceful grotesqueness, biting straw: his

hands, with the black partly worn away inside, looking like the hands of a monkey. The evening was fast

closing in; and from time to time, he turned the whites of his eyes restlessly and impatiently towards his

father. They were the only parts of his face that showed any life or expression, the pigment upon it was so

'I suppose I must. I can't be more miserable anywhere,' whimpered the whelp, 'than I have been here, ever

Mr. Gradgrind went to the door, and returned with Sleary, to whom he submitted the question, How to get

'Why, I've been thinking of it, Thquire. There'th not muth time to lothe, tho you muth thay yeth or no. Ith

over twenty mileth to the rail. There'th a coath in half an hour, that goeth to the rail, 'purpothe to cath the mail

'I don't mean that he thould go in the comic livery,' said Sleary. 'Thay the word, and I'll make a Jothkin of

'A Jothkin a Carter. Make up your mind quick, Thquire. There'll be beer to feth. I've never met with nothing

Mr. Gradgrind rapidly assented; Mr. Sleary rapidly turned out from a box, a smock frock, a felt hat, and other

essentials; the whelp rapidly changed clothes behind a screen of baize; Mr. Sleary rapidly brought beer, and

'Now,' said Sleary, 'come along to the coath, and jump up behind; I'll go with you there, and they'll thuppothe

you one of my people. Thay farewell to your family, and tharp'th the word.' With which he delicately retired.

'Here is your letter,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'All necessary means will be provided for you. Atone, by repentance

and better conduct, for the shocking action you have committed, and the dreadful consequences to which it

The culprit was moved to a few abject tears by these words and their pathetic tone. But, when Louisa opened

'After all your love!' he returned, obdurately. 'Pretty love! Leaving old Bounderby to himself, and packing my

best friend Mr. Harthouse off, and going home just when I was in the greatest danger. Pretty love that!

Coming out with every word about our having gone to that place, when you saw the net was gathering round

They all confusedly went out: Louisa crying to him that she forgave him, and loved him still, and that he

would one day be sorry to have left her so, and glad to think of these her last words, far away: when some one

ran against them. Mr. Gradgrind and Sissy, who were both before him while his sister yet clung to his

For, there was Bitzer, out of breath, his thin lips parted, his thin nostrils distended, his white eyelashes

quivering, his colourless face more colourless than ever, as if he ran himself into a white heat, when other

people ran themselves into a glow. There he stood, panting and heaving, as if he had never stopped since the

'I'm sorry to interfere with your plans,' said Bitzer, shaking his head, 'but I can't allow myself to be done by

horseriders. I must have young Mr. Tom; he mustn't be got away by horseriders; here he is in a smock

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

'Bitzer,' said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and miserably submissive to him, 'have you a heart?'

'The circulation, sir,' returned Bitzer, smiling at the oddity of the question, 'couldn't be carried on without one.

No man, sir, acquainted with the facts established by Harvey relating to the circulation of the blood, can

'It is accessible to Reason, sir,' returned the excellent young man. 'And to nothing else.'

They stood looking at each other; Mr. Gradgrind's face as white as the pursuer's.

'What motive even what motive in reason can you have for preventing the escape of this wretched youth,'

said Mr. Gradgrind, 'and crushing his miserable father? See his sister here. Pity us!'

'Sir,' returned Bitzer, in a very businesslike and logical manner, 'since you ask me what motive I have in

reason, for taking young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, it is only reasonable to let you know. I have suspected

young Mr. Tom of this bankrobbery from the first. I had had my eye upon him before that time, for I knew

his ways. I have kept my observations to myself, but I have made them; and I have got ample proofs against

him now, besides his running away, and besides his own confession, which I was just in time to overhear. I

had the pleasure of watching your house yesterday morning, and following you here. I am going to take

young Mr. Tom back to Coketown, in order to deliver him over to Mr. Bounderby. Sir, I have no doubt

whatever that Mr. Bounderby will then promote me to young Mr. Tom's situation. And I wish to have his

'I beg your pardon for interrupting you, sir,' returned Bitzer; 'but I am sure you know that the whole social

system is a question of selfinterest. What you must always appeal to, is a person's selfinterest. It's your

only hold. We are so constituted. I was brought up in that catechism when I was very young, sir, as you are

'What sum of money,' said Mr. Gradgrind, 'will you set against your expected promotion?'

'Thank you, sir,' returned Bitzer, 'for hinting at the proposal; but I will not set any sum against it. Knowing

that your clear head would propose that alternative, I have gone over the calculations in my mind; and I find

that to compound a felony, even on very high terms indeed, would not be as safe and good for me as my

'Bitzer,' said Mr. Gradgrind, stretching out his hands as though he would have said, See how miserable I am!

'Bitzer, I have but one chance left to soften you. You were many years at my school. If, in remembrance of

the pains bestowed upon you there, you can persuade yourself in any degree to disregard your present interest

and release my son, I entreat and pray you to give him the benefit of that remembrance.'

'I really wonder, sir,' rejoined the old pupil in an argumentative manner, 'to find you taking a position so

untenable. My schooling was paid for; it was a bargain; and when I came away, the bargain ended.'

It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was

ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be

abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth

to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn't get to Heaven that way, it was not a

'I don't deny,' added Bitzer, 'that my schooling was cheap. But that comes right, sir. I was made in the

'Pray don't do that,' said he, 'it's of no use doing that: it only worries. You seem to think that I have some

animosity against young Mr. Tom; whereas I have none at all. I am only going, on the reasonable grounds I

have mentioned, to take him back to Coketown. If he was to resist, I should set up the cry of Stop thief! But,

Mr. Sleary, who with his mouth open and his rolling eye as immovably jammed in his head as his fixed one,

'Thquire, you know perfectly well, and your daughter knowth perfectly well (better than you, becauthe I thed

it to her), that I didn't know what your thon had done, and that I didn't want to know I thed it wath better

not, though I only thought, then, it wath thome thkylarking. However, thith young man having made it known

to be a robbery of a bank, why, that'h a theriouth thing; muth too theriouth a thing for me to compound, ath

thith young man hath very properly called it. Conthequently, Thquire, you muthn't quarrel with me if I take

thith young man'th thide, and thay he'th right and there'th no help for it. But I tell you what I'll do, Thquire;

I'll drive your thon and thith young man over to the rail, and prevent expothure here. I can't conthent to do

Fresh lamentations from Louisa, and deeper affliction on Mr. Gradgrind's part, followed this desertion of

them by their last friend. But, Sissy glanced at him with great attention; nor did she in her own breast

misunderstand him. As they were all going out again, he favoured her with one slight roll of his movable eye,

'The Thquire thtood by you, Thethilia, and I'll thtand by the Thquire. More than that: thith ith a prethiouth

rathcal, and belongth to that bluthtering Cove that my people nearly pitht out o' winder. It'll be a dark night;

I've got a horthe that'll do anything but thpeak; I've got a pony that'll go fifteen mile an hour with Childerth

driving of him; I've got a dog that'll keep a man to one plathe fourandtwenty hourth. Get a word with the

young Thquire. Tell him, when he theeth our horthe begin to danthe, not to be afraid of being thpilt, but to

look out for a ponygig coming up. Tell him, when he theeth that gig clothe by, to jump down, and it'll take

him off at a rattling pathe. If my dog leth thith young man thtir a peg on foot, I give him leave to go. And if

my horthe ever thtirth from that thpot where he beginth a danthing, till the morning I don't know him?

The word was so sharp, that in ten minutes Mr. Childers, sauntering about the marketplace in a pair of

slippers, had his cue, and Mr. Sleary's equipage was ready. It was a fine sight, to behold the learned dog

barking round it, and Mr. Sleary instructing him, with his one practicable eye, that Bitzer was the object of

his particular attentions. Soon after dark they all three got in and started; the learned dog (a formidable

creature) already pinning Bitzer with his eye, and sticking close to the wheel on his side, that he might be

The other three sat up at the inn all night in great suspense. At eight o'clock in the morning Mr. Sleary and the

'All right, Thquire!' said Mr. Sleary, 'your thon may be aboarda thip by thith time. Childerth took him off,

an hour and a half after we left there latht night. The horthe danthed the polka till he wath dead beat (he

would have walthed if he hadn't been in harneth), and then I gave him the word and he went to thleep

comfortable. When that prethiouth young Rathcal thed he'd go for'ard afoot, the dog hung on to hith

neckhankercher with all four legth in the air and pulled him down and rolled him over. Tho he come back

into the drag, and there he that, 'till I turned the horthe'th head, at halfpatht thixth thith morning.'

Mr. Gradgrind overwhelmed him with thanks, of course; and hinted as delicately as he could, at a handsome

'I don't want money mythelf, Thquire; but Childerth ith a family man, and if you wath to like to offer him a

fivepound note, it mightn't be unactheptable. Likewithe if you wath to thtand a collar for the dog, or a thet

of bellth for the horthe, I thould be very glad to take 'em. Brandy and water I alwayth take.' He had already

called for a glass, and now called for another. 'If you wouldn't think it going too far, Thquire, to make a little

thpread for the company at about three and thixth ahead, not reckoning Luth, it would make 'em happy.'

All these little tokens of his gratitude, Mr. Gradgrind very willingly undertook to render. Though he thought

'Very well, Thquire; then, if you'll only give a Hortheriding, a bethpeak, whenever you can, you'll more than

balanthe the account. Now, Thquire, if your daughter will ethcuthe me, I thould like one parting word with

Louisa and Sissy withdrew into an adjoining room; Mr. Sleary, stirring and drinking his brandy and water as

'Whatever you call it and I'm bletht if I know what to call it' said Sleary, 'it ith athtonithing. The way in

'I'm bletht if I know what to call it,' repeated Sleary, shaking his head, 'but I have had dogth find me, Thquire,

in a way that made me think whether that dog hadn't gone to another dog, and thed, "You don't happen to

know a perthon of the name of Thleary, do you? Perthon of the name of Thleary, in the HortheRiding way

thtout man game eye?" And whether that dog mightn't have thed, "Well, I can't thay I know him mythelf,

but I know a dog that I think would be likely to be acquainted with him." And whether that dog mightn't have

thought it over, and thed, "Thleary, Thleary! O yeth, to be thure! A friend of mine menthioned him to me at

one time. I can get you hith addreth directly." In conthequenth of my being afore the public, and going about

tho muth, you thee, there mutht be a number of dogth acquainted with me, Thquire, that I don't know!'

'Any way,' said Sleary, after putting his lips to his brandy and water, 'ith fourteen month ago, Thquire, thinthe

we wath at Chethter. We wath getting up our Children in the Wood one morning, when there cometh into our

Ring, by the thtage door, a dog. He had travelled a long way, he wath in a very bad condithon, he wath lame,

and pretty well blind. He went round to our children, one after another, as if he wath a theeking for a child he

know'd; and then he come to me, and throwd hithelf up behind, and thtood on hith two forelegth, weak ath he

wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died. Thquire, that dog wath Merrylegth.'

'Thethilia'th father'th old dog. Now, Thquire, I can take my oath, from my knowledge of that dog, that that

man wath dead and buried afore that dog come back to me. Joth'phine and Childerth and me talked it

over a long time, whether I thould write or not. But we agreed, "No. There'th nothing comfortable to tell; why

unthettle her mind, and make her unhappy?" Tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he

broke hith own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him; never will be known, now, Thquire, till

'She keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour; and she will believe in his affection to the last moment

'It theemth to prethent two thingth to a perthon, don't it, Thquire?' said Mr. Sleary, musing as he looked down

into the depths of his brandy and water: 'one, that there ith a love in the world, not all Thelfinteretht after all,

but thomething very different; t'other, that it bath a way of ith own of calculating or not calculating, whith

thomehow or another ith at leatht ath hard to give a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!'

Mr. Gradgrind looked out of window, and made no reply. Mr. Sleary emptied his glass and recalled the

'Thethilia my dear, kith me and goodbye! Mith Thquire, to thee you treating of her like a thithter, and a

thithter that you trutht and honour with all your heart and more, ith a very pretty thight to me. I hope your

brother may live to be better detherving of you, and a greater comfort to you. Thquire, thake handth, firtht

and latht! Don't be croth with uth poor vagabondth. People mutht be amuthed. They can't be alwayth a

learning, nor yet they can't be alwayth a working, they an't made for it. You mutht have uth, Thquire. Do the

'And I never thought before,' said Mr. Sleary, putting his head in at the door again to say it, 'that I wath tho

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. Pegler, he turned this presumption,

on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning

like a great snowball. At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female to have

it in his power to say, 'She was a woman of family, and wanted to stick to me, but I wouldn't have it, and got

rid of her' would be to get the utmost possible amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at the

Filled fuller than ever, with this great idea, Mr. Bounderby came in to lunch, and sat himself down in the

diningroom of former days, where his portrait was. Mrs. Sparsit sat by the fire, with her foot in her cotton

Since the Pegler affair, this gentlewoman had covered her pity for Mr. Bounderby with a veil of quiet

melancholy and contrition. In virtue thereof, it had become her habit to assume a woful look, which woful

'Bite your nose off, ma'am?' repeated Mr. Bounderby. 'Your nose!' meaning, as Mrs. Sparsit conceived, that it

was too developed a nose for the purpose. After which offensive implication, he cut himself a crust of bread,

'May I inquire, sir,' pursued the injured woman, 'whether I am the unfortunate cause of your having lost your

'Now, I'll tell you what, ma'am,' said Bounderby, 'I am not come here to be bullied. A female may be highly

connected, but she can't be permitted to bother and badger a man in my position, and I am not going to put up

with it.' (Mr. Bounderby felt it necessary to get on: foreseeing that if he allowed of details, he would be

Mrs. Sparsit first elevated, then knitted, her Coriolanian eyebrows; gathered up her work into its proper

'Sir,' said she, majestically. 'It is apparent to me that I am in your way at present. I will retire to my own

'You had better allow me, ma'am,' said Bounderby, passing her, and getting his hand upon the lock; 'because I

can take the opportunity of saying a word to you, before you go. Mrs. Sparsit, ma'am, I rather think you are

cramped here, do you know? It appears to me, that, under my humble roof, there's hardly opening enough for

Mrs. Sparsit gave him a look of the darkest scorn, and said with great politeness, 'Really, sir?'

'I have been thinking it over, you see, since the late affairs have happened, ma'am,' said Bounderby; 'and it

'Oh! Pray, sir,' Mrs. Sparsit interposed, with sprightly cheerfulness, 'don't disparage your judgment.

Everybody knows how unerring Mr. Bounderby's judgment is. Everybody has had proofs of it. It must be the

theme of general conversation. Disparage anything in yourself but your judgment, sir,' said Mrs. Sparsit,

'It appears to me, ma'am, I say, that a different sort of establishment altogether would bring out a lady of your

powers. Such an establishment as your relation, Lady Scadgers's, now. Don't you think you might find some

'It never occurred to me before, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit; 'but now you mention it, should think it highly

'Then suppose you try, ma'am,' said Bounderby, laying an envelope with a cheque in it in her little basket.

'You can take your own time for going, ma'am; but perhaps in the meanwhile, it will be more agreeable to a

lady of your powers of mind, to eat her meals by herself, and not to be intruded upon. I really ought to

apologise to you being only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown for having stood in your light so long.'

'Pray don't name it, sir,' returned Mrs. Sparsit. 'If that portrait could speak, sir but it has the advantage over

the original of not possessing the power of committing itself and disgusting others, it would testify, that a

long period has elapsed since I first habitually addressed it as the picture of a Noodle. Nothing that a Noodle

does, can awaken surprise or indignation; the proceedings of a Noodle can only inspire contempt.'

Thus saying, Mrs. Sparsit, with her Roman features like a medal struck to commemorate her scorn of Mr.

Bounderby, surveyed him fixedly from head to foot, swept disdainfully past him, and ascended the staircase.

Mr. Bounderby closed the door, and stood before the fire; projecting himself after his old explosive manner

Into how much of futurity? He saw Mrs. Sparsit fighting out a daily fight at the points of all the weapons in

the female armoury, with the grudging, smarting, peevish, tormenting Lady Scadgers, still laid up in bed with

her mysterious leg, and gobbling her insufficient income down by about the middle of every quarter, in a

mean little airless lodging, a mere closet for one, a mere crib for two; but did he see more? Did he catch any

glimpse of himself making a show of Bitzer to strangers, as the rising young man, so devoted to his master's

great merits, who had won young Tom's place, and had almost captured young Tom himself, in the times

when by various rascals he was spirited away? Did he see any faint reflection of his own image making a

vainglorious will, whereby fiveandtwenty Humbugs, past fiveandfifty years of age, each taking upon

himself the name, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, should for ever dine in Bounderby Hall, for ever lodge in

Bounderby buildings, for ever attend a Bounderby chapel, for ever go to sleep under a Bounderby chaplain,

for ever be supported out of a Bounderby estate, and for ever nauseate all healthy stomachs, with a vast

amount of Bounderby balderdash and bluster? Had he any prescience of the day, five years to come, when

Josiah Bounderby of Coketown was to die of a fit in the Coketown street, and this same precious will was to

begin its long career of quibble, plunder, false pretences, vile example, little service and much law? Probably

Here was Mr. Gradgrind on the same day, and in the same hour, sitting thoughtful in his own room. How

much of futurity did he see? Did he see himself, a whitehaired decrepit man, bending his hitherto inflexible

theories to appointed circumstances; making his facts and figures subservient to Faith, Hope, and Charity;

and no longer trying to grind that Heavenly trio in his dusty little mills? Did he catch sight of himself,

therefore much despised by his late political associates? Did he see them, in the era of its being quite settled

that the national dustmen have only to do with one another, and owe no duty to an abstraction called a

People, 'taunting the honourable gentleman' with this and with that and with what not, five nights aweek,

until the small hours of the morning? Probably he had that much foreknowledge, knowing his men.

Here was Louisa on the night of the same day, watching the fire as in days of yore, though with a gentler and

a humbler face. How much of the future might arise before her vision? Broadsides in the streets, signed with

her father's name, exonerating the late Stephen Blackpool, weaver, from misplaced suspicion, and publishing

the guilt of his own son, with such extenuation as his years and temptation (he could not bring himself to add,

his education) might beseech; were of the Present. So, Stephen Blackpool's tombstone, with her father's

record of his death, was almost of the Present, for she knew it was to be. These things she could plainly see.

A working woman, christened Rachael, after a long illness once again appearing at the ringing of the Factory

bell, and passing to and fro at the set hours, among the Coketown Hands; a woman of pensive beauty, always

dressed in black, but sweettempered and serene, and even cheerful; who, of all the people in the place, alone

appeared to have compassion on a degraded, drunken wretch of her own sex, who was sometimes seen in the

town secretly begging of her, and crying to her; a woman working, ever working, but content to do it, and

preferring to do it as her natural lot, until she should be too old to labour any more? Did Louisa see this?

A lonely brother, many thousands of miles away, writing, on paper blotted with tears, that her words had too

soon come true, and that all the treasures in the world would be cheaply bartered for a sight of her dear face?

At length this brother coming nearer home, with hope of seeing her, and being delayed by illness; and then a

letter, in a strange hand, saying 'he died in hospital, of fever, such a day, and died in penitence and love of

you: his last word being your name'? Did Louisa see these things? Such things were to be.

Herself again a wife a mother lovingly watchful of her children, ever careful that they should have a

childhood of the mind no less than a childhood of the body, as knowing it to be even a more beautiful thing,

and a possession, any hoarded scrap of which, is a blessing and happiness to the wisest? Did Louisa see this?

But, happy Sissy's happy children loving her; all children loving her; she, grown learned in childish lore;

thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellowcreatures,

and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which

the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the

plainest national prosperity figures can show, will be the Writing on the Wall, she holding this course as

part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or

fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be done, did Louisa see these things of herself? These things were to be.

Dear reader! It rests with you and me, whether, in our two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. Let

them be! We shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold.