Latest / Charles Dickens Audiobooks / Hard Times Part 1 - Charles Dickens
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Section one, Chapters one through three,
- 0:06Speaker 1: Book The First Sewing, Chapter one. The one thing needful.
- 0:13Speaker 1: Now what I want is facts. Teach these boys and
- 0:16Speaker 1: girls nothing but facts. Facts alone un wanted in life.
- 0:20Speaker 1: Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can
- 0:23Speaker 1: only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts. Nothing
- 0:26Speaker 1: else will ever be of service to them. This is
- 0:29Speaker 1: the principle upon which I bring up my own children,
- 0:31Speaker 1: and this is the principle upon which I bring up
- 0:33Speaker 1: these children. Stick to facts, sir. The scene was a plain, bare,
- 0:39Speaker 1: monotonous vault of a school room, and the speaker's square
- 0:43Speaker 1: forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a
- 0:47Speaker 1: line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by
- 0:51Speaker 1: the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his
- 0:55Speaker 1: eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious celeridge
- 0:58Speaker 1: in two dark caves overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis
- 1:02Speaker 1: was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin,
- 1:06Speaker 1: and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice,
- 1:10Speaker 1: which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped
- 1:14Speaker 1: by the speaker's hair which bristled on the skirts of
- 1:17Speaker 1: his bald head, a plantation of furs to keep the
- 1:20Speaker 1: wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs like
- 1:23Speaker 1: the crust of a plum pie, as if the head
- 1:26Speaker 1: had scarcely warehouse room for the hard facts stored inside.
- 1:30Speaker 1: The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, nay,
- 1:35Speaker 1: his very neckcloth trained to take him by the throat
- 1:38Speaker 1: with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact. As it was,
- 1:43Speaker 1: all helped the emphasis in this life we want nothing
- 1:46Speaker 1: but facts, sir, nothing but facts. The speaker and the schoolmaster,
- 1:52Speaker 1: and the third grown person present all backed a little
- 1:55Speaker 1: and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels,
- 1:58Speaker 1: then and there arranged in ready to have imperial gallons
- 2:02Speaker 1: of facts poured into them until they were full to
- 2:05Speaker 1: the brim. Chapter two, Murdering the Innocence. Thomas Gradgrind Sir,
- 2:14Speaker 1: a man of realities, a man of facts and calculations,
- 2:18Speaker 1: a man who proceeds upon the principle that two and
- 2:20Speaker 1: two are four and nothing over, and who is not
- 2:23Speaker 1: to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind Sir,
- 2:27Speaker 1: peremptorily Thomas Thomas Gradgrind, with a rule and a pair
- 2:31Speaker 1: of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pockets, sir,
- 2:35Speaker 1: ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature
- 2:38Speaker 1: and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is
- 2:41Speaker 1: a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic.
- 2:45Speaker 1: You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into
- 2:47Speaker 1: the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind,
- 2:51Speaker 1: or Joseph Gradgrind, all supposititious non existent persons, But into
- 2:56Speaker 1: the head of Thomas Gradgrind, no, sir, in such terms.
- 3:01Speaker 1: Mister Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private
- 3:05Speaker 1: circle of acquaintance or to the public in general, in
- 3:08Speaker 1: such terms, no doubt substituting the words boys and girls
- 3:11Speaker 1: for sir. Thomas Gradgrind. Now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the
- 3:15Speaker 1: little pictures before him, who were to be filled so
- 3:18Speaker 1: full of facts. Indeed, as he easily sparkled at them
- 3:22Speaker 1: from the celarridge before mentioned, he seemed a kind of
- 3:25Speaker 1: cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts and prepared to
- 3:28Speaker 1: blow them clean out of the regions of childhood. At
- 3:30Speaker 1: one discharge, he seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too charged with
- 3:35Speaker 1: a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that
- 3:38Speaker 1: were to be stormed away. Girl Number twenty, said mister Gradgrind, squarely,
- 3:43Speaker 1: pointing his square forefinger. I don't know that girl. Who
- 3:47Speaker 1: is that girl? Cissy Jupe, Sir, explained Number twenty, blushing,
- 3:52Speaker 1: standing up and curtseying. Cissy is not a name, said
- 3:57Speaker 1: mister Gradgrind. Don't call yourself cissy, call yourself Cecilia. It's
- 4:02Speaker 1: father as calls me cissy, Sir returned the young girl
- 4:06Speaker 1: in a trembling voice and with another courtesy. Then he
- 4:09Speaker 1: has no business to do it, said mister Gradgrind. Tell
- 4:12Speaker 1: him he mustn't, Cecilia Jupe. Let me see what is
- 4:15Speaker 1: your father? He belongs to the horse riding, if you please, sir,
- 4:19Speaker 1: mister Gradgrind frowned and waved off the objtionable calling with
- 4:23Speaker 1: his hand. We don't want to know anything about that.
- 4:26Speaker 2: Here.
- 4:26Speaker 1: You mustn't tell us about that. Here. Your father breaks horses,
- 4:29Speaker 1: don't he, if you please, sir. When they can get
- 4:32Speaker 1: any to break, they do break horses in the ring.
- 4:35Speaker 1: You mustn't tell us about the ring here very well,
- 4:38Speaker 1: then describe your father as a horse breaker. He doctor's
- 4:41Speaker 1: sick horses. I dare say, oh, yes, sir, very well.
- 4:45Speaker 1: Then he is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and a
- 4:48Speaker 1: horse breaker. Give me a definition of a horse, Cissy
- 4:52Speaker 1: Jupe thrown into greatest alarm by this demand, Girl number
- 4:56Speaker 1: twenty unable to define a horse, said mister gradgrind for
- 4:59Speaker 1: the general hoof of all the little pitchers, Girl number
- 5:02Speaker 1: twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of
- 5:05Speaker 1: the commonest of animals, some boy's definition of a horse,
- 5:08Speaker 1: Bitzer yours. The square finger moving here and there, lighted
- 5:13Speaker 1: suddenly on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in
- 5:16Speaker 1: the same ray of sunlight, which, darting in at one
- 5:18Speaker 1: of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed room, irradiated Sissy.
- 5:24Speaker 1: For the boys and girls sat on the face of
- 5:26Speaker 1: the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the
- 5:29Speaker 1: center by a narrow interval, and Sissy, being at the
- 5:32Speaker 1: corner of a row on the sunny side, came in
- 5:34Speaker 1: for the beginning of a sunbeam of which Bitzer, being
- 5:37Speaker 1: at the corner of a row on the other side,
- 5:39Speaker 1: a few rows in advance, caught on the end. But
- 5:44Speaker 1: whereas the girl was so dark eyed and dark haired
- 5:47Speaker 1: that she seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous
- 5:49Speaker 1: color from the sun when it shone upon her, the
- 5:52Speaker 1: boy was so light eyed and light haired that the
- 5:54Speaker 1: self same rays appeared to draw out of him what
- 5:56Speaker 1: little color he ever possessed. His cold eye would hardly
- 6:00Speaker 1: have been eyes but for the short ends of lashes, which,
- 6:03Speaker 1: by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than themselves,
- 6:07Speaker 1: expressed their form. His short cropped hair might have been
- 6:10Speaker 1: a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead
- 6:13Speaker 1: and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the
- 6:17Speaker 1: natural tinge that he looked as though if he were cut,
- 6:20Speaker 1: he would bleed white bitser, said Thomas gradgrind your definition
- 6:25Speaker 1: of a horse quadruped griminivorus forty teeth, namely twenty four grinders,
- 6:31Speaker 1: four eye teeth, and twelve incisive shed's coat and spring
- 6:34Speaker 1: in marshy country. Shed's hoofs two hoofs, hard but requiring
- 6:38Speaker 1: to be shod with iron age known by marks and
- 6:40Speaker 1: mouth thus and much more. Bitzer, now, girl number twenty,
- 6:45Speaker 1: said mister Gradgrind, you know what a horse's She curtsied again,
- 6:50Speaker 1: and would have blushed deeper, if she could have blushed
- 6:52Speaker 1: deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after
- 6:56Speaker 1: rapidly blinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once,
- 6:59Speaker 1: and so catching the light upon his quivering ends of
- 7:02Speaker 1: lashes that they looked like the antennae of busy insects,
- 7:05Speaker 1: put his knuckles to his freckled forehead and sat down again.
- 7:09Speaker 1: The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at
- 7:12Speaker 1: cutting and drying. He was a government officer in his way,
- 7:16Speaker 1: and in most other peoples too, A professed pugilist, always
- 7:19Speaker 1: in training, always with a system to force down the
- 7:22Speaker 1: general throat, like a bolus, always to be heard of
- 7:25Speaker 1: at the bar of his little public office, ready to
- 7:27Speaker 1: fight all England to continue in phistic phraseology. He had
- 7:31Speaker 1: a genius for coming up to the scratch, wherever and
- 7:33Speaker 1: whatever it was, and proving himself an ugly customer. He
- 7:38Speaker 1: would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right,
- 7:41Speaker 1: follow with his left stop exchange, counter bore his opponent.
- 7:44Speaker 1: He always fought all England to the ropes and fall
- 7:48Speaker 1: upon him neatly. He was certain to knock the wind
- 7:51Speaker 1: out of common sense and render that unlucky adversary deaf
- 7:54Speaker 1: to the call of time. And he had it in
- 7:56Speaker 1: charge from high authority to bring about the great public
- 7:59Speaker 1: office males, when commissioners should reign upon earth. Very well,
- 8:04Speaker 1: said this gentleman, briskly, smiling and folding his arms. That's
- 8:08Speaker 1: a horse. Now, let me ask you, boys and girls,
- 8:10Speaker 1: would you paper a room with representations of horses? After
- 8:15Speaker 1: a pause, one half of the children cried out in chorus, yes, sir,
- 8:19Speaker 1: upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face
- 8:22Speaker 1: that yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, No, sir,
- 8:25Speaker 1: as the custom is in these examinations, of course, No,
- 8:29Speaker 1: why wouldn't you a pause? One corpulent, slow boy, with
- 8:34Speaker 1: a wheezy manner of breathing ventured the answer, because he
- 8:37Speaker 1: wouldn't paper a room at all, but would paint it.
- 8:40Speaker 1: You must paper it, said the gentleman rather warmly. You
- 8:43Speaker 1: must paper it, said Thomas Gradgrind. Whether you like it
- 8:46Speaker 1: or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What
- 8:48Speaker 1: do you mean, boy, I'll explain to you, then, said
- 8:52Speaker 1: the gentleman, after another and dismal pause. Why wouldn't you
- 8:55Speaker 1: paper a room with representations of horses? Do you ever
- 8:58Speaker 1: see horses walking on down the sides of rooms in reality?
- 9:01Speaker 1: In fact?
- 9:02Speaker 2: Do you?
- 9:04Speaker 1: Yes, sir from one half? No, sir from the other.
- 9:06Speaker 1: Of course no, said the gentleman, with an indignant look
- 9:09Speaker 1: at the wrong half. Why then, you are not to
- 9:12Speaker 1: see anywhere what you don't see in fact, you are
- 9:14Speaker 1: not to have anywhere what you don't have in fact.
- 9:17Speaker 1: What is called taste is only another name for fact.
- 9:21Speaker 1: Thomas gradgrind nodded his approbation. This is a new principle,
- 9:25Speaker 1: a discovery, a great discovery, said the gentleman. Now I'll
- 9:29Speaker 1: try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet room,
- 9:32Speaker 1: would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers
- 9:35Speaker 1: upon it? There being a general conviction by this time
- 9:39Speaker 1: that no, sir was always the right answer to this gentleman,
- 9:42Speaker 1: the chorus of no was very strong. Only a few
- 9:45Speaker 1: feeble stragglers said yes. Among them, Sissy Jupe girl number twenty,
- 9:50Speaker 1: said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.
- 9:54Speaker 1: Sissy blushed and stood up. So you would carpet your
- 9:57Speaker 1: room or your husband's room, if you were a grown
- 10:00Speaker 1: woman and had a husband with representations of flowers, would you,
- 10:03Speaker 1: said the gentleman, Why would you? If you please, sir,
- 10:08Speaker 1: I am very fond of flowers, returned the girl. And
- 10:12Speaker 1: is that why you would put tables and chairs upon
- 10:14Speaker 1: them and have people walking over them with heavy boots.
- 10:18Speaker 1: It wouldn't hurt them, sir, They wouldn't crush and wither,
- 10:21Speaker 1: if you please, sir, they would be pictures of what
- 10:23Speaker 1: was very pretty and pleasant. And I would fancy aye. Aye,
- 10:27Speaker 1: But you mustn't fancy, cried the gentleman, quite elated by
- 10:30Speaker 1: coming so happily to his point. That's it. You are
- 10:33Speaker 1: never to fancy. You are not Cecilia Jube. Thomas Gradgrind
- 10:38Speaker 1: solemnly repeated to do anything of that kind. Fact fact,
- 10:43Speaker 1: said the gentleman, And fact fact, repeated Thomas Gradgrind. You
- 10:47Speaker 1: are to be in all things regulated and governed, said
- 10:50Speaker 1: the gentleman. By fact. We hope to have before long
- 10:53Speaker 1: a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who
- 10:56Speaker 1: will force the people to be a people of fact
- 10:59Speaker 1: and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word
- 11:01Speaker 1: fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You
- 11:04Speaker 1: are not to have in any object of use or
- 11:07Speaker 1: ornament what would be a contradiction. In fact, you don't
- 11:10Speaker 1: walk upon flowers. In fact, you cannot be allowed to
- 11:12Speaker 1: walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign
- 11:16Speaker 1: birds and butterflies come down and perch upon your crockery.
- 11:19Speaker 1: You cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies
- 11:22Speaker 1: upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up
- 11:25Speaker 1: and down walls. You must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls.
- 11:29Speaker 1: You must use, said the gentleman, for all these purposes,
- 11:33Speaker 1: combinations and modifications in primary colors of mathematical figures, which
- 11:37Speaker 1: are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery.
- 11:41Speaker 1: This is fact, This is taste. The girl cursed and
- 11:46Speaker 1: sat down. She was very young, and she looked as
- 11:49Speaker 1: if she were frightened by the matter of fact prospect
- 11:51Speaker 1: the world afforded. Now if mister mc chocumchild said, the
- 11:55Speaker 1: gentleman will proceed to give his first lesson here, mister gradgrind,
- 11:59Speaker 1: I shall be happy at your request to observe his
- 12:01Speaker 1: motive procedure, mister gradgrind was much obliged, mister mcchokumchild, We
- 12:07Speaker 1: only wait for you, So, mister mcchokum child began in
- 12:11Speaker 1: his best manner. He and some one hundred and forty
- 12:15Speaker 1: other schoolmasters had lately been turned at the same time
- 12:18Speaker 1: in the same factory on the same principles. Like so
- 12:20Speaker 1: many pianoforte legs, he had been put through an immense
- 12:24Speaker 1: variety of paces and had answered volumes of head breaking questions. Orthography, etymology,
- 12:30Speaker 1: syntax and prosity, biography, astronomy, geography and general cosmography. The
- 12:35Speaker 1: sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land surveying and leveling, vocal
- 12:39Speaker 1: music and drawing from models were all at the ends
- 12:42Speaker 1: of his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony
- 12:46Speaker 1: way into Her Majesty's most Honorable Privy Council's schedule B
- 12:50Speaker 1: and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of
- 12:53Speaker 1: mathematics and physical science French, German, Latin and Greek. He
- 12:57Speaker 1: knew all about the watersheds of all the world, whatever
- 13:00Speaker 1: they are, and all the histories of all the peoples,
- 13:03Speaker 1: and all the names of all the rivers, and mountains,
- 13:05Speaker 1: and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries,
- 13:08Speaker 1: and all their boundaries and bearings on the two and
- 13:10Speaker 1: thirty points of the compass. Ah rather overdone, mister mc
- 13:13Speaker 1: chokum child. If he had only learnt a little less,
- 13:16Speaker 1: how infinitely better he might have taught much more. He
- 13:20Speaker 1: went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana
- 13:23Speaker 1: in the forty thieves, looking into all the vessels ranged
- 13:26Speaker 1: before him, one after another, to see what they contained.
- 13:30Speaker 1: Say good, mister chocum child, when from thy boiling store
- 13:33Speaker 1: thou shalt fill each jar brim full, by and by
- 13:36Speaker 1: dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the
- 13:39Speaker 1: robber fancy lurking within, or sometimes only maime and distort him.
- 13:46Speaker 1: Chapter three, A Loophole. Mister Gradgrind walked homeward from the
- 13:51Speaker 1: school in a state of considerable satisfaction. It was his school,
- 13:55Speaker 1: and he intended it to be a model. He intended
- 13:57Speaker 1: every child in it to be a model, just as
- 14:00Speaker 1: the young Gradgrinds were all models. There were five young Gradgrinds,
- 14:04Speaker 1: and they were models, every one. They had been lectured
- 14:07Speaker 1: at from their tenderest years course, like little hares. Almost
- 14:11Speaker 1: as soon as they could run alone, they had been
- 14:14Speaker 1: made to run to the lecture room. The first object
- 14:17Speaker 1: with which they had an association, or of which they
- 14:20Speaker 1: had a remembrance, was a large blackboard with a dry
- 14:23Speaker 1: ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it. Not that they knew,
- 14:27Speaker 1: by name or nature anything about an ogre fact. Forbid,
- 14:30Speaker 1: I only use the word to express a monster in
- 14:32Speaker 1: a lecturing castle with Heaven knows how many heads manipulated
- 14:36Speaker 1: into one, taking childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy
- 14:40Speaker 1: statistical dens by the hair. No little gradgrind had ever
- 14:45Speaker 1: seen a face in the moon. It was up in
- 14:47Speaker 1: the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little gradgrind
- 14:50Speaker 1: had ever learnt the silly jingle Twinkle Twinkle, little star,
- 14:53Speaker 1: How I wonder what you are? No little gradgrind had
- 14:56Speaker 1: ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having
- 14:59Speaker 1: at fire years dissected the Great Bear like a professor Owen,
- 15:03Speaker 1: and driven Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine driver. No
- 15:06Speaker 1: little gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field
- 15:09Speaker 1: with that famous cow with the crumpled horn, who tossed
- 15:12Speaker 1: the dog who worried, the cat who killed the rat
- 15:13Speaker 1: who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous
- 15:16Speaker 1: cow who swallowed tom thumb. It had never heard of
- 15:19Speaker 1: these celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow
- 15:22Speaker 1: as a griminivorous, ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. To his
- 15:28Speaker 1: matter of fact home, which was called stone Lodge, mister
- 15:31Speaker 1: Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the
- 15:35Speaker 1: wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was
- 15:38Speaker 1: now looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an
- 15:41Speaker 1: arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a
- 15:45Speaker 1: moor within a mile or two of a great town
- 15:47Speaker 1: called Coketown in the present Faithful guidebook, a very regular
- 15:52Speaker 1: feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was
- 15:55Speaker 1: not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that
- 15:58Speaker 1: uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great square house with
- 16:02Speaker 1: a heavy portico, darkening the principal windows as its master's
- 16:05Speaker 1: heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast, up, balanced
- 16:10Speaker 1: and proved house. Six windows on this side of the door,
- 16:13Speaker 1: six on that side. A total of twelve in this wing,
- 16:16Speaker 1: a total of twelve in the other wing, four and
- 16:18Speaker 1: twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and
- 16:21Speaker 1: garden and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a
- 16:24Speaker 1: botanical account book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and water service,
- 16:29Speaker 1: all of the primest quality iron clamps and girders, fire
- 16:33Speaker 1: proof from top to bottom, mechanical lifts for the housemaids,
- 16:36Speaker 1: with all their brushes and brooms, Everything that the heart
- 16:39Speaker 1: could desire. Everything, well, I suppose, so the little gradgrinds
- 16:45Speaker 1: had cabinets in various departments of science too. They had
- 16:49Speaker 1: a little conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and
- 16:52Speaker 1: a little mineral logical cabinet, And the specimens were all
- 16:55Speaker 1: arranged and labeled, and the bits of stone and ore
- 16:58Speaker 1: looked as though they might have been broken from the
- 17:00Speaker 1: parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments their own names. And,
- 17:04Speaker 1: to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had
- 17:07Speaker 1: never found his way into their nursery, if the greedy
- 17:10Speaker 1: little gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it,
- 17:13Speaker 1: for good, gracious goodness sake that the greedy little Gradgrinds
- 17:16Speaker 1: grasped it. Their father walked in on a hopeful and
- 17:21Speaker 1: satisfied frame of mind. He was an affectionate father after
- 17:25Speaker 1: his manner, but he would probably have described himself, if
- 17:28Speaker 1: he had been put like sissy jew upon a definition,
- 17:31Speaker 1: as an eminently practical father. He had a particular pride
- 17:35Speaker 1: in the phrase eminently practical, which was considered to have
- 17:39Speaker 1: a special application to him. Whatsoever the public meeting held
- 17:42Speaker 1: in Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such meeting, some
- 17:45Speaker 1: coketown er was sure to seize the occasion of alluding
- 17:48Speaker 1: to his eminently practical friend, gradgrind This always pleased the
- 17:53Speaker 1: eminently practical friend. He knew it to be his due,
- 17:55Speaker 1: But his due was acceptable. He had reached the neutral
- 17:59Speaker 1: ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was neither
- 18:02Speaker 1: town nor country, and yet was either spoiled when his
- 18:05Speaker 1: ears were invaded by the sound of music. The clashing
- 18:08Speaker 1: and banging band attached to the horse riding establishment, which
- 18:11Speaker 1: had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion,
- 18:14Speaker 1: was in full bray. A flag floating from the summit
- 18:17Speaker 1: of the temple proclaimed to mankind that it was Sleary's
- 18:21Speaker 1: horse riding which claimed their suffrages. Sleary, himself, a stout
- 18:25Speaker 1: modern statue with a money box at its elbow in
- 18:28Speaker 1: an ecclesiastical niche of early Gothic architecture, took the money.
- 18:32Speaker 1: Miss Josephine Sleary, as some very long and very narrow
- 18:36Speaker 1: strips of printed bill announced, was then inaugurating the entertainments
- 18:39Speaker 1: with her graceful equestrian Tyrolean flower Act. Among the other
- 18:43Speaker 1: pleasing but always strictly moral wonders which must be seen
- 18:47Speaker 1: to be believed. Signor Jupe was that afternoon to elucidate
- 18:50Speaker 1: the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog, Merryless.
- 18:54Speaker 1: He was also to exhibit his astounding feet of throwing
- 18:57Speaker 1: seventy five hundredweight in rapid succession back handed over his head,
- 19:02Speaker 1: thus forming a fountain of solid iron in mid air,
- 19:04Speaker 1: a feat never before attempted in this or any other country,
- 19:07Speaker 1: and which, having elixited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs,
- 19:11Speaker 1: it cannot be withdrawn. The same Signor Jupe was to
- 19:15Speaker 1: enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chase
- 19:18Speaker 1: Shakespearean quips and retorts. Lastly, he was to wind them
- 19:22Speaker 1: up by appearing in his favorite character of mister William
- 19:25Speaker 1: Button of Tooley Street in the highly novel and laughable
- 19:28Speaker 1: Hippocomedieta of the Tailor's Journey to Brentford. Thomas Gradgrind took
- 19:34Speaker 1: no heed of these trivialities, of course, but passed on
- 19:36Speaker 1: as a prattical man ought to pass on, either brushing
- 19:39Speaker 1: the noisy insects from his thoughts or consigning them to
- 19:42Speaker 1: the house of correction. But the turning of the road
- 19:45Speaker 1: took him by the back of the booth, and at
- 19:47Speaker 1: the back of the booth a number of children were
- 19:49Speaker 1: congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep
- 19:53Speaker 1: in at the hidden glories of this place. This brought
- 19:57Speaker 1: him to a stop. Now think of these vagamas, said
- 20:00Speaker 1: he attracting the young rabble from a model school. A
- 20:05Speaker 1: space of stunted grass and dry rubbish being between him
- 20:08Speaker 1: and the young rabble, he took his eye glass out
- 20:10Speaker 1: of his waistcoat to look for any child he knew
- 20:12Speaker 1: by name, and might order off phenomenon almost incredible, though
- 20:17Speaker 1: distinctly seen. What did he then behold but his own
- 20:20Speaker 1: metallurgical Louisa, and his own mathematical Thomas, abasing himself on
- 20:24Speaker 1: the ground to catch but a hoof of the graceful
- 20:26Speaker 1: Equestrian Tyrolean flower. Act dumb with amazement, mister Gradgrind crossed
- 20:32Speaker 1: to the spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid
- 20:34Speaker 1: his hand upon each erring child, and said Louisa Thomas.
- 20:40Speaker 1: Both rose red and disconcerted. But Louisa looked at her
- 20:43Speaker 1: father with more boldness than Thomas did. Indeed, Thomas did
- 20:47Speaker 1: not look at him, but gave himself up to be
- 20:49Speaker 1: taken home like a machine. In the name of wonder,
- 20:52Speaker 1: idleness and folly, said mister Gradgrind, leading each away by
- 20:55Speaker 1: a hand. What do you do here? Wanted to see
- 20:59Speaker 1: what it was like, returned Louisa shortly. What it was like? Yes, father.
- 21:05Speaker 1: There was an air of jaded, sullenness in them both,
- 21:07Speaker 1: and particularly in the girl, yet struggling through the dissatisfaction
- 21:11Speaker 1: of her face. There was a light with nothing to
- 21:13Speaker 1: rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved
- 21:17Speaker 1: imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression,
- 21:21Speaker 1: not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager,
- 21:25Speaker 1: deafel flashes which had something painful in them, analogous to
- 21:29Speaker 1: the changes on a blind face groping its way. She
- 21:32Speaker 1: was a child now of fifteen or sixteen, but at
- 21:35Speaker 1: no distant day would seem to become a woman all
- 21:37Speaker 1: at once, her father thought so as he looked at her.
- 21:40Speaker 1: She was pretty, would have been self willed, he thought,
- 21:43Speaker 1: in his eminently practical way, But for her bringing up Thomas.
- 21:47Speaker 1: Though I have the fact before me, I find it
- 21:49Speaker 1: difficult to believe that you, with your education and resources,
- 21:52Speaker 1: should have brought your sister to a scene like this,
- 21:56Speaker 1: I brought him, father, said Louisa quickly. I asked him
- 21:58Speaker 1: to come. I'm sorry to hear it. I am very
- 22:02Speaker 1: sorry to hear it. It makes Thomas no better, and
- 22:05Speaker 1: it makes you worse, Louisa. She looked at her father again,
- 22:08Speaker 1: but no tear fell down her cheek. You, Thomas, and
- 22:12Speaker 1: you to whom the circle of the sciences is open, Thomas,
- 22:16Speaker 1: and you, who may be said to be replete with facts, Thomas,
- 22:19Speaker 1: and you who have been trained to mathematical exactness, Thomas,
- 22:22Speaker 1: and you here, cried mister gradgrind in this degraded position.
- 22:26Speaker 1: I am amazed. I was tired, father, I've been tired
- 22:30Speaker 1: a long time, said Louisa, tired of what, asked the
- 22:34Speaker 1: astonished father. I don't know of what? Of everything? I think?
- 22:40Speaker 1: Say not another word returned mister gradgrind, you are childish.
- 22:43Speaker 1: I will hear no more. He did not speak again
- 22:47Speaker 1: until they had walked some half a mile in silence,
- 22:49Speaker 1: when he gravely broke out with what would your best
- 22:52Speaker 1: friends say, Louisa? Do you attach no value to their
- 22:55Speaker 1: good opinion? What would mister Bounderby say? At the mention
- 22:59Speaker 1: of this name? His daughter stole a look at him,
- 23:01Speaker 1: remarkable for its intense and searching character. He saw nothing
- 23:05Speaker 1: of it, for before he looked at her, she had
- 23:07Speaker 1: again cast down her eyes. What he repeated, presently would
- 23:11Speaker 1: mister Bounderby say? All the way to Stone Lodge? As,
- 23:16Speaker 1: with grave indignation he led the two delinquents home. He repeated,
- 23:19Speaker 1: at intervals, what would mister Bounderby say, as if mister
- 23:22Speaker 1: Bounderby had been Missus Grundy end of Section.
- 23:26Speaker 3: One, chapter four, mister Bounderby not being Missus Grundy, who
- 23:34Speaker 3: was mister Bounderby? Why mister Bounderby was as near to
- 23:38Speaker 3: being mister Gradgrind's bosom friend as a man perfectly devoid
- 23:43Speaker 3: of sentiment can approach that spiritual relationship towards another man
- 23:47Speaker 3: perfectly devoid of sentiment. So near was mister Bounderby, or,
- 23:52Speaker 3: if the reader should prefer it, so far off. He
- 23:56Speaker 3: was a rich man, banker, merchant, manufacture, and what not.
- 24:01Speaker 3: A big loud man with a stare and a metallic laugh,
- 24:06Speaker 3: A man made out of a coarse material which seemed
- 24:09Speaker 3: to have been stretched to make so much of him.
- 24:12Speaker 3: A man with a great puffed head and forehead, swelled
- 24:15Speaker 3: veins in his temples, and such a strained skin to
- 24:19Speaker 3: his face that it seemed to hold his eyes open
- 24:22Speaker 3: and lift his eyebrows up. A man with a pervading
- 24:26Speaker 3: appearance on him of being inflated like a balloon and
- 24:29Speaker 3: ready to start. A man who could never sufficiently vaunt himself,
- 24:34Speaker 3: a self made man, a man who was always proclaiming,
- 24:38Speaker 3: through that brassy speaking trumpet voice of his his old
- 24:42Speaker 3: ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the
- 24:46Speaker 3: bully of humility. A year or two younger than his
- 24:50Speaker 3: eminently practical friend, mister Bounderby looked older. His seven or
- 24:55Speaker 3: eight and forty might have had this seven or eight
- 24:58Speaker 3: added to it again without prizing anybody. He had not
- 25:02Speaker 3: much hair. One might have fancied he had talked it off,
- 25:06Speaker 3: and that what was left all standing up in disorder,
- 25:09Speaker 3: was in that condition from being constantly blown about by
- 25:13Speaker 3: his windy boastfulness. In the formal drawing room of stone Lodge,
- 25:19Speaker 3: standing on the hearth rug, warming himself before the fire,
- 25:23Speaker 3: mister Bounderby delivered some observations to Missus Gradgrind on the
- 25:27Speaker 3: circumstance of its being his birthday. He stood before the fire,
- 25:32Speaker 3: partly because it was a cool spring afternoon, though the
- 25:36Speaker 3: sun shone, partly because the shade of stone Lodge was
- 25:40Speaker 3: always haunted by the ghost of damp Mortar. Partly because
- 25:44Speaker 3: he thus took up a commanding position from which to
- 25:47Speaker 3: subdue Missus Gradgrind. I hadn't a shoe on my foot.
- 25:53Speaker 3: As to a stalking, I didn't know such a thing
- 25:56Speaker 3: by name. I passed the day in a ditch and
- 26:00Speaker 3: night in a pig sty. That's the way I spent
- 26:03Speaker 3: my tense birthday. Not that a ditch was new to me,
- 26:06Speaker 3: for I was born in a ditch, missus Gradgrind, a little, thin, white,
- 26:12Speaker 3: pink eyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily,
- 26:17Speaker 3: who was always taking physic without any effect, and who,
- 26:21Speaker 3: whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was
- 26:24Speaker 3: invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her.
- 26:29Speaker 3: Missus Gradgrind hoped it was a dry ditch. No, when
- 26:34Speaker 3: is a salp a foot of water in it, said
- 26:36Speaker 3: mister Bounderby, enough to give a baby cold. Missus Gradgrind
- 26:42Speaker 3: considered cold. I was born with inflammation of the lungs
- 26:47Speaker 3: and of everything else. I believe that was capable of inflammation,
- 26:51Speaker 3: returned mister Bounderby. For years, Madam, I was one of
- 26:55Speaker 3: the most miserable little wretches ever seen. I was so sickly,
- 27:00Speaker 3: and I was always moaning and groaning. I was so
- 27:03Speaker 3: ragged and dirty that you wouldn't have touched me with
- 27:06Speaker 3: a pair of tongs. Missus Gradgrind faintly looked at the
- 27:10Speaker 3: tongs as the most appropriate thing her imbecility could think
- 27:14Speaker 3: of doing. How I fought through it, I don't know,
- 27:18Speaker 3: said Bounderby. I was determined I suppose I have been
- 27:22Speaker 3: a determined character in later life, and I suppose I
- 27:26Speaker 3: was then here. I am missus Gradgrind, anyhow, and nobody
- 27:31Speaker 3: to thank for being here but myself. Missus Gradgrind meekly
- 27:35Speaker 3: and weakly hoped that his mother, my mother bolted, ma'am,
- 27:40Speaker 3: said Bounderby. Missus Gradgrind, stunned as usual, collapsed and gave
- 27:47Speaker 3: it up. My mother left me to my grandmother, said Bounderby.
- 27:52Speaker 3: And according to the best of my remembrance, my grandmother
- 27:56Speaker 3: was the wickedest and worst old woman that ever lived.
- 28:00Speaker 3: If I got a little pair of shoes by any chance,
- 28:02Speaker 3: she would take them off and sell them for drink.
- 28:05Speaker 3: Why I've known that grandmother of mine lie in her
- 28:08Speaker 3: bed and drink her fourteen glasses of liquor before breakfast.
- 28:13Speaker 3: Missus Gradgrind, weakly smiling and giving no other sign of vitality,
- 28:19Speaker 3: looked as she always did, like an indifferently executed transparency
- 28:23Speaker 3: of a small female figure without enough light behind it.
- 28:29Speaker 3: She kept a chandler's shop, pursued Bounderby, and kept me
- 28:33Speaker 3: in an egg box that was the colt of my infancy,
- 28:36Speaker 3: an old egg box. As soon as I was big
- 28:39Speaker 3: enough to run away. Of course I ran away. Then
- 28:43Speaker 3: I became a young vagabond, and instead of one old
- 28:46Speaker 3: woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all
- 28:50Speaker 3: ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right,
- 28:54Speaker 3: they had no business to do anything else. I was
- 28:57Speaker 3: a nuisance, an encumbrance, and a pest. I know that
- 29:01Speaker 3: very well. His pride in having, at any time of
- 29:05Speaker 3: his life achieved such a great social distinction as to
- 29:08Speaker 3: be a nuisance an encumbrance in a pest was only
- 29:12Speaker 3: to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast.
- 29:18Speaker 3: I was to pull through it, I suppose, Missus Gradgrind,
- 29:22Speaker 3: whether I was to do it or not, ma'am, I
- 29:24Speaker 3: did it. I pulled through it, though nobody threw me
- 29:28Speaker 3: out A rope vagabond, errand boy, vagabond, laborer, porter, clerk,
- 29:34Speaker 3: chief manager, small partner. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Those are
- 29:40Speaker 3: the antecedents and the culmination. Josiah Bounderby of Coketown learnt
- 29:46Speaker 3: his letters from the outsides of shops Missus Gradgrind, and
- 29:50Speaker 3: was first able to tell the time upon a dial
- 29:53Speaker 3: plate from studying the steeple clock of Saint Giles Church, London,
- 29:58Speaker 3: under the direction of a drunken crew who was a
- 30:01Speaker 3: convicted thief and an incorrigible vagrant. Tell Josiah Bounderby of
- 30:06Speaker 3: Coketown of your district schools, and your model schools, and
- 30:10Speaker 3: your training schools, and your whole kettle of fish schools.
- 30:14Speaker 3: And Josiah Bounderby of Coketown tells you plainly, all right,
- 30:19Speaker 3: all correct. He hadn't such advantages, but let us have
- 30:23Speaker 3: hard headed, solid fisted people. The education that made him
- 30:27Speaker 3: won't do for everybody. He knows well such and such
- 30:30Speaker 3: his education was, however, and you may force him to
- 30:34Speaker 3: swallow boiling fat, but you shall never force him to
- 30:38Speaker 3: suppress the facts of his life being heated. When he
- 30:43Speaker 3: arrived at this climax, Josiah Bounderby of Coketown stopped. He
- 30:48Speaker 3: stopped just as his eminently practical friend, still accompanied by
- 30:52Speaker 3: the two young culprits, entered the room. His eminently practical friend,
- 30:57Speaker 3: on seeing him, stopped also and gave lou Louisa a
- 31:00Speaker 3: reproachful look that plainly said, behold your Bounderby, Well blustered,
- 31:06Speaker 3: mister bounderby. What's the matter? What is young Thomas in
- 31:10Speaker 3: the dumps about? He spoke of young Thomas, but he
- 31:13Speaker 3: looked at Louisa. We were peeping at the circus, muttered
- 31:18Speaker 3: Louisa haughtily, without lifting up her eyes. And father caught us,
- 31:24Speaker 3: and Missus Gradgrind, said her husband, in a lofty manner.
- 31:28Speaker 3: I should as soon have expected to find my children
- 31:31Speaker 3: reading poetry. Dear me, whimpered Missus Gradgrind. How can you,
- 31:38Speaker 3: Louisa and Thomas? I wonder at you. I declare you're
- 31:42Speaker 3: enough to make one regret ever, having had a family
- 31:45Speaker 3: at all, I have a great mind to say I
- 31:48Speaker 3: wish I hadn't then what would you have done? I
- 31:51Speaker 3: should like to know. Mister Gradgrind did not seem favorably
- 31:56Speaker 3: impressed by these cogent remarks. He frowned impatiently, as if
- 32:01Speaker 3: with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't
- 32:05Speaker 3: go and look at the shells and minerals and things
- 32:07Speaker 3: provided for you instead of circuses, said Missus Gradgrind. You
- 32:12Speaker 3: know as well as I do. No young people have
- 32:15Speaker 3: circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or attend lectures
- 32:20Speaker 3: about circuses. What can you possibly want to know of circuses?
- 32:24Speaker 3: Then I am sure you have enough to do if
- 32:27Speaker 3: that's what you want. With my head in its present state,
- 32:30Speaker 3: I couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts
- 32:33Speaker 3: you have got to attend to. That's the reason, pouted Louisa.
- 32:38Speaker 3: Don't tell me the reason, because it can't be nothing
- 32:41Speaker 3: of the sort, said Missus gradgrind. Go and be something
- 32:46Speaker 3: illogical directly. Missus gradgrind was not a scientific character, and
- 32:52Speaker 3: usually dismissed her children to their studies with this general
- 32:55Speaker 3: injunction to choose their pursuit in truth. Missus gradgrind Rine's
- 33:00Speaker 3: stock of facts in general was woefully defective, but mister Gradgrind,
- 33:05Speaker 3: in raising her to her high matrimonial position, had been
- 33:09Speaker 3: influenced by two reasons. Firstly, she was most satisfactory as
- 33:14Speaker 3: a question of figures, and secondly, she had no nonsense
- 33:18Speaker 3: about her. By nonsense, he meant fancy, and truly it
- 33:22Speaker 3: is probable she was as free from any alloy of
- 33:25Speaker 3: that nature as any human being not arrived at the
- 33:29Speaker 3: perfection of an absolute idiot. Ever, was the simple circumstance
- 33:34Speaker 3: of being left alone with her husband and mister Bounderby
- 33:37Speaker 3: was sufficient to stun this admirable lady again without collision
- 33:41Speaker 3: between herself and any other fact. So she once more
- 33:45Speaker 3: died away, and nobody minded her. Bounderby said mister grand Grind,
- 33:51Speaker 3: drawing a chair to the fireside. You are always so
- 33:54Speaker 3: interested in my young people, particularly in Louisa, that I
- 33:59Speaker 3: make no apology for saying to you, I am very
- 34:02Speaker 3: much vexed by this discovery. I have systematically devoted myself,
- 34:07Speaker 3: as you know, to the education of the reason of
- 34:10Speaker 3: my family. The reason is, as you know, the only
- 34:15Speaker 3: faculty to which the education should be addressed. And yet Bounderby,
- 34:21Speaker 3: it would appear from this unexpected circumstance of today, though
- 34:25Speaker 3: in itself a trifling one, as if something had crept
- 34:28Speaker 3: into Thomas's in Louise's minds which is or rather which
- 34:33Speaker 3: is not. I do not know that I can express
- 34:35Speaker 3: myself better than by saying which has never been intended
- 34:39Speaker 3: to be developed, and in which their reason has no part.
- 34:45Speaker 3: There certainly is no reason in looking with interest at
- 34:48Speaker 3: a parcel of vagabonds, returned Bounderby. When I was a
- 34:52Speaker 3: vagabond myself, nobody looked with any interest at me. I
- 34:56Speaker 3: know that then comes the question, said the mminently practical father,
- 35:01Speaker 3: with his eyes on the fire. In what has this
- 35:04Speaker 3: vulgar curiosity its rise? I'll tell you in what? In
- 35:09Speaker 3: idle imagination, I hope not, said the eminently practical I confess, however,
- 35:16Speaker 3: that the misgiving has crossed me on my way home.
- 35:20Speaker 3: In idle imagination, Gradgrind repeated bounderby a very bad thing
- 35:25Speaker 3: for anybody, but a cursed bad thing for a girl
- 35:28Speaker 3: like Louisa. I should ask missus Gradgrind's pardon for strong expressions,
- 35:34Speaker 3: but that she knows very well. I am not a
- 35:36Speaker 3: refined character. Whoever expects refinement and me will be disappointed.
- 35:41Speaker 3: I hadn't a refined bringing up. Whether said Gradgrind, pondering
- 35:48Speaker 3: with his hands in his pockets and his cavernous eyes
- 35:51Speaker 3: on the fire, Whether any instructor or servant can have
- 35:55Speaker 3: suggested anything, whether Louisa or Thomas can have been reading anything,
- 36:01Speaker 3: Whether in spite of all precautions, any idle story book
- 36:05Speaker 3: can have got into the house. Because in minds that
- 36:08Speaker 3: have been practically formed by rule and line from the
- 36:12Speaker 3: cradle upwards, this is so curious, so incomprehensible, stop a
- 36:18Speaker 3: bit cried Bounderby, who all this time had been standing
- 36:22Speaker 3: as before on the hearth, bursting at the very furniture
- 36:25Speaker 3: of the room with explosive humility. You have one of
- 36:29Speaker 3: those stroller's children in the school, Cecilia jupe by name,
- 36:34Speaker 3: said mister Gradgrind, was something of a stricken Look at
- 36:38Speaker 3: his friend. Now stop a bit, cried Bounderby again. How
- 36:42Speaker 3: did she come there?
- 36:44Speaker 2: Why?
- 36:44Speaker 3: The fact is I saw the girl myself for the
- 36:47Speaker 3: first time, only just now. She specially applied here at
- 36:51Speaker 3: the house to be admitted as not regularly belonging to
- 36:55Speaker 3: our town. And yes, you are right, Bounderby, you are
- 37:00Speaker 3: right now stop a bit, cried Bounderby once more. Louisa
- 37:05Speaker 3: saw her when she came. Louisa certainly did see her,
- 37:09Speaker 3: for she mentioned the application to me. But Louisa saw her.
- 37:14Speaker 3: I have no doubt in missus Gradgrind's presence. Pray, missus Gradgrind,
- 37:20Speaker 3: said bounder By. What passed? Oh my poor health, returned
- 37:25Speaker 3: Missus Gradgrind. The girl wanted to come to the school,
- 37:29Speaker 3: and mister Gradgrind wanted girls to come to the school,
- 37:32Speaker 3: And Louisa and Thomas both said that the girl wanted
- 37:36Speaker 3: to come, and that mister Gradgrind wanted girls to come,
- 37:39Speaker 3: And how was it possible to contradict them when such
- 37:42Speaker 3: was the fact. Now I tell you what Gradgrind, said
- 37:46Speaker 3: mister Bounderby. Turn this girl to the right about, and
- 37:50Speaker 3: there's an end of it. I am much of your opinion.
- 37:54Speaker 3: Do it at once, said Bounderby. Has always been my
- 37:57Speaker 3: motto from a child. When I thought I would run
- 38:00Speaker 3: away from my egg box and my grandmother, I did
- 38:03Speaker 3: it at once. Do you the same? Do this at once?
- 38:08Speaker 3: Are you walking? Asked his friend. I have the father's address.
- 38:12Speaker 3: Perhaps he would not mind walking to town with me.
- 38:16Speaker 3: Not the least in the world, said mister Bounderby, as
- 38:19Speaker 3: long as you'd do it at once. So mister Bounderby
- 38:23Speaker 3: threw on his hat. He always threw it on, as
- 38:26Speaker 3: expressing a man who had been far too busily employed
- 38:29Speaker 3: in making himself to acquire any fashion of wearing his hat,
- 38:33Speaker 3: and with his hands in his pockets, sauntered out into
- 38:36Speaker 3: the hall. I never wear gloves, it was his custom
- 38:41Speaker 3: to say. I didn't climb up the ladder in them.
- 38:44Speaker 3: Shouldn't be so high up if I had. Being left
- 38:48Speaker 3: to saunter in the hall, a minute or two while
- 38:50Speaker 3: mister gradgrind went upstairs for the address. He opened the
- 38:54Speaker 3: door of the children's study and looked into that serene,
- 38:57Speaker 3: floor clothed department, which not was standing, its bookcases and
- 39:01Speaker 3: its cabinets, and its variety of learned and philosophical appliances,
- 39:06Speaker 3: had much of the genial aspect of a room devoted
- 39:09Speaker 3: to hair cutting. Louisa languidly leaned upon the window, looking
- 39:13Speaker 3: out without looking at anything, while young Thomas stood sniffing
- 39:17Speaker 3: revengefully at the fire. Adam Smith and Malthus, two younger gradgrinds,
- 39:24Speaker 3: were out at lecture and custody, and little Jane, after
- 39:27Speaker 3: manufacturing a good deal of moist pipe clay on her
- 39:30Speaker 3: face with slate pencil and tears, had fallen asleep over
- 39:34Speaker 3: vulgar fractions. It's all right now, Louisa, it's all right,
- 39:40Speaker 3: young Thomas, said mister Bounderby. You won't do so anymore.
- 39:44Speaker 3: I'll answer for its being all over with father. Well, Louisa,
- 39:48Speaker 3: that's worth a kiss, isn't it. You can take one,
- 39:51Speaker 3: mister Bounderby, returned Louisa, when she had coldly paused and
- 39:56Speaker 3: slowly walked across the room. And ungraciously raised her cheek
- 40:00Speaker 3: towards him, with her face turned away. Always my pet,
- 40:04Speaker 3: ain't you, Louisa, said mister Bounderby. Good Bye, Louisa. He
- 40:10Speaker 3: went his way, but she stood on the same spot,
- 40:13Speaker 3: rubbing the cheek he had kissed with her handkerchief until
- 40:16Speaker 3: it was burning red. She was doing this five minutes afterwards.
- 40:21Speaker 3: What are you about, lou Her brother sulkily remonstrated, you'll
- 40:25Speaker 3: rub a hole in your face. You may cut the
- 40:29Speaker 3: peace out with your penknife if you like Tom, I
- 40:32Speaker 3: wouldn't cry. Chapter five. The keynote Coketown, to which Messrs
- 40:42Speaker 3: Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked was a triumph of fact.
- 40:46Speaker 3: It had no greater taint of fancy in it than
- 40:49Speaker 3: missus Gradgrind herself. Let us strike the keynote Coketown before
- 40:54Speaker 3: pursuing our tune. It was a town of red brick,
- 40:59Speaker 3: or of brick that would have been read if the
- 41:01Speaker 3: smoke and ashes had allowed it. But as matters stood,
- 41:05Speaker 3: it was a town of unnatural red and black, like
- 41:08Speaker 3: the painted face of a savage. It was a town
- 41:11Speaker 3: of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents
- 41:16Speaker 3: of smoke trailed themselves forever and ever, and never got uncoiled.
- 41:21Speaker 3: It had a black canal in it, and a river
- 41:24Speaker 3: that ran purple with ill smelling dye, and vast piles
- 41:28Speaker 3: of building full of windows, where there was a rattling
- 41:32Speaker 3: and a trembling all day long, and where the piston
- 41:35Speaker 3: of the steam engine worked monotonously up and down, like
- 41:38Speaker 3: the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.
- 41:43Speaker 3: It contained several large streets, all very like one another,
- 41:47Speaker 3: and many small streets still more like one another, inhabited
- 41:51Speaker 3: by people equally like one another, who all went in
- 41:55Speaker 3: and out at the same hours, with the same sound,
- 41:57Speaker 3: upon the same pavements, to do the same work, and
- 42:01Speaker 3: to whom every day was the same as yesterday and
- 42:04Speaker 3: tomorrow and every year, the counterpart of the last and
- 42:09Speaker 3: the next. These attributes of Coketown were, in the main
- 42:13Speaker 3: inseparable from the work by which it was sustained. Against
- 42:17Speaker 3: them were to be set off comforts of life which
- 42:20Speaker 3: found their way all over the world, and elegancies of
- 42:23Speaker 3: life which made We will not ask how much of
- 42:26Speaker 3: the fine lady, who could scarcely bear to hear the
- 42:29Speaker 3: place mentioned. The rest of its features were voluntary, and
- 42:34Speaker 3: they were these. You saw nothing in Coketown, but what
- 42:39Speaker 3: was severely workful. If the members of a religious persuasion
- 42:43Speaker 3: built a chapel there, as the members of eighteen religious
- 42:47Speaker 3: persuasions had done, they made it a pious warehouse of
- 42:51Speaker 3: red brick, with sometimes, but this is only in highly
- 42:54Speaker 3: ornamental examples a bell and a bird cage on the
- 42:58Speaker 3: top of it. Solitary exception was the new Church, a
- 43:02Speaker 3: stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating
- 43:07Speaker 3: in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs. All the
- 43:11Speaker 3: public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe
- 43:15Speaker 3: characters of black and white. The jail might have been
- 43:18Speaker 3: the infirmary, The infirmary might have been the jail, the
- 43:22Speaker 3: town hall might have been either or both, or anything else.
- 43:26Speaker 3: For anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces
- 43:29Speaker 3: of their construction, fact fact fact everywhere in the material
- 43:35Speaker 3: aspect of the town, fact, fact, fact everywhere in the immaterial.
- 43:42Speaker 3: The Machokumchild School was all fact, and the School of
- 43:46Speaker 3: Design was all fact, and the relations between master and
- 43:49Speaker 3: man were all fact and everything was fact between the
- 43:53Speaker 3: lying in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn't
- 43:57Speaker 3: state in figures are show to be purchasable in the
- 44:00Speaker 3: the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest was not,
- 44:04Speaker 3: and never should be. World without end amen. A town
- 44:09Speaker 3: so sacred to fact, and so triumphant in its assertion,
- 44:13Speaker 3: of course, got on. Well why no, not quite well, no,
- 44:18Speaker 3: dear me. No, Coketown did not come out of its
- 44:23Speaker 3: own furnaces in all respects, like gold that had stood
- 44:27Speaker 3: the fire first. The perplexing mystery of the place was
- 44:31Speaker 3: who belonged to the eighteen denominations, Because whoever did, the
- 44:36Speaker 3: laboring people did not. It was very strange to walk
- 44:40Speaker 3: through the streets on a Sunday morning and note how
- 44:42Speaker 3: few of them. The barbarous jangling of bells that was
- 44:46Speaker 3: driving the sick and nervous mad called away from their
- 44:49Speaker 3: own quarter, from their own close rooms, from the corners
- 44:53Speaker 3: of their own streets, where they lounged listlessly, gazing at
- 44:57Speaker 3: all the church and chapel, going as at a with
- 45:00Speaker 3: which they had no manner of concern. Nor was it
- 45:04Speaker 3: merely the stranger who noticed this, Because there was a
- 45:07Speaker 3: native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be
- 45:11Speaker 3: heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly
- 45:15Speaker 3: petitioning for acts of Parliament that should make these people
- 45:19Speaker 3: religious by main force. Then came the teetotal society, who
- 45:24Speaker 3: complained that these same people would get drunk, and showed
- 45:27Speaker 3: in tabular statements that they did get drunk, and proved
- 45:31Speaker 3: at tea parties that no inducement human or divine, except
- 45:36Speaker 3: a medal, would induce them to forego their custom of
- 45:39Speaker 3: getting drunk. Then came the chemist and druggist, with other
- 45:42Speaker 3: tabular statements, showing that when they didn't get drunk, they
- 45:46Speaker 3: took opium. Then came the experienced chaplain of the jail,
- 45:51Speaker 3: with more tabular statements, outdoing all the previous tabular statements,
- 45:56Speaker 3: and showing that the same people would resort to low
- 45:59Speaker 3: haunts hidden from the public eye, where they heard low
- 46:02Speaker 3: singing and saw load dancing, and mayhap joined in it,
- 46:07Speaker 3: And where a b aged twenty four next birthday and
- 46:11Speaker 3: committed for eighteen months solitary, had himself said not that
- 46:16Speaker 3: he had ever shown himself particularly worthy of belief. His
- 46:19Speaker 3: ruin began as he was perfectly sure and confident that
- 46:23Speaker 3: otherwise he would have been a tip top moral specimen.
- 46:27Speaker 3: Then came mister Gradgrind and mister bounderby, the two gentlemen
- 46:31Speaker 3: at this present moment walking through Coketown, and both eminently practical,
- 46:36Speaker 3: who could, on occasion furnish more tabular statements derived from
- 46:40Speaker 3: their own personal experience and illustrated by cases they had
- 46:45Speaker 3: known and seen from which it clearly appeared. In short,
- 46:49Speaker 3: it was the only clear thing in the case that
- 46:51Speaker 3: these same people were a bad lot altogether. Gentlemen, that
- 46:55Speaker 3: do what you would for them, they were never thankful
- 46:58Speaker 3: for it, gentlemen, that they were restless, gentlemen, that they
- 47:02Speaker 3: never knew what they wanted, That they lived upon the
- 47:06Speaker 3: best and bought fresh butter and insisted on mocha coffee,
- 47:10Speaker 3: and rejected all but prime parts of meat, and yet
- 47:13Speaker 3: were eternally dissatisfied and unmanageable. In short, it was the
- 47:18Speaker 3: moral of the old nursery fable. There was an old woman,
- 47:22Speaker 3: and what do you think? She lived upon nothing but
- 47:24Speaker 3: vittles and drink. Vittles and drink were the whole of
- 47:27Speaker 3: her diet. And yet this old woman would never be
- 47:30Speaker 3: quiet is it possible, I wonder that there was any
- 47:35Speaker 3: analogy between the case of the Coketown population and the
- 47:39Speaker 3: case of the little gradgrinds. Surely none of us, in
- 47:42Speaker 3: our sober senses and acquainted with figures, are to be
- 47:46Speaker 3: told at this time of day that one of the
- 47:48Speaker 3: foremost elements in the existence of the Coketown working people
- 47:52Speaker 3: had been for scores of years deliberately set at naught.
- 47:56Speaker 3: That there was any fancy in them demanding to be
- 47:59Speaker 3: brought into hell the existence instead of struggling on in
- 48:02Speaker 3: convulsions that exactly in the ratio as they worked long, monotonously,
- 48:08Speaker 3: the craving grew within them for some physical relief, some relaxation,
- 48:13Speaker 3: encouraging good humor and good spirits, and giving them a
- 48:16Speaker 3: vent some recognized holiday, though it were but for an
- 48:20Speaker 3: honest dance to a stirring band of music, some occasional
- 48:25Speaker 3: light pie, in which even m chokumchild had no finger,
- 48:29Speaker 3: which craving must and would be satisfied art or must
- 48:32Speaker 3: and would inevitably go wrong until the laws of creation
- 48:36Speaker 3: were repealed. This man lives at POD's end, and I
- 48:42Speaker 3: don't quite know POD's end, said mister Gradgrind, which is
- 48:46Speaker 3: at Bounderby. Mister Bounderby knew it was somewhere downtown, but
- 48:51Speaker 3: knew no more respecting it, and so they stopped for
- 48:54Speaker 3: a moment, looking about. Almost as they did so, there
- 48:58Speaker 3: came running around the corner of the street at a
- 49:00Speaker 3: quick pace and with a frightened look, a girl whom
- 49:03Speaker 3: mister Gradgrind recognized. Hello, said he stop, where are you going? Stop?
- 49:10Speaker 3: Girl number twenty stopped then a palpitating and made him
- 49:14Speaker 3: a curtsy. Why are you tearing about the streets, said
- 49:18Speaker 3: mister Gradgrind in this improper manner? I was, I was
- 49:23Speaker 3: run after sir. The girl panted, and I wanted to
- 49:27Speaker 3: get away, run after, repeated mister Gradgrind. Who would run
- 49:32Speaker 3: after you? The question was unexpectedly and suddenly answered for
- 49:37Speaker 3: her by the colorless boy Bitzer, who came round the
- 49:41Speaker 3: corner with such blind speed and so little anticipating a
- 49:44Speaker 3: stoppage on the pavement, that he brought himself up against
- 49:48Speaker 3: mister Gradgrind's waistcoat and rebounded into the road. What do
- 49:53Speaker 3: you mean, boy, said mister Gradgrind, What are you doing?
- 49:57Speaker 3: How dare you dash against every in this manner? Bitzer
- 50:03Speaker 3: picked up his cap, which the concussion had knocked off,
- 50:06Speaker 3: and backing and knuckling his forehead, pleaded that it was
- 50:09Speaker 3: an accident. Was this boy running after you, Jupe, asked
- 50:14Speaker 3: mister Gradgrind, Yes, sir, said the girl reluctantly. No, I wasn't, sir,
- 50:21Speaker 3: cried Bitzer, not till she run away from me. But
- 50:24Speaker 3: the horse riders never mind what they say, sir. They're
- 50:27Speaker 3: famous for it. You know, the horse riders are famous
- 50:30Speaker 3: for never mind in what they say addressing sissy. It
- 50:34Speaker 3: is well known in the town, as please, sir, as
- 50:36Speaker 3: the multiplication table isn't known to the horse riders. Bitzer
- 50:40Speaker 3: tried mister Bounderby with this. He frightens me, so said
- 50:45Speaker 3: the girl with his cruel faces. Ah, cried Bitzer. Oh
- 50:49Speaker 3: ain't you one of the wrist Ain't you a horse rider?
- 50:53Speaker 3: I never looked at her, Sir. I asked her if
- 50:55Speaker 3: she would know how to define a horse tomorrow and
- 50:58Speaker 3: offer to tell her again. Has she run away and
- 51:01Speaker 3: I ran after her? Sir, that you might know how
- 51:04Speaker 3: to answer when she was asked. You wouldn't have thought
- 51:07Speaker 3: of saying such mischief if you hadn't been a horse rider.
- 51:11Speaker 3: Her calling seems to be pretty well known among em
- 51:14Speaker 3: observed mister Bounderby. You'd have had the whole school peeping
- 51:18Speaker 3: in a row in a week, truly, I think, so,
- 51:22Speaker 3: returned his friend. Mit, sir, turn you about and take
- 51:26Speaker 3: yourself home. Jupe, stay here a moment. Let me hear
- 51:30Speaker 3: of your running in this manner any more, boy, and
- 51:34Speaker 3: you will hear of me through the master of the school.
- 51:37Speaker 3: You understand what I mean. Go along. The boy stopped
- 51:42Speaker 3: in his rapid blinking, knuckled his forehead again, glanced at Sissy,
- 51:47Speaker 3: turned about and retreated. Now, girl, said mister gradgrind, take
- 51:53Speaker 3: this gentleman and me to your father's. We are going there.
- 51:57Speaker 3: What have you got in that bottle you're carrying, gin,
- 52:01Speaker 3: said mister Bounderby. Dear, no, sir, it's the nine oils
- 52:06Speaker 3: the what, cried mister Bounderby. The nine oils, sir, to
- 52:11Speaker 3: rab father with. Then said mister Bounderby with a short
- 52:15Speaker 3: loud laugh. What in the devil do you rub your
- 52:18Speaker 3: father with nine oils? For it's what our people always use, sir,
- 52:22Speaker 3: when they get any hurts in the ring, replied the girl,
- 52:25Speaker 3: looking over her shoulder to assure herself that her pursuer
- 52:29Speaker 3: was gone. They bruised themselves very bad. Sometimes serves em right,
- 52:34Speaker 3: said mister Bounderby, for being idle. She glanced up at
- 52:38Speaker 3: his face with mingled astonishment and dread by George, said
- 52:43Speaker 3: mister Bounderby. When I was four or five years younger
- 52:46Speaker 3: than you, I had worse bruises upon me than ten
- 52:49Speaker 3: oils twenty oils, forty oils would have rubbed off. I
- 52:53Speaker 3: didn't get em by posture making, but by being banged about.
- 52:57Speaker 3: There was no rope dancing for me. I'd danced on
- 53:00Speaker 3: the bare ground and was l rooped with the rope.
- 53:04Speaker 3: Mister Gradgrind, though hard enough, was by no means so
- 53:07Speaker 3: rough a man as mister Bounderby. His character was not
- 53:11Speaker 3: unkind all things considered, it might have been a very
- 53:14Speaker 3: kind one. Indeed, if he had only made some round
- 53:17Speaker 3: mistake in the arithmetic that balanced it years ago, he said,
- 53:22Speaker 3: in what he meant for a reassuring tone, as they
- 53:25Speaker 3: turned down a narrow road, And this is POD's end,
- 53:28Speaker 3: is it, jupe? This it is, sir, And if you
- 53:32Speaker 3: wouldn't mind, sir, this is the house. She stopped at
- 53:36Speaker 3: twilight at the door of a mean little public house
- 53:39Speaker 3: with dim red lights in it, as haggard and as shabby,
- 53:43Speaker 3: as if for want of custom. It had itself taken
- 53:46Speaker 3: to drinking, and had gone the way all drunkards go,
- 53:49Speaker 3: and was very near the end of it. It's only
- 53:53Speaker 3: crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you
- 53:55Speaker 3: wouldn't mind, and waiting there for a moment till I
- 53:58Speaker 3: get a candle. If you should hear a dog, sir,
- 54:01Speaker 3: it's only merrylegs, and he only barks merry legs and
- 54:05Speaker 3: non oils. Eh, said mister bounderby entering last with his
- 54:09Speaker 3: metallic laugh. Pretty well this for a self made man.
- 54:16Speaker 3: End of Section two.
- 54:19Speaker 2: Chapter six, Sleary's Horsemanship. The name of the public house
- 54:24Speaker 2: was the Pegasus Arms. The Pegasus Legs might have been
- 54:27Speaker 2: more to the purpose. But underneath the winged horse upon
- 54:30Speaker 2: the sideboard, the Pegasus Arms was inscribed in Roman letters.
- 54:34Speaker 2: Beneath that inscription again in a flowing scroll, the painter
- 54:37Speaker 2: had touched off the lines good malt makes good beer.
- 54:41Speaker 2: Walk in and they'll draw it here. Good wine makes
- 54:44Speaker 2: good brandy. Give us a call and you'll find it
- 54:46Speaker 2: handy framed and glazed upon the wall behind the dingy
- 54:50Speaker 2: little bar was another Pegasus, a theatrical one with real
- 54:54Speaker 2: gauze led in for his wings, golden stars stuck on
- 54:57Speaker 2: all over him, and his ethereal harness made of red silk.
- 55:01Speaker 2: As it had grown too dusky without to see the sign,
- 55:04Speaker 2: and as it had not grown light enough within to
- 55:06Speaker 2: see the picture, mister Gradgrind and mister Bounderby received no
- 55:09Speaker 2: offense from these idealities. They followed the girl up some
- 55:13Speaker 2: steep corner stairs without meeting any one, and stopped in
- 55:16Speaker 2: the dark while she went on for a candle. They
- 55:18Speaker 2: expected every moment to hear merrylegs give tongue, but the
- 55:22Speaker 2: highly trained performing dog had not barked when the girl
- 55:24Speaker 2: and the candle appeared together. Father is not in our room, suh,
- 55:29Speaker 2: she said, with a face of great surprise. If you
- 55:31Speaker 2: wouldn't mind walking in, I'll find him directly. They walked in,
- 55:35Speaker 2: and Cissy, having set two chairs for them, sped away
- 55:38Speaker 2: with a light quick step. It was a mean, shabbily
- 55:42Speaker 2: furnished room with a bed in it. The white night
- 55:44Speaker 2: cap embellished with two peacock's feathers and a pigtail bolt
- 55:47Speaker 2: upright in which signor Jupe had that very afternoon enlivened
- 55:51Speaker 2: the varied performances with his chased Shakespearean quips and retorts
- 55:55Speaker 2: hung upon a nail. But no other portion of his
- 55:58Speaker 2: wardrobe or other token of himself or his pursuits was
- 56:01Speaker 2: to be seen anywhere. As to Merrylegs, that respectable ancestor
- 56:05Speaker 2: of the highly trained animal who went aboard the ark
- 56:07Speaker 2: might have been accidentally shut out of it for any
- 56:10Speaker 2: sign of a dog that was manifest to eye or
- 56:12Speaker 2: ear in the Pegasu's arms. They heard the doors of
- 56:16Speaker 2: rooms above opening and shutting as Cissy went from one
- 56:19Speaker 2: to another in quest of her father, and presently they
- 56:21Speaker 2: heard voices expressing surprise. She came bounding down again in
- 56:25Speaker 2: a great hurry, opened a battered and mangy old hair trunk,
- 56:28Speaker 2: found it empty, and looked round with her hands clasped
- 56:31Speaker 2: and her face full of terror. Father must have gone
- 56:34Speaker 2: down to the booth, sir. I don't know why he
- 56:36Speaker 2: should go there, but he must be there. I'll bring
- 56:38Speaker 2: him in a minute. She was gone directly without her bonnet,
- 56:42Speaker 2: with her long, dark childish hair streaming behind her. What
- 56:46Speaker 2: does she mean? Said mister gradgrind back in a minute,
- 56:48Speaker 2: it's more than a mile off. Before mister Bounderby could reply,
- 56:52Speaker 2: a young man appeared at the door, and introducing himself
- 56:55Speaker 2: with the words by your leaves, gentlemen, walked in with
- 56:58Speaker 2: his hands in his pockets. His face close, shaven, thin
- 57:02Speaker 2: and sallow, was shaded by a great quantity of dark hair,
- 57:05Speaker 2: brushed into a roll all round his head and parted
- 57:08Speaker 2: up the center. His legs were very robust, but shorter
- 57:11Speaker 2: than legs of good proportion should have been. His chest
- 57:14Speaker 2: and back were as much too broad as his legs
- 57:16Speaker 2: were too short. He was dressed in a new market
- 57:19Speaker 2: coat and tight fitting trousers, wore a shawl round his neck,
- 57:22Speaker 2: smelt of lamp oil, straw, orange peel, horses, provender, and sawdust,
- 57:27Speaker 2: and looked a most remarkable sort of centaur compounded of
- 57:30Speaker 2: the stable and the playhouse, where the one began and
- 57:33Speaker 2: the other ended. Nobody could have told with any precision.
- 57:36Speaker 2: This gentleman was mentioned in the bills of the day
- 57:39Speaker 2: as mister E. W. B. Childers, so justly celebrated for
- 57:43Speaker 2: his daring vaulting act as the Wild Huntsmen of the
- 57:45Speaker 2: North American Prairies, in which popular performance a diminutive boy
- 57:49Speaker 2: with an old face who now accompanied him assisted as
- 57:52Speaker 2: his infant son, being carried upside down over his father's
- 57:56Speaker 2: shoulder by one foot and held by the crown of
- 57:59Speaker 2: his head, heels up in the palm of his father's hand.
- 58:02Speaker 2: According to the violent paternal manner in which wild huntsmen
- 58:05Speaker 2: may be observed to fondle their offspring. Made up with curls, wreaths, wings, white,
- 58:10Speaker 2: bismuth and carmine, this hopeful young person soared into so
- 58:14Speaker 2: pleasing a cupid as to constitute the chief delight of
- 58:17Speaker 2: the maternal part of the spectators. But in private, where
- 58:20Speaker 2: his characteristics were a precocious cutaway coat and an extremely
- 58:24Speaker 2: gruff voice, he became of the turf turfy by your leaves, gentlemen,
- 58:29Speaker 2: said mister E. W. B. Childers, glancing round the room.
- 58:33Speaker 2: It was you. I believe that we're wishing to see Jupe,
- 58:36Speaker 2: it was said mister Gradgrind. His daughter is going to
- 58:39Speaker 2: fetch him, but I can't wait. Therefore, if you please,
- 58:42Speaker 2: I will leave a message for him with you. You see,
- 58:45Speaker 2: my friend, mister Bounderby put in, we are the kind
- 58:48Speaker 2: of people who know the value of time, and you
- 58:50Speaker 2: are the kind of people who don't know the value
- 58:52Speaker 2: of time. I have not, retorted mister Childers, after surveying
- 58:57Speaker 2: him from head to foot, the honor of knowing you.
- 58:59Speaker 2: But if you mean that you can make more money
- 59:01Speaker 2: of your time than I can of mine, I should
- 59:03Speaker 2: judge from your appearance that you're about right. An why
- 59:06Speaker 2: you've mighty even keep it too, I should think, said
- 59:09Speaker 2: Cupid Kidderminster. Stir that, said mister Childers. Master Kidderminster was
- 59:14Speaker 2: Cupid's mortal name. What was he come here cheekin us for? Then,
- 59:18Speaker 2: cried Master Kidderminster, showing a very irascible temperament. If you
- 59:21Speaker 2: want a cheek us, pay your okre at the doors
- 59:23Speaker 2: and take it out, Kidderminster, said mister Childers, raising his voice,
- 59:28Speaker 2: stow that, sir to mister Gradgrind, I was addressing myself
- 59:33Speaker 2: to you. You may or you may not be aware,
- 59:35Speaker 2: for perhaps you've not been much in the audience that
- 59:38Speaker 2: Jupe has missed his tip very often lately. Has What
- 59:41Speaker 2: does he missed, asked mister Gradgrind, glancing at the potent
- 59:45Speaker 2: bounderby for assistance. Missus tip offered it the godless four
- 59:49Speaker 2: times last night and never done him once, said Master Kidderminster.
- 59:53Speaker 2: Missus tip at the banners too, and was loose in
- 59:55Speaker 2: his ponging, didn't do what he ought to do, will
- 59:58Speaker 2: shorten his leaps and bad in his tom. Mister Childers interpreted, Oh,
- 1:00:03Speaker 2: said mister Gradgrind, that is tip? Is it in a
- 1:00:07Speaker 2: general way? Asked missing his tip? Mister E. W. B.
- 1:00:10Speaker 2: Childers answered nine oils, merrylegs, missing tips, God as banners
- 1:00:15Speaker 2: and ponging. Eh ejaculated Bounderby with his laugh of laughs.
- 1:00:19Speaker 2: Queer sort of company too, for a man has raised himself,
- 1:00:23Speaker 2: lower yourself, then, retorted cupid. Oh lord, if you've raised
- 1:00:27Speaker 2: yourself so ill is all that comes to let yourself
- 1:00:29Speaker 2: down a bit? This is a very obtrusive, lad, said
- 1:00:32Speaker 2: mister Gradgrind, turning and knitting his brows on him. We'd
- 1:00:36Speaker 2: have had a young gentleman to meet you if we'd
- 1:00:38Speaker 2: known you were coming, retorted Master Kidderminster. Nothing abashed, sir,
- 1:00:41Speaker 2: pity you don't have a bespake being so particular. You're
- 1:00:44Speaker 2: on the tight yef ain't you? What does this unmannerly
- 1:00:48Speaker 2: boy mean, asked mister Gradgrind, eyeing him in a sort
- 1:00:51Speaker 2: of desperation. By tight deaf there, Get out, Get out,
- 1:00:55Speaker 2: said mister Childers, thrusting his young friend from the room.
- 1:00:58Speaker 2: Rather in the prairie manner, tight jef or slack jeff.
- 1:01:01Speaker 2: He don't much signify. It's only tight rope and slack rope.
- 1:01:04Speaker 2: You are going to give me a message for jupe? Yes,
- 1:01:07Speaker 2: I was then continued mister Childers quickly. My opinion is
- 1:01:12Speaker 2: he will never receive it. Do you know much of him?
- 1:01:14Speaker 2: I never saw the man in my life. I doubt
- 1:01:17Speaker 2: if you ever will see him now. He's pretty plain
- 1:01:19Speaker 2: to me. He's off. Do you mean that he has
- 1:01:21Speaker 2: deserted his daughter? I I mean, said mister Childers, with
- 1:01:26Speaker 2: a nod, that he is cut. He was goose last night.
- 1:01:29Speaker 2: It was goose, the night before last, it was goose
- 1:01:31Speaker 2: to day. He's lately got in the way of always
- 1:01:33Speaker 2: being goosed. An he can't stand it. Why has he
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: been so very much goosed? Asked mister gradgrind, forcing the
- 1:01:40Speaker 2: word out of himself with great solemnity and reluctance. His
- 1:01:44Speaker 2: joints are turning stiff. An he's gettin used up, said Childers,
- 1:01:48Speaker 2: has his points is a cackler still, but he can't
- 1:01:50Speaker 2: get a living out of him a cackler. Bounderby repeated,
- 1:01:54Speaker 2: here we go again, a speaker. If a gentleman likes
- 1:01:58Speaker 2: it better, said mister E. W. B. Childers, superciliously throwing
- 1:02:02Speaker 2: the interpretation over his shoulder and accompanying it with a
- 1:02:05Speaker 2: shake of his long hair, which all shook at once.
- 1:02:08Speaker 2: Now it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that
- 1:02:11Speaker 2: man deeper to never his daughter knew of his being goose,
- 1:02:13Speaker 2: and to go through with it? Good, interrupted mister Bounderby.
- 1:02:17Speaker 2: This is good gradgrind. A man so fond of his
- 1:02:20Speaker 2: daughter that he runs away from her, this is devilish
- 1:02:22Speaker 2: good ha ha. Now I'll tell you what, young man,
- 1:02:25Speaker 2: I haven't always occupied my present station in life. I
- 1:02:28Speaker 2: know what these things are. You may be astonished to
- 1:02:31Speaker 2: hear it. But my mother ran away from me. E. W. B.
- 1:02:35Speaker 2: Schilders replied pointedly that he was not at all astonished
- 1:02:38Speaker 2: to hear it. Very well, said Bounderby. I was born
- 1:02:42Speaker 2: in a ditch, and my mother ran away from me.
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: Do I excuse her for it? No? Have I ever
- 1:02:47Speaker 2: excused her for it?
- 1:02:47Speaker 4: Not?
- 1:02:48Speaker 2: I what do I call her for it? I call
- 1:02:49Speaker 2: her probably the very worst woman that ever lived in
- 1:02:52Speaker 2: the world. Except my drunken grandmother. There's no family pride
- 1:02:55Speaker 2: about me. There's no imaginative sentimental humbug about me. I
- 1:02:59Speaker 2: call a spade a spade, and I call the mother
- 1:03:01Speaker 2: of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown, without any fear or any favor,
- 1:03:05Speaker 2: what I should call her if she had been the
- 1:03:06Speaker 2: mother of Dick Jones of Wapping. So with this man,
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: he's a runaway rogue and a vagabond. That's what he
- 1:03:12Speaker 2: is in English. It's all the same to me what
- 1:03:15Speaker 2: he is or what he is not, whether in English
- 1:03:17Speaker 2: or whether in French. Retorted mister e W. B. Childers,
- 1:03:20Speaker 2: facing about, I'm telling your friend, what's the fact. If
- 1:03:23Speaker 2: you don't like to hear it, you can avail yourself
- 1:03:25Speaker 2: of the open air. You give it mouth enough, you do,
- 1:03:27Speaker 2: but give it mouth in your own building, at least,
- 1:03:30Speaker 2: remonstrated e W. B. With stern irony. Don't give it
- 1:03:33Speaker 2: mouth from this building to your called upon. You have
- 1:03:36Speaker 2: got some building of your own, I dare say now.
- 1:03:39Speaker 2: Perhaps so, replied mister bounderby rattling his money and laughing.
- 1:03:43Speaker 2: Then give it mouth from your own building, will you,
- 1:03:45Speaker 2: if you please, said Childers, Because this isn't a strong building,
- 1:03:48Speaker 2: and too much of you m bring it down. Eyeing
- 1:03:52Speaker 2: mister bounderby from head to foot again, he turned from
- 1:03:54Speaker 2: him as from a man finally disposed of, to mister Gradgrind.
- 1:03:59Speaker 2: Jupe Senty's daughter out on an errand not an hour ago,
- 1:04:01Speaker 2: and then was seen to slip out himself, with his
- 1:04:03Speaker 2: hat over his eyes and a bundle tied up in
- 1:04:05Speaker 2: an handkerchief under his arm. She'll never believe it of him,
- 1:04:09Speaker 2: but he's cut away and left her pray, said mister Gradgrind.
- 1:04:12Speaker 2: Why will she never believe it of him? Because those
- 1:04:15Speaker 2: two were one, because they were never asunder, Because up
- 1:04:18Speaker 2: to this time he seemed to doubt upon her, said Shoulders,
- 1:04:21Speaker 2: taking a step or two to look into the empty trunk.
- 1:04:24Speaker 2: Both mister Childers and Master Kidderminster walked in a curious manner,
- 1:04:28Speaker 2: with their legs wider apart than the general run of men,
- 1:04:31Speaker 2: and with a very knowing assumption of being stiff in
- 1:04:33Speaker 2: the knees. This walk was common to all the male
- 1:04:36Speaker 2: members of Sleary's company, and was understood to express that
- 1:04:39Speaker 2: they were always on horseback. Poor Cissy, he had better
- 1:04:44Speaker 2: have apprenticed her, said Childers, giving his hair another shake
- 1:04:47Speaker 2: as he looked up from the empty box. Now he
- 1:04:49Speaker 2: leaves it without anything to take too. It is creditable
- 1:04:53Speaker 2: to you who have never been apprenticed to express that opinion,
- 1:04:56Speaker 2: returned mister Gradgrind approvingly. I never apprenticed. I was apprenticed
- 1:05:00Speaker 2: when I was seven year old. Oh indeed, said mister Gradgrind,
- 1:05:05Speaker 2: rather resentfully, as having been defrauded of his good opinion.
- 1:05:09Speaker 2: I was not aware of its being the custom to
- 1:05:11Speaker 2: apprentice young persons to idleness. Mister Bounderby put in with
- 1:05:14Speaker 2: a loud laugh. No by the Lord Harry, nor I
- 1:05:18Speaker 2: if father always had it in his head, resumed Childers,
- 1:05:21Speaker 2: feigning unconsciousness of mister Bounderby's existence, for she was to
- 1:05:24Speaker 2: be taught the deuce and all education. How he got
- 1:05:27Speaker 2: into his head, I can't say. I can only say
- 1:05:29Speaker 2: it never got out. He's been picking up a bit
- 1:05:32Speaker 2: of reading for her, here, a bit of writing for her, there,
- 1:05:34Speaker 2: a bit of ciphering for her somewhere else least seven years.
- 1:05:39Speaker 2: Mister E. W. B. Childers took one of his hands
- 1:05:41Speaker 2: out of his pockets, stroked his face and chin, and
- 1:05:44Speaker 2: looked with a good deal of doubt and a little
- 1:05:45Speaker 2: hope at mister Gradgrind. From the first he had sought
- 1:05:48Speaker 2: to conciliate that gentleman for the sake of the deserted
- 1:05:51Speaker 2: girl when Sissy got into the school. Here, he pursued,
- 1:05:55Speaker 2: if father was as pleased as punch, I couldn't altogether
- 1:05:58Speaker 2: make out war myself, as we were not stationary ear being,
- 1:06:01Speaker 2: but commers and goers anywhere. I suppose, however, he had
- 1:06:04Speaker 2: this move in mind. He was always half cracked, and
- 1:06:07Speaker 2: then considered her provided for if you should happen to
- 1:06:09Speaker 2: have looked in to night for the purpose of telling
- 1:06:11Speaker 2: him that you were going to do her any little service,
- 1:06:14Speaker 2: said mister Childers, stroking his face again and repeating his look,
- 1:06:18Speaker 2: it will be very fortunate and well timed. Very fortunate
- 1:06:20Speaker 2: and well timed. On the contrary, returned mister Gradgrind. I
- 1:06:25Speaker 2: came to tell him that her connections made her not
- 1:06:26Speaker 2: an object for the school, and that she must not
- 1:06:29Speaker 2: attend any more. Still, if her father really has left
- 1:06:32Speaker 2: her without any connivance on her part, bounderby, let me
- 1:06:35Speaker 2: have a word with you upon this. Mister Childers politely
- 1:06:39Speaker 2: betook himself with his equestrian walk to the landing outside
- 1:06:43Speaker 2: the door, and there stood stroking his face and softly whistling.
- 1:06:47Speaker 2: While thus engaged, he overheard such phrases in mister Bounderby's
- 1:06:50Speaker 2: voice as no I say, no I advise you, not
- 1:06:53Speaker 2: I say by no means, while from mister Gradgrind he heard,
- 1:06:56Speaker 2: in his much lower tone the words but even as
- 1:07:00Speaker 2: example to Louisa, of what this pursuit, which has been
- 1:07:02Speaker 2: the subject of a vulgar curiosity, leads to an end's
- 1:07:05Speaker 2: in think of it? Bound Toby from that point of view. Meanwhile,
- 1:07:10Speaker 2: the various members of Sleary's company gradually gathered together from
- 1:07:13Speaker 2: the upper regions where they were quartered, and from standing
- 1:07:16Speaker 2: about talking in low voices to one another and to
- 1:07:19Speaker 2: mister Childers, gradually insinuated themselves and him into the room.
- 1:07:24Speaker 2: There were two or three handsome young women among them,
- 1:07:26Speaker 2: with their two or three husbands, and their two or
- 1:07:29Speaker 2: three mothers, and their eight or nine little children, who
- 1:07:31Speaker 2: did the fairy business when required. The father of one
- 1:07:34Speaker 2: of the families was in the habit of balancing the
- 1:07:36Speaker 2: father of another of the families on the top of
- 1:07:38Speaker 2: a great pole. The father of a third family often
- 1:07:41Speaker 2: made a pyramid of both those fathers, with Master Kidderminster
- 1:07:44Speaker 2: for the apex and himself for the base. All the
- 1:07:47Speaker 2: fathers could dance upon rolling casks, stand upon bottles, catch
- 1:07:51Speaker 2: knives and balls, twirl hand basins, ride upon anything, jump
- 1:07:54Speaker 2: over everything, and stick at nothing. All the mothers could
- 1:07:58Speaker 2: and did dance upon the slack wire and the tight rope,
- 1:08:01Speaker 2: and perform rapid acts on barebacked steeds. None of them
- 1:08:04Speaker 2: were at all particular in respect of showing their legs,
- 1:08:07Speaker 2: and one of them, alone, in a Greek chariot, drove
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: six in hand into every town they came to. They
- 1:08:13Speaker 2: all assumed to be mighty rakish, and knowing they were
- 1:08:15Speaker 2: not very tidy in their private dresses, they were not
- 1:08:18Speaker 2: at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, And the combined
- 1:08:21Speaker 2: literature of the whole company would have produced but a
- 1:08:23Speaker 2: poor letter on any subject. Yet there was a remarkable
- 1:08:26Speaker 2: gentleness and childishness about these people, especially in aptitude for
- 1:08:30Speaker 2: any kind of sharp practice, and an untiring readiness to
- 1:08:34Speaker 2: help and pity one another, deserving often of as much
- 1:08:36Speaker 2: respect and always of as much generous construction as the
- 1:08:40Speaker 2: every day virtues of any class of people in the world.
- 1:08:44Speaker 2: Last of all appeared mister Sleary, a stout man, as
- 1:08:47Speaker 2: already mentioned, with one fixed eye and one loose eye.
- 1:08:50Speaker 2: A voice, if it can be called so, like the
- 1:08:52Speaker 2: efforts of a broken old pair of bellows, a flabby surface,
- 1:08:55Speaker 2: and a muddled head, which was never sober and never
- 1:08:58Speaker 2: drunk er, said mister Sleary, who was troubled with asthma,
- 1:09:03Speaker 2: and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for
- 1:09:05Speaker 2: the letter s. You're fervent. This is a bad piece
- 1:09:08Speaker 2: of business. This is you've heard of my clown and
- 1:09:11Speaker 2: his dog being supposed to have morse, He addressed mister Gradgrind,
- 1:09:15Speaker 2: who answered yes, well, Squire, He returned, taking off his
- 1:09:19Speaker 2: hat and rubbing the lining with his pocket handkerchief, which
- 1:09:22Speaker 2: he kept inside for the purpose. Is it your intensin
- 1:09:25Speaker 2: to do anything for the poor girl? Squire? I shall
- 1:09:28Speaker 2: have something to propose to her when she comes back,
- 1:09:30Speaker 2: said mister Gradgrind, glad to hear it's, squire, not that
- 1:09:34Speaker 2: I want to get rid of the child any more
- 1:09:36Speaker 2: than I want to stand in her way. I'm willing
- 1:09:38Speaker 2: to take a prentice, though it her age is late.
- 1:09:40Speaker 2: My voice is a little husky, Squire, and not easy
- 1:09:43Speaker 2: heard by them, as don't know me. But if you'd
- 1:09:45Speaker 2: been chilled and heeded, heated and chilled, chilled and heated
- 1:09:48Speaker 2: in the ring when you was young as often as
- 1:09:50Speaker 2: I have been, your voice wouldn't have lasted out, Squire,
- 1:09:52Speaker 2: no more than mine, I daresay not, said mister Gradgrind.
- 1:09:57Speaker 2: What's'll it be, Squire? While you wait? Tell it be fairy?
- 1:10:00Speaker 2: Give it a nameh Guia, said mister Sleary, with hospitable ease.
- 1:10:05Speaker 2: Nothing for me, I thank you, said mister Gradgrind. Doubt
- 1:10:08Speaker 2: thy nothing, Squire, What did yer friend they? If ye
- 1:10:11Speaker 2: haven't taking a feed, ye'd have a glass of bitteth.
- 1:10:14Speaker 2: Here is daughter Josephine, a pretty fair haired girl of eighteen,
- 1:10:17Speaker 2: who had been tied on a horse at two years old,
- 1:10:19Speaker 2: and had made a will at twelve, which she always
- 1:10:22Speaker 2: carried about her expressive of her dying desire to be
- 1:10:24Speaker 2: drawn to the grave by the two piebald ponies. Cried father, hush,
- 1:10:29Speaker 2: she's come back. Then came Sissy Jupe, running into the
- 1:10:33Speaker 2: room as she had run out of it. And when
- 1:10:35Speaker 2: she saw them all assembled, and saw their looks, and
- 1:10:37Speaker 2: saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable
- 1:10:41Speaker 2: cry and took refuge on the bosom of the most
- 1:10:43Speaker 2: accomplished tight rope lady herself in the family way, who
- 1:10:47Speaker 2: knelt down on the floor to nurse her and to
- 1:10:49Speaker 2: weep over her. It's an internal fame upon my thal,
- 1:10:52Speaker 2: it is, said, sleary, oh, my dear father, my good
- 1:10:57Speaker 2: kind father, where are you gone? You are going to
- 1:10:59Speaker 2: try to gi me some good? I know you are
- 1:11:01Speaker 2: gone away for my sake, I'm sure. And how miserable
- 1:11:04Speaker 2: and helpless you will be without me, poor poor father,
- 1:11:07Speaker 2: until you come back. It was so pathetic to hear
- 1:11:10Speaker 2: her saying many things of this kind, with her face
- 1:11:13Speaker 2: turned upward and her arms stretched out, as if she
- 1:11:15Speaker 2: were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it,
- 1:11:18Speaker 2: that no one spoke a word until mister bounderby growing impatient,
- 1:11:21Speaker 2: took the case in hand. Now, good people, all said he,
- 1:11:25Speaker 2: this is wanton waste of time. Let the girl understand
- 1:11:28Speaker 2: the fact. Let it take it from me if you like,
- 1:11:30Speaker 2: who have been run away from myself? Here? What's your name?
- 1:11:33Speaker 2: Your father has absconded, deserted you, and you mustn't expect
- 1:11:36Speaker 2: to see him again as long as you live. They
- 1:11:39Speaker 2: cared so little for plain fact these people and were
- 1:11:42Speaker 2: in that advanced state of degeneracy on the subject that
- 1:11:45Speaker 2: instead of being impressed by the speaker's strong common sense,
- 1:11:48Speaker 2: they took it in extraordinary dudgeon. The men muttered shame,
- 1:11:52Speaker 2: and the women, Brute and Sleary, in some haste communicated
- 1:11:56Speaker 2: the following hint a part to mister bounderby I'll tell
- 1:11:59Speaker 2: you what to speak plain to you. More opinion is
- 1:12:02Speaker 2: that you had better cut a thought and drop it.
- 1:12:05Speaker 2: They are a very good natured people of my people,
- 1:12:06Speaker 2: but they're accustomed to being quick with their movements. And
- 1:12:09Speaker 2: if you don't act upon my vice, I'm damned if
- 1:12:11Speaker 2: I don't believe they'll PYTHI out of the window. Mister
- 1:12:14Speaker 2: Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, mister Gradgrind found
- 1:12:18Speaker 2: an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject.
- 1:12:23Speaker 2: It is of no moment, said he, whether this person
- 1:12:25Speaker 2: is to be expected back at any time, or the contrary.
- 1:12:28Speaker 2: He has gone away, and there is no present expectation
- 1:12:30Speaker 2: of his return that I believe has agreed on all hands.
- 1:12:34Speaker 2: That agreed Squire Thick to that from Sleary. Well, then,
- 1:12:39Speaker 2: I who came here to inform the father of the
- 1:12:41Speaker 2: poor girl, Jupe, that she could not be received in
- 1:12:43Speaker 2: the school any more, in consequence of there being practical
- 1:12:46Speaker 2: objections into which I need not enter to the reception
- 1:12:49Speaker 2: there of the children of persons so employed and prepared
- 1:12:52Speaker 2: in these altered circumstances to make a proposal, I am
- 1:12:56Speaker 2: willing to take charge of you, Jupe, and to educate
- 1:12:58Speaker 2: you and provide for you. The only condition over and
- 1:13:00Speaker 2: above your good behavior I make is that you decide
- 1:13:04Speaker 2: now at once whether to accompany me or remain here.
- 1:13:07Speaker 2: Also that if you accompany me now, it is understood
- 1:13:10Speaker 2: that you communicate no more with any of your friends
- 1:13:12Speaker 2: who are here present. These observations comprise the whole of
- 1:13:15Speaker 2: the case. At the same time, said Sleary, I must
- 1:13:20Speaker 2: put in my word, Squire, so that both sides of
- 1:13:22Speaker 2: the banner may be equally seen. If you like Cecilia
- 1:13:26Speaker 2: to be prenticed, you know the nature of the work,
- 1:13:28Speaker 2: and you know your companions. Emma Gordon, in whose lap
- 1:13:31Speaker 2: you're a line at present, would be a mother to you,
- 1:13:33Speaker 2: and Josephine would be a sister to you. I don't
- 1:13:36Speaker 2: pretend to be the angel breed myself, and I don't
- 1:13:39Speaker 2: say but what when you missed your tip, you'd find
- 1:13:41Speaker 2: me cut up up and swear an oath or two
- 1:13:43Speaker 2: at you. But what I say, Squire, is that good
- 1:13:46Speaker 2: tempered are bad tempered. I never did a hoarse and injury,
- 1:13:49Speaker 2: yet no more than swearing at him went, And that
- 1:13:51Speaker 2: I don't expect I shall begin otherwise at my time
- 1:13:53Speaker 2: of life with a rider. I never was much of
- 1:13:56Speaker 2: a cackler, Squire, but I have fed my say. The
- 1:13:59Speaker 2: latter part of the spear each was addressed to mister Gradgrind,
- 1:14:01Speaker 2: who received it with a grave inclination of his head,
- 1:14:04Speaker 2: and then remarked, the only observation I will make to you, Jupe,
- 1:14:08Speaker 2: in the way of influencing your decision, is that it
- 1:14:10Speaker 2: is highly desirable to have a sound practical education, and
- 1:14:14Speaker 2: that even your father himself, from what I understand, appears
- 1:14:17Speaker 2: on your behalf, to have known and felt that much.
- 1:14:20Speaker 2: The last words had a visible effect upon her. She
- 1:14:23Speaker 2: stopped in her wild crying a little, detached herself from
- 1:14:25Speaker 2: Emma Gordon, and turned her face full upon her patron.
- 1:14:29Speaker 2: The whole company perceived the force of the change, and
- 1:14:32Speaker 2: drew a long breath together that plainly said she will
- 1:14:35Speaker 2: go be sure you know your own mind, Jupe, mister
- 1:14:38Speaker 2: Gradgrind cautioned her. I say no more, be sure you
- 1:14:41Speaker 2: know your own mind. When father comes back, cried the girl,
- 1:14:45Speaker 2: bursting into tears again. After a minute's silence, How will
- 1:14:49Speaker 2: he ever find me? If I go away? You may
- 1:14:52Speaker 2: be quite at ease, said mister Gradgrind, calmly. He worked
- 1:14:55Speaker 2: out the whole matter like a sum. You may be
- 1:14:57Speaker 2: quite at ease, jupe, on that score, inside which a
- 1:15:00Speaker 2: case your father I apprehend must find out mister Fleary,
- 1:15:04Speaker 2: that's my name, squire, not a famed of it. Now
- 1:15:06Speaker 2: in all over England and all with pat it way
- 1:15:09Speaker 2: must find out mister Sleary, who would then let him
- 1:15:12Speaker 2: know where you went. I should have no power of
- 1:15:14Speaker 2: keeping you against his wish, and he would have no
- 1:15:16Speaker 2: difficulty at any time in finding mister Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown.
- 1:15:20Speaker 2: I'm well known, well non assented, mister Sleary, rolling his
- 1:15:24Speaker 2: loose eye, you're one of the thought squire that keep
- 1:15:27Speaker 2: the preatheth sight of money out of the houth. But
- 1:15:29Speaker 2: never mind that at present. There was another silence, and
- 1:15:34Speaker 2: then she exclaimed, sobbing with her hands before her face. Oh,
- 1:15:37Speaker 2: give me my clothes, Give me my clothes, and let
- 1:15:39Speaker 2: me go away before I break my heart. The women
- 1:15:42Speaker 2: sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together. It was
- 1:15:45Speaker 2: soon done, for they were not many, and to pack
- 1:15:47Speaker 2: them in a basket which had often traveled with them.
- 1:15:50Speaker 2: Cissy sat all the time upon the ground, still sobbing
- 1:15:53Speaker 2: and covering her eyes. Mister Gradgrind and his friend Bounderby
- 1:15:56Speaker 2: stood near the door, ready to take her away. Mister
- 1:15:59Speaker 2: Sleer he stood in the middle of the room, with
- 1:16:01Speaker 2: the male members of the company around him, exactly as
- 1:16:04Speaker 2: he would have stood in the center of the ring
- 1:16:05Speaker 2: during his daughter Josephine's performance. He wanted nothing but his whip.
- 1:16:10Speaker 2: The basket packed in silence. They brought her bonnet to
- 1:16:13Speaker 2: her and smoothed her disordered hair and put it on.
- 1:16:16Speaker 2: Then they pressed about her and bent over her in
- 1:16:18Speaker 2: very natural attitudes, kissing and embracing her, and brought the
- 1:16:21Speaker 2: children to take leave of her. And were a tender hearted, simple,
- 1:16:24Speaker 2: foolish set of women altogether. Now, Jupe, said mister Gradgrind,
- 1:16:29Speaker 2: if you are quite determined, come, But she had to
- 1:16:32Speaker 2: take her farewell of the male part of the company.
- 1:16:34Speaker 2: Yet and every one of them had to unfold his arms,
- 1:16:37Speaker 2: for they all assumed the professional attitude when they found
- 1:16:40Speaker 2: themselves near Sleary, and give her a parting kiss. Master
- 1:16:43Speaker 2: Kiderminster accepted, in whose young nature there was an original
- 1:16:46Speaker 2: flavor of the misanthrope, who was also known to have
- 1:16:49Speaker 2: harbored matrimonial views, and who moodily withdrew. Mister Sleary was
- 1:16:54Speaker 2: reserved until the last. Opening his arms wide, he took
- 1:16:57Speaker 2: her by both hands, and would have sprung up and
- 1:16:59Speaker 2: down after the riding master manner of congratulating young ladies
- 1:17:02Speaker 2: on their dismounting from a rapid act, But there was
- 1:17:05Speaker 2: no rebound in Cissy, and she only stood before him,
- 1:17:08Speaker 2: crying goodbye. My diou said, Sleary, you'll make your fortune.
- 1:17:12Speaker 2: I up, and none of our poor folk they'll ever
- 1:17:15Speaker 2: trouble you. I'll pound it all with your father hadn't
- 1:17:18Speaker 2: taken his dog with him. If an illkin weenieth to
- 1:17:20Speaker 2: have the dog out o the bilf, But on dekenthoth
- 1:17:23Speaker 2: he wouldn't have performed without his master, though it hath
- 1:17:26Speaker 2: broadth if long with that. He regarded her attentively with
- 1:17:30Speaker 2: his fixed eye, surveyed his company with his loose one,
- 1:17:33Speaker 2: kissed her, shook his head, and handed her to mister
- 1:17:36Speaker 2: gradgrind as to a horse. Darethieth, squire, he said, sweeping
- 1:17:41Speaker 2: her with a professional glance, as if she were being
- 1:17:43Speaker 2: adjusted in her seat. And they'll do you j justath.
- 1:17:46Speaker 2: Goodbye Ththilia, good bye Cecilia, goodbye sissy, God bless you, dear,
- 1:17:51Speaker 2: in a variety of voices from all over the room.
- 1:17:54Speaker 2: But the riding master had observed the bottle of the
- 1:17:57Speaker 2: nine oils in her bosom, and he now interposed with
- 1:18:00Speaker 2: leave the bottle, my dear. It's large to carry. It
- 1:18:02Speaker 2: will be of no use to you. Now give it
- 1:18:04Speaker 2: to me. No, no, she said, in another burst of tears.
- 1:18:09Speaker 2: Oh no, pray, Let me keep it for father till
- 1:18:11Speaker 2: he comes back. He'll want it when he comes back.
- 1:18:14Speaker 2: He never thought of going away when he sent me
- 1:18:16Speaker 2: for it. I must keep it for him, if you please,
- 1:18:19Speaker 2: so be it, my dear. You see how it is, Squire, farewell, Cethelia.
- 1:18:24Speaker 2: My last word to you is this, stick to the
- 1:18:26Speaker 2: terms of your engagement, be obedient to the squire, and
- 1:18:29Speaker 2: forget us. But if when you're grown up and married
- 1:18:31Speaker 2: and well off, you come upon any horse riding. Ever,
- 1:18:34Speaker 2: don't be hard upon it, don't be croth with it.
- 1:18:37Speaker 2: Give it a bespeak if you can, and think how
- 1:18:39Speaker 2: you might do worse. People must be amuth, Squire. Somehow
- 1:18:43Speaker 2: continued Sleary, rendered more purcy than ever by so much talking.
- 1:18:46Speaker 2: They can't be all with or working. Nor yet they
- 1:18:48Speaker 2: can't be all with or learning. Make the best of us,
- 1:18:51Speaker 2: not the worst. I've got my living out o the
- 1:18:53Speaker 2: horse riding all my life, I know, but I consider
- 1:18:56Speaker 2: that I lay down the philosophy of the subject when
- 1:18:58Speaker 2: I say to you, Squire, he might the best of us,
- 1:19:01Speaker 2: not the worst. The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they
- 1:19:05Speaker 2: went downstairs, and the fixed eye of philosophy and its
- 1:19:08Speaker 2: rolling eye too soon lost the three figures and the
- 1:19:11Speaker 2: basket in the darkness of the street. End of Section three.
- 1:19:17Speaker 5: Chapter seven, Missus Sparsit. Mister Bounderby, being a bachelor, an
- 1:19:23Speaker 5: elderly lady presided over his establishment in consideration of a
- 1:19:26Speaker 5: certain annual stipend. Missus Sparsit was this lady's name, and
- 1:19:31Speaker 5: she was a prominent figure in attendance on mister Bounderby's
- 1:19:34Speaker 5: car as it rolled along in triumph with the bully
- 1:19:37Speaker 5: of humility inside. For Missus Sparsit had not only seen
- 1:19:41Speaker 5: different days, but was highly connected. She had a great
- 1:19:45Speaker 5: aunt living in these very times, called ladies Scadger's mister Sparsit, deceased,
- 1:19:50Speaker 5: of whom she was the relict, had been by the
- 1:19:53Speaker 5: mother's side. What Missus Sparsit still called a paula. Strangers
- 1:19:58Speaker 5: of limited information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed not
- 1:20:01Speaker 5: to know what a powler was, and even to appear
- 1:20:05Speaker 5: uncertain whether it might be a business, or a political party,
- 1:20:08Speaker 5: or a profession of fate. The better class of minds, however,
- 1:20:13Speaker 5: did not need to be informed that the Powlers were
- 1:20:16Speaker 5: an ancient stock who could trace themselves so exceedingly far
- 1:20:20Speaker 5: back that it was not surprising if they sometimes lost themselves,
- 1:20:23Speaker 5: which they had rather frequently done as respected horse flesh,
- 1:20:27Speaker 5: blind hooky, Hebrew monetary transactions and the insolvent debtor's court.
- 1:20:33Speaker 5: The late mister Sparsit, being by the mother's side, a
- 1:20:36Speaker 5: powler married this lady, being by the father's side, a
- 1:20:39Speaker 5: Scadger's lady Scadgers, an immensely fat old woman with an
- 1:20:44Speaker 5: inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious leg, which
- 1:20:48Speaker 5: had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years,
- 1:20:51Speaker 5: contrived the marriage at a period when Sparsit was just
- 1:20:55Speaker 5: of age and chiefly noticeable for a slender body, weakly
- 1:20:59Speaker 5: supported on two long, slim props, and surmounted by no
- 1:21:02Speaker 5: head worth mentioning. He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle,
- 1:21:06Speaker 5: but owed it all before he came into it, and
- 1:21:09Speaker 5: spent it twice over immediately afterwards. Thus, when he died
- 1:21:13Speaker 5: at twenty four, the scene of his deceased Calais and
- 1:21:16Speaker 5: the cause brandy, he did not leave his widow, from
- 1:21:19Speaker 5: whom he had been separated soon after the honeymoon. In
- 1:21:22Speaker 5: affluent circumstances that bereaved lady fifteen years older than he,
- 1:21:27Speaker 5: fell presently at deadly feud with her only relative, Lady Scadgers,
- 1:21:31Speaker 5: and partly to spite her ladyship, and partly to maintain herself,
- 1:21:36Speaker 5: went out at a salary. And here she was, now
- 1:21:39Speaker 5: in her elderly days, with the Coriolanean style of nose
- 1:21:43Speaker 5: and the dense black eyebrows which had captivated Sparsit, making
- 1:21:47Speaker 5: mister Bounderby's tea as he took his breakfast. If Bounderby
- 1:21:51Speaker 5: had been a conqueror, and Missus Sparsit a captive princess
- 1:21:54Speaker 5: whom he took about as a feature in his state processions.
- 1:21:58Speaker 5: He could not have made a greater flourish with her
- 1:22:00Speaker 5: habitually did. Just as it belonged to his boastfulness to
- 1:22:03Speaker 5: depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to it to
- 1:22:06Speaker 5: exalt Missus Sparsit's in the measure that he would not
- 1:22:10Speaker 5: allow his own youth to have been attended by a
- 1:22:13Speaker 5: single favorable circumstance.
- 1:22:15Speaker 6: He brightened Missus.
- 1:22:16Speaker 5: Sparsit's juvenile career with every possible advantage, and showered wagon
- 1:22:20Speaker 5: loads of early roses all over that lady's path. And yet, sir,
- 1:22:25Speaker 5: he would say, how does it turn out? After all?
- 1:22:28Speaker 5: Why here she is at a hundred a year. I
- 1:22:31Speaker 5: give her a hundred, which she is pleased to term
- 1:22:33Speaker 5: handsome keeping the house of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Nay,
- 1:22:37Speaker 5: he made this foil of his so very widely known
- 1:22:40Speaker 5: that third parties took it up and handled it on
- 1:22:43Speaker 5: some occasions with considerable briskness. It was one of the
- 1:22:46Speaker 5: most exasperating attributes of Bounderby that he not only sang
- 1:22:49Speaker 5: his own praises, but stimulated other men to sing them.
- 1:22:53Speaker 5: There was a moral infection of clap trap in him.
- 1:22:56Speaker 5: Strangers modest enough elsewhere started up at dinners in Cooke
- 1:23:00Speaker 5: Town and boasted in quite a rampant way of Bounderby.
- 1:23:03Speaker 5: They made him out to be the Royal Arms, the Union,
- 1:23:06Speaker 5: Jack Magna Carda, John Bull, Habeas corpus, the Bill of rights,
- 1:23:10Speaker 5: an Englishman's houses as castle, church and State, and God
- 1:23:13Speaker 5: save the Queen, all put together, and as often, and
- 1:23:17Speaker 5: it was very often, as an orator of this kind
- 1:23:20Speaker 5: brought into his peroration. Princes and lords may flourish or
- 1:23:24Speaker 5: may fade. A breath can make them as a breath
- 1:23:27Speaker 5: has made. It was for certain more or less understood
- 1:23:30Speaker 5: among the company that he had heard of Missus Sparsit.
- 1:23:35Speaker 5: Mister Bounderby said, Missus Sparsit. You are unusually slow, sir,
- 1:23:38Speaker 5: with your breakfast this morning. Why ma'am, he returned, I
- 1:23:42Speaker 5: am thinking about Tom Gradgrind's whim. Tom Gradgrind for a
- 1:23:46Speaker 5: bluff independent manner of speaking, as if somebody were always
- 1:23:49Speaker 5: endeavoring to bribe him with immense sums, to say Thomas,
- 1:23:52Speaker 5: and he wouldn't Tom grandgrinds whim, ma'am of bringing up
- 1:23:56Speaker 5: the tumbling girl. The girl is now waiting to know,
- 1:24:00Speaker 5: said missus Sparsit, whether she is to go straight to
- 1:24:03Speaker 5: the school or up to the lodge. She must wait, ma'am,
- 1:24:07Speaker 5: answered Bounderby, till I know myself. We shall have Tom
- 1:24:10Speaker 5: grand griding down here presently. I suppose if he should
- 1:24:13Speaker 5: wish her to remain here a day or two longer.
- 1:24:16Speaker 5: Of course she can, ma'am. Of course she can, if
- 1:24:18Speaker 5: you wish it. Mister Bounderby, I told him I should
- 1:24:21Speaker 5: give her a shake down here last night, in order
- 1:24:24Speaker 5: that he might sleep on it before he decided to
- 1:24:26Speaker 5: let her have any.
- 1:24:27Speaker 6: Association with Louisa.
- 1:24:29Speaker 5: Indeed, mister Bounderby, very thoughtful of you, missus Sparsit's coriolanian
- 1:24:34Speaker 5: nose underwent a slight expansion of the nostrils, and her
- 1:24:37Speaker 5: black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea.
- 1:24:41Speaker 5: It's tolerably clear to me, said Bounderby, that the little
- 1:24:44Speaker 5: puss can get small good out of such companionship. Are
- 1:24:48Speaker 5: you speaking of young miss Gradgrind, mister Bounderby, Yes, ma'am,
- 1:24:53Speaker 5: I'm speaking of Louiso, your observation being limited to little Puss,
- 1:24:58Speaker 5: said missus Sparsit. And there be two little girls in question,
- 1:25:01Speaker 5: I did not know which might be indicated by that expression,
- 1:25:05Speaker 5: Louisa repeated, mister Bounderby, Louisa, Louisa, you are quite another
- 1:25:10Speaker 5: father to Louisa. Sir Missus Sparsit took a little more tea,
- 1:25:13Speaker 5: and as she bent her again, contracted eyebrows over his
- 1:25:17Speaker 5: steaming cup, rather looked as if her classical countenance were
- 1:25:20Speaker 5: invoking the infernal gods. If you had said I was
- 1:25:25Speaker 5: another father to Tom, Young Tom, I mean not my
- 1:25:28Speaker 5: friend Tom Gradgrind, you might have been nearer the mark.
- 1:25:32Speaker 5: I am going to take young Tom into my office,
- 1:25:34Speaker 5: going to have him under my wingmap. Indeed rather young,
- 1:25:39Speaker 5: for that is he not, sir missus sparsit. Sir, in
- 1:25:42Speaker 5: addressing mister Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather extracting
- 1:25:47Speaker 5: consideration for herself in the use than honoring him. I'm
- 1:25:52Speaker 5: not going to take him at once. He is to
- 1:25:54Speaker 5: finish his educational cramming before then, said bounderby By. The
- 1:25:58Speaker 5: Lord Harry Hill have enough of it, Urston, last he'd
- 1:26:01Speaker 5: open his eyes. That boy would if he knew how
- 1:26:03Speaker 5: empty of learning my young Maul was at his time
- 1:26:05Speaker 5: of life, which, by the bye he probably did know,
- 1:26:08Speaker 5: for he'd heard of it often enough. But it's extraordinary
- 1:26:12Speaker 5: the difficulty I have, on scores of such subjects in
- 1:26:15Speaker 5: speaking to anyone on equal terms. Here, for example, I've
- 1:26:18Speaker 5: been speaking to you this morning about tumblers. Why what
- 1:26:21Speaker 5: do you know about tumblers at the time when to
- 1:26:24Speaker 5: have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets
- 1:26:26Speaker 5: would have been a godsend to me, a prize in
- 1:26:28Speaker 5: the lottery to me. You were at the Italian opera.
- 1:26:32Speaker 5: You were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma'am, in
- 1:26:35Speaker 5: white satin and jewels, a blaze of splendor, when I
- 1:26:38Speaker 5: hadn't a penny to buy a link.
- 1:26:40Speaker 6: To light you.
- 1:26:42Speaker 5: I certainly, sir, returned, Missus sparsit with a dignity, serenely mournful.
- 1:26:47Speaker 5: Was familiar with the Italian opera at a very early age. Ye, God, ma'am,
- 1:26:52Speaker 5: so was, I said Pounderby, with the wrong side of
- 1:26:55Speaker 5: it a hard bed the pavement of its arcade used
- 1:26:58Speaker 5: to make I assure you, like you, ma'am, accustomed from
- 1:27:01Speaker 5: infancy to lie on down feathers, have no idea how
- 1:27:05Speaker 5: hard a paving stone is without trying it. No, no,
- 1:27:08Speaker 5: it's of no use my talking to you about tumblers.
- 1:27:11Speaker 5: I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West end
- 1:27:14Speaker 5: of London, and Mayfair, and lords and ladies and honorables,
- 1:27:19Speaker 5: I trust.
- 1:27:20Speaker 6: Sir rejoined.
- 1:27:21Speaker 5: Missus sparsit with decent resignation. It is not necessary that
- 1:27:25Speaker 5: you should do anything of that kind. I hope I
- 1:27:28Speaker 5: have learned how to accommodate myself to the changes of life.
- 1:27:32Speaker 5: If I have acquired an interest in hearing of your
- 1:27:35Speaker 5: instructive experiences, and can scarcely hear enough of them, I
- 1:27:39Speaker 5: claim no merit for that, since I believe it is
- 1:27:42Speaker 5: a general sentiment. Well, ma'am, said her patron. Perhaps some
- 1:27:46Speaker 5: people may be pleased to say that they do like
- 1:27:48Speaker 5: to hear in his own unpolished way, what Josiah Bounderby
- 1:27:52Speaker 5: of Coketown has gone through. But you must confess that
- 1:27:55Speaker 5: you were born in the lap of luxury yourself. Come, ma'am,
- 1:27:58Speaker 5: you know you were born in the lap of luxury.
- 1:28:01Speaker 5: I do not, sir, returned. Missus sparsit with a shake
- 1:28:03Speaker 5: of her head. Deny it, mister Bounderby was obliged to
- 1:28:07Speaker 5: get up from table and stand with his back to
- 1:28:09Speaker 5: the fire, looking at her. She was such an enhancement
- 1:28:12Speaker 5: of his position. And you were in crack society, devilish
- 1:28:16Speaker 5: high society, he said, warming his legs. It is true, sir, returned,
- 1:28:21Speaker 5: missus sparsit with an affectation of humility, the very opposite
- 1:28:24Speaker 5: of his. And therefore in no danger of jostling it.
- 1:28:28Speaker 5: You are in the tip top fashion and all the
- 1:28:31Speaker 5: rest of it, said mister Bounderby. Yes, sir returned missus
- 1:28:35Speaker 5: sparsit with a kind of social widowhood upon her. It
- 1:28:38Speaker 5: is unquestionably true. Mister Bounderby, bending himself at the knees,
- 1:28:43Speaker 5: literally embraced his legs in his great satisfaction and laughed aloud.
- 1:28:49Speaker 5: Mister and miss Gragrind being then announced. He received the
- 1:28:51Speaker 5: former with a shake of the hand, and the latter
- 1:28:53Speaker 5: with the kiss. Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby, asked
- 1:28:58Speaker 5: mister Gragrind. Certainly, so Jupe was sent there. On coming in,
- 1:29:04Speaker 5: she curtseyed to mister Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gragrind,
- 1:29:07Speaker 5: and also to Louisa, But in her confusion unluckily omitted
- 1:29:11Speaker 5: missus Sparsit. Observing this, the blustress Bounderby had the following
- 1:29:15Speaker 5: remarks to make.
- 1:29:16Speaker 6: Now, I tell you what my girl.
- 1:29:18Speaker 5: The name of that lady by the teapot is, missus Sparsit.
- 1:29:22Speaker 5: That lady acts as mistress of this house, and she
- 1:29:24Speaker 5: is a highly connected lady. Consequently, if ever you come
- 1:29:28Speaker 5: again into any room in this house, you will make
- 1:29:30Speaker 5: a short stay in it if you don't behave towards
- 1:29:32Speaker 5: that lady in your most respectful manner. Now, I don't
- 1:29:36Speaker 5: care a button what you do to me, because I
- 1:29:38Speaker 5: don't affect to be anybody so far from having high connections,
- 1:29:42Speaker 5: I have no connections at all, and I come of
- 1:29:44Speaker 5: the scum of the earth. But towards that lady, I
- 1:29:47Speaker 5: do care what you do, and you shall do what
- 1:29:49Speaker 5: is deferential and respectful, or you shall not come here,
- 1:29:53Speaker 5: I hope. Bounderby said mister Gradgrind in a conciliatory voice,
- 1:29:57Speaker 5: that this was merely an oversight, my friend Tom Gradgrind suggests,
- 1:30:02Speaker 5: missus Sparsit. Said Bounderby that this was merely an oversight
- 1:30:06Speaker 5: very likely. However, as you are aware, ma'am, I don't
- 1:30:10Speaker 5: allow of even oversights towards you.
- 1:30:13Speaker 6: You are very good.
- 1:30:14Speaker 5: Indeed, sir returned Missus sparsit, shaking her head with her
- 1:30:18Speaker 5: state humility. It is not worth speaking of Cissy, who
- 1:30:23Speaker 5: all this time had been faintly excusing herself with tears
- 1:30:25Speaker 5: in her eyes, was now waved over by the master
- 1:30:28Speaker 5: of the house to mister Gradgrind. She stood looking intently
- 1:30:32Speaker 5: at him, and Louisa stood coldly by with her eyes
- 1:30:34Speaker 5: upon the ground while he proceeded.
- 1:30:36Speaker 6: Thus, Duupe, I.
- 1:30:38Speaker 5: Have made up my mind to take you into my house,
- 1:30:41Speaker 5: and when you are not in attendance at the school,
- 1:30:43Speaker 5: to employ you about Missus Gradgrind, who is rather an invalid,
- 1:30:47Speaker 5: I have explained to Miss Louisa there, this is, Miss Louisa,
- 1:30:50Speaker 5: the miserable but natural end of your late career, and
- 1:30:53Speaker 5: you are to expressly understand that the whole of that
- 1:30:56Speaker 5: subject matter is past, as not to be referred to
- 1:31:00Speaker 5: any more from this time you begin your history. You
- 1:31:04Speaker 5: are at present ignorant. I know, yes, sir, very, she
- 1:31:09Speaker 5: answered curtseying, I shall have the satisfaction of causing you
- 1:31:13Speaker 5: to be strictly educated, and you will be a living
- 1:31:16Speaker 5: proof to all who come into communication with you, of
- 1:31:18Speaker 5: the advantages of the training you will receive, you will
- 1:31:22Speaker 5: be reclaimed informed. You have been in the habit now
- 1:31:25Speaker 5: of reading to your father and those those people I
- 1:31:28Speaker 5: found you among, I dare say, said mister Gradgrind, beckoning
- 1:31:31Speaker 5: her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping
- 1:31:34Speaker 5: his voice only to father and Maryleggs, Sir, At least
- 1:31:39Speaker 5: I mean to father, when Meryleggs was always there. Never
- 1:31:43Speaker 5: mind Merrylegs, Choupe, said mister Gradgrind, with a passing frown.
- 1:31:47Speaker 5: I don't ask about him. I understand you to have
- 1:31:49Speaker 5: been in the habit of reading to your father. Oh, yes, sir,
- 1:31:52Speaker 5: the thousands of times they were the happiest. Oh of
- 1:31:56Speaker 5: all the happy times we had together, sir. It was
- 1:31:59Speaker 5: only now, when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked
- 1:32:02Speaker 5: at her.
- 1:32:04Speaker 6: And what, asked mister Gradgrind, in a.
- 1:32:06Speaker 5: Still lower voice, did you read to your father, joupe,
- 1:32:10Speaker 5: about the fairies, sir, and the dwarf and the hunchback
- 1:32:14Speaker 5: and the genies? She sobbed out, And about hush, said
- 1:32:18Speaker 5: mister Gradgrind.
- 1:32:18Speaker 6: That is enough.
- 1:32:20Speaker 5: Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more.
- 1:32:23Speaker 6: Bounderby.
- 1:32:24Speaker 5: This is a case for rigid training, and I shall
- 1:32:26Speaker 5: observe it with interest. Well returned, mister Bounderby, I have
- 1:32:31Speaker 5: given you my opinion already, and I shouldn't do as
- 1:32:34Speaker 5: you do, but very well, very well, since you are
- 1:32:37Speaker 5: bent upon it.
- 1:32:38Speaker 6: Very well.
- 1:32:39Speaker 5: So mister Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off
- 1:32:42Speaker 5: with them to stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa
- 1:32:45Speaker 5: never spoke one word good or bad, and mister Bounderby
- 1:32:49Speaker 5: went about his daily pursuits, and missus sparsit got behind
- 1:32:52Speaker 5: her eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat.
- 1:32:56Speaker 6: All the evening.
- 1:32:59Speaker 5: End of check chapter eight, never wonder, let us strike
- 1:33:05Speaker 5: the keynote again before pursuing the tune. When she was
- 1:33:08Speaker 5: half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to
- 1:33:11Speaker 5: begin a conversation with her brother one day by saying, Tom,
- 1:33:15Speaker 5: I wonder, upon which mister Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing,
- 1:33:19Speaker 5: stepped forth into the light and said, Louisa.
- 1:33:21Speaker 6: Never wonder.
- 1:33:23Speaker 5: Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery
- 1:33:27Speaker 5: of educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation.
- 1:33:30Speaker 6: Of the sentiments and affections.
- 1:33:32Speaker 5: Never wonder by means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division,
- 1:33:38Speaker 5: settle everything somehow and never wonder. Bring to me the chocumchild,
- 1:33:44Speaker 5: young yonder baby, just able to walk, and I will
- 1:33:47Speaker 5: engage that it shall never wonder. Now, besides very many
- 1:33:52Speaker 5: babies just able to walk, there happened to be in
- 1:33:54Speaker 5: Coketown a considerable population of babies who had been walking
- 1:33:58Speaker 5: against time towards the infinite world twenty thirty, forty fifty
- 1:34:03Speaker 5: years and more. These portentous infants being alarming creatures to
- 1:34:08Speaker 5: stalk about in any human society, the eighteen denominations incessantly
- 1:34:12Speaker 5: scratched one another's faces and pulled one another's hair by
- 1:34:16Speaker 5: way of agreeing on the steps to be taken for
- 1:34:18Speaker 5: their improvement, which they never did, a surprising circumstance when
- 1:34:22Speaker 5: the happy adaptation of the means to the end is considered. Still,
- 1:34:26Speaker 5: although they differed in every other particular conceivable and inconceivable,
- 1:34:30Speaker 5: especially inconceivable, they were pretty well united on the point
- 1:34:34Speaker 5: that these unlucky infants were never too wonder. Body number
- 1:34:39Speaker 5: one said they must take everything on trust. Body number
- 1:34:43Speaker 5: two said they must take everything on political economy. Body
- 1:34:47Speaker 5: number three wrote lead in little books for them, showing
- 1:34:49Speaker 5: how the good grown up baby invariably got to the
- 1:34:52Speaker 5: savings bank, and the bad grown up baby invariably got transported.
- 1:34:57Speaker 5: Body number four under dreary pretil as of being droll
- 1:35:01Speaker 5: when it was very melancholy, indeed made the shallowest pretenses
- 1:35:05Speaker 5: of concealing pitfalls of knowledge into which it was the
- 1:35:08Speaker 5: duty of these babies to be smuggled and inveigled. But
- 1:35:12Speaker 5: all the bodies agreed that they were never to wonder.
- 1:35:17Speaker 5: There was a library in Coketown, to which general access
- 1:35:20Speaker 5: was easy. Mister Gradgrind greatly tormented his mind about what
- 1:35:24Speaker 5: the people read in this librarya a point where on
- 1:35:27Speaker 5: little rivers of tabular statements periodically flowed into the howling
- 1:35:31Speaker 5: ocean of tabular statements which no diver ever got to
- 1:35:34Speaker 5: any depth in, and came upsane. It was a disheartening circumstance,
- 1:35:39Speaker 5: but a melancholy fact that even these readers persisted in wondering.
- 1:35:45Speaker 5: They wondered about human nature, human passions, human hopes and fears,
- 1:35:49Speaker 5: the struggles, triumphs and defeats, the cares and joys and sorrows,
- 1:35:54Speaker 5: the lives and deaths of common men and women. They sometimes,
- 1:35:57Speaker 5: after fifteen hours work, sat down to read mere fables
- 1:36:01Speaker 5: about men and women more or less like themselves, and
- 1:36:04Speaker 5: about children more or less like their own.
- 1:36:07Speaker 6: They took defoe to.
- 1:36:08Speaker 5: Their bosoms instead of euclid, and seemed to be, on
- 1:36:11Speaker 5: the whole more comforted by Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mister
- 1:36:15Speaker 5: Gradgrind was forever working in print and in out of
- 1:36:18Speaker 5: print at this eccentric salmony, never could make out how
- 1:36:22Speaker 5: it yielded this unaccountable product. I am sick of my life, Lou.
- 1:36:27Speaker 5: I hate it altogether, and I hate everybody except you,
- 1:36:31Speaker 5: said the unnatural young Thomas Gradgrind in the hair cutting
- 1:36:34Speaker 5: chamber at twilight. You don't hate Sissy, Tom. I hate
- 1:36:38Speaker 5: to be obliged to call her jupe, and she hates me,
- 1:36:41Speaker 5: said Tom moodily. No she does not, Tom. I'm sure
- 1:36:46Speaker 5: she must, said Tom. She must just hate and detest
- 1:36:49Speaker 5: the whole set out of us. They'll bother her head off,
- 1:36:52Speaker 5: I think before they have done with her. Already she's
- 1:36:54Speaker 5: getting as pale as wax and as heavy as as
- 1:36:57Speaker 5: I am. Young Thomas express these sentiments sitting astride of
- 1:37:01Speaker 5: a chair before the fire, with his arms on the
- 1:37:04Speaker 5: back and his sulky face on his arms. His sister
- 1:37:07Speaker 5: sat in the darker corner by the fireside, now looking
- 1:37:10Speaker 5: at him, now looking at.
- 1:37:11Speaker 6: The bright sparks as they dropped upon the hearth.
- 1:37:15Speaker 5: As to me, said Tom, tumbling his hair all manner
- 1:37:18Speaker 5: of ways with his sulky hands. I am a donkey,
- 1:37:21Speaker 5: That's what I am. I am as obstinate as one.
- 1:37:23Speaker 5: I am more stupid than one. I get as much
- 1:37:26Speaker 5: pleasure as one, and I should like to kick like one,
- 1:37:29Speaker 5: not me, I hope, Tom, No, Lou, I wouldn't hurt you.
- 1:37:33Speaker 5: I made an exception of you at first. I don't
- 1:37:36Speaker 5: know what this jolly old jaundice jail. Tom had paused
- 1:37:40Speaker 5: to find a sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the
- 1:37:43Speaker 5: parental roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a
- 1:37:46Speaker 5: moment by the strong alliteration of this one would be
- 1:37:49Speaker 5: without you. Indeed, Tom, do you do you really and
- 1:37:53Speaker 5: truly say so?
- 1:37:55Speaker 6: Why?
- 1:37:55Speaker 5: Of course I do. What's the use of talking about it?
- 1:37:58Speaker 5: Returned Tom, chafing his on his coat sleeve, as if
- 1:38:01Speaker 5: to mortify his flesh and have it in unison with
- 1:38:04Speaker 5: his spirit. Because, Tom, said his sister, after silently watching
- 1:38:08Speaker 5: the sparks a while. As I get older and and
- 1:38:11Speaker 5: nearer growing up, I often sit wondering here and think
- 1:38:14Speaker 5: how unfortunate it is for me that I can't reconcile
- 1:38:17Speaker 5: you to home better than I am able to do.
- 1:38:20Speaker 5: I don't know what other girls know. I I can't
- 1:38:22Speaker 5: play to you or sing to you. I I can't
- 1:38:25Speaker 5: talk to you so as to lighten your mind. For
- 1:38:27Speaker 5: I never see any amusing sights or read any amusing
- 1:38:30Speaker 5: books that it would be a pleasure or a relief
- 1:38:32Speaker 5: to you to talk about when you are tired. Well,
- 1:38:36Speaker 5: no more do I. I'm as bad as you in
- 1:38:38Speaker 5: that respect. And I'm a mule too, which you're not.
- 1:38:41Speaker 5: If Father was determined to make me either a prig
- 1:38:44Speaker 5: or a mule, and I'm not a prig, why it
- 1:38:46Speaker 5: stands to reason I must be a mule, And so
- 1:38:49Speaker 5: I am, said Tom desperately. It's a great pity, said Louisa,
- 1:38:53Speaker 5: after another pause and speaking thoughtfully out.
- 1:38:56Speaker 6: Of her dark corner.
- 1:38:58Speaker 5: It's a great pity, Tom, It's very unfortunate for both
- 1:39:02Speaker 5: of us.
- 1:39:03Speaker 6: Oh, you said Tom.
- 1:39:04Speaker 5: You you're a girl, lou and a girl comes out
- 1:39:07Speaker 5: of it better than a boy does. I don't miss
- 1:39:09Speaker 5: anything in you. You're the only pleasure I have. You
- 1:39:12Speaker 5: can brighten even this place, and you can always lead
- 1:39:15Speaker 5: me as you like. You are a dear brother, Tom.
- 1:39:19Speaker 5: And well you think I can do such things, I
- 1:39:21Speaker 5: I don't so much mind knowing better, though I do
- 1:39:24Speaker 5: know better, Tom, and I'm very sorry for it. She
- 1:39:27Speaker 5: came and kissed him, and went back into her corner again.
- 1:39:31Speaker 5: I wish I could collect all the facts we hear
- 1:39:34Speaker 5: so much about, said Tom, spitefully, setting his teeth, and
- 1:39:37Speaker 5: all the figures and all the people who found them out.
- 1:39:40Speaker 5: And I wish I could put a thousand barrels of
- 1:39:42Speaker 5: gunpowder under them and blow them all up together. However,
- 1:39:46Speaker 5: when I go to live with old Bounderby, I'll have
- 1:39:48Speaker 5: my revenge. You're revenge, Tom. I mean, I'll enjoy myself
- 1:39:53Speaker 5: a little and go about and see something and hear something.
- 1:39:55Speaker 5: I'll recompense myself for the way in which I've been
- 1:39:58Speaker 5: brought up, But won't disappoint yourself beforehand. Tom, mister Bounderby
- 1:40:03Speaker 5: thinks his father thinks, and is a great deal rougher
- 1:40:06Speaker 5: and not half so kind, Oh, said Tom, laughing, I
- 1:40:11Speaker 5: don't mind that, I shall very well know how to
- 1:40:14Speaker 5: manage and smooth Old Bounderby. Their shadows were defined upon
- 1:40:18Speaker 5: the wall, but those of the high presses in the
- 1:40:20Speaker 5: room were all blended together on the wall and on
- 1:40:22Speaker 5: the ceiling, as if the brother and sister were overhung
- 1:40:26Speaker 5: by a dark cavern or a fanciful imagination. If such
- 1:40:31Speaker 5: treason could have been there, might have made it out
- 1:40:34Speaker 5: to be the shadow of their subject, and of its
- 1:40:36Speaker 5: lowering association with their future. What is your great mode
- 1:40:41Speaker 5: of smoothing and managing, Tom? Is it a secret, oh
- 1:40:46Speaker 5: said Tom. If it is a secret, it's not far off.
- 1:40:49Speaker 5: It's it's you. You are his little pet. You are
- 1:40:52Speaker 5: his favorite. He'll do anything for you. When he says
- 1:40:55Speaker 5: to me what I don't like, I shall say to him,
- 1:40:58Speaker 5: my sister Luke will be heard and disappointed, mister Bounderby.
- 1:41:02Speaker 5: She always used to tell me that she was sure
- 1:41:04Speaker 5: you would be easier with me than this. That'll bring
- 1:41:07Speaker 5: him about.
- 1:41:08Speaker 6: Or nothing will.
- 1:41:10Speaker 5: After waiting for some answering remark and getting none, Tom
- 1:41:13Speaker 5: wearily relapsed into the present time and twined himself, yawning
- 1:41:17Speaker 5: round and about the rails of his chair. And rumpled
- 1:41:20Speaker 5: his head more and more, until he suddenly looked up
- 1:41:22Speaker 5: and asked, have you gone to sleep, Lou? No, Tom,
- 1:41:27Speaker 5: I am looking at the fire. You seem to find
- 1:41:30Speaker 5: more to look at in it than I ever could find,
- 1:41:33Speaker 5: said Tom. Another of the advantages I suppose of being
- 1:41:36Speaker 5: a girl, Tom inquired his sister, slowly and in a
- 1:41:40Speaker 5: curious tone, as if she were reading what she asked
- 1:41:43Speaker 5: in the fire, and was not quite plainly written. There
- 1:41:47Speaker 5: do you look forward with any satisfaction to this change
- 1:41:52Speaker 5: to mister Bounderby's why? There's one thing to be said
- 1:41:56Speaker 5: of it, returned Tom, pushing his chair from him and
- 1:41:58Speaker 5: standing up.
- 1:42:00Speaker 6: It will be getting away.
- 1:42:00Speaker 5: From home, There is one thing to be said of it,
- 1:42:04Speaker 5: Louisa repeated, in her former curious tone.
- 1:42:08Speaker 6: It will be getting away from home.
- 1:42:11Speaker 5: Yes not, but what I shall be very unwilling both
- 1:42:14Speaker 5: to leave you, Lou and to leave you here.
- 1:42:17Speaker 6: But I must go, you know, whether.
- 1:42:19Speaker 7: I like it or not.
- 1:42:20Speaker 5: And I had better go where I can take with
- 1:42:22Speaker 5: me some advantage of your influence than where I should
- 1:42:24Speaker 5: lose it altogether. Don't you see? Yes, Tom? The answer
- 1:42:29Speaker 5: was so long in coming, though there was no indecision
- 1:42:32Speaker 5: in it that Tom went and leaned on the back
- 1:42:34Speaker 5: of her chair to contemplate the fire which so engrossed
- 1:42:37Speaker 5: her from her point of view, and see what he
- 1:42:39Speaker 5: could make of it, except that it is a fire,
- 1:42:43Speaker 5: said Tom. It looks to me as stupid and blank
- 1:42:46Speaker 5: as everything else looks.
- 1:42:47Speaker 6: What do you see in it? Not a circus?
- 1:42:50Speaker 5: I don't see anything in it, Tom, particularly, But since
- 1:42:53Speaker 5: I have been looking at it, I have been wondering
- 1:42:56Speaker 5: about you and me grown up? Why wondering again, said Tom,
- 1:43:02Speaker 5: I have such unmanageable thoughts, returned his sister, that they
- 1:43:06Speaker 5: will wonder. Then I beg of you, Louisa, said missus gradgrind,
- 1:43:11Speaker 5: who had opened the door without being heard to do
- 1:43:13Speaker 5: nothing of that description. For goodness sake, you in consider
- 1:43:17Speaker 5: a girl or or I shall never hear the last
- 1:43:19Speaker 5: of it from your father and and Thomas. It is
- 1:43:21Speaker 5: really shameful, with my poor head continually wearing me out
- 1:43:26Speaker 5: that a boy brought up as you have been, and
- 1:43:28Speaker 5: whose education has cost what yours has should be found
- 1:43:31Speaker 5: encouraging his sister to wonder when he knows his father
- 1:43:35Speaker 5: has expressly said that she is not to do it.
- 1:43:39Speaker 5: Louisa denied Tom's participation in the offense, but her mother
- 1:43:42Speaker 5: stopped her with the conclusive answer, Louisa, don't tell me
- 1:43:45Speaker 5: in my state of health, for unless you had been encouraged,
- 1:43:48Speaker 5: it as morally and physically impossible that you could.
- 1:43:51Speaker 6: Have done it.
- 1:43:52Speaker 7: I was encouraged by nothing, mother, But by looking at
- 1:43:55Speaker 7: at the red sparks dropping out of the fire and
- 1:43:58Speaker 7: whitening and dying, it made me think, after all, how
- 1:44:01Speaker 7: short my life would be, and how little I could.
- 1:44:03Speaker 6: Hope to do in it.
- 1:44:05Speaker 5: Nonsense, said missus gradgrind rendered almost energetic nonsense. Don't stand
- 1:44:11Speaker 5: there and tell me such stuff, Luisa, to my face,
- 1:44:13Speaker 5: when you know very well that if it was ever
- 1:44:15Speaker 5: to reach your father's ears, I should never hear the
- 1:44:17Speaker 5: last of it. After all the trouble that has been
- 1:44:19Speaker 5: taken with you, after the lectures you have attended, and
- 1:44:22Speaker 5: the experiments you have seen, After I have heard you myself,
- 1:44:26Speaker 5: when the whole of my right side has been benumbed
- 1:44:28Speaker 5: going on with your master about combustion and calcination and califrification,
- 1:44:34Speaker 5: and I may say, every kind of ation that could
- 1:44:37Speaker 5: drive a poor invalid distracted to hear you talking in
- 1:44:39Speaker 5: this absurd way about sparks and ashes. I wish, whimpered
- 1:44:43Speaker 5: Missus Gradgrind, taking a chair and discharging her strongest point
- 1:44:47Speaker 5: before the coming under these mere shadows of facts. Yes,
- 1:44:51Speaker 5: I really do wish that I had never had a family,
- 1:44:54Speaker 5: and then you would have known what it was to
- 1:44:57Speaker 5: do without me.
- 1:44:59Speaker 4: And Chapter eight, Chapter nine Cissy's Progress. Cissy Jupe had
- 1:45:06Speaker 4: not an easy time of it between mister m chocumchild
- 1:45:10Speaker 4: and Missus Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses in
- 1:45:15Speaker 4: the first months of her probation to run away. It
- 1:45:20Speaker 4: hailed facts all day long, so very hard, and life
- 1:45:24Speaker 4: in general was open to her as such a closely
- 1:45:27Speaker 4: ruled ciphering book that assuredly she would have run away
- 1:45:32Speaker 4: but for only one restraint it is lamentable to think of.
- 1:45:37Speaker 4: But this restraint was the result of no arithmetical process,
- 1:45:43Speaker 4: was self imposed, in defiance of all calculation, and went
- 1:45:48Speaker 4: dead against any table of probabilities that any actuary would
- 1:45:53Speaker 4: have drawn up from the premises. The girl believed that
- 1:45:57Speaker 4: her father had not deserted her. She lived in the
- 1:46:00Speaker 4: hope that he would come back, and in the faith
- 1:46:04Speaker 4: that he would be made the happier by her remaining
- 1:46:07Speaker 4: where she was the wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to.
- 1:46:12Speaker 4: This consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing on a
- 1:46:17Speaker 4: sound a rhythmetical basis that her father was an unnatural vagabond,
- 1:46:23Speaker 4: filled mister gradgrind with pity. Yet what was to be done?
- 1:46:28Speaker 4: M Chocumchild reported that she had a very dense head
- 1:46:32Speaker 4: for figures, that once possessed with a general idea of
- 1:46:36Speaker 4: the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its
- 1:46:41Speaker 4: exact measurements, that she was extremely slow in the acquisition
- 1:46:46Speaker 4: of dates unless some pitiful incident happened to be concerned.
- 1:46:51Speaker 4: Therewith that she would burst into tears on being required
- 1:46:55Speaker 4: by the mental process immediately to name the cost of
- 1:46:59Speaker 4: two hundred and forty seven Muslim caps at fourteen pence.
- 1:47:04Speaker 4: Aypenny that she was as low down in the school
- 1:47:08Speaker 4: as low could be, that after eight weeks of induction
- 1:47:13Speaker 4: into the elements of political economy, she had only yesterday
- 1:47:17Speaker 4: been set right by a prattler three feet high. For
- 1:47:22Speaker 4: returning to the question what is the first principle of
- 1:47:26Speaker 4: this science? The absurd answer to do unto others as
- 1:47:32Speaker 4: I would that they should do unto me. Mister Gradgrind observed,
- 1:47:38Speaker 4: shaking his head, that all this was very bad, that
- 1:47:42Speaker 4: it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill
- 1:47:46Speaker 4: of knowledge as per Sistem schedule, blue book, report and
- 1:47:52Speaker 4: tabular statements A to Z, and that Jupe must be
- 1:47:56Speaker 4: kept to it. So Jupe was kept to it and
- 1:48:00Speaker 4: became low spirited, but no wiser. It would be a
- 1:48:04Speaker 4: fine thing to be you, miss Louisa, she said one night,
- 1:48:08Speaker 4: when Louisa had endeavored to make her perplexities for next
- 1:48:12Speaker 4: day something clearer to her. Do you think so I
- 1:48:17Speaker 4: should know so much, Miss Louisa, All that is difficult
- 1:48:21Speaker 4: to me now would be so easy. Then you might
- 1:48:25Speaker 4: not be better for it, Sissy, Cissy submitted, after a
- 1:48:29Speaker 4: little hesitation, I should not be the worst, Miss Louisa,
- 1:48:34Speaker 4: to which Louisa answered, oh, I don't know that. There
- 1:48:39Speaker 4: had been so little communication between these two, both because
- 1:48:43Speaker 4: life at Stone Lodge went monotonously round like a piece
- 1:48:47Speaker 4: of machinery, which discouraged human interference, and because of the
- 1:48:52Speaker 4: prohibition relative to Sissy's past career that they were still
- 1:48:58Speaker 4: almost strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed to
- 1:49:03Speaker 4: Louisa's face was uncertain whether to say more or to
- 1:49:07Speaker 4: remain silent. You are more useful to my mother and
- 1:49:11Speaker 4: more pleasant with me than I can never be, Louisa resumed.
- 1:49:16Speaker 4: You are pleasanter to yourself than I am to myself.
- 1:49:21Speaker 4: But if you please, miss Louisa, Sissy pleaded, I am
- 1:49:26Speaker 4: oh so stupid. Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual,
- 1:49:31Speaker 4: told her she would be wiser by and by. Oh
- 1:49:35Speaker 4: you don't know, said Cissy, half crying, What a stupid girl.
- 1:49:39Speaker 4: I am? All through school yea hours, I make mistakes.
- 1:49:45Speaker 4: Mister and missus m chocum child call me up over
- 1:49:48Speaker 4: and over again regularly to make mistakes. I can't help them.
- 1:49:53Speaker 4: They seem to come natural to me. Mister and missus
- 1:49:58Speaker 4: m chocum child never make any mistakes himself, I suppose, Sissy.
- 1:50:03Speaker 4: Oh no, she eagerly returned, They know everything. Well, tell
- 1:50:07Speaker 4: me some of your mistakes. I am almost ashamed, said
- 1:50:11Speaker 4: Sissy with reluctance. But today, for instance, mister m chokumchild
- 1:50:17Speaker 4: was explaining to us about natural prosperity national I think
- 1:50:23Speaker 4: it must have been observed, Louisa, Yeah, yes it was,
- 1:50:28Speaker 4: But isn't it the same, She timidly asked, you had
- 1:50:32Speaker 4: better say national as he said, so returned Louisa with
- 1:50:36Speaker 4: her dry reserve national prosperity. And he said, now this
- 1:50:43Speaker 4: schoolroom is a nation, and in this nation there are
- 1:50:47Speaker 4: fifty millions of money. Isn't this a prosperous nation, girl
- 1:50:53Speaker 4: number twenty? Isn't this a prosperous nation? And ain't you
- 1:50:58Speaker 4: in a thriving stone? Eight? What did you say, asked Louisa.
- 1:51:04Speaker 4: Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I
- 1:51:07Speaker 4: couldn't know whether it was a prosperous nation or not,
- 1:51:11Speaker 4: and whether I was in a thriving state or not
- 1:51:14Speaker 4: unless I knew who had got the money and whether
- 1:51:17Speaker 4: any of it was mine. But that had nothing to
- 1:51:20Speaker 4: do with it. It was not in the figures at all,
- 1:51:25Speaker 4: said Sissy, wiping her eyes. That was a great mistake
- 1:51:30Speaker 4: of yours, observed Louisa. Yes, Miss Louise, I know it was.
- 1:51:34Speaker 4: Now then mister m jocumchild said he would try me again,
- 1:51:39Speaker 4: and he said, this schoolroom is an immense town, and
- 1:51:44Speaker 4: in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only
- 1:51:48Speaker 4: five and twenty are starved to death in the streets
- 1:51:53Speaker 4: in the course of a year. What is your remark
- 1:51:57Speaker 4: on that proportion? And my remark was, for I couldn't
- 1:52:01Speaker 4: think of a better one. That I thought it must
- 1:52:04Speaker 4: be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether
- 1:52:07Speaker 4: the others were a million or a million million. And
- 1:52:11Speaker 4: that was wrong too, of course it is. Then mister
- 1:52:16Speaker 4: m Chokumchild said he would try me once more, and
- 1:52:19Speaker 4: he said, oh, here are the stutterings statistic, said Louisa. Yes,
- 1:52:26Speaker 4: Miss Louisa, they always remind me of stutterings. And that's
- 1:52:31Speaker 4: another of my mistakes. Of accidents upon the sea, and
- 1:52:36Speaker 4: I find mister m Chokumchild said that in a given
- 1:52:40Speaker 4: time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages,
- 1:52:45Speaker 4: and only five hundred of them were drowned or burnt
- 1:52:48Speaker 4: to death. What is the percentage? And I said, Miss
- 1:52:52Speaker 4: here says he fairly sobbed as confessing with extreme contrition
- 1:52:57Speaker 4: to her greatest error. I said, it was nothing, nothing, Cissy, nothing,
- 1:53:05Speaker 4: miss to the relations and friends of the people who
- 1:53:08Speaker 4: were killed, I shall never learn, said Cissy. And the
- 1:53:13Speaker 4: worst of it is that although my poor father wished
- 1:53:17Speaker 4: me to so much to learn, and although I'm anxious
- 1:53:20Speaker 4: to learn because he wished me to. I'm afraid I
- 1:53:23Speaker 4: don't like it. Louisa stood looking at the pretty modest
- 1:53:28Speaker 4: head as it drooped abashed before her, until it was
- 1:53:32Speaker 4: raised again to glance at her face. Then she asked,
- 1:53:36Speaker 4: did your father know so much himself that he wished
- 1:53:39Speaker 4: you to be well taught to? Cissy? Cissy hesitated before replying,
- 1:53:45Speaker 4: and so plainly showed her sense that they were entering
- 1:53:50Speaker 4: on forbidden ground that Louisa added, no one hears us,
- 1:53:54Speaker 4: and if anyone did, I'm sure no harm could be
- 1:53:57Speaker 4: found in such an innocent question. No, miss Louisa, answered
- 1:54:02Speaker 4: Cissy upon this encouragement, shaking her head. Father knows very little. Indeed,
- 1:54:08Speaker 4: it's as much as he can do to write, and
- 1:54:11Speaker 4: it's more than people in general can do to read
- 1:54:13Speaker 4: his writing. Though it is plain to me and your mother,
- 1:54:19Speaker 4: father says, she was quite a scholar. She died when
- 1:54:23Speaker 4: I was born. She was Sissy made the terrible communication nervously.
- 1:54:28Speaker 4: She was a dancer. Did your father love her? Louisa
- 1:54:34Speaker 4: asked these questions with a strong, wild, wandering interest, peculiar
- 1:54:39Speaker 4: to her, an interest gone astray like a banished creature,
- 1:54:44Speaker 4: and hiding in solitary places. Oh, yes, as dearly as
- 1:54:49Speaker 4: he loves me. Father loved me first for her sake.
- 1:54:54Speaker 4: He carried me about with him when I was quite
- 1:54:56Speaker 4: a baby. We have never been asunder from that time.
- 1:55:01Speaker 4: Yet he leaves you now, Sissy, only for my good.
- 1:55:05Speaker 4: Nobody understands him as I do. Nobody knows him as
- 1:55:09Speaker 4: I do. When he left me for my good, he
- 1:55:13Speaker 4: never would have left me for his own. I know
- 1:55:16Speaker 4: he was almost broken hearted with the trial. He will
- 1:55:19Speaker 4: not be happy for a single minute till he comes back.
- 1:55:23Speaker 4: Tell me more about him, said Louisa. I will never
- 1:55:26Speaker 4: ask you again. Where did you live? We traveled about
- 1:55:31Speaker 4: the country and had no fixed place to live in
- 1:55:35Speaker 4: Father's a sissy whispered the awful word a clown to
- 1:55:43Speaker 4: make the people laugh, said Louisa, with a nod of intelligence. Yes,
- 1:55:47Speaker 4: but they wouldn't laugh sometimes, and then Father cried. Lately,
- 1:55:52Speaker 4: they very often wouldn't laugh, and he used to come
- 1:55:55Speaker 4: home despairing. Father's not like most those who didn't know
- 1:56:00Speaker 4: him as as well as I do, and didn't love
- 1:56:04Speaker 4: him as dearly as I do. My believe he was
- 1:56:06Speaker 4: not quite right. Sometimes they played tricks upon him they
- 1:56:11Speaker 4: never knew how he felt them, and shrunk up when
- 1:56:15Speaker 4: he was alone with me. He was far far timid
- 1:56:19Speaker 4: than they thought, and you were his comfort through everything.
- 1:56:25Speaker 4: She nodded, with the tears rolling down her face. I
- 1:56:28Speaker 4: hope so, and father said I was. It was because
- 1:56:32Speaker 4: he grew so scared and trembling, and because he felt
- 1:56:35Speaker 4: himself to be a poor, weak, ignorant, helpless man. Those
- 1:56:40Speaker 4: used to be his words, that he wanted me so
- 1:56:43Speaker 4: much to know a great deal and be different from him.
- 1:56:46Speaker 4: I used to read him to cheer his courage, and
- 1:56:49Speaker 4: he was very fond of that. They were wrong books.
- 1:56:54Speaker 4: I'm never to speak of them here, but we didn't
- 1:56:57Speaker 4: know there was any harm in them, and he liked them,
- 1:57:01Speaker 4: said Louisa, with her searching gaze on Sissy all the time,
- 1:57:05Speaker 4: Oh very much. They kept him many times from what
- 1:57:09Speaker 4: did him real harm. And often and often of a
- 1:57:14Speaker 4: night he used to forget all his troubles, and wondering
- 1:57:17Speaker 4: whether the Sultan would let the lady go on with
- 1:57:20Speaker 4: the story or would have her head cut off before
- 1:57:23Speaker 4: it was finished. And your father was always kind to
- 1:57:27Speaker 4: the last, asked Louisa, contravening the great principle and wondering
- 1:57:33Speaker 4: very much always always, returned Sissy, clasping her hands. Kinder
- 1:57:39Speaker 4: than I can tell. He was angry only one night,
- 1:57:43Speaker 4: and that was not to me, but Mary Legg's Mary Legs.
- 1:57:47Speaker 4: She whispered. The awful fact is his performing dog. Why
- 1:57:52Speaker 4: was he angry with the dog? Louisa demanded Father, soon
- 1:57:57Speaker 4: after they came home from performing, told Merrylegs to jump
- 1:58:01Speaker 4: up on the backs of the two chairs and stand
- 1:58:04Speaker 4: across them, which is one of his tricks. He looked
- 1:58:08Speaker 4: at Father and didn't do it at once. Everything of
- 1:58:11Speaker 4: father's had gone wrong that night, and he hadn't pleased
- 1:58:15Speaker 4: the public at all. He cried out that the very
- 1:58:18Speaker 4: dog knew he was failing and had no compassion on him.
- 1:58:22Speaker 4: Then he beat the dog, and I was frightened, and said, father, Father, pray,
- 1:58:26Speaker 4: don't hurt the creature who is so fond of you.
- 1:58:29Speaker 4: Oh Heaven forgive you.
- 1:58:31Speaker 6: Father.
- 1:58:31Speaker 4: Stop And he stopped, and the dog was bloody, and
- 1:58:36Speaker 4: Father lay down crying on the floor with the dog
- 1:58:38Speaker 4: in his arms, and the dog licked his face. Luisa
- 1:58:43Speaker 4: saw that she was sobbing, and going to her, kissed her,
- 1:58:46Speaker 4: took her hand and sat down beside her finish by
- 1:58:51Speaker 4: telling me how your father left you, Sissy, Now that
- 1:58:55Speaker 4: I have asked you so much, tell me the end. Blame,
- 1:59:00Speaker 4: if there is any blame, is mine, not yours, my
- 1:59:05Speaker 4: dear miss Louisa, said Cissy, covering her eyes and sobbing it.
- 1:59:09Speaker 4: I came home from school that afternoon and found poor
- 1:59:12Speaker 4: father just come home too, from the booth, and he
- 1:59:17Speaker 4: sat rocking himself over the fire as if he was
- 1:59:21Speaker 4: in pain. And I said, have you hurt yourself, father,
- 1:59:25Speaker 4: as he did sometimes, like they all did, And he
- 1:59:28Speaker 4: said a little, my darling. And when I came to
- 1:59:32Speaker 4: stoop down and look up at his face, I saw
- 1:59:35Speaker 4: he was crying. The more I spoke to him, the
- 1:59:37Speaker 4: more he hid his face, And at first he shook
- 1:59:41Speaker 4: all over and said, nothing but my darling and my love. Here.
- 1:59:47Speaker 4: Tom came lounging in and stared at the two with
- 1:59:51Speaker 4: a coolness, not particularly savoring of interest in anything but himself,
- 1:59:56Speaker 4: and not much of that at present. I'm asking, Sissy,
- 2:00:01Speaker 4: if you questions, Tom observed his sister. You have no
- 2:00:06Speaker 4: occasion to go away, but don't interrupt us for a moment. Tom, dear,
- 2:00:11Speaker 4: oh very well, returned Tom. Only father has brought Old
- 2:00:15Speaker 4: Bounderby home, and I want you to come into the
- 2:00:18Speaker 4: drawing room, because if you come, there's a good chance
- 2:00:22Speaker 4: of Old Bounderby's asking me to dinner. And if you don't,
- 2:00:26Speaker 4: there's none. I'll come directly. I'll wait for you, said Tom,
- 2:00:31Speaker 4: to make sure. Cissy resumed in a lower voice. At last,
- 2:00:37Speaker 4: poor Father said that he had given no satisfaction again,
- 2:00:42Speaker 4: and never did give any satisfaction now, and that he
- 2:00:45Speaker 4: was a shame and a disgrace, and I should have
- 2:00:48Speaker 4: done better without him. All along I said all the
- 2:00:52Speaker 4: affectionate things to him that came into my heart, and
- 2:00:55Speaker 4: presently he was quiet, and I sat down by him
- 2:00:58Speaker 4: and told him all about the school and everything that
- 2:01:00Speaker 4: had been said and done there. When I had no
- 2:01:04Speaker 4: more left to tell, he put his arms round my
- 2:01:08Speaker 4: neck and kissed me a great many times. Then he
- 2:01:11Speaker 4: asked me to fetch some of the stuff he had
- 2:01:13Speaker 4: used for the little hurt he had had, and to
- 2:01:16Speaker 4: get it at the best place, which was at the
- 2:01:19Speaker 4: other end of the town from there. And then after
- 2:01:23Speaker 4: kissing me again, he let me go. When I had
- 2:01:26Speaker 4: gone downstairs, I turned back that I might be a
- 2:01:30Speaker 4: little bit more company to him yet, and looked in
- 2:01:34Speaker 4: at the door and said, Father, dear, shall I take
- 2:01:37Speaker 4: merry legs. Father shook his head and said, no, Sissy,
- 2:01:40Speaker 4: note take nothing that's known to be mine, my darling.
- 2:01:45Speaker 4: And I left him sitting by the fire. Then the
- 2:01:48Speaker 4: thought must have come upon him, poor poor father, of
- 2:01:53Speaker 4: going away to try something for my sake. For when
- 2:01:57Speaker 4: I came back he was gone. I say, look sharp
- 2:02:02Speaker 4: for old bound to be lou. Tom remonstrated, there's nothing
- 2:02:08Speaker 4: more to tell miss Louisa. I kept the nine oils
- 2:02:13Speaker 4: ready for him, and I know he will come back.
- 2:02:16Speaker 4: Every letter that I see in mister Gradgrind's hands takes
- 2:02:20Speaker 4: my breath away and blinds my eyes, for I think
- 2:02:23Speaker 4: it comes from Father or from mister Sleary About Father.
- 2:02:27Speaker 4: Mister Sleery promised to write as soon as as ever
- 2:02:31Speaker 4: Father should be heard of, and I trust him to
- 2:02:34Speaker 4: keep his word. Do look sharp for old bound to
- 2:02:38Speaker 4: be lou said Tom with an impatient whistle. He'll be
- 2:02:42Speaker 4: off if you don't look sharp after this, whenever, Sissy
- 2:02:47Speaker 4: dropped a curtsey to mister Gradgrind in the presence of
- 2:02:50Speaker 4: his family, and said, in a faltering way, I beg
- 2:02:55Speaker 4: your pardon sir for being troublesome, but have you had
- 2:02:59Speaker 4: any letter yet about me? Louisa would suspend the occupation
- 2:03:05Speaker 4: of the moment, whatever it was, and look for a
- 2:03:07Speaker 4: reply as earnestly as Cissy did, And when mister Gradgrind
- 2:03:11Speaker 4: regularly answered, no, Jupe, nothing of the sort, the trembling
- 2:03:16Speaker 4: of Cissy's lip would be repeated in Louis's face, and
- 2:03:20Speaker 4: her eyes would follow Cissy with compassion to the door.
- 2:03:24Speaker 4: Mister Gradgrind usually improved these occasions by remarking when she
- 2:03:29Speaker 4: was gone that if Jupe had been properly trained from
- 2:03:33Speaker 4: an early age, she would have demonstrated to herself, on
- 2:03:36Speaker 4: sound principles the baselessness of these fantastic hopes. Yet it
- 2:03:43Speaker 4: did seem, though not to him, for he saw nothing
- 2:03:47Speaker 4: of it, as if fantastic hope could take as strong
- 2:03:51Speaker 4: a hold as fact. This observation must be limited exclusively
- 2:03:57Speaker 4: to his daughter. As to Tom, he becoming that not
- 2:04:01Speaker 4: unprecedented triumph of calculation, which is usually at work on
- 2:04:06Speaker 4: number one. As to missus Gradgrind, if she said anything
- 2:04:12Speaker 4: on the subject, she would come a little way out
- 2:04:15Speaker 4: of her wrappers, like a feminine dormouse and say, good,
- 2:04:20Speaker 4: gracious bless me, how my poor head is vexed and
- 2:04:23Speaker 4: worried by that girl joops so perseveringly, asking over and
- 2:04:30Speaker 4: over again about her tiresome letters upon my word and honor.
- 2:04:34Speaker 4: I seem to be fated and destined and ordained to
- 2:04:39Speaker 4: live in the midst of things that I'm never to
- 2:04:41Speaker 4: hear the last of It really is a most extraordinary circumstance.
- 2:04:46Speaker 4: It appears as if I never was to hear the
- 2:04:49Speaker 4: last of anything. At about this point, mister Gradgrind's eye
- 2:04:54Speaker 4: would fall upon her, and under the influence of that
- 2:04:58Speaker 4: wintry piece of she would become torpid again. Chapter ten,
- 2:05:08Speaker 4: Stephen Blackpool, I entertain a weak idea that the English
- 2:05:13Speaker 4: people are as hard work as any people upon whom
- 2:05:17Speaker 4: the sun shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous idiosyncrasy as
- 2:05:23Speaker 4: a reason why I would give them a little more
- 2:05:25Speaker 4: play in the hardest working part of Coketown, in the
- 2:05:30Speaker 4: innermost fortifications of that ugly citadel, where nature was as
- 2:05:35Speaker 4: strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in,
- 2:05:40Speaker 4: at the heart of that labyrinth of narrow courts upon
- 2:05:44Speaker 4: courts and close streets upon streets, which had come into
- 2:05:49Speaker 4: existence piecemeal, every piece in a violent hurry for some
- 2:05:54Speaker 4: one man's purpose, and the whole and unnatural family shouldering,
- 2:06:00Speaker 4: trampling and pressing one another to death. In that last
- 2:06:05Speaker 4: close nook of this great exhausted receiver, where the chimneys,
- 2:06:10Speaker 4: for want of air to make a draft, were built
- 2:06:13Speaker 4: in an immense variety of stunted and crooked shapes, as
- 2:06:17Speaker 4: though every house put out a sign of the kind
- 2:06:20Speaker 4: of people who might be expected to be born in it.
- 2:06:24Speaker 4: Among the multitude of Coketown, generically called the hands, a
- 2:06:30Speaker 4: race who would have found more favor with some people
- 2:06:34Speaker 4: if Providence had seen fit to make them only hands,
- 2:06:38Speaker 4: or like the lower creatures of the seashore, only hands
- 2:06:42Speaker 4: and stomachs. Lived a certain Stephen Blackpool, forty years of age.
- 2:06:50Speaker 4: Stephen looked older, but he had had a hard life.
- 2:06:54Speaker 4: It is said that every life has its roses and thorns.
- 2:06:58Speaker 4: There seemed, however, to have been a misadventure or mistake
- 2:07:02Speaker 4: in Stephan's case, whereby somebody else had become possessed of
- 2:07:06Speaker 4: his roses, and he had become possessed of that same
- 2:07:10Speaker 4: somebody else's thorns. In addition, to his own. He had
- 2:07:14Speaker 4: known to use his words a peck of trouble. He
- 2:07:18Speaker 4: was usually called Old Stephan, in a kind of rough
- 2:07:21Speaker 4: homage to the fact. A rather stooping man, with a
- 2:07:26Speaker 4: knitted brow, a pondering expression of face, and a hard
- 2:07:30Speaker 4: looking head sufficiently capacious on which his iron gray hair
- 2:07:35Speaker 4: lay long and thin. Old Stephan might have passed for
- 2:07:39Speaker 4: a particularly intelligent man in his condition, Yet he was not.
- 2:07:44Speaker 4: He took no place among those remarkable hands who, piecing
- 2:07:48Speaker 4: together their broken intervals of leisure through many years, had
- 2:07:53Speaker 4: mastered difficult sciences and acquired a knowledge of most unlikely things.
- 2:07:59Speaker 4: He held no station among the hands who could make
- 2:08:02Speaker 4: speeches and carry on debates. Thousands of his comb peers
- 2:08:08Speaker 4: could talk much better than he at any time. He
- 2:08:11Speaker 4: was a good power loom weaver, and a man of
- 2:08:15Speaker 4: perfect integrity. What more he was, or what else he
- 2:08:19Speaker 4: had in him? If anything, let him show for himself.
- 2:08:24Speaker 4: The lights in the great factories, which looked when they
- 2:08:27Speaker 4: were illuminated like fairy palaces, or the travelers by express
- 2:08:33Speaker 4: trains said so, were all extinguished, and the bells had
- 2:08:38Speaker 4: rung for knocking off for the night, and had ceased
- 2:08:41Speaker 4: again and the hands men and women, boy and girl
- 2:08:46Speaker 4: were clattering home. Old Stephen was standing in the street
- 2:08:51Speaker 4: with the odd sensation upon him which the stoppage of
- 2:08:56Speaker 4: the machinery always produced, the sensation of its having worked
- 2:09:01Speaker 4: and stopped in his own head. Yet I don't see Rachel, still,
- 2:09:08Speaker 4: said he. It was a wet night, and many groups
- 2:09:12Speaker 4: of young women passed him with their shawls drawn over
- 2:09:16Speaker 4: their bare heads and held close under their chins to
- 2:09:20Speaker 4: keep the rain out. He knew Rachel well, for a
- 2:09:24Speaker 4: glance at any one of those groups was sufficient to
- 2:09:28Speaker 4: show him that she was not there. At last, there
- 2:09:31Speaker 4: was no more to come, And then he turned away, saying,
- 2:09:34Speaker 4: in a tone of disappointment, why then I have missed her?
- 2:09:40Speaker 4: But he had not gone the length of three streets
- 2:09:44Speaker 4: when he saw another of the shawled figures in advance
- 2:09:48Speaker 4: of him, at which he looked so keenly that perhaps
- 2:09:52Speaker 4: its mere shadow indistinctly reflected on the wet pavement. If
- 2:09:56Speaker 4: he could have seen it without the figure itself move
- 2:10:00Speaker 4: along from lamp to lamp, brightening and fading as it went,
- 2:10:04Speaker 4: would have been enough to tell him who was there.
- 2:10:08Speaker 4: Making his pace at once much quicker and much softer.
- 2:10:11Speaker 4: He darted on until he was very near this figure,
- 2:10:15Speaker 4: then fell into his former walk and called Rachel. She turned,
- 2:10:21Speaker 4: being then in the brightness of a lamp, and raising
- 2:10:24Speaker 4: her hood a little, showed a quiet oval face, dark
- 2:10:28Speaker 4: and rather delicate, irradiated by a pair of very gentle eyes,
- 2:10:34Speaker 4: and further set off by the perfect order of her
- 2:10:37Speaker 4: shining black hair. It was not a face in its
- 2:10:40Speaker 4: first bloom. She was a woman five and thirty years
- 2:10:44Speaker 4: of age. Ah lad tis thou. When she had said this,
- 2:10:50Speaker 4: with a smile which would have been quite expressed, though
- 2:10:54Speaker 4: nothing of her had been seen but her pleasant eyes.
- 2:10:57Speaker 4: She replaced her hood again, and they went on together.
- 2:11:02Speaker 4: I thought, thou wast behind me, Rachel. No early tonight,
- 2:11:08Speaker 4: last times, I'm a little early, Stephan, times a little late.
- 2:11:12Speaker 4: I'm never to be counted on going home nor going
- 2:11:18Speaker 4: t'other way neither, it seems to me. Rachel, No, Stephan.
- 2:11:23Speaker 4: He looked at her with some disappointment in his face,
- 2:11:26Speaker 4: but with a respectful and patient conviction that she must
- 2:11:30Speaker 4: be right, and whatever she did, the expression was not
- 2:11:34Speaker 4: lost upon her. She laid her hand lightly on his
- 2:11:38Speaker 4: arm a moment, as if to thank him for it.
- 2:11:41Speaker 4: We are such true friend's lad and such old friends,
- 2:11:45Speaker 4: and get to be such old folk. Now, No, Rachel,
- 2:11:50Speaker 4: thou art as young as ever thou wast one of
- 2:11:53Speaker 4: us would be puzzled how to get old, Stephan without
- 2:11:56Speaker 4: t'other getting so too, both being alive, she answered, laughing.
- 2:12:01Speaker 4: But anyways, we're such old friends that to hide a
- 2:12:04Speaker 4: word of honest truth fro one another would be a
- 2:12:08Speaker 4: sin and a pity. Tis better not to walk too
- 2:12:11Speaker 4: much farther times. Yes, twould be hard, indeed, if twas
- 2:12:17Speaker 4: not to be at all, she said, with a cheerfulness.
- 2:12:20Speaker 4: She sought to communicate to him. Tis hard, anyways, Rachel,
- 2:12:26Speaker 4: try to think not and it will seem better. I've
- 2:12:30Speaker 4: tried a long time and tain't got better. But thou'st
- 2:12:33Speaker 4: right to make folk talk, even of thee. Thou hast
- 2:12:39Speaker 4: been that to me, Rachel, through so many years. Thou
- 2:12:44Speaker 4: hast done me so much good, and heartened of me
- 2:12:48Speaker 4: in that cheering way. That thy word is law to
- 2:12:52Speaker 4: me alas, and a bright good law, better than some
- 2:12:56Speaker 4: real ones. Oh, never fret about them, stiff, she answered quickly,
- 2:13:01Speaker 4: and not without an anxious glance at his face. Let
- 2:13:05Speaker 4: the laws be, yes, he said, with a slow nod
- 2:13:09Speaker 4: or two. Let him be, Let everything be. Let all
- 2:13:13Speaker 4: sorts alone tis a muddle, And that's all, always a muddle,
- 2:13:19Speaker 4: said Rachel, with another gentle touch upon his arm, as
- 2:13:22Speaker 4: if to recall him out of the thoughtfulness in which
- 2:13:25Speaker 4: he was biting the long ends of his loose neckerchief
- 2:13:29Speaker 4: as he walked along. The touch had its instantaneous effect.
- 2:13:34Speaker 4: He let them fall, Turning a smiling face upon her,
- 2:13:38Speaker 4: he said, as he broke into a good humored laugh. Aye, Rachel, less,
- 2:13:43Speaker 4: all is a muddle. That's where I stick. I come
- 2:13:46Speaker 4: to the muddle many times and again, and I never
- 2:13:49Speaker 4: get beyond it. They had walked some distance and were
- 2:13:54Speaker 4: near their own homes. The woman's was the first reach.
- 2:13:59Speaker 4: It was in one of the many small streets for
- 2:14:02Speaker 4: which the favorite undertaker, who turned a handsome sum out
- 2:14:06Speaker 4: of the poor, ghastly pomp of the neighborhood, kept a
- 2:14:10Speaker 4: black ladder in order that those who had done their
- 2:14:13Speaker 4: daily groping up and down the narrow streets might slide
- 2:14:18Speaker 4: out of this working world by the windows. She stopped
- 2:14:22Speaker 4: at the corner, and, putting her hand in his, wished
- 2:14:25Speaker 4: him good night. Good night, dear lass good night. She went,
- 2:14:31Speaker 4: with her neat figure and her sober womanly step down
- 2:14:35Speaker 4: the dark street, and he stood looking after until she
- 2:14:39Speaker 4: turned into one of the small houses. There was not
- 2:14:43Speaker 4: a flutter of her coarse shawl, perhaps, but had its
- 2:14:48Speaker 4: interest in this man's eyes, not a tone of her voice,
- 2:14:52Speaker 4: but had its echo in his innermost heart. When she
- 2:14:56Speaker 4: was lost to his view, he pursued his homeward, w
- 2:15:00Speaker 4: glancing up sometimes to the sky where the clouds were
- 2:15:04Speaker 4: sailing fast and wildly. But they were broken now, and
- 2:15:07Speaker 4: the rain had ceased, and the moon shone, looking down
- 2:15:11Speaker 4: the high chimneys of Coketown, on the deep furnaces below,
- 2:15:16Speaker 4: and casting titanic shadows of the steam engines at rest
- 2:15:21Speaker 4: upon the walls where they were lodged. The man seemed
- 2:15:25Speaker 4: to have brightened with the night as he went on
- 2:15:29Speaker 4: his home in such another street as the first, saving
- 2:15:33Speaker 4: that it was narrower was over a little shop. How
- 2:15:37Speaker 4: it came to pass that any people found it worth
- 2:15:39Speaker 4: their while to sell or buy the wretched toys mixed
- 2:15:44Speaker 4: up in its window with cheap newspapers. In port there
- 2:15:47Speaker 4: was a leg to be raffled for tomorrow night. Matters
- 2:15:51Speaker 4: not Here he took his end of candle from a shelf,
- 2:15:55Speaker 4: lighted it at another end of candle on the counter,
- 2:16:00Speaker 4: without disturbing the mistress of the shop, who was asleep
- 2:16:02Speaker 4: in her little room, and went upstairs into his lodging.
- 2:16:07Speaker 4: It was a room, not unacquainted with the Black Ladder,
- 2:16:11Speaker 4: under various tenants, but as neat at present as such
- 2:16:17Speaker 4: a room could be. A few books and writings were
- 2:16:20Speaker 4: on an old bureau in a corner. The furniture was
- 2:16:23Speaker 4: decent and sufficient, and though the atmosphere was tainted, the
- 2:16:28Speaker 4: room was clean. Going to the hearth, he set the
- 2:16:31Speaker 4: candle down upon the round three legged table. Standing there,
- 2:16:35Speaker 4: he stumbled against something. As he recoiled, looking down at it,
- 2:16:39Speaker 4: it raised itself up into the form of a woman
- 2:16:43Speaker 4: in sitting attitude. Heavens, mercy woman, he cried, falling farther
- 2:16:49Speaker 4: off from the figure. Hast thou come back again? Such
- 2:16:54Speaker 4: a woman, a disabled, drunken creature, barely able to reserve
- 2:16:59Speaker 4: her sitting possible by steadying herself with one begrimed hand
- 2:17:04Speaker 4: on the floor, while the other was so purposeless as
- 2:17:08Speaker 4: trying to push away her tangled hair from her face
- 2:17:11Speaker 4: that it only blinded her the more with the dirt
- 2:17:14Speaker 4: upon it, a creature so foul to look at in
- 2:17:18Speaker 4: her tatters, stains and splashes, but so much fouler than that,
- 2:17:23Speaker 4: in her moral infamy, that it was a shameful thing
- 2:17:27Speaker 4: even to see her. After an impatient oath or two
- 2:17:31Speaker 4: and some stupid clawing at herself with a hand not
- 2:17:35Speaker 4: necessary to her support, she got her hair away from
- 2:17:39Speaker 4: her eyes sufficiently to obtain a sight of him. Then
- 2:17:42Speaker 4: she sat swaying her body to and fro and making
- 2:17:46Speaker 4: gestures with her unnerved arm, which seemed intended as the
- 2:17:51Speaker 4: accompaniment to a fit of laughter, though her face was
- 2:17:55Speaker 4: stolid and drowsy. If lash, what you're there, some hoarse
- 2:18:02Speaker 4: sounds meant for this came mockingly out of her at last,
- 2:18:06Speaker 4: and her head dropped forward on her breast. Back again.
- 2:18:11Speaker 4: She screeched, after some minutes, as if he had that moment,
- 2:18:16Speaker 4: said it yes and back again, back again, ever and
- 2:18:19Speaker 4: ever so oft and back yes, back why not? Roused
- 2:18:24Speaker 4: by the unmeaning voice with which she cried it out,
- 2:18:28Speaker 4: she scrambled out and stood, supporting herself with her shoulders
- 2:18:32Speaker 4: against the wall, dangling in one hand by the string
- 2:18:36Speaker 4: of a dunghill fragment of a bonnet, and trying to
- 2:18:41Speaker 4: look scornfully at him. I'll sell thee off again. I'll
- 2:18:45Speaker 4: sell thee off again. I'll sell the off a score
- 2:18:48Speaker 4: of time. She cried, with something between a furious menace
- 2:18:53Speaker 4: and an effort at defiant dance. Come off from the bed.
- 2:18:58Speaker 4: He was sitting on the side of it, with his
- 2:18:59Speaker 4: face hidden in his hands. Come away from it tis
- 2:19:04Speaker 4: mine and I have her right to it. As she
- 2:19:06Speaker 4: staggered to it, he avoided her with a shudder and
- 2:19:10Speaker 4: passed till his face was hidden to the opposite end
- 2:19:13Speaker 4: of the room. She threw herself upon the bed heavily,
- 2:19:17Speaker 4: and soon was snoring hard. He sunk into a chair
- 2:19:20Speaker 4: and moved but once all that night it was to
- 2:19:24Speaker 4: throw a covering over her, as if his hands were
- 2:19:27Speaker 4: not enough to hide her even in the darkness. End
- 2:19:35Speaker 4: of section five.
- 2:19:36Speaker 2: Chapter eleven, No Way Out the Fairy Palaces burst into
- 2:19:42Speaker 2: illumination before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke
- 2:19:46Speaker 2: trailing themselves over Coketown, a clattering of clogs upon the pavement,
- 2:19:51Speaker 2: a rapid ringing of bells, and all the melancholy mad elephants,
- 2:19:55Speaker 2: polished and oiled up for the day's monotony, were at
- 2:19:57Speaker 2: their heavy exercise. Again Stephen bent over his loom, quiet, watchful,
- 2:20:03Speaker 2: and steady, a special contrast, as every man was in
- 2:20:07Speaker 2: the forest of looms where Stephen worked, to the crashing, smashing,
- 2:20:11Speaker 2: tearing piece of mechanism at which he labored. Never fear, good,
- 2:20:15Speaker 2: people of an anxious turn of mind, that art will
- 2:20:18Speaker 2: consign nature to oblivion. Set anywhere side by side the
- 2:20:22Speaker 2: work of God and the work of man, and the former,
- 2:20:25Speaker 2: even though it be a troop of hands, a very
- 2:20:27Speaker 2: small account will gain in dignity from the comparison. So
- 2:20:31Speaker 2: many hundred hands in this mill, so many hundred horse
- 2:20:34Speaker 2: steam power. It is known to the force of a
- 2:20:37Speaker 2: single pound weight what the engine will do. But not
- 2:20:40Speaker 2: all the calculators of the national debt can tell me
- 2:20:43Speaker 2: the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred,
- 2:20:46Speaker 2: for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice,
- 2:20:51Speaker 2: or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul
- 2:20:54Speaker 2: of one of these its quiet servants, with the composed
- 2:20:57Speaker 2: faces and the regulated actions, there is no mystery in it.
- 2:21:01Speaker 2: There is an unfathomable mystery and the meanest of them forever.
- 2:21:05Speaker 2: Supposing we were to reverse our arithmetic from material objects,
- 2:21:08Speaker 2: and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means.
- 2:21:13Speaker 2: The day grew strong and showed itself outside, even against
- 2:21:17Speaker 2: the flaming lights. Within. The lights were turned out, and
- 2:21:20Speaker 2: the work went on. The rain fell, and the smoke serpents,
- 2:21:23Speaker 2: submissive to the curse of all that tribe, trailed themselves
- 2:21:26Speaker 2: upon the earth in the waist yard outside, the steam
- 2:21:30Speaker 2: from the escape pipe, the litter of barrels and old iron,
- 2:21:34Speaker 2: the shining heaps of coals, the ashes everywhere were shrouded
- 2:21:38Speaker 2: in a veil of mist and rain. The work went
- 2:21:41Speaker 2: on until the noon bell rang, more, clattering upon the pavements,
- 2:21:45Speaker 2: the looms and wheels and hands all out of gear
- 2:21:47Speaker 2: for an hour. Stephen came out of the hot mill
- 2:21:50Speaker 2: into the damp wind and cold wet streets. Haggard and worn.
- 2:21:54Speaker 2: He turned from his own class in his own quarter,
- 2:21:57Speaker 2: taking nothing but a little bread as he walked along
- 2:22:00Speaker 2: towards the hill on which his principal employer lived in
- 2:22:03Speaker 2: a red house with black outside shutters, green inside blinds,
- 2:22:07Speaker 2: a black street door up, two white steps, bounderby in
- 2:22:11Speaker 2: letters very like himself, upon a brazen plate and a
- 2:22:14Speaker 2: round brazen door handle underneath it, like a brazen full stop.
- 2:22:18Speaker 2: Mister Bounderby was at his lunch, so Stephen had expected.
- 2:22:22Speaker 2: Would his servants say that one of the hands begged
- 2:22:24Speaker 2: leave to speak to him? Message in return requiring name
- 2:22:28Speaker 2: of such hand, Stephen Blackpool. There was nothing troublesome against
- 2:22:32Speaker 2: Stephen Blackpool. Yes, he might come in, Stephen Blackpool in
- 2:22:36Speaker 2: the parlor mister Bounderby, whom he just knew by sight,
- 2:22:40Speaker 2: at lunch on chop and sherry. Missus Sparsit netting at
- 2:22:43Speaker 2: the fireside in a side saddle attitude, with one foot
- 2:22:46Speaker 2: in a cotton stirrup. It was a part at once
- 2:22:49Speaker 2: of missus Sparsit's dignity and service, not to lunch. She
- 2:22:53Speaker 2: supervised the meal officially, but implied that in her own
- 2:22:56Speaker 2: stately person she considered lunch a weakness. Now, Stephen said,
- 2:23:01Speaker 2: mister Bounderby, what's the matter with you? Stephen made a bow,
- 2:23:05Speaker 2: not a servile one. These hands will never do that,
- 2:23:08Speaker 2: Lord bless you, sir. You'll never catch them at that
- 2:23:10Speaker 2: if they have been with you twenty years. And as
- 2:23:12Speaker 2: a complimentary toilet for missus Sparsit tucked his neckerchief ends
- 2:23:16Speaker 2: into his waistcoat. Now you know, said mister Bounderby, taking
- 2:23:21Speaker 2: some sherry. We've never had any difficulty with you, and
- 2:23:24Speaker 2: you've never been one of the unreasonable ones. You don't
- 2:23:26Speaker 2: expect to be set up in a coach and six
- 2:23:29Speaker 2: and to be fed on turtle soup and venison with
- 2:23:31Speaker 2: a gold spoon, as a good many of them do.
- 2:23:34Speaker 2: Mister Bounderby always represented this to be the sole immediate
- 2:23:37Speaker 2: and direct object of any hand who was not entirely satisfied.
- 2:23:42Speaker 2: And therefore I know already that you have not come
- 2:23:44Speaker 2: here to make a complaint. Now you know, I am
- 2:23:47Speaker 2: certain of that beforehand. No, sir, sure I have no
- 2:23:51Speaker 2: comfort now to the kind Mister Bounderby seemed agreeably surprised,
- 2:23:55Speaker 2: notwithstanding his previous strong conviction. Very well, he returned, you're
- 2:24:00Speaker 2: a steady hand, and I was not mistaken. Now let
- 2:24:03Speaker 2: me hear what it's all about. As it's not that,
- 2:24:04Speaker 2: let me hear what it is. What have you got
- 2:24:06Speaker 2: to say out with it? Lad Stephen happened to glance
- 2:24:09Speaker 2: towards missus Sparsit. I can go, mister Bounderby, if you
- 2:24:13Speaker 2: wish it said that self sacrificing lady, making a feint
- 2:24:17Speaker 2: of taking her foot out of the stirrup, Mister bounderby
- 2:24:20Speaker 2: stayed her by holding a mouthful of chop in suspension
- 2:24:23Speaker 2: before swallowing it and putting out his left hand. Then
- 2:24:27Speaker 2: withdrawing his hand and swallowing his mouthful of chop, he
- 2:24:30Speaker 2: said to Stephen, now you know this good lady is
- 2:24:33Speaker 2: a born lady, a high lady. You are not to suppose,
- 2:24:36Speaker 2: because she keeps my house for me, that she hasn't
- 2:24:38Speaker 2: been very high up the tree, ah, up at the
- 2:24:40Speaker 2: top of the tree. Now, if you've got anything to
- 2:24:43Speaker 2: say that can't be said before a bonn lady, this
- 2:24:45Speaker 2: lady will leave the room. If what you have got
- 2:24:47Speaker 2: to say can be said before a bonn lady, this
- 2:24:50Speaker 2: lady will stay where she is. Sir, I hope I
- 2:24:53Speaker 2: never had naught to say, not fittin for a born
- 2:24:55Speaker 2: lady to year seein I were born. My sin was
- 2:24:58Speaker 2: the reply, accompanied with a slight flush. Very well, said
- 2:25:03Speaker 2: mister bounderby pushing away his plate and leaning back fire
- 2:25:06Speaker 2: away I have come, Stephen began, raising his eyes from
- 2:25:11Speaker 2: the floor. After a moment's consideration, to ask you your advice.
- 2:25:16Speaker 2: I need it or much. I were married on Easter Monday,
- 2:25:19Speaker 2: nineteen years sin long injury. She were a young lass,
- 2:25:23Speaker 2: prettier now with good accounts of her son. Well. She
- 2:25:26Speaker 2: went bad soon. No longer me gor knows I were
- 2:25:30Speaker 2: not non kind husband to her. I have heard all
- 2:25:33Speaker 2: this before, said mister Bounderby. She tuck to drinking, left
- 2:25:36Speaker 2: off working, sold the furniture upon the clothes, and played
- 2:25:39Speaker 2: old gooseberry. I were patient, weir. The more fool you,
- 2:25:44Speaker 2: I think, said mister Bounderby, in confidence to his wine glass.
- 2:25:48Speaker 2: Our very patient weir. I tried to wean her front
- 2:25:51Speaker 2: or and oar again. I tried this, I tried that,
- 2:25:54Speaker 2: I tried the other. I have gone home many as
- 2:25:56Speaker 2: the time, and found all vanished as I had in
- 2:25:58Speaker 2: the world, and her without a sense left to bless her,
- 2:26:01Speaker 2: sound lying on bare ground. I had done it, not once,
- 2:26:05Speaker 2: not twice, twenty time. Every line in his face deepened
- 2:26:09Speaker 2: as he said it, and put in its affecting evidence
- 2:26:11Speaker 2: of the suffering he had undergone, from bad to worse,
- 2:26:15Speaker 2: from worse to worsen. She left me, She disgraced hersel
- 2:26:19Speaker 2: every ways bitter and bad. She come back. She come back,
- 2:26:22Speaker 2: she come back. What could I do to hinder her?
- 2:26:25Speaker 2: I awoke the streets nights long ere ever i'd go home.
- 2:26:28Speaker 2: I had gone to the brig minded to fling my
- 2:26:31Speaker 2: sail nor and have no more. Aunt. I a bore
- 2:26:33Speaker 2: that much that I were old when I were young.
- 2:26:37Speaker 2: Missus sparsit easily, ambling along with her netting needles, raised
- 2:26:40Speaker 2: the Coriolanian eyebrows, and shook her head as much as
- 2:26:44Speaker 2: to say the great, no trouble, as well as the small,
- 2:26:47Speaker 2: Please to turn your humble eye in my direction. I
- 2:26:51Speaker 2: have paid her to keep away from me. These five
- 2:26:54Speaker 2: year I have paid her. I ha gotten decent futuls
- 2:26:57Speaker 2: about me again. I had lived hard and sad, but
- 2:26:59Speaker 2: not a ashamed and fearful of the minutes of my life.
- 2:27:03Speaker 2: Last night I went home. There she lay upon my heartstone.
- 2:27:07Speaker 2: There she is in the strength of his misfortune and
- 2:27:11Speaker 2: the energy of his distress. He fired for the moment
- 2:27:14Speaker 2: like a proud man. In another moment, he stood as
- 2:27:16Speaker 2: he had stood all the time, his usual stoop upon him,
- 2:27:20Speaker 2: his pondering face addressed to mister Bounderby, with a curious
- 2:27:23Speaker 2: expression on it, half shrewd, half perplexed, as if his
- 2:27:27Speaker 2: mind were set upon unraveling something very difficult. His hat
- 2:27:31Speaker 2: held tight in his left hand, which rested on his hip,
- 2:27:34Speaker 2: his right arm with a rugged propriety and force of action,
- 2:27:37Speaker 2: very earnestly emphasizing what he said, not least so when
- 2:27:41Speaker 2: it always paused a little bent, but not withdrawn as
- 2:27:44Speaker 2: he paused. I was acquainted with all this, you know,
- 2:27:48Speaker 2: said mister Bounderby, except the last clause long ago. It's
- 2:27:51Speaker 2: a bad job, that's what it is. You had better
- 2:27:54Speaker 2: have been satisfied as you were and not have got married. However,
- 2:27:57Speaker 2: it is too late to say that. Was it an
- 2:28:00Speaker 2: unequal marriage? Sir? In point of years? Asked missus sparsit.
- 2:28:05Speaker 2: You hear what this lady asks? Was it an unequal marriage?
- 2:28:08Speaker 2: In point of years? This unlucky job of yours, said
- 2:28:11Speaker 2: mister Bounderby, Not even so I were one in twenty
- 2:28:14Speaker 2: mysel she were twenty nine. But indeed, sir, said missus
- 2:28:19Speaker 2: sparsit to her chief with great placidity, I inferred from
- 2:28:23Speaker 2: its being so miserable a marriage, that it was probably
- 2:28:25Speaker 2: an unequal one in point of years. Mister Bounderby looked
- 2:28:30Speaker 2: very hard at the good lady in a sidelong way
- 2:28:32Speaker 2: that had an odd sheepishness about it. He fortified himself
- 2:28:35Speaker 2: with a little more sherry. Well, why don't you go on?
- 2:28:39Speaker 2: He then asked, turning rather irritably on Stephen Blackpool. I
- 2:28:43Speaker 2: come to ask you, sir, how I am to be
- 2:28:45Speaker 2: riddy to this woman. Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity
- 2:28:49Speaker 2: into the mixed expression of his attentive face. Missus sparsit
- 2:28:53Speaker 2: uttered a gentle ejaculation, as having received a moral shock.
- 2:28:58Speaker 2: What do you mean, said bounderby up to lean his
- 2:29:00Speaker 2: back against the chimney piece. What are you talking about?
- 2:29:04Speaker 2: You took it for better or for worse? I must
- 2:29:06Speaker 2: be written on her. I cannot bart no more. I
- 2:29:09Speaker 2: lived under it so long for that I hadn't the
- 2:29:12Speaker 2: pity and comforting words of the best, last living or dead.
- 2:29:15Speaker 2: Happily before her, I should have gone battering mad. He
- 2:29:19Speaker 2: wishes to be free to marry the female of whom
- 2:29:21Speaker 2: he speaks, I fear, sir, observed Missus sparsit in an undertone,
- 2:29:26Speaker 2: and much dejected by the immorality of the people I do.
- 2:29:30Speaker 2: The lady says, what's right I do? I were a
- 2:29:33Speaker 2: common to it. I have ready the papers the great
- 2:29:36Speaker 2: folk far for all I wishes them no hurt. Are
- 2:29:39Speaker 2: not bonded together for better for worse. So fast, but
- 2:29:43Speaker 2: that they can be set free for their misfortunate marriages,
- 2:29:45Speaker 2: and marry o'er again when they dunnot agree, for that
- 2:29:49Speaker 2: their tempers is ill sorted. They has rooms of one
- 2:29:51Speaker 2: kind an another in their houses above a bit, and
- 2:29:54Speaker 2: they can live asunders. We folk are only one room,
- 2:29:57Speaker 2: an we can't. When that won't do, they got another cash,
- 2:30:01Speaker 2: and they can say this for you or not for me,
- 2:30:03Speaker 2: and they can go their separate ways. We can't. Spite
- 2:30:07Speaker 2: of all that they can be set free for smaller
- 2:30:09Speaker 2: wrongs than mine. So I won't be ridden of this woman.
- 2:30:12Speaker 2: And I want to know how no how returned mister Bounderby.
- 2:30:17Speaker 2: If I do her any hurts, sir, there's a lad
- 2:30:19Speaker 2: to punish me, of course there is. If I flee
- 2:30:22Speaker 2: from her, there's a law to punish me, of course
- 2:30:25Speaker 2: there is. If I'm married to them, dear last, there's
- 2:30:28Speaker 2: a law to punish me. Of course there is if
- 2:30:31Speaker 2: I was to live withr and not marry her, saying
- 2:30:33Speaker 2: such a thing could be, which it never could or
- 2:30:36Speaker 2: would in her so good. There's a lad to punish
- 2:30:38Speaker 2: me and every innocent child belonging to me. Of course
- 2:30:42Speaker 2: there is now God's name, said Stephen Blackpool. Show me
- 2:30:46Speaker 2: the load to help me. There's a sanctity in this
- 2:30:52Speaker 2: relation of life, said mister Bounderby. And and they must
- 2:30:55Speaker 2: be kept up. No, no, do not say that, sir.
- 2:31:00Speaker 2: That way, not that way tis kept down that way.
- 2:31:03Speaker 2: I'm a weaver. I weren't a factory when a child,
- 2:31:06Speaker 2: but a You got nine to see we and earn
- 2:31:08Speaker 2: to hear we. I read in the papers every size
- 2:31:11Speaker 2: is every sessions, and you read too. I know it
- 2:31:14Speaker 2: with dismay. How the supposed unpossibility o ever gettin unchained
- 2:31:18Speaker 2: from one another at any price, on any terms, brings
- 2:31:21Speaker 2: blood upon this land, and brings many common married folks
- 2:31:24Speaker 2: to battle, murder and sudden death. Let us have this
- 2:31:27Speaker 2: right understood. Mine's a grievous case, and I won't if
- 2:31:30Speaker 2: you will be so good to know the law that
- 2:31:32Speaker 2: helps me. I tell you what, said mister Bounderby, putting
- 2:31:37Speaker 2: his hands in his pockets. There is such a law. Stephen,
- 2:31:41Speaker 2: subsiding into his quiet manner and never wandering in his attention,
- 2:31:45Speaker 2: gave a nod, But it's not for you at all.
- 2:31:48Speaker 2: It costs money. It costs a mint of money. How
- 2:31:51Speaker 2: much might that be? Stephen calmly asked, why you'd have
- 2:31:55Speaker 2: to go to a doctor's commons with a suit, and
- 2:31:57Speaker 2: you'd have to go to a court of common law
- 2:31:59Speaker 2: with a suit, and you'd have to go to the
- 2:32:00Speaker 2: House of Lords with a suit, and you'd have to
- 2:32:02Speaker 2: get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again.
- 2:32:05Speaker 2: And it would cost you if it was a case
- 2:32:07Speaker 2: of very plain sailing. I suppose from a thousand to
- 2:32:09Speaker 2: fifteen hundred pound, said mister Bounderby, perhaps twice the money.
- 2:32:14Speaker 2: There's no other law, certainly not, Why then, sir, said Stephen,
- 2:32:20Speaker 2: turning white and motioning with that right hand of his
- 2:32:22Speaker 2: as if he gave everything to the four winds. Tis
- 2:32:25Speaker 2: a muddle, Tis just a muddle altogether, And the sooner
- 2:32:29Speaker 2: I'm dead, the bitter missus sparsit again, dejected by the
- 2:32:33Speaker 2: impiety of the people. Pooh, pooh, don't you talk nonsense,
- 2:32:37Speaker 2: my good fellow, said mister Bounderby, about things you don't understand.
- 2:32:40Speaker 2: And don't you call the institutions of your country a muddle,
- 2:32:43Speaker 2: or you'll get yourself into a real muddel one of
- 2:32:45Speaker 2: these fine mornings. The institutions of your country are not
- 2:32:48Speaker 2: your piece work, and the only thing you have got
- 2:32:50Speaker 2: to do is to mind your piece work. You didn't
- 2:32:52Speaker 2: take your wife for fast and for loose, but for
- 2:32:54Speaker 2: better and for worse. If she has turned out worse,
- 2:32:57Speaker 2: why all we've got to say is you might have
- 2:32:59Speaker 2: turned out better. Tis a muddle, said Stephen, shaking his
- 2:33:03Speaker 2: head as he moved to the door. Tis all a muddle.
- 2:33:07Speaker 2: Now tell you what, mister Bounderby resumed as a valedictory address,
- 2:33:12Speaker 2: with what I shall call your unhallowed opinions. You have
- 2:33:14Speaker 2: been quite shocking to this lady, who, as I have
- 2:33:17Speaker 2: already told you, as a born lady, and who, as
- 2:33:19Speaker 2: I have not already told you, has had her own
- 2:33:21Speaker 2: marriage misfortunes to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds.
- 2:33:25Speaker 2: Tens of thousands of pounds, he repeated it with great relish.
- 2:33:30Speaker 2: Now you have always been a steady hand hitherto. But
- 2:33:32Speaker 2: my opinion is, and so I tell you plainly, that
- 2:33:35Speaker 2: you are turning into the wrong road. You have been
- 2:33:37Speaker 2: listening to some mischievous stranger or other. They are always about,
- 2:33:40Speaker 2: and the best thing you can do is to come
- 2:33:42Speaker 2: out of that. Now you know here his countenance expressed
- 2:33:46Speaker 2: marvelous acuteness. I can see as far into a grindstone
- 2:33:49Speaker 2: as another man, farther than a good many, perhaps because
- 2:33:52Speaker 2: I had my nose well kept to it when I
- 2:33:54Speaker 2: was young. I see traces of the turtle, soup and
- 2:33:57Speaker 2: venison and gold spoon in this. Yes, I do, cried
- 2:34:00Speaker 2: mister bounderby shaking his head with obstinate cunning. By the
- 2:34:03Speaker 2: Lord Harry, I do. With a very different shake of
- 2:34:07Speaker 2: his head and deep sigh, Stephen said, thank you, sir,
- 2:34:11Speaker 2: I wish you good day. So he left mister bounderby
- 2:34:14Speaker 2: swelling at his own portrait on the wall as if
- 2:34:16Speaker 2: he were going to explode himself into it. And Missus sparsit,
- 2:34:20Speaker 2: still ambling on with her foot in her stirrup, looking
- 2:34:23Speaker 2: quite cast down. By the popular vices. Chapter thirteen, the
- 2:34:29Speaker 2: old woman Old Stephen descended the two white steps, shutting
- 2:34:34Speaker 2: the black door with the brazen door plait by the
- 2:34:36Speaker 2: aid of the brazen full stop, to which he gave
- 2:34:39Speaker 2: a parting polish with the sleeve of his coat, observing
- 2:34:42Speaker 2: that his hot hand clouded it. He crossed the street
- 2:34:45Speaker 2: with his eyes bent upon the ground, and thus was
- 2:34:47Speaker 2: walking sorrowfully away when he felt a touch upon his arm.
- 2:34:51Speaker 2: It was not the touch he needed most at such
- 2:34:53Speaker 2: a moment, the touch that could calm the wild waters
- 2:34:56Speaker 2: of his soul, as the uplifted hand of the sublimest
- 2:34:58Speaker 2: love and patience could bait the raging of the sea.
- 2:35:02Speaker 2: Yet it was a woman's hand too. It was an
- 2:35:04Speaker 2: old woman, tall and shapely, still, though withered by time,
- 2:35:08Speaker 2: on whom his eyes fell when he stopped and turned.
- 2:35:11Speaker 2: She was very cleanly and plainly dressed, had country mud
- 2:35:14Speaker 2: upon her shoes, and was newly come from a journey.
- 2:35:17Speaker 2: The flutter of her manner in the unwonted noise of
- 2:35:20Speaker 2: the streets, the spare shawl carried unfolded on her arm,
- 2:35:23Speaker 2: the heavy umbrella and little basket, the loose, long fingered
- 2:35:27Speaker 2: gloves to which her hands were unused, all bespoke an
- 2:35:30Speaker 2: old woman from the country, in her plain holiday clothes,
- 2:35:33Speaker 2: come into Coketown on an expedition of rare occurrence. Remarking
- 2:35:37Speaker 2: this at a glance with the quick observation of his class,
- 2:35:40Speaker 2: Stephen Blackpool bent his attentive face his face, which, like
- 2:35:44Speaker 2: the faces of many of his order, by dint of
- 2:35:46Speaker 2: long working with eyes and hands in the midst of
- 2:35:48Speaker 2: a prodigious noise, had acquired the concentrated look with which
- 2:35:52Speaker 2: we are familiar in the countenances of the deaf. The
- 2:35:55Speaker 2: better to hear what she asked him, praise, said the
- 2:35:59Speaker 2: old woman. Didn't I see you come out of that
- 2:36:01Speaker 2: gentleman's house, pointing back to mister Bounderby's I believe it
- 2:36:05Speaker 2: was you, unless I have had the bad luck to
- 2:36:07Speaker 2: mistake the person in following. Yes, Missus, returned Stephen, it
- 2:36:11Speaker 2: were me, Have you you'll excuse an old woman's curiosity? Have
- 2:36:16Speaker 2: you seen the gentleman? Yes, missus, And how did he look? Sir?
- 2:36:21Speaker 2: Was he portly? Bold, outspoken and haughty? As she straightened
- 2:36:25Speaker 2: her own figure and held up her head in adapting
- 2:36:27Speaker 2: her action to her words, the idea crossed Stephen that
- 2:36:30Speaker 2: he had seen this old woman before and had not
- 2:36:32Speaker 2: quite liked her. Oh, yes, he returned, observing her more attentively.
- 2:36:38Speaker 2: Here were all that and healthy, said the old woman
- 2:36:41Speaker 2: as the fresh wind. Yes, returned Stephen. He were eating
- 2:36:46Speaker 2: and drinkin as large and as loud as a homobe.
- 2:36:50Speaker 2: Thank you, said the old woman with infinite contempt. Thank you.
- 2:36:54Speaker 2: He certainly never had seen this old woman before, yet
- 2:36:58Speaker 2: there was a vague remembrance in his mind, as if
- 2:37:00Speaker 2: he had more than once dreamed of some old woman
- 2:37:03Speaker 2: like her. She walked along at his side, and gently
- 2:37:07Speaker 2: accommodating himself to her humor, He said, Coketown was a
- 2:37:09Speaker 2: busy place, was it not, to which she answered, aye, sure,
- 2:37:13Speaker 2: dreadful busy. Then he said she came from the country
- 2:37:17Speaker 2: he saw, to which she answered in the affirmative, by
- 2:37:20Speaker 2: parliamentary this morning. I came forty mile by parliamentary this morning,
- 2:37:24Speaker 2: and I'm going back the same forty mile this afternoon.
- 2:37:27Speaker 2: I walked nine mile to the station this morning, and
- 2:37:30Speaker 2: if I find nobody on the road to give me
- 2:37:31Speaker 2: a lift, I shall walk the nine mile back to night.
- 2:37:34Speaker 2: That's pretty well, sir, at my age, said the chatty
- 2:37:37Speaker 2: old woman, her eye brightening with exultation. Deed, tis don't
- 2:37:41Speaker 2: do it too often, missus. No, no, once a year,
- 2:37:44Speaker 2: she answered, shaking her head. I spend my savings so
- 2:37:47Speaker 2: once every year I come regular to tramp about the
- 2:37:50Speaker 2: streets and see the gentleman, only to see him, returned Stephen.
- 2:37:55Speaker 2: That's enough for me, she replied, with great earnestness and
- 2:37:58Speaker 2: interest of manner. I ask no more. I've been standing
- 2:38:01Speaker 2: about on this side of the way to see that gentleman,
- 2:38:04Speaker 2: turning her head back towards mister Bounderby's again come out.
- 2:38:07Speaker 2: But he's late this year, and I've not seen him.
- 2:38:10Speaker 2: You came out instead. Now, if I am obliged to
- 2:38:12Speaker 2: go back without a glimpse of him, I only want
- 2:38:14Speaker 2: a glimpse. Well, i've seen you, and you have seen him,
- 2:38:18Speaker 2: and I must make that do. Saying this, she looked
- 2:38:22Speaker 2: at Stephen as if to fix his features in her mind,
- 2:38:24Speaker 2: and her eye was not so bright as it had
- 2:38:26Speaker 2: been with a large allowance for difference of tastes, and
- 2:38:30Speaker 2: with all submission to the patricians of Coketown. This seemed
- 2:38:33Speaker 2: so extraordinary a source of interest to take so much
- 2:38:36Speaker 2: trouble about that it perplexed him. But they were passing
- 2:38:39Speaker 2: the church now, and as his eye caught the clock,
- 2:38:42Speaker 2: he quickened his pace. He was going to work, the
- 2:38:45Speaker 2: old woman said, quickening hers too quite easily. Yes, time
- 2:38:48Speaker 2: was nearly out. On his telling her where he worked,
- 2:38:51Speaker 2: the old woman became a more singular old woman than before.
- 2:38:55Speaker 2: Aren't you happy? She asked him, why there's almost no
- 2:39:00Speaker 2: body but has their troubles? Missus, he answered evasively, because
- 2:39:03Speaker 2: the old woman appeared to take it for granted that
- 2:39:05Speaker 2: he would be very happy indeed, and he had not
- 2:39:07Speaker 2: the heart to disappoint her. He knew that there was
- 2:39:10Speaker 2: trouble enough in the world. And if the old woman
- 2:39:12Speaker 2: had lived so long and could count upon his having
- 2:39:15Speaker 2: so little, why so much the better for her, and
- 2:39:17Speaker 2: none the worse for him. Aye, Aye, you have your
- 2:39:21Speaker 2: troubles at home, you mean, she said times just now,
- 2:39:25Speaker 2: And then he answered slightly, but working under such a gentleman,
- 2:39:29Speaker 2: they don't follow you to the factory. No, no, they
- 2:39:32Speaker 2: didn't follow him there, said Stephen. All correct, there, everything
- 2:39:35Speaker 2: accordant there. He did not go so far as to say,
- 2:39:38Speaker 2: for her pleasure that there was a sort of divine
- 2:39:40Speaker 2: right there. But I have heard claims almost as magnificent
- 2:39:44Speaker 2: of late years. They were now in the back by
- 2:39:47Speaker 2: road near the place, and the hands were crowding in,
- 2:39:50Speaker 2: the bell was ringing, and the serpent was a serpent
- 2:39:52Speaker 2: of many coils, and the elephant was getting ready. The
- 2:39:55Speaker 2: strange old woman was delighted with the very bell. It
- 2:39:58Speaker 2: was the beautifulest bell she had ever heard, she said,
- 2:40:01Speaker 2: and sounded grand. She asked him, when he stopped good
- 2:40:04Speaker 2: naturedly to shake hands with her before going in. How
- 2:40:07Speaker 2: long he had worked there? A dozen year? He told her,
- 2:40:12Speaker 2: I must kiss the hand, said she that has worked
- 2:40:14Speaker 2: in this fine factory for a dozen years, And she
- 2:40:17Speaker 2: lifted it, though he would have prevented her and put
- 2:40:20Speaker 2: it to her lips. What harmony, besides her age and
- 2:40:23Speaker 2: her simplicity surrounded her, he did not know. But even
- 2:40:26Speaker 2: in this fantastic action, there was a something neither out
- 2:40:29Speaker 2: of time nor place, a something which it seemed as
- 2:40:32Speaker 2: if nobody else could have made as serious or done
- 2:40:34Speaker 2: with such a natural and touching air. He had been
- 2:40:38Speaker 2: at his loom full half an hour thinking about this
- 2:40:41Speaker 2: old woman. When having occasion to move round the loom
- 2:40:44Speaker 2: for its adjustment, he glanced through a window which was
- 2:40:46Speaker 2: in his corner, and saw her still looking up at
- 2:40:49Speaker 2: the pile of building, lost in admiration, heedless of the
- 2:40:53Speaker 2: smoke and mud and wet, and of her too long journey.
- 2:40:56Speaker 2: She was gazing at it as if the heavy thrum
- 2:40:58Speaker 2: that issued from its many stories were proud music to her.
- 2:41:02Speaker 2: She was gone by and by, and the day went
- 2:41:05Speaker 2: after her, and the lights sprung up again, and the
- 2:41:07Speaker 2: express whirled in full sight of the fairy palace over
- 2:41:10Speaker 2: the arches near little Felt, amid the jarring of the machinery,
- 2:41:14Speaker 2: and scarcely heard above its crash and rattle. Long before then,
- 2:41:18Speaker 2: his thoughts had gone back to the dreary room above
- 2:41:20Speaker 2: the little shop, and to the shameful figure heavy on
- 2:41:23Speaker 2: the bed, but heavier on his heart. Machinery slackened, throbbing
- 2:41:27Speaker 2: feebly like a fainting pulse, stopped the bell again. The
- 2:41:31Speaker 2: glare of light and heat dispelled the factories looming heavy
- 2:41:35Speaker 2: in the black wet night, their tall chimneys rising up
- 2:41:38Speaker 2: into the air like competing towers of Babel. He had
- 2:41:42Speaker 2: spoken to Rachel lonely last night, it was true, and
- 2:41:45Speaker 2: had walked with her a little way. But he had
- 2:41:47Speaker 2: his new misfortune on him, in which no one else
- 2:41:49Speaker 2: could give him a moment's relief. And for the sake
- 2:41:52Speaker 2: of it, and because he knew himself to want that
- 2:41:54Speaker 2: softening of his anger, which no voice but hers could effect,
- 2:41:57Speaker 2: he felt he might so far disregard what she had
- 2:41:59Speaker 2: said as to wait for her again. He waited, but
- 2:42:02Speaker 2: she had eluded him. She was gone. On no other
- 2:42:06Speaker 2: night in the year could he so ill have spared
- 2:42:08Speaker 2: her patient face. Oh, better to have no home in
- 2:42:12Speaker 2: which to lay his head than to have a home,
- 2:42:14Speaker 2: and dread to go to it. Through such a cause.
- 2:42:17Speaker 2: He ate and drank, for he was exhausted, but he
- 2:42:19Speaker 2: little knew or cared what, And he wandered about in
- 2:42:22Speaker 2: the chill rain, thinking and thinking, and brooding and brooding.
- 2:42:27Speaker 2: No word of a new marriage had ever passed between them,
- 2:42:30Speaker 2: but Rachel had taken great pity on him years ago,
- 2:42:33Speaker 2: and to her alone he had opened his closed heart
- 2:42:35Speaker 2: all this time on the subject of his miseries, and
- 2:42:38Speaker 2: he knew very well that if he were free to
- 2:42:40Speaker 2: ask her, she would take him. He thought of the
- 2:42:43Speaker 2: home he might at that moment have been seeking with
- 2:42:45Speaker 2: pleasure and pride, of the different man he might have
- 2:42:48Speaker 2: been that night, of the lightness, then in his now
- 2:42:50Speaker 2: heavy laden breast, of the then restored honor, self respect,
- 2:42:54Speaker 2: and tranquility, all torn to pieces. He thought of the
- 2:42:58Speaker 2: waste of the best part of his life, of the
- 2:43:01Speaker 2: change it made in his character, for the worst every
- 2:43:03Speaker 2: day of the dreadful nature of his existence, Bound hand
- 2:43:07Speaker 2: and foot to a dead woman, and tormented by a
- 2:43:09Speaker 2: demon in her shape. He thought of Rachel, how young
- 2:43:13Speaker 2: when they were first brought together in these circumstances, How
- 2:43:16Speaker 2: mature now, how soon to grow old? He thought of
- 2:43:19Speaker 2: the number of girls and women she had seen, Mary,
- 2:43:22Speaker 2: how many homes with children in them she had seen
- 2:43:24Speaker 2: grow up around her, how she had contentedly pursued her
- 2:43:28Speaker 2: own lone quiet path for him, And how he had
- 2:43:31Speaker 2: sometimes seen a shade of melancholy on her blessed face
- 2:43:35Speaker 2: that smote him with remorse and despair. He set the
- 2:43:38Speaker 2: picture of her up beside the infamous image of last night,
- 2:43:41Speaker 2: and thought, could it be that the whole earthly course
- 2:43:45Speaker 2: of one so gentle, good and self denying was subjectate
- 2:43:48Speaker 2: to such a wretch as that? Filled with these thoughts,
- 2:43:52Speaker 2: so filled that he had an unwholesome sense of growing larger,
- 2:43:55Speaker 2: of being placed in some new and diseased relation towards
- 2:43:58Speaker 2: the objects among which passed, of seeing the iris round
- 2:44:02Speaker 2: every misty light turn red. He went home for shelter.
- 2:44:08Speaker 2: End of Section.
- 2:44:09Speaker 4: Six, Chapter thirteen.
- 2:44:12Speaker 6: Rachel.
- 2:44:15Speaker 4: A candle faintly burned in the window to which the
- 2:44:18Speaker 4: black ladder had often been raised, for the sliding away
- 2:44:22Speaker 4: of all that was most precious in this world to
- 2:44:25Speaker 4: a striving wife and a brood of hungry babies. And
- 2:44:29Speaker 4: Stephen added to his other thoughts the stern reflection that
- 2:44:33Speaker 4: of all the casualties of his existence upon earth, not
- 2:44:37Speaker 4: one was dealt out with so unequal a hand as death.
- 2:44:43Speaker 4: The inequality of birth was nothing to it. For say
- 2:44:47Speaker 4: that the child of a king and the child of
- 2:44:49Speaker 4: a weaver were born tonight in the same moment, What
- 2:44:53Speaker 4: was that disparity to the death of any human creature
- 2:44:57Speaker 4: who was serviceable to or below by another. While this
- 2:45:02Speaker 4: abandoned woman lived on From the outside of his house,
- 2:45:08Speaker 4: he gloomily passed to the inside with suspended breath, and
- 2:45:12Speaker 4: with a slow footstep he went up to his door,
- 2:45:16Speaker 4: opened it, and so into the room. Quiet and peace
- 2:45:21Speaker 4: were there. Rachel was there, sitting by the bed. She
- 2:45:25Speaker 4: turned her head, and the light of her face shone
- 2:45:28Speaker 4: in upon the midnight of his mind. She sat by
- 2:45:32Speaker 4: the bed, watching and tending his wife. That is to say,
- 2:45:36Speaker 4: he saw that someone lay there, and he knew too
- 2:45:39Speaker 4: well it must be she. But Rachel's hands had put
- 2:45:43Speaker 4: a curtain up so that she was screened from his eyes.
- 2:45:47Speaker 4: Her disgraceful garments were removed, and some of Rachel's were
- 2:45:51Speaker 4: in the room. Everything was in its place and order,
- 2:45:55Speaker 4: as he had always kept it. The little fire was
- 2:45:58Speaker 4: newly trimmed, and the hearth was freshly swept. It appeared
- 2:46:03Speaker 4: to him that he saw all this in Rachel's face
- 2:46:07Speaker 4: and looked at nothing besides while looking at it, it
- 2:46:11Speaker 4: was shut out from his view by the softened tears
- 2:46:14Speaker 4: that filled his eyes. But not before he had seen
- 2:46:17Speaker 4: how earnestly she looked at him, and how her own
- 2:46:21Speaker 4: eyes were filled too. She turned again towards the bed, and,
- 2:46:26Speaker 4: satisfying herself that all was quiet there, spoke in a low, calm,
- 2:46:31Speaker 4: cheerful voice, I'm glad you have come at last, Stephen.
- 2:46:36Speaker 4: You are very late. I have been walken up and down.
- 2:46:41Speaker 6: I thought so.
- 2:46:43Speaker 4: But tis too bad a night for that. The rainfalls
- 2:46:46Speaker 4: very heavy, and the wind has risen. The wind, true,
- 2:46:51Speaker 4: it was blowing hard. Hark to the thunder and the
- 2:46:55Speaker 4: chimney and the surgeon noise. To have been out in
- 2:46:59Speaker 4: such a wind, not to have known it was blown.
- 2:47:02Speaker 4: I have been here once before to day Stephan. Landlady
- 2:47:06Speaker 4: came round for me at dinner time. There was someone
- 2:47:09Speaker 4: here that needed look into, she said. Indeed she was right,
- 2:47:14Speaker 4: all wandering and lost. Stephan wounded too and bruised. He
- 2:47:20Speaker 4: slowly moved to a chair and sat down, drooping his
- 2:47:24Speaker 4: head before her. I came to do what little I could.
- 2:47:28Speaker 6: Stephan.
- 2:47:29Speaker 4: First, for that she worked with me when we were
- 2:47:32Speaker 4: girls both, and for that you courted her and married
- 2:47:36Speaker 4: her when I was her friend. He laid his furrowed
- 2:47:39Speaker 4: forehead on his hand with a low groan. And next,
- 2:47:44Speaker 4: for that I know your heart, and am right sure
- 2:47:46Speaker 4: and certain that tis far too merciful to let her
- 2:47:50Speaker 4: die or even so much as suffer for want of aid.
- 2:47:54Speaker 4: Thou knowest who said, let him who is without sin
- 2:47:58Speaker 4: amongst you the first stone at her. There have been
- 2:48:03Speaker 4: plenty to do that. Thou art not a man to
- 2:48:06Speaker 4: cast the last stone Stephan, when she is brought so low, Oh, Rachel, Rachel,
- 2:48:14Speaker 4: thou hast been a cruel sufferer. Heaven reward thee. She said,
- 2:48:17Speaker 4: in compassionate accents. I am thy poor friend with all
- 2:48:22Speaker 4: my heart and mine. The wounds of which she had
- 2:48:26Speaker 4: spoken seemed to be about the neck, of the self
- 2:48:29Speaker 4: made outcast. She dressed them now still without showing her
- 2:48:34Speaker 4: she steeped a piece of linen in a basin, into
- 2:48:37Speaker 4: which she poured some liquid from a bottle, and laid
- 2:48:40Speaker 4: it with a gentle hand upon the sore. The three
- 2:48:43Speaker 4: legged table had been drawn close to the bedside, and
- 2:48:47Speaker 4: on it there were two bottles. This was one. It
- 2:48:52Speaker 4: was not so far off, but that Stephen, following her
- 2:48:55Speaker 4: hands with his eyes, could read what was printed on
- 2:48:59Speaker 4: it in large letters. He turned of a deadly hue,
- 2:49:03Speaker 4: and a sudden horror seemed to fall upon him. I
- 2:49:07Speaker 4: will stay here, Stephan, said Rachel, quietly, resuming her seat,
- 2:49:11Speaker 4: till the bells go three. Tis to be done again
- 2:49:16Speaker 4: at three, and then she may be left till morning.
- 2:49:20Speaker 4: But thy rest again Tomorrow's work, my dear, I slept
- 2:49:25Speaker 4: sound last night. I can wake many nights when I
- 2:49:29Speaker 4: am put to it. Tis thou who art in need
- 2:49:32Speaker 4: of rest, so white and tired, try to sleep in
- 2:49:36Speaker 4: the chair there while I watch. Thou hadst no sleep
- 2:49:39Speaker 4: last night. I can well believe tomorrow's work is far
- 2:49:43Speaker 4: harder for thee than for me. He heard the thundering
- 2:49:47Speaker 4: and surging out of doors, and it seemed to him
- 2:49:51Speaker 4: as if his late angry mood were going about trying
- 2:49:54Speaker 4: to get at him. She had cast it out, she
- 2:49:57Speaker 4: would keep it out. He trusted to her to defend
- 2:50:00Speaker 4: him from himself. She don't know me, Stefan. She just
- 2:50:06Speaker 4: drowsily mutters and stares. I've spoken to her at time
- 2:50:11Speaker 4: and again, but she don't notice tis well. So when
- 2:50:16Speaker 4: she comes to her right mind once more, I shall
- 2:50:19Speaker 4: have done what I can, and she never the wiser.
- 2:50:23Speaker 4: How long Rachel is looked for that she'll be so,
- 2:50:28Speaker 4: doctor said she would happily come to her mind tomorrow.
- 2:50:32Speaker 4: His eyes again fell on the bottle, and a tremble
- 2:50:35Speaker 4: passed over him, causing him to shiver in every limb.
- 2:50:39Speaker 4: She thought he was chilled with the wet. No, he said,
- 2:50:42Speaker 4: it was not that he'd had a fright, A fright, aye, aye,
- 2:50:48Speaker 4: coming in when I were walking, when I were thinking.
- 2:50:53Speaker 4: When it seized him again, and he stood up, holding
- 2:50:56Speaker 4: by the mantelshelf as he pressed his dank, cold haired
- 2:51:00Speaker 4: with a hand that shook as if it were palsied. Stephen.
- 2:51:05Speaker 4: She was coming to him, but he stretched out his
- 2:51:07Speaker 4: arm to stop her. No, don't, please, don't let me
- 2:51:12Speaker 4: see THEE sitting by the bed. Let me see THEE
- 2:51:15Speaker 4: are so good and so forgiven. Let me see THEE
- 2:51:18Speaker 4: as I see THEE when I come in. I can
- 2:51:22Speaker 4: never see THEE better than so, never, never, never. He
- 2:51:28Speaker 4: had a violent fit of trembling, and then sunk into
- 2:51:31Speaker 4: his chair. After a time he controlled himself, and resting
- 2:51:35Speaker 4: with an elbow on one knee and his head upon
- 2:51:38Speaker 4: that hand, he could look toward Rachel's seen across the
- 2:51:42Speaker 4: dim candle with his moistened eyes. She looked as if
- 2:51:46Speaker 4: she had a glory shining round her head. He could
- 2:51:50Speaker 4: have believed she had. He did believe it, as the
- 2:51:53Speaker 4: noise without shook the window, rattled at the door below,
- 2:51:57Speaker 4: and went about the house clamoring and lament. When she
- 2:52:01Speaker 4: gets better, Stephan, tis to be hoped she'll leave THEE
- 2:52:05Speaker 4: to thyself again and do THEE no more hurt. Anyways,
- 2:52:11Speaker 4: We will hope so now and now I shall keep silence,
- 2:52:15Speaker 4: for I want THEE to sleep. He closed his eyes,
- 2:52:20Speaker 4: more to please her than to rest his weary head.
- 2:52:23Speaker 4: But by slow degrees, as he listened to the great
- 2:52:27Speaker 4: noise of the wind, he ceased to hear it, or
- 2:52:30Speaker 4: it changed into the working of his loom, or even
- 2:52:34Speaker 4: into the voices of the day. His own included saying
- 2:52:38Speaker 4: what had been really said. Even this imperfect consciousness faded
- 2:52:43Speaker 4: away at last, and he dreamed, a long, troubled dream.
- 2:52:48Speaker 4: He thought that he and someone on whom his heart
- 2:52:51Speaker 4: had long been set, But she was not Rachel. That
- 2:52:55Speaker 4: surprised him, even in the midst of his imaginary happiness.
- 2:53:00Speaker 4: Good in the church being married, while the ceremony was performing,
- 2:53:05Speaker 4: and while he recognized among the witnesses some whom he
- 2:53:08Speaker 4: knew to be living and many of whom he knew
- 2:53:11Speaker 4: to be dead, darkness came on, succeeded by the shining
- 2:53:15Speaker 4: of a tremendous light. It broke from one line in
- 2:53:20Speaker 4: the table of commandments at the altar and illuminated the
- 2:53:24Speaker 4: building with the words. They were sounded through the church too,
- 2:53:28Speaker 4: as if they were voices in the fiery letters. Upon this,
- 2:53:32Speaker 4: the whole appearance before him and around him changed, and
- 2:53:36Speaker 4: nothing was left as it had been but himself and
- 2:53:39Speaker 4: the clergyman. They stood in the daylight before a crowd
- 2:53:43Speaker 4: so vast that if all the people in the world
- 2:53:46Speaker 4: could have been brought together into one space, they could
- 2:53:49Speaker 4: not have looked, he thought more numerous, and they all
- 2:53:53Speaker 4: abhorred him. And there was not one pitying or friendly
- 2:53:57Speaker 4: eye among the millions that were fastened on his face.
- 2:54:02Speaker 4: He stood on a raised stage under his own loom,
- 2:54:05Speaker 4: and looking up the shape the loom took, and hearing
- 2:54:09Speaker 4: the burial service distinctly read, he knew that he was
- 2:54:14Speaker 4: there to suffer death. In an instant, what he stood
- 2:54:17Speaker 4: on fell below him, and he was gone. Out of
- 2:54:22Speaker 4: what mystery. He came back to his usual life, to
- 2:54:26Speaker 4: places that he knew he was unable to consider. But
- 2:54:30Speaker 4: he was back in those places by some means, and
- 2:54:33Speaker 4: with this condemnation upon him, that he was never in
- 2:54:37Speaker 4: this world or the next, through all the unimaginable ages
- 2:54:41Speaker 4: of eternity, to look on Rachel's face or hear her voice,
- 2:54:46Speaker 4: wandering to and fro unceasingly without hope, and in search
- 2:54:50Speaker 4: of he knew not what he only knew that he
- 2:54:54Speaker 4: was doomed to seek it. He was the subject of
- 2:54:56Speaker 4: a nameless, horrible dread, a mortal fear of one particular shape,
- 2:55:02Speaker 4: which everything took, whatsoever he looked at, grew into that form.
- 2:55:07Speaker 4: Sooner or later the object of his miserable existence was
- 2:55:12Speaker 4: to prevent its recognition by anyone among the various people
- 2:55:16Speaker 4: he encountered hopeless labor if he led them out of
- 2:55:22Speaker 4: rooms where it was, if he shut up drawers and
- 2:55:25Speaker 4: closets where it stood, if he drew the curious from
- 2:55:29Speaker 4: places where he knew it would be secreted, and got
- 2:55:33Speaker 4: them out into the streets. The very chimneys of the
- 2:55:36Speaker 4: mills assumed that shape and round them was the printed word.
- 2:55:42Speaker 4: The wind was blowing again, the rain was beating on
- 2:55:45Speaker 4: the housetops, and the larger spaces through which he had
- 2:55:49Speaker 4: strayed contracted to the four walls of his room. Saving
- 2:55:55Speaker 4: that the fire had died out, it was as his
- 2:55:58Speaker 4: eyes had closed upon it. Rachel seemed to have fallen
- 2:56:02Speaker 4: into a doze in the chair by the bed. She sat,
- 2:56:05Speaker 4: wrapped in her shawl, perfectly still. The table stood in
- 2:56:09Speaker 4: the same place, close by the bedside, and on it,
- 2:56:13Speaker 4: in its real proportions and appearance, was a shape so
- 2:56:17Speaker 4: often repeated. He thought he saw the curtain move. He
- 2:56:22Speaker 4: looked again, and he was sure it moved. He saw
- 2:56:25Speaker 4: a hand come forth and grope about a little. Then
- 2:56:29Speaker 4: the curtain moved more perceptibly and the woman in the
- 2:56:33Speaker 4: bed put it back and sat up with her woeful eyes,
- 2:56:37Speaker 4: so haggard and wild, so heavy and large. She looked
- 2:56:41Speaker 4: all round the room and past the corner where he
- 2:56:44Speaker 4: slept in his chair. Her eyes returned to that corner,
- 2:56:48Speaker 4: and she put her hand over them as a shade
- 2:56:52Speaker 4: while she looked into it again. They went all round
- 2:56:55Speaker 4: the room, scarcely heeding Rachel if at all, and returned
- 2:56:58Speaker 4: to that corner. He thought, as she once more shaded them,
- 2:57:02Speaker 4: not so much looking at him as looking for him,
- 2:57:06Speaker 4: with a brutish instinct, that he was there, that no
- 2:57:10Speaker 4: single trace was left in those debauched features, or in
- 2:57:14Speaker 4: the mind that went along with them, of the woman
- 2:57:17Speaker 4: he had married eighteen years before, but that he had
- 2:57:21Speaker 4: seen her come to this by inches. He never could
- 2:57:24Speaker 4: have believed her to be the same. All this time,
- 2:57:29Speaker 4: as if a spell were on him, he was motionless
- 2:57:32Speaker 4: and powerless, except to watch her, stupidly dozing or communing
- 2:57:39Speaker 4: with her incapable self, but nothing. She sat for a
- 2:57:43Speaker 4: little while with her hands at her ears and her
- 2:57:45Speaker 4: head resting on them. Presently, she resumed her staring round
- 2:57:50Speaker 4: the room, and now for the first time, her eyes
- 2:57:53Speaker 4: stopped at the table with the bottles on it straightway.
- 2:57:58Speaker 4: She turned her eyes to his corner with the defiance
- 2:58:02Speaker 4: of last night, and moving very cautiously and softly, stretched
- 2:58:08Speaker 4: out her greedy hand. She drew a mug into the
- 2:58:11Speaker 4: bed and sat for a while considering which of the
- 2:58:15Speaker 4: two bottles she should choose. Finally, she laid her insensate
- 2:58:21Speaker 4: grasp upon the bottle that had swift and certain death
- 2:58:25Speaker 4: in it, and before his eyes, pulled out the cork
- 2:58:28Speaker 4: with her teeth. Dream or reality. He had no voice,
- 2:58:32Speaker 4: nor had he the power to stir. If this be
- 2:58:34Speaker 4: real and her allotted time be not yet come, Wake Rachel, Wake.
- 2:58:41Speaker 4: She thought of that too. She looked at Rachel and
- 2:58:43Speaker 4: very slowly, very cautiously, poured out the contents. The draft
- 2:58:50Speaker 4: was at her lips a moment and she would be
- 2:58:53Speaker 4: past all help. Let the whole world waken come about
- 2:58:57Speaker 4: her with its utmost power, And that moment, Rachel stirred
- 2:59:02Speaker 4: and started up with a suppressed cry. The creature struggled,
- 2:59:06Speaker 4: struck her, seized her by the hair, but Rachel had
- 2:59:09Speaker 4: the cup. Stephan broke out of his chair. Rachel, am
- 2:59:13Speaker 4: I waking or dreaming? This dreadful night. Tis all well, Stephan,
- 2:59:17Speaker 4: I have been asleep myself. Tis near three? Hush, I
- 2:59:22Speaker 4: hear the bells. The wind had brought the sounds of
- 2:59:26Speaker 4: the church clock to the window. They listened, and it
- 2:59:30Speaker 4: struck three. Stephan looked at her, saw how pale she was,
- 2:59:35Speaker 4: noted the disorder of her hair, and the red marks
- 2:59:38Speaker 4: of fingers on her forehead. He felt assured that his
- 2:59:42Speaker 4: senses of sight and hearing had been awake. She held
- 2:59:46Speaker 4: the cup in her hand even now. I thought it
- 2:59:50Speaker 4: must be near three, she said, calmly, pouring from the
- 2:59:53Speaker 4: cup into the basin and steeping the linen as before.
- 2:59:58Speaker 4: I am thankful, I said, aid, tis done now when
- 3:00:03Speaker 4: I have put this on there. And now she's quiet again.
- 3:00:08Speaker 4: The few drops in the basin, I'll pour a way
- 3:00:11Speaker 4: for tis bad stuff to leave about, though ever so
- 3:00:15Speaker 4: little of it. As she spoke, she drained the basin
- 3:00:18Speaker 4: into the ashes of the fire and broke the bottle
- 3:00:21Speaker 4: on the hearth. She had nothing to do then but
- 3:00:25Speaker 4: to cover herself with her shawl before going out into
- 3:00:28Speaker 4: the wind and rain. Thou let me walk with thee
- 3:00:33Speaker 4: at this hour, Rachael, No, Stephan, tis but a minute
- 3:00:38Speaker 4: and I am home. Thou art no fearful, he said
- 3:00:42Speaker 4: in a low voice, as they went out at the door,
- 3:00:46Speaker 4: to leave me alone with her. As she looked at him,
- 3:00:49Speaker 4: saying Stephen, he went down on his knee before her
- 3:00:53Speaker 4: on the poor, mean stairs and put an end of
- 3:00:57Speaker 4: her shawl to his lips. Thou art an angel, bless THEE,
- 3:01:03Speaker 4: bless THEE. I am as I have told THEE, Stepan,
- 3:01:08Speaker 4: thy poor friend. Angels are not like me. Between them
- 3:01:15Speaker 4: and a working woman full of faults, there is a
- 3:01:19Speaker 4: deep gulf set. My little sister is among them, but
- 3:01:23Speaker 4: she's changed. She raised her eyes for a moment as
- 3:01:27Speaker 4: she said the words, and then they fell again in
- 3:01:30Speaker 4: all their gentleness and mildness on his face. Thou changest
- 3:01:36Speaker 4: me from bad to good. Thou makest me humbly wishful
- 3:01:41Speaker 4: to be more like THEE, and fearful to lose THEE.
- 3:01:45Speaker 4: When this life is our and a muddle cleared away,
- 3:01:49Speaker 4: Thou art an angel. It maybe thou hast saved my
- 3:01:52Speaker 4: soul alive. She looked at him on his knee at
- 3:01:56Speaker 4: her feet, with her shawl still in his hand. The
- 3:02:00Speaker 4: reproof on her lips died away when she saw the
- 3:02:03Speaker 4: working of his face. I come home desperate. I come
- 3:02:08Speaker 4: home well out of hope and mad with thinking that
- 3:02:11Speaker 4: when I said a word or complaint, I was reckoned
- 3:02:14Speaker 4: a unreasonable hand. I told THEE I had had a fright.
- 3:02:21Speaker 4: It was the poison bottle on the table. I never
- 3:02:25Speaker 4: heard a living creature but happening so suddenly upon I throwed.
- 3:02:31Speaker 4: How can I say what I might have done to
- 3:02:33Speaker 4: myself or her or both. She put her two hands
- 3:02:38Speaker 4: on his mouth with a face of terror, to stop
- 3:02:41Speaker 4: him from saying more. He caught them in his unoccupied hand,
- 3:02:45Speaker 4: and holding them and still clasping the border of her shawl,
- 3:02:48Speaker 4: said hurriedly, but I see thee Rachel setting by the bed.
- 3:02:53Speaker 4: And I had seen thee oh this night in my
- 3:02:57Speaker 4: troublous sleep, and I had known these still to be there. Evermore,
- 3:03:02Speaker 4: I will see thee there. I nevermore will see her
- 3:03:06Speaker 4: or think of her, but thou shalt be beside her.
- 3:03:10Speaker 4: I nevermore will see or think anything that angers me.
- 3:03:14Speaker 4: But thou art so much better than me, shalt be
- 3:03:18Speaker 4: by the side, aunt. And so I will try to
- 3:03:22Speaker 4: look to the time, And so I will try to
- 3:03:25Speaker 4: trust in the time when thou and me at last
- 3:03:29Speaker 4: shall walk together for a while beyond the deep gulf,
- 3:03:33Speaker 4: in the country where thy little sister is. He kissed
- 3:03:38Speaker 4: the border of her shawl again and let her go.
- 3:03:41Speaker 4: She bade him good night in a broken voice, and
- 3:03:45Speaker 4: went out into the street. The wind blew from the
- 3:03:48Speaker 4: quarter where the day would soon appear, and still blew strongly,
- 3:03:53Speaker 4: and had cleared the sky before it, and the rain
- 3:03:56Speaker 4: had split itself or traveled elsewhere, and the stars were bright.
- 3:04:01Speaker 4: He stood bareheaded in the road, watching her quick disappearance,
- 3:04:06Speaker 4: as the shining stars were to the heavy candle in
- 3:04:09Speaker 4: the window. So was Rachel, in the rugged fancy of
- 3:04:13Speaker 4: this man, to the common experiences of his life. Chapter fourteen.
- 3:04:24Speaker 4: The great manufacturer. Time went on in Coketown like its
- 3:04:30Speaker 4: own machinery. So much material wrought up, so much fuel, consumed,
- 3:04:35Speaker 4: so many powers, worn out, so much money made, but
- 3:04:39Speaker 4: less inexorable than iron, steel and brass. It brought its
- 3:04:45Speaker 4: varying seasons even into that wilderness of smoke and brick,
- 3:04:50Speaker 4: and made the only stand that was ever made in
- 3:04:52Speaker 4: the place. Against its direful uniformity. Luisa is weak, humming,
- 3:05:00Speaker 4: said mister gradgrind almost woman. Time, with his innumerable horsepower,
- 3:05:09Speaker 4: worked away, not minding what anybody said, and presently turned
- 3:05:13Speaker 4: out young Thomas a foot taller than when his father
- 3:05:16Speaker 4: had last taken particular notice of him. Thomas is becoming,
- 3:05:22Speaker 4: said mister Gradgrind, almost a young man. Time passed Thomas
- 3:05:28Speaker 4: on in the mill while his father was thinking about it,
- 3:05:31Speaker 4: and there he stood in a long tailed coat and
- 3:05:35Speaker 4: a stiff shirt collar. Really, said mister Gradgrind, the period
- 3:05:41Speaker 4: has arrived when Thomas ought to go to Bounderby. Time,
- 3:05:47Speaker 4: sticking to him, passed him on into Bounderby's bank, made
- 3:05:51Speaker 4: him an inmate of Bounderby's house, necessitated the purchase of
- 3:05:56Speaker 4: his first razor, and exercised him dill diligently in his
- 3:06:01Speaker 4: calculations relative to number one. The same great manufacturer, always
- 3:06:08Speaker 4: with an immense variety of work on hand, in every
- 3:06:12Speaker 4: stage of development, passed Cissy onward in his mill and
- 3:06:17Speaker 4: worked her up into a very pretty article. Indeed, I
- 3:06:22Speaker 4: fear Jobe, said mister grand Grind, that your continuance at
- 3:06:27Speaker 4: the school any longer would be useless. I'm afraid it would, sir.
- 3:06:33Speaker 4: Sissy answered, with a courtesy, I cannot disguise from you, Jube,
- 3:06:39Speaker 4: said mister Gradgrind, knitting his brow, that the result of
- 3:06:44Speaker 4: your probation there has disappointed me, has greatly disappointed me.
- 3:06:51Speaker 4: You have not acquired, under mister and missus machocum child,
- 3:06:55Speaker 4: anything like that amount of exact knowledge which I look for.
- 3:07:01Speaker 4: You are extremely deficient in your facts. Your acquaintance with
- 3:07:05Speaker 4: figures is limited. You are altogether backward and below the mark.
- 3:07:12Speaker 4: I am sorry, sir, she returned, but I know it
- 3:07:16Speaker 4: is quite true. Yet I have tried hard, sir, Yes,
- 3:07:21Speaker 4: said mister Gradgrind. Yes, I believe you have tried hard.
- 3:07:24Speaker 4: I have observed you, and I can find no fault
- 3:07:28Speaker 4: in that respect. Thank you, sir. I have thought, sometimes, Sissy,
- 3:07:33Speaker 4: very timid here, that perhaps I tried to learn too much,
- 3:07:38Speaker 4: and that if I'd asked to be allowed to try
- 3:07:40Speaker 4: a little less, I might have no jupe. No, said
- 3:07:45Speaker 4: mister Gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest, most eminently
- 3:07:50Speaker 4: practical way. No, the course you pursued, you pursued according
- 3:07:57Speaker 4: to the system. The system, and there is no more
- 3:08:02Speaker 4: to be said about it.
- 3:08:03Speaker 2: Now.
- 3:08:03Speaker 4: You only suppose that the circumstances of your early life
- 3:08:08Speaker 4: were too unfavorable to the development of your reasoning powers,
- 3:08:14Speaker 4: and that we began too late. Still, as I have
- 3:08:17Speaker 4: said already, I am disappointed. I wish I could have
- 3:08:22Speaker 4: made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor,
- 3:08:26Speaker 4: forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of
- 3:08:30Speaker 4: your protection of her. Don't shed tears, said mister Gradgrind.
- 3:08:37Speaker 4: Don't shed tears. I don't complain of you. You are
- 3:08:41Speaker 4: an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and and we must
- 3:08:46Speaker 4: make that Do think you serve very much? Said Sissy,
- 3:08:50Speaker 4: with a grateful courtesy. You are useful to missus Gradgrind,
- 3:08:56Speaker 4: and in a generally pervading way. You were serviceable in
- 3:09:01Speaker 4: the family also, so I understand from Miss Luisa, and
- 3:09:05Speaker 4: indeed so I have observed myself. I therefore hope, said
- 3:09:09Speaker 4: mister Gradgrind, that you can make yourself happy in those relations.
- 3:09:16Speaker 4: I should have nothing to wish, sir. If I understand you,
- 3:09:21Speaker 4: said mister Gradgrind, you still refer to your father. I
- 3:09:26Speaker 4: have heard from Miss Louisa that you still preserve that bottle. Well.
- 3:09:33Speaker 4: If your training in the service of arriving at exact
- 3:09:36Speaker 4: results had been more successful, you would have been wiser
- 3:09:43Speaker 4: on these points. I will say no more. He really
- 3:09:48Speaker 4: likes to see too well to have contempt for her. Otherwise,
- 3:09:51Speaker 4: he held her calculating powers in such very slight estimation
- 3:09:57Speaker 4: that he must have fallen upon them conclusion. Somehow or other.
- 3:10:02Speaker 4: He'd become possessed by an idea that there was something
- 3:10:06Speaker 4: in this girl which could hardly be set forth in
- 3:10:09Speaker 4: a tabular form. Her capacity or definition might be easily
- 3:10:15Speaker 4: stated at a very low figure, her mathematical knowledge at nothing.
- 3:10:21Speaker 4: Yet he was not sure that if he had been required,
- 3:10:24Speaker 4: for example, to take her off into columns in a
- 3:10:28Speaker 4: parliamentary return, he would have quite known how to divide her.
- 3:10:33Speaker 4: In some stages of his manufacture of the human fabric,
- 3:10:38Speaker 4: the processes of time are very rapid, young Thomas and
- 3:10:43Speaker 4: Sissy being both at such a stage of their working up,
- 3:10:48Speaker 4: these changes were affected in a year or two. While
- 3:10:51Speaker 4: mister Gradgrind himself seemed stationary in his course and underwent
- 3:10:55Speaker 4: no alteration, oh except one which was apart his necessary
- 3:11:01Speaker 4: progress through the mill. Time hustled him into a little, noisy,
- 3:11:06Speaker 4: rather dirty machinery in a by corner, and made him
- 3:11:10Speaker 4: Member of Parliament for Coketown, one of the respected members
- 3:11:16Speaker 4: for Ouncewaits and Majors, one of the representatives of the
- 3:11:20Speaker 4: multiplication Table, one of the deaf, honorable gentlemen, dumb, honorable gentleman, blind,
- 3:11:28Speaker 4: honorable gentleman, lame, honorable gentleman, dead, honorable gentleman, to every
- 3:11:35Speaker 4: other consideration. Elsewherefore live we in a Christian land, eighteen
- 3:11:41Speaker 4: hundred and odd years after our master. All this while
- 3:11:46Speaker 4: Luisa had been passing on, so quiet and reserved, and
- 3:11:50Speaker 4: so much given to watching the bright ashes at twilight
- 3:11:54Speaker 4: as they fell from the great and become extinct. That
- 3:11:57Speaker 4: from the period when her father had said she was
- 3:12:00Speaker 4: almost a young woman, which seemed, but yesterday she had
- 3:12:04Speaker 4: scarcely attracted his notice again when he found her quite
- 3:12:07Speaker 4: a young woman, quite a young woman, said mister gradgrind
- 3:12:12Speaker 4: musing dear me. Soon after this discovery he became more
- 3:12:17Speaker 4: thoughtful than usual for several days, and seemed much engrossed
- 3:12:22Speaker 4: by one subject. On a certain night, when he was
- 3:12:26Speaker 4: going out and Louisa came to bid him goodbye before
- 3:12:29Speaker 4: his departure, as he was not to be home until
- 3:12:32Speaker 4: late and she would not seem again until the morning,
- 3:12:36Speaker 4: he held her in his arms, looking at her in
- 3:12:39Speaker 4: his kindest manner, and said, my dear Louisa, you are
- 3:12:46Speaker 4: a woman. She answered with an odd, quick searching look
- 3:12:51Speaker 4: of the night when she was found at the circus,
- 3:12:53Speaker 4: then cast down her eyes. Yes, father, my dear, said
- 3:12:59Speaker 4: mister gradd I must speak with you alone, and seriously
- 3:13:05Speaker 4: come to me in my room after breakfast tomorrow, will you? Yes, father,
- 3:13:12Speaker 4: your hands are rather cold, Louise, are you not well?
- 3:13:15Speaker 4: Quite well, father, and cheerful. She looked at him again
- 3:13:19Speaker 4: and smiled in her peculiar manner. I am as cheerful father,
- 3:13:25Speaker 4: as I usually am, or usually have been. Ah, that's well,
- 3:13:30Speaker 4: said mister Gradgride. So he kissed her and went away,
- 3:13:34Speaker 4: and Louisa returned to the serene apartment of the hair
- 3:13:38Speaker 4: cutting character, and, leaning her elbow on her hand, looked
- 3:13:42Speaker 4: again at the short lived sparks that soon subsided into ashes.
- 3:13:48Speaker 4: Are you there, lou said her brother, looking in at
- 3:13:51Speaker 4: the door. He was quite a young gentleman of pleasure now,
- 3:13:55Speaker 4: and not quite prepossessing one, Dear Tom answered, rising and
- 3:14:01Speaker 4: embracing him, how long it is since you've been to
- 3:14:04Speaker 4: see me? Why I have been otherwise engaged lou in
- 3:14:09Speaker 4: the evenings and in the daytime. Old Bounderby has been
- 3:14:12Speaker 4: keeping me at it rather. But I touch him up
- 3:14:15Speaker 4: with you when he comes it too strong, and so
- 3:14:18Speaker 4: we preserve an understanding. I say, as father said anything
- 3:14:22Speaker 4: in particular to you today yesterday, lou No, Tom, but
- 3:14:28Speaker 4: he told me tonight that he wished to do so
- 3:14:30Speaker 4: in the morning. Ah, well, that's what I mean, said Tom.
- 3:14:35Speaker 4: Do you know where he is tonight? With a very
- 3:14:39Speaker 4: deep expression. No, Then I'll tell you he's with Old Bounderby.
- 3:14:46Speaker 4: They are having a regular Tom fab together at the bank.
- 3:14:51Speaker 4: At the bank, do you think well, I'll tell you
- 3:14:53Speaker 4: again to keep missus sparsit's ears as far off as possible,
- 3:14:58Speaker 4: I expect. With her hand upon her brother's shoulder, Louisa
- 3:15:04Speaker 4: stood looking at the fire. Her brother glanced at her
- 3:15:07Speaker 4: face with greater interest than usual, and encircling her waist
- 3:15:11Speaker 4: with his arm, drew her coaxingly to him. You are
- 3:15:16Speaker 4: very fond of me, aunt Hulu. I am, indeed, Tom,
- 3:15:20Speaker 4: though you do let such long intervals go by without
- 3:15:24Speaker 4: coming to see me. Well, sister of mine, said Tom.
- 3:15:29Speaker 4: When you say that you are near my thoughts, we
- 3:15:32Speaker 4: might be so much oftener together. Mightn't we always together? Almost?
- 3:15:37Speaker 6: Mightn't we?
- 3:15:38Speaker 4: It would do me a great deal of good if
- 3:15:40Speaker 4: you were to make up your mind to I know what, Lou,
- 3:15:45Speaker 4: It would be a splendid thing for me. It would
- 3:15:48Speaker 4: be uncommonly jolly. Her thoughtfulness baffled his cunning scrutiny. He
- 3:15:55Speaker 4: could make nothing of her face. He pressed her in
- 3:15:59Speaker 4: his arm and came cheek. She returned the kiss, but
- 3:16:02Speaker 4: still looked at the fire. I say, Lou, I thought
- 3:16:05Speaker 4: i'd come and just hint to what was going on,
- 3:16:09Speaker 4: though I suppose you'd most likely guess even if you
- 3:16:12Speaker 4: didn't know. I can't stay because I'm engaged to some
- 3:16:16Speaker 4: fellows tonight. You won't forget how fond you are of me. No,
- 3:16:21Speaker 4: dear Tom, I won't forget. That's a capital girl, said Tom. Goodbye, Lou.
- 3:16:28Speaker 4: She gave him an affectionate good night, and went out
- 3:16:32Speaker 4: with him to the door. Once the fires of Coketown
- 3:16:35Speaker 4: could be seen, making the distance lurid. She stood there,
- 3:16:39Speaker 4: looking steadfastly towards them, and listening to his departing steps.
- 3:16:46Speaker 4: They were treated quickly as glad to get away from
- 3:16:50Speaker 4: Stone Lodge. As she stood there yet when he was
- 3:16:54Speaker 4: gone and all was quiet, it seemed as if, first
- 3:16:58Speaker 4: in her own fire within the house, and then in
- 3:17:01Speaker 4: the fiery haze without, she tried to discover what kind
- 3:17:05Speaker 4: of woof old time that greatest and longest established spinner
- 3:17:10Speaker 4: of all would weave from the threads he had already
- 3:17:14Speaker 4: spun into a woman. But his factory is a secret place,
- 3:17:19Speaker 4: his work is noiseless, and his hands are mutes. End
- 3:17:26Speaker 4: of section seven, Chapter fifteen, Father and Daughter. Although mister
- 3:17:33Speaker 4: Gradgrind did not take after Bluebeard, his room was quite
- 3:17:36Speaker 4: a blue chamber in its abundance of blue books. Whatever
- 3:17:41Speaker 4: they could prove, which is usually anything you like, they
- 3:17:44Speaker 4: proved there in an army constantly strengthening by the arrival
- 3:17:48Speaker 4: of new recruits. In that charm department, the most complicated
- 3:17:53Speaker 4: social questions were cast up, got into exact totals, and
- 3:17:58Speaker 4: finally settled. If those can concern could only have been
- 3:18:01Speaker 4: brought to know it, as if an astronomical observatory should
- 3:18:06Speaker 4: be made without any windows, and the astronomer within should
- 3:18:11Speaker 4: arrange the starry universe solely by pen and ink and paper.
- 3:18:16Speaker 4: So mister Gradgrind in his observatory. And there are many
- 3:18:20Speaker 4: like it had no need to cast an eye upon
- 3:18:23Speaker 4: the teeming myriads of human beings around him, but could
- 3:18:27Speaker 4: settle all their destinies on a slate and wipe out
- 3:18:31Speaker 4: all their tears with one dirty little bit of sponge.
- 3:18:36Speaker 4: To this observatory, then a stern room with a deadly
- 3:18:41Speaker 4: statistical clock in it, which measured every second with a
- 3:18:45Speaker 4: beat like a wrap upon a coffin lid. Louisa repaired
- 3:18:49Speaker 4: on the appointed morning. A window looked towards Coketown, and
- 3:18:55Speaker 4: when she sat down near her father's table, she saw
- 3:18:58Speaker 4: the high chimneys and the law long tracts of smoke
- 3:19:01Speaker 4: looming in the heavy distance. Gloomily, My dear Louisa, said
- 3:19:08Speaker 4: her father. I prepared you last night to give me
- 3:19:12Speaker 4: your serious attention in the conversation we are now going
- 3:19:16Speaker 4: to have together. You have been so well trained, and
- 3:19:20Speaker 4: you do. I'm happy to say so much justice to
- 3:19:24Speaker 4: the education you have received that I have perfect confidence
- 3:19:29Speaker 4: in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you are
- 3:19:33Speaker 4: not romantic. You are accustomed to view everything from the strong,
- 3:19:38Speaker 4: dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone,
- 3:19:45Speaker 4: I know you will view and consider what I am
- 3:19:48Speaker 4: going to communicate. He waited as if he would have
- 3:19:52Speaker 4: been glad that she said something, But she said never
- 3:19:56Speaker 4: a word. Louisa, my dear, you are are the subject
- 3:20:01Speaker 4: of a proposal of marriage that has been made to me.
- 3:20:05Speaker 4: Again he waited, and again she answered not one word.
- 3:20:10Speaker 4: This so far surprised him as to induce him gently
- 3:20:13Speaker 4: to repeat a proposal of marriage, my dear, to which
- 3:20:19Speaker 4: she returned without any visible emotion. Whatever I hear you, father,
- 3:20:24Speaker 4: I am attending. I assure you well, said mister Gradgrind,
- 3:20:28Speaker 4: breaking into a smile after being for a moment at
- 3:20:31Speaker 4: a loss. You are even more dispassionate than I expected, Louisa.
- 3:20:36Speaker 4: Or perhaps you are not unprepared for the announcement I
- 3:20:41Speaker 4: have it in my charge to make. I cannot say that, father,
- 3:20:45Speaker 4: until I hear it prepared her unprepared. I wish to
- 3:20:49Speaker 4: hear it all from you. I wish to hear you
- 3:20:52Speaker 4: state it to me. Father strange to relate, mister Gradgrind
- 3:20:58Speaker 4: was not so collected at this moment as his daughter was.
- 3:21:02Speaker 4: He took a paper knife in his hand, turned it over,
- 3:21:05Speaker 4: laid it down, took it up again, and even then
- 3:21:08Speaker 4: had to look along the blade of it, considering how
- 3:21:11Speaker 4: to go on. What you say, my dear Luis is
- 3:21:16Speaker 4: perfectly reasonable. I have undertaken, then, to let you know
- 3:21:20Speaker 4: that in short, mister Bounderby has informed me that he
- 3:21:25Speaker 4: has long watched your progress with particular interest and pleasure,
- 3:21:30Speaker 4: and has long hoped that the time might ultimately arrive
- 3:21:35Speaker 4: when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That
- 3:21:39Speaker 4: time to which he has so long and certainly with
- 3:21:44Speaker 4: great constancy looked forward, is now come. Mister Bounderby has
- 3:21:49Speaker 4: made his proposal of marriage to me, and has entreated
- 3:21:54Speaker 4: me to make it known to you, and to express
- 3:21:58Speaker 4: his hope that you will take it into your favorable consideration.
- 3:22:04Speaker 4: Silence between them, the deadly statistical clock, very hollow, the
- 3:22:10Speaker 4: distant smoke very black and heavy. Father said, Louisa, do
- 3:22:16Speaker 4: you think I love mister Bounderby. Mister Gradgrind was extremely
- 3:22:21Speaker 4: discomfited by this unexpected question. Well, my child, he returned,
- 3:22:27Speaker 4: I really cannot take upon myself to say, father, pursued
- 3:22:35Speaker 4: Louisa in exactly the same voice as before. Do you
- 3:22:39Speaker 4: ask me to love mister Bounderby, My dear Louisa, No, No,
- 3:22:45Speaker 4: I ask nothing, father, She still pursued, does mister Bounderby
- 3:22:51Speaker 4: ask me to love him, Really, my dear, said mister Gradgrind,
- 3:22:56Speaker 4: It is difficult to answer your question. Difficult to answer
- 3:23:02Speaker 4: it yes or no, Father, certainly, my dear, because here
- 3:23:08Speaker 4: was something to demonstrate, and it set him up again.
- 3:23:12Speaker 4: Because the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on the sense
- 3:23:18Speaker 4: in which we use the expression. Now, mister Bounderby does
- 3:23:23Speaker 4: not do you the injustice, and does not do himself
- 3:23:27Speaker 4: the injustice of pretending to anything fanciful, fantastic or I'm
- 3:23:33Speaker 4: using synonymous terms as sentimental. Mister Bounderby would have seen
- 3:23:40Speaker 4: you grow up under his eyes to a very little purpose,
- 3:23:44Speaker 4: if he could so far forget what is due to
- 3:23:47Speaker 4: your good sense not to say to his as to
- 3:23:50Speaker 4: address you from any such ground. Therefore, perhaps the expression itself,
- 3:23:57Speaker 4: I merely suggest this to you, my dear, maybe a
- 3:24:01Speaker 4: little misplaced. What would you advise me to use in
- 3:24:05Speaker 4: its Steadfather, my dear, Louisa, said mister Gradgrind, completely recovered
- 3:24:12Speaker 4: by this time, I would advise you, since you asked
- 3:24:15Speaker 4: me to consider this question as you have been accustomed
- 3:24:20Speaker 4: to consider every other question simply as one of tangible fact.
- 3:24:27Speaker 4: The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass such subjects with
- 3:24:31Speaker 4: irrelevant fancies and other absurdities that have no existence properly
- 3:24:37Speaker 4: viewed really no existence. But it is no compliment to
- 3:24:42Speaker 4: you to say that you know better now what the
- 3:24:45Speaker 4: facts are. In this case you are we will say
- 3:24:50Speaker 4: in round numbers at twenty years of age, mister Bounderby
- 3:24:55Speaker 4: is we will say, in round numbers fifty. There is
- 3:25:00Speaker 4: some disparity in your respective years, but in your means
- 3:25:05Speaker 4: and positions there is none. On the contrary, there is
- 3:25:08Speaker 4: a great suitability. Then the question arises, is this one
- 3:25:14Speaker 4: disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage?
- 3:25:20Speaker 4: In considering this question, it is not unimportant to take
- 3:25:24Speaker 4: into account the statistics of marriage, so far as they
- 3:25:29Speaker 4: have yet been obtained in England and Wales. I find,
- 3:25:34Speaker 4: on reference to the figures, that a large proportion of
- 3:25:38Speaker 4: these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages,
- 3:25:44Speaker 4: and that the elder of these contracting parties is rather
- 3:25:49Speaker 4: more than three fourths of these instances the bride group.
- 3:25:53Speaker 4: It is remarkable, as showing the wide prevalence of this law,
- 3:25:58Speaker 4: that among the natives of the British possessions in India
- 3:26:02Speaker 4: are also in a considerable part of China, and among
- 3:26:06Speaker 4: the Kalmucks in Tartary. The best means of computation yet
- 3:26:11Speaker 4: furnished us by travelers yield similar results. The disparity I've
- 3:26:17Speaker 4: mentioned therefore almost ceases to be disparity, and virtually all
- 3:26:23Speaker 4: but disappears. What do you recommend, father, asked Louisa, her
- 3:26:29Speaker 4: reserve composure not in the least affected by these gratifying results,
- 3:26:35Speaker 4: that I should substitute for the term I use just
- 3:26:38Speaker 4: now for the misplaced expression, Louisa returned her father. It
- 3:26:45Speaker 4: appears to me that nothing can be plainer. Confining yourself
- 3:26:50Speaker 4: rigidly to fact. The question of fact you state to
- 3:26:54Speaker 4: yourself is does mister Bounderby ask me to marry him?
- 3:27:00Speaker 6: Yes?
- 3:27:00Speaker 4: He does. The sole remaining question, then, is shall I
- 3:27:05Speaker 4: marry him? I think nothing can be plainer than that
- 3:27:10Speaker 4: shall I marry him? Repeated Louisa, with great deliberation. Precisely,
- 3:27:15Speaker 4: And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my
- 3:27:19Speaker 4: dear Luisa, to know that you do not come to
- 3:27:22Speaker 4: the consideration of that question with the previous habits of
- 3:27:26Speaker 4: mind and habits of life that belong to many young
- 3:27:30Speaker 4: women no, father, she returned, I do not. I leave
- 3:27:35Speaker 4: you to judge for yourself, said mister Gradgrind. I have
- 3:27:39Speaker 4: stated the case as such cases are usually stated among
- 3:27:43Speaker 4: practical minds. I have stated it as the case of
- 3:27:48Speaker 4: your mother, and myself has stated in its time. The rest,
- 3:27:52Speaker 4: my dear Luisa, is for you to decide. From the beginning,
- 3:27:58Speaker 4: she had sat looking at him, fixed it as he
- 3:28:01Speaker 4: now leaned back in his chair and bent his deep
- 3:28:03Speaker 4: set eyes upon her. In his turn, perhaps he might
- 3:28:07Speaker 4: have seen one wavering moment in her when she was
- 3:28:11Speaker 4: impelled to throw herself upon his breast and give him
- 3:28:14Speaker 4: the pent up confidences of her heart. But to see
- 3:28:18Speaker 4: it he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial
- 3:28:21Speaker 4: barriers he had for many years been erecting between himself
- 3:28:26Speaker 4: and all those subtle essences of humanity, which will elude
- 3:28:30Speaker 4: the utmost cunning of algebra, until the last trumpet ever
- 3:28:35Speaker 4: to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The
- 3:28:40Speaker 4: barriers were too many and too high for such a leap.
- 3:28:44Speaker 4: With his unbending, utilitarian, matter of fact face, he hardened
- 3:28:49Speaker 4: her again, and moment shot away into the plummeless depths
- 3:28:53Speaker 4: of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities
- 3:28:57Speaker 4: that are drowned there. Removing her eyes from him, she
- 3:29:02Speaker 4: sat so long, looking silently towards the town, that he said,
- 3:29:05Speaker 4: at length, are you consulting the chimneys of Coketown works, Louisa, Well,
- 3:29:14Speaker 4: there seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke.
- 3:29:18Speaker 4: Yet when night comes, fire bursts out, father, she answered,
- 3:29:22Speaker 4: turning quickly, Well, of course I know that, Louisa. I
- 3:29:26Speaker 4: do not see the application of that remark to do
- 3:29:30Speaker 4: him justice. He did not at all. She passed it
- 3:29:34Speaker 4: away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating
- 3:29:37Speaker 4: her attention upon him again, said father, I have often
- 3:29:43Speaker 4: thought that life is very short. This was so distinctly
- 3:29:47Speaker 4: one of his subjects that he interposed. It is short,
- 3:29:51Speaker 4: no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human
- 3:29:55Speaker 4: life is proved to have increased of late years. The
- 3:30:00Speaker 4: calculations of various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures,
- 3:30:06Speaker 4: which cannot go wrong, have established the fact I speak
- 3:30:11Speaker 4: of my own life.
- 3:30:12Speaker 6: Father.
- 3:30:13Speaker 4: Oh indeed, still, said mister Gradgrind, I need not point
- 3:30:18Speaker 4: out to you, Louisa, that it is governed by the
- 3:30:22Speaker 4: laws which govern lives and the aggregate whilst it lasts.
- 3:30:28Speaker 4: I would wish to do the little I can, and
- 3:30:30Speaker 4: the little I am fit for What does it matter?
- 3:30:35Speaker 4: Mister Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the
- 3:30:39Speaker 4: last four words, replying, how matter? What matter? My dear?
- 3:30:45Speaker 4: Mister Bounderby, She went on in a steady straight way
- 3:30:49Speaker 4: without regarding this asks me to marry him? The question
- 3:30:54Speaker 4: I have to ask myself is shall I marry him?
- 3:30:58Speaker 4: That is so, father, Is it not? You have told
- 3:31:00Speaker 4: me so, father, have you not? Oh? Certainly, my dear,
- 3:31:05Speaker 4: let it be so, since mister Bounderby likes to take me. Thus,
- 3:31:10Speaker 4: I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, father,
- 3:31:14Speaker 4: as soon as you please, that this was my answer.
- 3:31:18Speaker 4: Repeat it word for word if you can, because I
- 3:31:21Speaker 4: should wish him to know what I said. Oh, it
- 3:31:25Speaker 4: is quite right, my dear, retorted her father, approvingly to
- 3:31:29Speaker 4: be exact. I will observe your very proper request. Have
- 3:31:34Speaker 4: you any wish in reference to the period of your marriage?
- 3:31:38Speaker 4: My child? None? Father, What does it matter? Mister Gradgrind
- 3:31:44Speaker 4: had drawn his chair a little nearer to her and
- 3:31:48Speaker 4: taken her hand, but her repetition of these words seemed
- 3:31:52Speaker 4: to strike with some little discord on his ear. He
- 3:31:56Speaker 4: paused to look at her, and, still holding her hands,
- 3:32:00Speaker 4: said Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask
- 3:32:05Speaker 4: you one question, because the possibility implied, and it appeared
- 3:32:09Speaker 4: to me to be too remote. But perhaps I ought
- 3:32:13Speaker 4: to do so. You have never entertained in secret any
- 3:32:18Speaker 4: other proposal, father, She returned, almost scornfully. What other proposal
- 3:32:24Speaker 4: can have been made to me? Whom have I seen?
- 3:32:27Speaker 4: Where have I been? What are my heart's experiences? My
- 3:32:32Speaker 4: dear Louisa returned, mister gradgrind reassured and satisfied, you correct
- 3:32:38Speaker 4: me justly. I merely wish to discharge my duty. What
- 3:32:43Speaker 4: do I know, father, said Louise, in her quiet manner,
- 3:32:47Speaker 4: of tastes and fantasies, of aspirations and affections, of all
- 3:32:52Speaker 4: that part of my nature in which such light things
- 3:32:56Speaker 4: might have been nourished? What escape have I had from
- 3:33:00Speaker 4: problems that could be demonstrated and realities that could be grasped?
- 3:33:05Speaker 4: As she said it, she unconsciously closed her hand as
- 3:33:09Speaker 4: if upon a solid object, and slowly opened it, as
- 3:33:12Speaker 4: though she were releasing dust or ash. My dear assented,
- 3:33:17Speaker 4: her imminently practical parent. Quite true, Quite true? Why father,
- 3:33:23Speaker 4: she pursued, what a strange question to ask me? The
- 3:33:27Speaker 4: baby preference that even I have heard of as common
- 3:33:31Speaker 4: among children, has never had its innocent resting place in
- 3:33:35Speaker 4: my breast. You have been so careful of me that
- 3:33:38Speaker 4: I never had a child's heart. You have trained me
- 3:33:42Speaker 4: so well that I never dreamed a child's dream. You
- 3:33:46Speaker 4: have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle
- 3:33:49Speaker 4: to this hour, that I have never had a child's
- 3:33:53Speaker 4: belief for a child's fear. Mister Gradgrind was quite moved
- 3:33:58Speaker 4: by his success, and by this testimony to it. My
- 3:34:02Speaker 4: dear Louisa, said he you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me,
- 3:34:07Speaker 4: my dear girl. So his daughter kissed him, detaining her
- 3:34:13Speaker 4: in his embrace, he said, I may assure you, now,
- 3:34:16Speaker 4: my favorite child, that I am made happy by the
- 3:34:20Speaker 4: sound decision at which you have arrived. Mister Bounderby is
- 3:34:24Speaker 4: a very remarkable man, And what little disparity can be
- 3:34:28Speaker 4: said to exist between you, if any, is more than
- 3:34:33Speaker 4: counterbalanced by the tone your mind as acquired. It has
- 3:34:37Speaker 4: always been my object so to educate you as that
- 3:34:40Speaker 4: you might well still in your early youth be if
- 3:34:46Speaker 4: I may so express myself almost any age, kiss me
- 3:34:50Speaker 4: once more, Louisa. Now let us go and find your mother. Accordingly,
- 3:34:55Speaker 4: they went down to the drawing room, where the esteemed
- 3:34:58Speaker 4: lady with no non sense about her was recumbent as usual,
- 3:35:03Speaker 4: while Cissy worked beside her. She gave some feeble signs
- 3:35:07Speaker 4: of returning animation when they entered, and presently the faint
- 3:35:11Speaker 4: transparency was presented in a sitting attitude. Missus Gradgrind said
- 3:35:19Speaker 4: her husband, who had waited for the achievement of this
- 3:35:22Speaker 4: feat with some impatience, Allow me to present you and
- 3:35:28Speaker 4: Missus bounderby. Oh, said missus Gradgrind. So you have settled
- 3:35:33Speaker 4: it well. I'm sure I hope your health may be good, Louisa,
- 3:35:37Speaker 4: for if your head begins to split as soon as
- 3:35:40Speaker 4: you are married, which was the case with mine, I
- 3:35:44Speaker 4: cannot consider that you are to be envied, though I
- 3:35:47Speaker 4: have no doubt you think you are as all girls do. However,
- 3:35:52Speaker 4: I give you joy, my dear, and I hope you
- 3:35:55Speaker 4: may now turn all your all logical studies to good account.
- 3:36:01Speaker 4: I'm sure I do. I must give you a kiss
- 3:36:04Speaker 4: of congratulation, Louisa. But I don't touch my right shoulder,
- 3:36:08Speaker 4: for there's something running down it all day long and
- 3:36:11Speaker 4: now you see, whimpered Missus Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after
- 3:36:16Speaker 4: the affectionate ceremony. I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon
- 3:36:20Speaker 4: and night to know what I am to call him,
- 3:36:24Speaker 4: Missus Gradgrind, said her husband solemnly. What do you mean
- 3:36:29Speaker 4: whatever I am to call him, mister Gradgrind, When he
- 3:36:32Speaker 4: is married to Louisa, I must call him something. It's impossible,
- 3:36:38Speaker 4: said Missus Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury,
- 3:36:43Speaker 4: to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name.
- 3:36:46Speaker 4: I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable
- 3:36:51Speaker 4: to me. You yourself wouldn't hear of Joe. You very
- 3:36:55Speaker 4: well know. Am I to call my own son in
- 3:36:59Speaker 4: law mister? Not that I believe. Unless the time has
- 3:37:02Speaker 4: arrived when as an invalid I am to be trampled
- 3:37:06Speaker 4: upon by my relations, than what am I to call him?
- 3:37:10Speaker 4: Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable emergency,
- 3:37:15Speaker 4: Missus Gradgrind departed this life for the time being after
- 3:37:20Speaker 4: delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed. As
- 3:37:25Speaker 4: to the wedding, all I asked, Louisa is, and I
- 3:37:29Speaker 4: ask it with a flutter in my chest, what actually
- 3:37:34Speaker 4: extends to the soles of my feet? That it may
- 3:37:37Speaker 4: take place soon? Otherwise I know it is one of
- 3:37:41Speaker 4: those subjects I shall never hear the last of When
- 3:37:45Speaker 4: mister Gradgrind had presented Missus Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly turned
- 3:37:50Speaker 4: her head and looked in wonder, in pity, and sorrow,
- 3:37:54Speaker 4: in doubt, in a multitude of emotions towards Louisa. Louisa
- 3:37:59Speaker 4: had known and seen it without looking at her. From
- 3:38:03Speaker 4: that moment she was impassive, proud, and cold, held Sissy
- 3:38:08Speaker 4: at a distance, changed to her altogether. Chapter sixteen, Husband
- 3:38:17Speaker 4: and Wife. Mister Bounderby's first disquietude on hearing of his
- 3:38:23Speaker 4: happiness was occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to
- 3:38:27Speaker 4: Missus Sparsit. He could not make up his mind how
- 3:38:30Speaker 4: to do that, or what the consequences of the step
- 3:38:34Speaker 4: might be. Whether she would instantly depart, bag and baggage
- 3:38:39Speaker 4: to ladies Skadgers, or would possibly refuse to budge from
- 3:38:43Speaker 4: the premises, whether she would be plaintive or abusive, tearful
- 3:38:48Speaker 4: or tearing, whether she would break her heart or break
- 3:38:53Speaker 4: the looking glass. Mister Bounderby could not at all foresee. However,
- 3:38:58Speaker 4: as it must be done, he had no choice but
- 3:39:00Speaker 4: to do so, so, after attempting several letters and failing
- 3:39:05Speaker 4: in them all, he resolved to do it by word
- 3:39:08Speaker 4: of mouth. On his way home on the evening, he
- 3:39:11Speaker 4: set aside for this momentous purpose. He took the precaution
- 3:39:15Speaker 4: of stepping into a chemist's shop and buying a bottle
- 3:39:19Speaker 4: of the very strongest smelling salts by George, said mister Bounderby,
- 3:39:25Speaker 4: if she takes it in the fainting way, all had
- 3:39:29Speaker 4: the skin off her nose at all events. But in
- 3:39:32Speaker 4: spite of being thus fore armed, he entered his own
- 3:39:35Speaker 4: house with anything but a courageous air, and appeared before
- 3:39:41Speaker 4: the object of his misgivings like a dog who was
- 3:39:44Speaker 4: conscious of coming direct from the pantry. Good evening, mister Bounderby,
- 3:39:51Speaker 4: Good evening, ma'am, Good evening. He drew up his chair
- 3:39:55Speaker 4: and missus sparsit drew back hers as who should say
- 3:39:59Speaker 4: your fireside, sir, I really admit it. It is for
- 3:40:04Speaker 4: you to occupy it all if you think proper. Oh well,
- 3:40:08Speaker 4: don't go to the north pole, ma'am, said mister Bounderby.
- 3:40:12Speaker 4: Thank you, Sir, said Missus Sparsit, and returned. Though short
- 3:40:16Speaker 4: of her former position. Mister Bounderby sat looking at her
- 3:40:21Speaker 4: as with the points of a stiff, sharp pair of scissors.
- 3:40:26Speaker 4: She picked out holes from some inscrutable ornamental purpose in
- 3:40:31Speaker 4: a piece of cambric. An operation which, taken in connection
- 3:40:36Speaker 4: with the bushy eyebrows and the Roman nose, suggested with
- 3:40:40Speaker 4: some liveliness the idea of a hawk engaged upon the
- 3:40:44Speaker 4: eyes of a tough little bird. She was so steadfastly
- 3:40:49Speaker 4: occupied that many minutes elapsed before she looked up from
- 3:40:53Speaker 4: her work. When she did so, mister Bounderby bespoke her
- 3:40:56Speaker 4: attention with a hitch of his head. Missus sparsit, ma'am,
- 3:41:03Speaker 4: said mister Bounby, putting his hands in his pockets and
- 3:41:06Speaker 4: assuring himself with his right hand that the cork of
- 3:41:10Speaker 4: the little bottle was ready for use. I have on
- 3:41:14Speaker 4: occasion to say to you that you are not only
- 3:41:17Speaker 4: a lady born and bred, but a devilish, sensible woman,
- 3:41:23Speaker 4: Sir returned the lady, this is indeed not the first
- 3:41:27Speaker 4: time that you have honored me with similar expressions of
- 3:41:30Speaker 4: your good opinion. Missus sparsit, ma'am, said mister Bounderby, I
- 3:41:36Speaker 4: am going to astonish you. Yes, sir, returned missus Sparsit,
- 3:41:41Speaker 4: interrogatively and in the most trankful manner possible. She generally
- 3:41:47Speaker 4: wore mittens, and she now laid down her work and
- 3:41:50Speaker 4: smoothed those mittens. I am going, ma'am, said mister Bounderby,
- 3:41:56Speaker 4: to marry Tom Gradgrind's daughter. Yes, sir, returned missus Sparsit.
- 3:42:04Speaker 4: I hope you may be happy, mister Bounderby. Oh indeed,
- 3:42:08Speaker 4: I hope you may be happy, sir. And she said
- 3:42:11Speaker 4: it with such great condescension, as well as with such
- 3:42:15Speaker 4: great compassion for him, that Bounderby far more disconcerted than
- 3:42:20Speaker 4: if she had thrown her work box at the mirror
- 3:42:23Speaker 4: or swooned on the hearth rug, corked up the smelling
- 3:42:27Speaker 4: salts tight in his pocket, and thought, now confound this
- 3:42:31Speaker 4: woman who could have ever guessed that she would take
- 3:42:33Speaker 4: it in this way? I wish with all my heart, sir,
- 3:42:38Speaker 4: said Missus Sparsit in a highly superior manner. Somehow, she
- 3:42:42Speaker 4: seemed in a moment to have established a right to
- 3:42:46Speaker 4: pity him. Ever afterwards, that you may be, in all
- 3:42:50Speaker 4: respects very happy. Well, ma'am returned Bounderby, with some resentment
- 3:42:56Speaker 4: in his tone, which was clearly lowered, though in spite
- 3:43:00Speaker 4: of himself, I am obliged to you. I hope I
- 3:43:03Speaker 4: shall be, do you, sir, said missus Sparsit with great affability,
- 3:43:08Speaker 4: But naturally you do, of course you do. A very
- 3:43:12Speaker 4: awkward pause on mister Bounderby's part succeeded. Missus Sparsit sedately
- 3:43:18Speaker 4: resumed her work, and occasionally gave a small cough which
- 3:43:22Speaker 4: sounded like the cough of conscious strength and forbearance. Well,
- 3:43:27Speaker 4: ma'am resumed, mister Bounderby. Under these circumstances, I imagine it
- 3:43:33Speaker 4: would not be agreeable to a character like yours to
- 3:43:36Speaker 4: remain here, though you would be very welcome here. Oh dear, no, sir,
- 3:43:43Speaker 4: I could on no account think of that. Missus Sparsit
- 3:43:46Speaker 4: shook her head still in her highly superior manner, and
- 3:43:51Speaker 4: a little changed the small cough, coughing now as if
- 3:43:55Speaker 4: the spirit of prophecy rose within her, but had better
- 3:43:58Speaker 4: be coughed down. However, ma'am, said Bounderby, there are apartments
- 3:44:05Speaker 4: at the bank where a born and bred lady is
- 3:44:08Speaker 4: keeper of the place, would be rather a catch than otherwise.
- 3:44:12Speaker 4: And if the same terms, I beg your pardon, sir,
- 3:44:17Speaker 4: you were so good as to promise that you would
- 3:44:20Speaker 4: always substitute the phrase annual compliment, Well, ma'am, annual compliment.
- 3:44:28Speaker 4: If the same annual compliment would be acceptable there, why
- 3:44:33Speaker 4: I see nothing to part us unless you do, sir returned.
- 3:44:37Speaker 4: Missus sparsit. The proposal is like yourself. And if the
- 3:44:42Speaker 4: position I shall assume at the bank is one that
- 3:44:45Speaker 4: I could occupy without descending lower in the social scale,
- 3:44:51Speaker 4: why of course it is, said Bounderby. If it was not, ma'am,
- 3:44:55Speaker 4: you don't suppose that I should offer it to a
- 3:44:57Speaker 4: lady who has moved to the society you have moved in.
- 3:45:02Speaker 4: Not that I care for such society, you know, but
- 3:45:05Speaker 4: you do, mister Bounderby. You are very considerate. You'll have
- 3:45:12Speaker 4: your own private apartments, and you'll have your coals and
- 3:45:16Speaker 4: your candles and all the rest of it, and you'll
- 3:45:18Speaker 4: have your maid to attend upon you, and you'll have
- 3:45:21Speaker 4: your light porter to protect you, and you'll be what
- 3:45:25Speaker 4: I take the liberty of considering precious comfortable, said Bounderby. Sir,
- 3:45:31Speaker 4: rejoined Missus Sparsit, say no more, and yielding up my trust.
- 3:45:37Speaker 4: Here I shall not be freed from the necessity of
- 3:45:40Speaker 4: eating the bread of dependence. She might have said, the
- 3:45:45Speaker 4: sweet bread for the delicate article in a savory brown
- 3:45:49Speaker 4: sauce was her favorite supper, and I would rather receive
- 3:45:53Speaker 4: it from your hand than from any other. Therefore, Sir,
- 3:45:58Speaker 4: I accept your offer, grateful and with many sincere acknowledgments
- 3:46:02Speaker 4: for past favors. And I hope, sir, said Missus Sparsit,
- 3:46:07Speaker 4: concluding in an impressively compassionate manner, I fondly hope that
- 3:46:13Speaker 4: miss Gradgrind may be all you desire and deserve. Nothing
- 3:46:21Speaker 4: moved missus Sparsit from that position anymore. It was in
- 3:46:25Speaker 4: vain for Bounderby to bluster or to assert himself in
- 3:46:29Speaker 4: any of his explosive ways. Missus Sparsit was resolved to
- 3:46:33Speaker 4: have compassion on him as a victim. She was polite, obliging, cheerful, hopeful.
- 3:46:40Speaker 4: But the more polite, the more obliging, the more cheerful,
- 3:46:44Speaker 4: the more hopeful, the more exemplary. Altogether she for the
- 3:46:49Speaker 4: Forlorner's sacrifice and victimy e she had that tenderness for
- 3:46:55Speaker 4: his melancholy fate that his great red countenance used to
- 3:46:59Speaker 4: break out in to cold perspirations when she looked at him. Meanwhile,
- 3:47:05Speaker 4: the marriage was appointed to be solemnized in eight weeks time,
- 3:47:10Speaker 4: and mister Bounderby went every evening to Stone Lodge as
- 3:47:14Speaker 4: an accepted wooer. Love was made on these occasions in
- 3:47:19Speaker 4: the form of bracelets, and on all occasions during the
- 3:47:23Speaker 4: period of betrothal took a manufacturing aspect. Dresses were made,
- 3:47:29Speaker 4: jewelry was made, cakes and gloves were made, Settlements were made,
- 3:47:34Speaker 4: and an extensive assortment of facts did appropriate honor to
- 3:47:39Speaker 4: the contract. The business was all fact from first to last.
- 3:47:45Speaker 4: The hours did not go through any of those rosy
- 3:47:48Speaker 4: performances which foolish poets have ascribed to them at such time.
- 3:47:54Speaker 4: Neither did the clocks go any faster or any slower
- 3:47:58Speaker 4: than at other seasons. The deadly statistical recorder in the
- 3:48:03Speaker 4: Gradgrind Observatory knocked every second on the head as it
- 3:48:07Speaker 4: was born, and buried it with his accustomed regularity. So
- 3:48:13Speaker 4: the day came as all other days come to people
- 3:48:17Speaker 4: who will only stick to reason, and when it came
- 3:48:21Speaker 4: there were married in the Church of the Florid Wooden
- 3:48:24Speaker 4: Legs that popular order of architecture, Josiah Bounderby, Esqre of
- 3:48:30Speaker 4: Cooktown to Louisa, eldest daughter of Thomas Gradgrind, Esquire of
- 3:48:36Speaker 4: Stone Lodge, MP for that borough. And when they were
- 3:48:41Speaker 4: united in holy matrimony, they went home to breakfast to
- 3:48:45Speaker 4: Stone Lodge. Aforesaid, there was an improving party assembled on
- 3:48:51Speaker 4: the auspicious occasion, who knew what everything they had to
- 3:48:54Speaker 4: eat and drink was made of, and how it was
- 3:48:57Speaker 4: imported or exported, and what quantities, and what bottoms, whether
- 3:49:03Speaker 4: native or foreign, and all about it. The bride'smaids down
- 3:49:08Speaker 4: to little Jane Gradgrind, were in an intellectual point of view,
- 3:49:13Speaker 4: fit helpmates for the calculating boy, and there was no
- 3:49:17Speaker 4: nonsense about any of the company. After breakfast, the bridegroom
- 3:49:21Speaker 4: addressed them in the following terms, Ladies and gentlemen, I
- 3:49:27Speaker 4: am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Since you have done my
- 3:49:31Speaker 4: wife and myself the honor of drinking our healths and happiness,
- 3:49:36Speaker 4: I suppose I must acknowledge the same those you all
- 3:49:39Speaker 4: know me and know what I am and what my
- 3:49:43Speaker 4: extraction was. You won't expect a speech from a man who,
- 3:49:48Speaker 4: when he sees a post says that's a post, and
- 3:49:51Speaker 4: when he sees a pump says that's a pump, and
- 3:49:55Speaker 4: is not to be got to call a post a
- 3:49:57Speaker 4: pump or a pump a post, or either of them
- 3:50:01Speaker 4: a toothpick. If you want a speech this morning, my
- 3:50:05Speaker 4: friend and father in law, Tom Gradgrind, is a member
- 3:50:09Speaker 4: of Parliament, and you know where to get it. I
- 3:50:12Speaker 4: am not your man. However, if I feel a little
- 3:50:16Speaker 4: independent when I look around this table today and reflect
- 3:50:21Speaker 4: how little I thought of marrying Tom Gradgrind's daughter when
- 3:50:25Speaker 4: I was a ragged street boy who never washed his
- 3:50:29Speaker 4: face unless it was at a pump, and that's not
- 3:50:32Speaker 4: oftener than once a fortnight. I hope I may be excused.
- 3:50:38Speaker 4: So I hope you like my feeling independent. If you don't,
- 3:50:43Speaker 4: I can't help it. I do feel independent now. I
- 3:50:47Speaker 4: have mentioned, and you have mentioned, that I am this
- 3:50:51Speaker 4: day married to Tom Gradgrind's daughter. I'm very glad to
- 3:50:56Speaker 4: be so. It has long been my wish to be
- 3:51:00Speaker 4: so I've watched her bringing up, and I believe she
- 3:51:03Speaker 4: is worthy of me. At the same time not to
- 3:51:07Speaker 4: deceive you. I believe I am worthy of her. So
- 3:51:12Speaker 4: I thank you on both our parts for the good
- 3:51:15Speaker 4: will you have shown towards us, and the best wish
- 3:51:19Speaker 4: I can give the unmarried part of the present company
- 3:51:22Speaker 4: is this. I hope every bachelor may find as good
- 3:51:26Speaker 4: a wife as I have found, and I hope every
- 3:51:29Speaker 4: spinster may find as good a husband as my wife
- 3:51:34Speaker 4: has found. Shortly after which oration, as they were going
- 3:51:38Speaker 4: on a neptual trip to Leone in order that mister
- 3:51:42Speaker 4: Bounderby might take the opportunity of seeing how the hands
- 3:51:47Speaker 4: got on in those parts, and whether they too required
- 3:51:51Speaker 4: to be fed with gold spoons, the happy pair departed
- 3:51:55Speaker 4: for the railroad. The bride, and passing downstairs dress for
- 3:52:00Speaker 4: her journey, found Tom waiting for her, flushed either with
- 3:52:05Speaker 4: his feeling or the vineous part of the breakfast. What
- 3:52:10Speaker 4: a game girl, you are to be such a first
- 3:52:13Speaker 4: rate sister, lou, whispered Tom. She clung to him as
- 3:52:19Speaker 4: she could have clung to some far better nature that day,
- 3:52:23Speaker 4: and was a little shaken in her reserved composure for
- 3:52:26Speaker 4: the first time. Oh, Bounderby's quite ready, said Tom, time's up. Goodbye.
- 3:52:33Speaker 4: I shall be on the lookout for you when you
- 3:52:36Speaker 4: come back, I say, my dear Lou. Ain't it uncommonly jolly?
- 3:52:41Speaker 6: Now?
- 3:52:45Speaker 4: End of section eight.
- 3:52:46Speaker 8: Book the Second Reaping, Chapter one effects in the bank
- 3:52:56Speaker 8: a sunny midsummer day, there was such a thing sometimes,
- 3:53:02Speaker 8: even in Coketown. Seen from a distance. In such weather,
- 3:53:07Speaker 8: Coketown lay shrouded in the haze of its own which
- 3:53:11Speaker 8: appeared impervious to the sun's rays. You only knew the
- 3:53:15Speaker 8: town was there because you knew there could have been
- 3:53:18Speaker 8: no such sulky blotch upon the prospect without a town.
- 3:53:24Speaker 8: A blur of soutain smoke, now confusedly tending this way now,
- 3:53:29Speaker 8: that way, now aspiring to the vault of heaven, now
- 3:53:34Speaker 8: murkily creeping along the earth as the wind rose and
- 3:53:38Speaker 8: fell or changed its quarter, a dense, formless jumble with
- 3:53:43Speaker 8: sheets of cross light in it, that showed nothing but
- 3:53:47Speaker 8: masses of darkness. Coketown in the distance was suggestive of itself,
- 3:53:54Speaker 8: though not a brick of it could be seen. The
- 3:53:58Speaker 8: wonder was it was there at all? It had been
- 3:54:00Speaker 8: ruined so often that it was amazing how it had
- 3:54:03Speaker 8: borne so many shocks. Surely there never was such fragile
- 3:54:08Speaker 8: chinaware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made.
- 3:54:12Speaker 8: Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces
- 3:54:16Speaker 8: with such ease that you might suspect them of having
- 3:54:20Speaker 8: been flawed before. They were ruined when they were required
- 3:54:24Speaker 8: to send their laboring children to school. They were ruined
- 3:54:27Speaker 8: when inspectors were appointed to look into their works. They
- 3:54:31Speaker 8: were ruined when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they
- 3:54:34Speaker 8: were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery.
- 3:54:38Speaker 8: They were utterly undone when it was hinted that perhaps
- 3:54:42Speaker 8: they need not always make quite so much smoke. Besides
- 3:54:47Speaker 8: mister Bounderby's gold Spoon, which was generally received in Coketown,
- 3:54:51Speaker 8: another prevalent fiction was very popular there. It took the
- 3:54:56Speaker 8: form of a threat. Whenever a coke felt that he
- 3:55:00Speaker 8: was ill used, and that is to say, whenever he
- 3:55:04Speaker 8: was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to
- 3:55:06Speaker 8: hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts,
- 3:55:11Speaker 8: he was sure to come out with the awful menace
- 3:55:13Speaker 8: that he would sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.
- 3:55:18Speaker 8: This had terrified the home secretary within an inch of
- 3:55:21Speaker 8: his life on several occasions. However, the coketowners were so
- 3:55:26Speaker 8: patriotic after all, that they had never pitched their property
- 3:55:30Speaker 8: into Atlantic yet, but on the contrary, had been kind
- 3:55:34Speaker 8: enough to take mighty good care of it. So there
- 3:55:38Speaker 8: it was in the haze yonder, and it increased and multiplied.
- 3:55:45Speaker 8: The streets were hot and dusty on the summer day,
- 3:55:49Speaker 8: and the sun was so bright that it even shone
- 3:55:52Speaker 8: through the heavy vapor drooping over Coketown and could not
- 3:55:55Speaker 8: be looked at. Steadily stokers emerged from low undergrad doorways
- 3:56:00Speaker 8: into factory yards and sat on steps and posts and palings,
- 3:56:05Speaker 8: wiping their swarthy visages and contemplating coals. The whole town
- 3:56:11Speaker 8: seemed to be frying in oil. There was a stifling
- 3:56:16Speaker 8: smell of hot oil everywhere. The steam engines shone with it,
- 3:56:20Speaker 8: the dresses of the hands were soiled with it. The mills,
- 3:56:24Speaker 8: throughout their many stories, oozed and trickled it. The atmosphere
- 3:56:29Speaker 8: of those fairy palaces was like the breath of the simoon,
- 3:56:34Speaker 8: and their inhabitants, wasting with heat, toiled languidly in the desert.
- 3:56:40Speaker 8: But no temperature made the melancholy mad elephants more mad
- 3:56:45Speaker 8: or more sane. There wearisome heads went up and down
- 3:56:48Speaker 8: at the same rate in hot weather and cold, wet
- 3:56:51Speaker 8: weather and dry, fair weather and foul The measured motion
- 3:56:56Speaker 8: of their shadows and the walls was the substitute. Coketown
- 3:56:59Speaker 8: had to sho so for the shadows of rustling woods,
- 3:57:03Speaker 8: while for the summer hum of insects it could offer
- 3:57:06Speaker 8: all the year round, from the dawn of Monday to
- 3:57:09Speaker 8: the night of Saturday. The whir of shafts and wheels
- 3:57:14Speaker 8: drowsily they were all through this sunny day, making the
- 3:57:18Speaker 8: passenger more sleepy and more hot as he passed the
- 3:57:22Speaker 8: humming walls of the mills, sunblines, and sprinklings of water
- 3:57:27Speaker 8: a little called the main streets and the shops. But
- 3:57:30Speaker 8: the mills and the courts and alleys baked at a
- 3:57:33Speaker 8: fierce heat. Down upon the river that was black and
- 3:57:38Speaker 8: thick with dye. Some Coketown boys, who were at large
- 3:57:42Speaker 8: a rare sight there rode a crazy boat, which made
- 3:57:46Speaker 8: a spumous track upon the water as it jogged along,
- 3:57:49Speaker 8: while every dip of now stirred up vile smells. But
- 3:57:54Speaker 8: the sun itself. However, Beneficent generally was less kind to
- 3:57:59Speaker 8: Coketown than hard Frost, and rarely looked intently into any
- 3:58:03Speaker 8: of its closer regions without engendering more deaths than life.
- 3:58:09Speaker 8: So does the eye of heaven itself become an evil
- 3:58:12Speaker 8: eye when incapable or sordid hands interposed between it and
- 3:58:17Speaker 8: the things it looks upon. To bless, Missus Sparsit sat
- 3:58:22Speaker 8: in her afternoon apartment at the bank, on the shadier
- 3:58:26Speaker 8: side of the Frying Street. Office hours were over, and
- 3:58:30Speaker 8: at that period of the day in warm weather, she
- 3:58:33Speaker 8: usually embellished with her genteel presence and managerial boardroom over
- 3:58:38Speaker 8: the public office. Her own private sitting room was a
- 3:58:42Speaker 8: story higher, at the window of which post of observation
- 3:58:46Speaker 8: she was ready every morning to greet mister Bounderby as
- 3:58:49Speaker 8: he came across the road with the sympathizing recognition appropriate
- 3:58:54Speaker 8: to a victim. He had been married now a year,
- 3:58:57Speaker 8: and Missus Sparsit had never released her from her determined
- 3:59:01Speaker 8: pity a moment. The bank offered no violence to the
- 3:59:06Speaker 8: wholesome monotony of the town. It was another red brick
- 3:59:09Speaker 8: house with black outside shutters, green inside blinds, a black
- 3:59:14Speaker 8: street door up, two white steps, a brazen doorplate, and
- 3:59:18Speaker 8: a brazen door hand or full stop. It was a
- 3:59:21Speaker 8: size larger than mister Mounderby's house, as other houses were
- 3:59:25Speaker 8: from a size to half a dozen sizes smaller. In
- 3:59:28Speaker 8: all other particulars, it was strictly according to pattern. Missus
- 3:59:34Speaker 8: Sparsit was conscious that by coming in the evening tide
- 3:59:37Speaker 8: among the desks and writing implements, she shared a feminine,
- 3:59:41Speaker 8: not to say also aristocratic grace upon the office. Seated
- 3:59:46Speaker 8: with her needlework or netting apparatus at the window, she
- 3:59:50Speaker 8: had a self laudatory sense of correcting by her ladylike
- 3:59:54Speaker 8: deportment the rude business aspect of the place. With this
- 3:59:59Speaker 8: impression of her interesting character upon her, Missus Sparsit considered
- 4:00:03Speaker 8: herself and some sort the bank fairy. The townspeople, who,
- 4:00:08Speaker 8: in their passing and repassing saw her there, regarded her
- 4:00:11Speaker 8: as the bank dragon keeping watch over the treasures of
- 4:00:15Speaker 8: the mine. What those treasures were, Missus Sparsit knew as
- 4:00:20Speaker 8: little as they did, gold and silver coin, precious paper,
- 4:00:25Speaker 8: secrets that if divulged, would bring vague destruction upon vague persons.
- 4:00:29Speaker 8: Generally However, people whom she disliked were the chief items
- 4:00:33Speaker 8: in her ideal catalogs thereof. For the rest she knew
- 4:00:37Speaker 8: that after office hours she reigned supreme over all the
- 4:00:41Speaker 8: office furniture, and over a locked up iron room with
- 4:00:45Speaker 8: three locks, against the door of which strong chamber the
- 4:00:49Speaker 8: light porter laid his head every night on a trackle
- 4:00:52Speaker 8: bed that disappeared at cockrow. Further, she was lady Paramount
- 4:00:57Speaker 8: over certain vaults in the basement sharply biked off from
- 4:01:00Speaker 8: communication with the predatory world, and over the relics of
- 4:01:03Speaker 8: the current day's work, consisting of blots of ink, worn
- 4:01:07Speaker 8: out pens, fragments of wafers, and scraps of paper torn
- 4:01:11Speaker 8: so small that nothing interesting could ever be deciphered on
- 4:01:15Speaker 8: them when Missus sparsit tried. Lastly, she was guardian over
- 4:01:19Speaker 8: a little armory of cutlasses and carbines, a rayed in
- 4:01:23Speaker 8: vengeful order above one of the official chimney pieces, and
- 4:01:27Speaker 8: over that respectable tradition never to be separated from a
- 4:01:30Speaker 8: place of business claiming to be wealthy, a row of
- 4:01:33Speaker 8: fire buckets vessels calculated to be of no physical utility
- 4:01:37Speaker 8: on any occasion, but observed to exercise a fine moral
- 4:01:41Speaker 8: influence almost equal to bullion on those beholders. A deaf
- 4:01:47Speaker 8: serving woman and a light porter completed Missus Sparsit's empire.
- 4:01:52Speaker 8: The deaf serving woman was rumoured to be wealthy, and
- 4:01:55Speaker 8: a saying had for years gone about the lower orders
- 4:01:58Speaker 8: of Coketown that she would be murdered some night when
- 4:02:01Speaker 8: the bank was shut for the sake of her money.
- 4:02:04Speaker 8: It was generally considered, indeed, that she had been due
- 4:02:07Speaker 8: some time, and ought to have fallen long ago. But
- 4:02:10Speaker 8: she had kept her life and her situation with an
- 4:02:13Speaker 8: ill conditioned tenacity that occasioned much offense and disappointment. Missus
- 4:02:20Speaker 8: Sparsit's tea was just set for her on a pert
- 4:02:23Speaker 8: little table with its tripod of legs, in an attitude
- 4:02:26Speaker 8: which she insinuated after office hours into the company of
- 4:02:30Speaker 8: the stern leatheren topped long ball table that bestrode the
- 4:02:35Speaker 8: middle of the room. The light porter placed the tea
- 4:02:38Speaker 8: tray on it, knuckling his forehead as a form of homage.
- 4:02:43Speaker 8: Thank your bitza, said Missus Sparsit. Thank you, ma'am, returned
- 4:02:48Speaker 8: the light porter. He was a very light porter, indeed
- 4:02:51Speaker 8: as light as in the days when he blinkingly defined
- 4:02:54Speaker 8: a horse for girl number twenty. All this shut up, Bitza,
- 4:02:58Speaker 8: said Missus sparsit. All is shut up, ma'am. And what,
- 4:03:03Speaker 8: said Missus Sparsit, pouring out her tea, is the news
- 4:03:06Speaker 8: of the day? Anything, well, ma'am, I can't say I've
- 4:03:10Speaker 8: heard anything particular. Our people are a bad lot, ma'am,
- 4:03:14Speaker 8: but that's no news, unfortunately. What are the restless wretches
- 4:03:18Speaker 8: doing now, asked Missus sparsit. Merely going on in the
- 4:03:23Speaker 8: old way, ma'am, uniting and leaguing and engaging to stand
- 4:03:27Speaker 8: by one another. It is much to be regretted, said
- 4:03:31Speaker 8: Missus sparsit, making her nose more Roman and her eyebrows
- 4:03:35Speaker 8: more Coriolanean, in the strength of a severity that the
- 4:03:38Speaker 8: United Masters allow of any such class combinations. Yes, ma'am,
- 4:03:44Speaker 8: said Bitzer, being united themselves, they ought one in order
- 4:03:49Speaker 8: to set their faces against employing any man who is
- 4:03:52Speaker 8: united with any other man, said Missus Sparsit. They have
- 4:03:56Speaker 8: done that, ma'am, returned Bitzer. But it rather fell through
- 4:03:59Speaker 8: mar I do not pretend to understand these things, said
- 4:04:04Speaker 8: Missus sparsit. With dignity, my lot having been signally classed
- 4:04:08Speaker 8: in a widely different sphere, and mister Sparsit as a poller,
- 4:04:13Speaker 8: being also quite out of the pale of such dissensions.
- 4:04:17Speaker 8: I only know that these people must be conquered, and
- 4:04:20Speaker 8: that it's high time it was done once for all. Yes, ma'am,
- 4:04:25Speaker 8: returned Bitsa with a demonstration of great respect for Missus
- 4:04:28Speaker 8: Sparsit's arilicua authority. You couldn't put it clearer, I'm sure, ma'am,
- 4:04:34Speaker 8: as this was his usual hour for having a little
- 4:04:36Speaker 8: confidential chat with Missus Sparsit, and as he had already
- 4:04:40Speaker 8: caught her eye and seen that she was going to
- 4:04:41Speaker 8: ask him something, he made a pretense of arranging the rulers,
- 4:04:45Speaker 8: inkstands and so forth, while that lady went on with
- 4:04:48Speaker 8: her tea, glancing through the open window down into the street.
- 4:04:53Speaker 8: Has he been a busy day, Bitsa asked Missus Sparsit
- 4:04:57Speaker 8: not a very busy day, milady? About now ridge day?
- 4:05:01Speaker 6: He now?
- 4:05:02Speaker 8: And then slided into my lady instead of ma'am. As
- 4:05:05Speaker 8: an involuntary acknowledgment of Missus Sparsit's personal dignity and claims
- 4:05:09Speaker 8: to reverence, the clerks, said Missus Sparsit, carefully brushing an
- 4:05:14Speaker 8: imperceptible crumb of bread and butter from her left hand mitten.
- 4:05:19Speaker 8: Are trustworthy, punctual, and industrious, of course, yes, ma'am, Pretty fair, ma'am.
- 4:05:24Speaker 8: With the usual exception, he held the respectable office of
- 4:05:29Speaker 8: General Spy and Informer in the Establishment, for which volunteer
- 4:05:34Speaker 8: service he received a present at Christmas over and above
- 4:05:36Speaker 8: his weekly wage. He had grown into an extremely clear headed, cautious,
- 4:05:42Speaker 8: prudent young man who was safe to rise in the world.
- 4:05:46Speaker 8: His mind was so exactly regulated that he had no
- 4:05:50Speaker 8: affections or passions. All his proceedings were the result of
- 4:05:53Speaker 8: the nicest and coldest calculation. And it was not without
- 4:05:57Speaker 8: calls that missus Sparsit habitually observe him that he was
- 4:06:01Speaker 8: a young man of the steadiest principle she had ever known.
- 4:06:05Speaker 8: Having satisfied himself on his father's death, that his mother
- 4:06:08Speaker 8: had a right of settlement in Coketown, this excellent young
- 4:06:12Speaker 8: economist had asserted that right for her, with such a
- 4:06:15Speaker 8: steadfast adherence to the principle of the case, that she
- 4:06:18Speaker 8: had been shut up in the workhouse ever since. It
- 4:06:22Speaker 8: must be admitted that he allowed her half a pound
- 4:06:24Speaker 8: of tea a year which was weakened him, first because
- 4:06:28Speaker 8: all gifts have an inevitable tendency to pauperize the recipient,
- 4:06:32Speaker 8: and secondly because his only reasonable transaction in that commodity
- 4:06:36Speaker 8: would have been to buy it for as little as
- 4:06:38Speaker 8: he could possibly give and sell it for as much
- 4:06:40Speaker 8: as he could possibly get it, having been clearly ascertained
- 4:06:44Speaker 8: by philosophers that in this is comprised the whole duty
- 4:06:47Speaker 8: of man, not a part of man's duty, but the whole.
- 4:06:52Speaker 8: Pretty fair, ma'am, with the usual exception, ma'am repeated bitzer Ah,
- 4:07:00Speaker 8: said Missus sparsit, shaking her head over the teacup and
- 4:07:03Speaker 8: taking a long gulp. Mister Thomas, ma'am. I doubt mister
- 4:07:07Speaker 8: Thomas very much, ma'am. I don't like his ways at all. Bits, sir,
- 4:07:11Speaker 8: said Missus sparsit, in a very impressive manner. Do you
- 4:07:14Speaker 8: recollect my having said anything to your respecting names? I
- 4:07:19Speaker 8: beg your pardon, ma'am. It's quite true that you did
- 4:07:21Speaker 8: object to name is being used, and they're always best avoided.
- 4:07:25Speaker 8: Please to remember that I have a charge here, said
- 4:07:28Speaker 8: Missus sparsit, with her air of state. I held a
- 4:07:31Speaker 8: trust here, Bits, sir, under mister Bounderby. However improbable both
- 4:07:35Speaker 8: mister Bounderby and myself might have deemed it years ago
- 4:07:38Speaker 8: that he would ever become my patron, making me an
- 4:07:41Speaker 8: annual compliment. I cannot but regard him in that light.
- 4:07:46Speaker 8: From mister Bounderby, I have received every acknowledgment of my
- 4:07:49Speaker 8: es social station and every recognition of my family descent
- 4:07:53Speaker 8: that I could possibly expect more far more.
- 4:07:56Speaker 6: Therefore, to my.
- 4:07:57Speaker 8: Patron, I will be scrupulously true, and I do not consider,
- 4:08:02Speaker 8: I will not consider, I cannot consider, said Missus Sparsit,
- 4:08:06Speaker 8: with the most extensive stock on hand of honor and morality,
- 4:08:09Speaker 8: that I should be scrupulously true if I allowed names
- 4:08:13Speaker 8: to be mentioned under this roof that are unfortunately, most
- 4:08:17Speaker 8: unfortunately no doubt of that connected with his bits knuckled
- 4:08:24Speaker 8: his forehead again and again begged pardon no. Bitzer continued,
- 4:08:28Speaker 8: Missus Sparsit see an individual, and I will hear you say,
- 4:08:33Speaker 8: mister Thomas, and you must excuse me with the usual exception, ma'am,
- 4:08:38Speaker 8: said Bitser, trying back of an individual. Ah, Missus Sparsit
- 4:08:45Speaker 8: repeated the ejaculation, the shake of the head over her teacup,
- 4:08:49Speaker 8: and the long gulp as, taking up the conversation again
- 4:08:52Speaker 8: at the point where it had been interrupted an individual,
- 4:08:56Speaker 8: ma'am said, Bitser has never been what the Alta have
- 4:08:59Speaker 8: been since he first came into the place. He's a dissipated,
- 4:09:03Speaker 8: extravagant idler. He's not worth his salt, ma'am. He wouldn't
- 4:09:06Speaker 8: get it either if he hadn't a friend and relation
- 4:09:08Speaker 8: at court, ma'am, Ah said Missus sparsit, with another melancholy
- 4:09:15Speaker 8: shake of her head. I only hope, ma'am, pursued Bitzer,
- 4:09:20Speaker 8: that his friend and relation may not supply him with
- 4:09:22Speaker 8: the means of carrying on. Otherwise, ma'am, we know out
- 4:09:26Speaker 8: of whose pocket that money comes, Ah sighed Missus sparsit again,
- 4:09:32Speaker 8: with another melancholy shake of her head. He is to
- 4:09:36Speaker 8: be petted, ma'am. The last party I've eluded to is
- 4:09:40Speaker 8: to be pitied, ma'am, said Bitzer. Yes, Bitzer, said, Missus sparsit.
- 4:09:46Speaker 8: I have always pitied the delusion, always as to an individual, ma'am,
- 4:09:52Speaker 8: said Bitzer, dropping his voice and drawing near her. He
- 4:09:55Speaker 8: is as improvident as any of the people in this town.
- 4:09:59Speaker 8: And you know what their improvidence is ma'am. No one
- 4:10:02Speaker 8: could wish to know it better than a lady of
- 4:10:04Speaker 8: your eminence does, they would do well, returned missus sparsan
- 4:10:10Speaker 8: to take example by your bit sir. Thank you, ma'am.
- 4:10:15Speaker 8: But since you don't refer to me, now look at me, ma'am.
- 4:10:18Speaker 8: I've put by a little marm already their graturity which
- 4:10:21Speaker 8: I receive at Christmas. M'm I never touch it. I
- 4:10:24Speaker 8: don't even go the length of my wages, though they're
- 4:10:26Speaker 8: not I, ma'am. Why can't they do as I have done?
- 4:10:30Speaker 1: Ma'am?
- 4:10:30Speaker 8: Well, one person can do, another can do this again
- 4:10:35Speaker 8: was among the fictions of Coketown. Any capitalist there who
- 4:10:40Speaker 8: had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence always profess
- 4:10:43Speaker 8: to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest hands didn't each
- 4:10:47Speaker 8: make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and or less
- 4:10:50Speaker 8: reproached than everyone for not accomplishing the little feat what
- 4:10:55Speaker 8: I did, you can do? Why didn't you go and
- 4:10:57Speaker 8: do it? As to their once recreations, ma'am said Bitzer,
- 4:11:03Speaker 8: it's stuff and nonsense. I don't want recreations. I never did,
- 4:11:06Speaker 8: and I never shower. I don't like them as to
- 4:11:09Speaker 8: their combining together, there are many of them. I have
- 4:11:12Speaker 8: no doubt that by watching and informing upon one another
- 4:11:15Speaker 8: could earn a little trifle now and then, whether in
- 4:11:18Speaker 8: money or goodwill, and improve their livelihood. Then why don't
- 4:11:22Speaker 8: they improve it? Ma'am? Is the first consideration of a
- 4:11:25Speaker 8: rational creature, and it's what they pretend to want. Pretend, indeed,
- 4:11:31Speaker 8: said missus Sparsit. I am sure we are constantly hearing
- 4:11:35Speaker 8: marmun till it becomes quite nauseous. Concerning their wives and families,
- 4:11:40Speaker 8: said Bitzer, Why look at me, ma'am. I don't want
- 4:11:43Speaker 8: a wife and family. Why should they? Because they are improvident,
- 4:11:48Speaker 8: said missus Sparsit. Yes, ma'am, returned Bitsa. That's where it is.
- 4:11:53Speaker 8: If they were more provident and less perverse, ma'am, what
- 4:11:56Speaker 8: would they do? They would say, while my kever's my face,
- 4:12:00Speaker 8: or while my bonnet covers my family, as the case
- 4:12:02Speaker 8: might be, ma'am, I have only one to feed, and
- 4:12:05Speaker 8: that's the person I most like to feed, to be sure,
- 4:12:10Speaker 8: assented Missus Sparsit. Eating muffin, Thank you, ma'am, said Bitzer,
- 4:12:15Speaker 8: knuckling his forehead again in return for the favor of
- 4:12:18Speaker 8: Missus Sparsit's improving conversation. Would you wish a little more
- 4:12:22Speaker 8: hot water, ma'am? Or is there anything else that I
- 4:12:24Speaker 8: could fetch you? Nothing just now, but sir, thank you, ma'am.
- 4:12:29Speaker 8: I shouldn't wish to disturb you at your meals, Marm,
- 4:12:32Speaker 8: particularly tea, knowing your partiality for it, said Bitzer, craning
- 4:12:37Speaker 8: a little to look over the street from where he stood.
- 4:12:40Speaker 8: But there's a gentleman been looking up here for a
- 4:12:43Speaker 8: minute or so, ma'am, and he has come across as
- 4:12:46Speaker 8: if he was going to knock Ah. That is not Marm,
- 4:12:50Speaker 8: no doubt. He stepped to the window, and, looking out
- 4:12:54Speaker 8: and drawing in his head again, confirmed himself with ah, yes, ma'am.
- 4:12:58Speaker 8: Would you wish the gentleman to be shown in, Marm?
- 4:13:02Speaker 8: I don't know who it can be, said missus Sparsit,
- 4:13:05Speaker 8: wiping her mouth and arranging her mittens. A stranger, Marm.
- 4:13:09Speaker 8: Evidently what a stranger can want at the bank at
- 4:13:12Speaker 8: this time of the evening unless he comes upon some
- 4:13:14Speaker 8: business for which he is too late, I don't know,
- 4:13:17Speaker 8: said missus Sparsit. But I held a charge in this
- 4:13:20Speaker 8: establishment from mister bounderby, and I will never shrink from it.
- 4:13:24Speaker 8: If to see him is any part of the duty
- 4:13:26Speaker 8: I have accepted, I will see him. Use your own discretion. Bitzer, here,
- 4:13:32Speaker 8: the visitor, all unconscious of missus Sparsit's magnanimous words, repeated
- 4:13:37Speaker 8: his knock so loudly that the light porter hastened down
- 4:13:40Speaker 8: to open the door, while Missus Sparsit took the precaution
- 4:13:43Speaker 8: of concealing her little table with all its appliances upon
- 4:13:46Speaker 8: it in a cupboard, and then decamped upstairs that she
- 4:13:50Speaker 8: might appear if needful, with the greater dignity. If you please, ma'am,
- 4:13:56Speaker 8: the gentleman would wish to see you, said Bitzer, with
- 4:13:59Speaker 8: his life at missus Sparsit's keyhole. So missus Sparsit, who
- 4:14:04Speaker 8: had improved the interval by touching up her cap, took
- 4:14:07Speaker 8: her classical features downstairs again and entered the boardroom in
- 4:14:11Speaker 8: the manner of a Roman matron going outside the city
- 4:14:14Speaker 8: walls to treat with an invading general. The visitor, having
- 4:14:19Speaker 8: strolled to the window and being then engaged and looking
- 4:14:22Speaker 8: carelessly out, was as unmoved by this impressive entry as
- 4:14:26Speaker 8: man could possibly be. He stood whistling to himself with
- 4:14:30Speaker 8: all imaginable coolness, with his hat still on, and a
- 4:14:33Speaker 8: certain air of exhaustion upon him, impart arising from excessive summer,
- 4:14:38Speaker 8: and in part from excessive gentility. For it was to
- 4:14:42Speaker 8: be seen with half an eye that he was a
- 4:14:44Speaker 8: thorough gentleman, made to the model of time, weary of everything,
- 4:14:49Speaker 8: and putting no more faith in anything than lucifer. I believe, sir,
- 4:14:54Speaker 8: quoth missus Sparsit, you wish to see me? I beg
- 4:14:58Speaker 8: your pardon, he said, turning and removing his hat. Pray,
- 4:15:02Speaker 8: excuse me, humph, thought missus Sparsit, as she made a
- 4:15:07Speaker 8: stately bend five and thirty, good looking, good figure, good teeth,
- 4:15:12Speaker 8: good voice, good breading, well dressed, dark hair, bald eyes,
- 4:15:18Speaker 8: all which Missus Sparsit observed in her womanly way, like
- 4:15:21Speaker 8: the sultan who put his head in the pail of water,
- 4:15:24Speaker 8: merely in dipping down and coming up again. Please to
- 4:15:29Speaker 8: be seated, sir, said Missus Sparsit. Thank you allow me.
- 4:15:35Speaker 8: He placed a chair for her, but remained himself carelessly
- 4:15:38Speaker 8: lounging against the table. I left my servant at the railway,
- 4:15:42Speaker 8: looking after the luggage, very heavy tray and vast quantity
- 4:15:45Speaker 8: of it van and strolled on looking about me exceedingly
- 4:15:50Speaker 8: odd place. Will you allow me to ask her if
- 4:15:53Speaker 8: it's always as black as this in general? Much blacker,
- 4:15:57Speaker 8: returned Missus Sparsit, and her uncle compromising way, is it possible,
- 4:16:03Speaker 8: excuse me, you're not a native, I think near, Sir
- 4:16:07Speaker 8: returned missus Sparsit. It was once my good or ill fortune,
- 4:16:11Speaker 8: as it may be, before I became a widow to
- 4:16:14Speaker 8: move in a very different sphere. My husband was a palla,
- 4:16:21Speaker 8: A bigger pardon, really, said the stranger was, Missus Sparsit, repeated,
- 4:16:26Speaker 8: a palla palla family, said the stranger. After reflecting a
- 4:16:31Speaker 8: few moments, Missus Sparsit signified assent. The stranger seemed a
- 4:16:37Speaker 8: little more fatigue than before. You must be very much bored.
- 4:16:43Speaker 8: Here was the influence he drew from the communication. I
- 4:16:46Speaker 8: am the servant of circumstances, sir, said Missus Sparsit, and
- 4:16:50Speaker 8: I have long adapted myself to the governing power of
- 4:16:53Speaker 8: my life. Very philosophical, returned the stranger, and very exemplary
- 4:16:58Speaker 8: and laudable, and it seemed to be scarcely worth his
- 4:17:01Speaker 8: while to finish the sentence. So he played with his
- 4:17:04Speaker 8: watch chain wearily. May I be permitted to ask, sir, said,
- 4:17:09Speaker 8: Missus sparsit to what I am indebted for the favor of, assuredly,
- 4:17:14Speaker 8: said the stranger, much obliged to for reminding me, I
- 4:17:17Speaker 8: am the bearer of an letter of introduction to mister
- 4:17:20Speaker 8: bounderby the Banker. Walking through this extraordinarily black town while
- 4:17:25Speaker 8: they were getting dinner ready at the hotel, I asked
- 4:17:28Speaker 8: a fellow whom I met, one of the working people,
- 4:17:31Speaker 8: who appeared to have been taking a shower bath of
- 4:17:33Speaker 8: something fluffy, which I assume to be the raw material.
- 4:17:37Speaker 8: Missus sparsit inclined her head, a raw material. Where will
- 4:17:41Speaker 8: mister bounderby the banker that resild? Upon which, misled no
- 4:17:45Speaker 8: doubt by the word banker, he directed me to the bank,
- 4:17:50Speaker 8: a fact being I presume that mister bounderby the Banker
- 4:17:52Speaker 8: does not reside in the edifice in which I have
- 4:17:54Speaker 8: the honor of offering this explanation. No, sir returned Missus spars
- 4:18:00Speaker 8: that he does not.
- 4:18:02Speaker 2: Thank you.
- 4:18:02Speaker 8: I had no intention of delivering my letter at the
- 4:18:04Speaker 8: present moment, nor have I but strolling on to the
- 4:18:08Speaker 8: bank to kill time, and having the good fortune to
- 4:18:11Speaker 8: observe at the window towards which he languidly waved his
- 4:18:15Speaker 8: hands and then slightly bowed, a lady of a very
- 4:18:19Speaker 8: superior and agreeable appearance. I considered that I could not
- 4:18:23Speaker 8: do better than take the liberty of asking that lady
- 4:18:26Speaker 8: where mister Bounderby the Banker does live, which I accordingly venture,
- 4:18:30Speaker 8: with all suitable apologies to do. The inattention and indolence
- 4:18:35Speaker 8: of his manner were sufficiently relieved to missus Sparsit's thinking
- 4:18:39Speaker 8: by a certain gallantry at ease, which offered her homage
- 4:18:43Speaker 8: to here he was, for instance, at this moment, all
- 4:18:46Speaker 8: but sitting on the table, and yet lazily bending over her,
- 4:18:49Speaker 8: as if he acknowledged an attraction in her that made
- 4:18:52Speaker 8: her charming in her way. Banks Enny always suspicious, and
- 4:18:57Speaker 8: officially must be said the stranger, whose lifeless and smoothness
- 4:19:01Speaker 8: of speech were pleasant, likewise suggesting matter far more sensible
- 4:19:05Speaker 8: and humorous than it ever contained, which was perhaps a
- 4:19:08Speaker 8: shrewd device of the founder of this numerous sect, whosoever
- 4:19:12Speaker 8: may have been that great man. Therefore, I may observe
- 4:19:15Speaker 8: that my letter, here it is, is from the member
- 4:19:19Speaker 8: for this place gradgrind whom I have had the pleasure
- 4:19:23Speaker 8: of knowing in London. Missus Sparsit recognized the hand, intimated
- 4:19:29Speaker 8: that such confirmation was quite unnecessary, and gave mister Bounderby's
- 4:19:33Speaker 8: address with all needful clues and directions made thousand thanks,
- 4:19:38Speaker 8: said the stranger. Of course you know the bank well, Yes, sir,
- 4:19:43Speaker 8: rejoined Missus Sparsit. It m my dependent relation towards him.
- 4:19:46Speaker 8: I have made him ten years quite an eternity. I
- 4:19:50Speaker 8: think he married Gregrund's daughter. Yes, said Missus Sparsit, suddenly
- 4:19:55Speaker 8: compressing her mouth. He had that honor the lad. He
- 4:20:00Speaker 8: is quite a philosopher, I am told indeed, sir, said
- 4:20:04Speaker 8: missus Sparsit.
- 4:20:05Speaker 2: Is she?
- 4:20:07Speaker 8: Excuse my impertinent curiosity, pursued the stranger, fluttering over Missus
- 4:20:11Speaker 8: Sparsit's eyebrows with a propitatory air. But you know the
- 4:20:14Speaker 8: family and know the world. I am about to know
- 4:20:17Speaker 8: the family and may have much to do with them.
- 4:20:20Speaker 8: Is the lady so very alarming? Her father gives her
- 4:20:23Speaker 8: such a portentously hard headed reputation that I have a
- 4:20:27Speaker 8: burning desire to know. Is she absolutely unapproachable? Repellently and
- 4:20:33Speaker 8: stunningly clever I see if your meaning smile, you think not.
- 4:20:38Speaker 8: You have poured balm into my anxious soul. As to
- 4:20:42Speaker 8: age now forty five and thirty, Missus Sparsit laughed outright
- 4:20:48Speaker 8: at shit, said she not twenty when she was married.
- 4:20:53Speaker 8: I give you my honor, Missus Powler, returned the stranger,
- 4:20:56Speaker 8: detaching himself from the table, that I never was so
- 4:20:59Speaker 8: as to my life. It really did seem to impress
- 4:21:03Speaker 8: him to the utmost extent of his capacity of being impressed.
- 4:21:07Speaker 8: He looked at his informant for four a quarter of
- 4:21:09Speaker 8: a minute and appeared to have the surprise in his
- 4:21:12Speaker 8: mind all the time. I assure you, Missus Paller. He
- 4:21:16Speaker 8: then said, much exhausted, that the father's manner prepared me
- 4:21:20Speaker 8: for a grim and stoney maturity. I have repliged you,
- 4:21:24Speaker 8: of all things, for correcting so absurd a mistake. Pray
- 4:21:28Speaker 8: excuse my intrusion, many thanks, good day. He bowed himself out,
- 4:21:34Speaker 8: and Missus Sparsit, hiding in the window curtain, saw him
- 4:21:37Speaker 8: languishing down the streets on the shady side of the way.
- 4:21:41Speaker 8: Observed of all the town, what do you think of
- 4:21:45Speaker 8: the gentleman bit, sir? She asked, the light porter when
- 4:21:49Speaker 8: he came to take away, spends a deal of money
- 4:21:51Speaker 8: on his dress. Ma'am, it must be admitted, said Missus Sparsan.
- 4:21:57Speaker 8: That is very tasteful. Yes, ma'am, returned Bitser, if that's
- 4:22:02Speaker 8: worth the money. Besides which, ma'am resumed Bitzer, while he
- 4:22:06Speaker 8: was polishing the table. He looks to me as if
- 4:22:09Speaker 8: he gamed. It's a moral to game, said Missus Sparsit.
- 4:22:15Speaker 8: It's ridiculous, ma'am, said Bitser, because the chances are against
- 4:22:19Speaker 8: the players. Whether it was that the heat prevented Missus
- 4:22:23Speaker 8: Sparsit from working, or whether it was that her hand
- 4:22:27Speaker 8: was out, she did no work that night. She sat
- 4:22:31Speaker 8: at the window when the sun began to sink behind
- 4:22:33Speaker 8: the smoke. She sat there when the smoke was burning red,
- 4:22:37Speaker 8: when the color faded from it, when darkness seemed to
- 4:22:40Speaker 8: rise slowly out of the ground and creep upward, upward,
- 4:22:44Speaker 8: up to the housetops, up to the church steeple, up
- 4:22:48Speaker 8: to the summit of the factory chimneys, up to the sky.
- 4:22:53Speaker 8: Without a candle in the room, Missus Sparsit sat at
- 4:22:57Speaker 8: the window with her hands before her, not thinking much
- 4:23:01Speaker 8: of the sounds of evening, the whooping of boys, the
- 4:23:04Speaker 8: barking of dogs, the rumbling of wheels, the steps and
- 4:23:09Speaker 8: voices of passengers, the shrill street cries, the clogs upon
- 4:23:14Speaker 8: the pavement when it was the hour for going by,
- 4:23:17Speaker 8: the shutting up of shop shutters. Not until the light
- 4:23:21Speaker 8: porter announced that her nocturnal sweetbread was ready, did missus
- 4:23:25Speaker 8: Sparsit arouse herself from her reverie and convey her dense
- 4:23:29Speaker 8: black eyebrows, by that time creased with meditation, as if
- 4:23:34Speaker 8: they needed ironing out up stairs. Oh you'll fool, said
- 4:23:40Speaker 8: Missus Sparsit, when she was alone at her supper. Whom
- 4:23:44Speaker 8: she meant she did not say, But she could scarcely
- 4:23:48Speaker 8: have met the sweetbread. End of Section.
- 4:23:52Speaker 5: Nine, Chapter two, Mister James Harthouse. The Gradgrind Party wanted
- 4:23:59Speaker 5: to assistance in cutting the throats of the graces. They
- 4:24:03Speaker 5: went about recruiting, and where could they enlist recruits more
- 4:24:06Speaker 5: hopefully than among the fine gentlemen, who, having found out
- 4:24:10Speaker 5: everything to be worth nothing, were equally ready for anything. Moreover,
- 4:24:15Speaker 5: the healthy spirits who had mounted to this sublime height
- 4:24:18Speaker 5: were attractive to many of the Gradgrind school. They liked
- 4:24:21Speaker 5: fine gentlemen. They pretended they did not, but they did.
- 4:24:26Speaker 5: They became exhausted in imitation of them, and they yaw
- 4:24:29Speaker 5: yawed in their speech like them, And they served out
- 4:24:32Speaker 5: with an enervated air the little moldy rations of political
- 4:24:36Speaker 5: economy on which they regaled their disciples. There never before
- 4:24:40Speaker 5: was seen on earth such a wonderful hybrid race as
- 4:24:43Speaker 5: was thus produced among the fine gentlemen not regularly belonging
- 4:24:48Speaker 5: to the gradgrind school. There was one of a good
- 4:24:50Speaker 5: family and a better appearance, with a happy turn of humor,
- 4:24:54Speaker 5: which had told immensely with the House of Commons on
- 4:24:57Speaker 5: the occasion of his entertaining it with his and the
- 4:24:59Speaker 5: Board of Director's view of a railway accident, in which
- 4:25:03Speaker 5: the most careful officers ever known, employed by the most
- 4:25:07Speaker 5: liberal managers ever heard of, assisted by the finest mechanical
- 4:25:11Speaker 5: contrivances ever devised, the whole inaction on the best line
- 4:25:14Speaker 5: ever constructed, had killed five people and wounded thirty two,
- 4:25:19Speaker 5: by a casualty without which the excellence of the whole
- 4:25:22Speaker 5: system would have been positively incomplete. Among the slain was
- 4:25:26Speaker 5: a cow, and among the scattered articles unowned a widow's
- 4:25:29Speaker 5: cap and the honorable member had so tickled the house,
- 4:25:33Speaker 5: which has a delicate sense of humor, by putting the
- 4:25:36Speaker 5: cap on the cow, that it became impatient of any
- 4:25:39Speaker 5: serious reference to the coroner's inquest, and brought the railway
- 4:25:43Speaker 5: off with cheers and laughter. Now this gentleman had a
- 4:25:47Speaker 5: younger brother, of still better appearance than himself, who had
- 4:25:51Speaker 5: tried life as a cornet of dragoons and founded a boar,
- 4:25:54Speaker 5: and had afterwards tried it in the train of an
- 4:25:57Speaker 5: English minister abroad and founded a boar, and had then
- 4:26:00Speaker 5: strode to Jerusalem and got bored there, and had then
- 4:26:03Speaker 5: gone yachting about the world, and got bored everywhere, to
- 4:26:07Speaker 5: whom this honorable and jocular member fraternally said, one day, Jem,
- 4:26:12Speaker 5: there's a good opening among the hard fact fellows, and
- 4:26:15Speaker 5: they want men. I wonder you don't go in for statistics. Jem,
- 4:26:19Speaker 5: rather taken by the novelty of the idea and very
- 4:26:21Speaker 5: hard up for a change, was as ready to go
- 4:26:24Speaker 5: in for statistics as for anything else.
- 4:26:25Speaker 6: So he went in.
- 4:26:27Speaker 5: He coached himself up with a blue book or two,
- 4:26:30Speaker 5: and his brother put it about among the hard fact
- 4:26:32Speaker 5: fellows and said, if you want to bring in for
- 4:26:35Speaker 5: any place a handsome dog who can make you a
- 4:26:37Speaker 5: devilish good speech. Look after my brother Jem, for he's
- 4:26:40Speaker 5: your man. After a few dashes in the public meeting way,
- 4:26:44Speaker 5: mister Gradgrind and a council of political stages approved of
- 4:26:47Speaker 5: Jem and was resolved to send him down to Coketown
- 4:26:50Speaker 5: to become known there and in the neighborhood. Hence, the
- 4:26:54Speaker 5: letter Jem had last night shown to missus Sparsit which
- 4:26:57Speaker 5: mister Bounderby now held in his hand, superscribed Josiah Bounderby
- 4:27:02Speaker 5: Esquire Banker Coketown, specially to introduce James Harthouse Esquire Thomas Gradgrind.
- 4:27:10Speaker 5: Within an hour of the receipt of this dispatch and
- 4:27:12Speaker 5: mister James Harthouse's card, mister Bounderby put on his hat
- 4:27:16Speaker 5: and went down to the hotel. There he found mister
- 4:27:20Speaker 5: James Harthouse looking out of window in a state of
- 4:27:22Speaker 5: mind so disconsolate that he was already half disposed to
- 4:27:25Speaker 5: go in for something else. My name, sir, said, his
- 4:27:29Speaker 5: visitor is Josiah Bounderby of Coketown. Mister James Harthouse was
- 4:27:34Speaker 5: very happy, indeed, though he scarcely looked so to have
- 4:27:37Speaker 5: a pleasure he had long expected. Coketown, Sir, said Bounderby.
- 4:27:41Speaker 5: Obstinately taking a chair is not the kind of place
- 4:27:44Speaker 5: you have been accustomed to. Therefore, if you will allow me,
- 4:27:48Speaker 5: or whether you will or not, for I am a
- 4:27:50Speaker 5: plain man, I'll tell you something about it before we
- 4:27:52Speaker 5: go any further, mister Harthouse would be charmed. Don't be
- 4:27:57Speaker 5: too sure of that, said mister Bounderby. I don't promise.
- 4:28:00Speaker 5: First of all, you see our smoke, that's meat and drink.
- 4:28:03Speaker 5: To us, it's the healthiest thing in the world in
- 4:28:05Speaker 5: all respects, and particularly for the lungs. If you are
- 4:28:09Speaker 5: one of those who want us to consume it, I
- 4:28:11Speaker 5: differ from you. We are not going to wear the
- 4:28:13Speaker 5: bottoms of our boilers out any faster than we wear
- 4:28:15Speaker 5: about now, for all the humbugging sentiment in Great Britain
- 4:28:19Speaker 5: and Ireland. By way of going in to the fullest extent,
- 4:28:23Speaker 5: mister Harthouse rejoined mister Bounderby, I assure you I am
- 4:28:26Speaker 5: entirely and completely of your way of thinking. On conviction,
- 4:28:30Speaker 5: I'm glad to hear it, said Bounderby. Now you've heard
- 4:28:33Speaker 5: a lot of talk about the work in our mills,
- 4:28:35Speaker 5: No doubt you have a very good I'll state the
- 4:28:38Speaker 5: fact of it to you. It's the pleasantest work there is,
- 4:28:41Speaker 5: and it's the lightest work there is, and it's the
- 4:28:44Speaker 5: best paid work there is. More than that, we couldn't
- 4:28:47Speaker 5: improve the mills themselves unless we laid down turkey carpets
- 4:28:50Speaker 5: on the floors, which we're not going to do, mister Bounderby,
- 4:28:54Speaker 5: perfectly right. Lastly, said Bounderby, as to our hands, there's
- 4:28:59Speaker 5: not a hand in this town, man, woman or child,
- 4:29:01Speaker 5: but has one ultimate object in life. That object is
- 4:29:04Speaker 5: to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a
- 4:29:06Speaker 5: gold spoon. Now they are not a going, none of
- 4:29:09Speaker 5: them ever to be fed on turtle soup and venison
- 4:29:12Speaker 5: with a gold spoon.
- 4:29:13Speaker 6: And now you know the place.
- 4:29:15Speaker 5: Mister Harthouse professed himself in the highest degree, instructed and
- 4:29:18Speaker 5: refreshed by this condensed epitome of the whole Coketown question.
- 4:29:24Speaker 5: Why you see, replied mister Bounderby. It suits my disposition
- 4:29:27Speaker 5: to have a full understanding with a man, particularly with
- 4:29:30Speaker 5: a public.
- 4:29:30Speaker 6: Man, when I make his acquaintance.
- 4:29:32Speaker 5: I have only one thing more to say to you,
- 4:29:34Speaker 5: mister Harthouse, before assuring you of the pleasure with which
- 4:29:37Speaker 5: I shall respond to the utmost of my poor ability
- 4:29:40Speaker 5: to my friend Tom Gragrind's letter of introduction.
- 4:29:43Speaker 6: You are a man of family.
- 4:29:45Speaker 5: Don't you deceive yourself by supposing for a moment that
- 4:29:47Speaker 5: I am a man of family. I am a bit
- 4:29:50Speaker 5: of dirty riff raff and a genuine scrap of tag
- 4:29:53Speaker 5: rag and bobtail. If anything could have exalted Jem's interest
- 4:29:57Speaker 5: in mister Bounderby, it would have been this very circlestance,
- 4:30:00Speaker 5: or so he told him.
- 4:30:02Speaker 4: So.
- 4:30:03Speaker 5: Now said Bounderby, we may shake hands on equal terms.
- 4:30:05Speaker 5: I say equal terms because although I know what I
- 4:30:09Speaker 5: am and the exact depth of the gutter, I have
- 4:30:11Speaker 5: lifted myself out of better than any man does. I
- 4:30:14Speaker 5: am as proud as you are. I am just as
- 4:30:16Speaker 5: proud as you are, having now asserted my independence in
- 4:30:19Speaker 5: a proper manner. I may come to how do you
- 4:30:22Speaker 5: find yourself? And I hope you're pretty well the better,
- 4:30:25Speaker 5: mister Harthouse gave.
- 4:30:26Speaker 6: Him to understand as they shook hands.
- 4:30:28Speaker 5: For the salubrious heir of Coketown. Mister Bounderby received the
- 4:30:32Speaker 5: answer with favor. Perhaps you know, said he or perhaps
- 4:30:36Speaker 5: you don't know I married Tom Gradgrind's daughter. If you
- 4:30:40Speaker 5: have nothing better to do than to walk up town
- 4:30:42Speaker 5: with me, I shall be glad to introduce you to
- 4:30:44Speaker 5: Tom Gradgrind's daughter. Mister Bounderby said, Jim, you anticipate my
- 4:30:50Speaker 5: dearest wishes. They went out without further discourse, and mister
- 4:30:54Speaker 5: Bounderby piloted the new acquaintance, who so strongly contrasted with him,
- 4:30:58Speaker 5: to the private red brick dwelling with the black outside shutters,
- 4:31:02Speaker 5: the green inside lines, and the black street door, up
- 4:31:05Speaker 5: the two white steps in the drawing room of which
- 4:31:08Speaker 5: mansion there presently entered to them. The most remarkable girl
- 4:31:12Speaker 5: mister James Harthouse had ever seen. She was so constrained
- 4:31:16Speaker 5: and yet so careless, so reserved and yet so watchful,
- 4:31:19Speaker 5: so cold and proud, and yet so sensitively ashamed of
- 4:31:23Speaker 5: her husband's braggart humility, from which she shrunk, as if
- 4:31:27Speaker 5: every example of it were a cut or a blow,
- 4:31:30Speaker 5: that it was quite a new sensation to observe her.
- 4:31:32Speaker 5: In face, she was no less remarkable than in manner.
- 4:31:35Speaker 5: Her features were handsome, but their natural play was so
- 4:31:38Speaker 5: locked up that it seemed impossible to guess at their
- 4:31:41Speaker 5: genuine expression, utterly indifferent, perfectly self reliant, never at a loss,
- 4:31:46Speaker 5: and yet never at her ease, with her figure and company,
- 4:31:50Speaker 5: with them there, and her mind apparently quite alone. It
- 4:31:53Speaker 5: was of no use going in yet awhile to comprehend
- 4:31:57Speaker 5: this girl, for she baffled all penetry. From the mistress
- 4:32:02Speaker 5: of the house. The visitor glanced to the house itself.
- 4:32:05Speaker 5: There was no mute sign of a woman in the room,
- 4:32:08Speaker 5: no graceful little adornment, no fanciful little device, however trivial
- 4:32:12Speaker 5: anywhere expressed her influence, cheerless and comfortless, boastfully and doggedly rich.
- 4:32:18Speaker 5: There the room stared at its present occupants, unsoftened and
- 4:32:22Speaker 5: unrelieved by the least trace of any womanly occupation. As
- 4:32:26Speaker 5: mister Bounderby stood in the midst of his household gods,
- 4:32:29Speaker 5: so those unrelenting divinities occupied their places around mister Bounderby,
- 4:32:34Speaker 5: And they were worthy of.
- 4:32:35Speaker 6: One another and well matched.
- 4:32:38Speaker 5: This, Sir, said Bounderby, is my wife, Missus Bounderby, Tom
- 4:32:43Speaker 5: Gradgrind's eldest daughter, Lou, Mister James Harthouse. Mister Harthouse, Lou
- 4:32:48Speaker 5: has joined your father's muster roll if he is not
- 4:32:51Speaker 5: Tom Gradgrind's colleague. Before long, I believe we shall at
- 4:32:53Speaker 5: least hear of him in connection with one of our
- 4:32:56Speaker 5: neighboring towns. You observed, mister Harthouse, that my wife is
- 4:32:59Speaker 5: my I don't know what she saw in mean to
- 4:33:02Speaker 5: marry me, but she saw something in me, I suppose,
- 4:33:05Speaker 5: or she wouldn't have married me. She has lots of
- 4:33:07Speaker 5: expensive knowledge, sir, political and otherwise. If you want to
- 4:33:10Speaker 5: cram for anything, I should be troubled to recommend you
- 4:33:14Speaker 5: to a better adviser than lou Bounderby, to a more
- 4:33:18Speaker 5: agreeable adviser, or one from whom he would be more
- 4:33:21Speaker 5: likely to learn. Mister Harthouse could never be recommended, come,
- 4:33:26Speaker 5: said his host. If you're in the complimentary line, you'll
- 4:33:28Speaker 5: get on here, for you'll meet with no competition. I
- 4:33:31Speaker 5: have never been in the way of learning compliments myself,
- 4:33:34Speaker 5: and I don't profess to understand the art of paying them.
- 4:33:37Speaker 5: In fact, despise him. But your bringing up was different
- 4:33:41Speaker 5: from mine. Mine was a real thing. By George, you're
- 4:33:43Speaker 5: a gentleman, and I don't pretend to be one. I
- 4:33:46Speaker 5: am Josiah Bounderby of Coketown and that's enough for me. However,
- 4:33:50Speaker 5: though I am not influenced by manners and station lou Bounderby,
- 4:33:54Speaker 5: maybe she hadn't my advantages disadvantages you would call them,
- 4:33:58Speaker 5: but I call them advantages. So you do not waste
- 4:34:01Speaker 5: your power, I dare say, mister Bounderby, said jem turning
- 4:34:05Speaker 5: with a smile to Louisa, is a noble animal in
- 4:34:08Speaker 5: a comparatively natural state, quite free from the harness in
- 4:34:11Speaker 5: which a conventional hack like myself works. You respect mister
- 4:34:16Speaker 5: Bounderby very much, she quietly returned. It is natural that
- 4:34:20Speaker 5: you should. He was disgracefully thrown out for a gentleman
- 4:34:25Speaker 5: who had seen so much of the world, and thought.
- 4:34:27Speaker 6: Now, how am I to take this?
- 4:34:30Speaker 5: You are going to devote yourself, as I gather from
- 4:34:33Speaker 5: what mister Bounderby has said, to the service of your country.
- 4:34:36Speaker 5: You have made up your mind, said Louisa, still standing
- 4:34:39Speaker 5: before him where she had first stopped, in all the
- 4:34:41Speaker 5: singular contrariety of her self possession, and her being obviously
- 4:34:45Speaker 5: very ill at ease to show the nation the way
- 4:34:48Speaker 5: out of all its difficulties. Missus Bounderby, he returned, laughing
- 4:34:53Speaker 5: upon my honor, No I I will make no such
- 4:34:55Speaker 5: pretense to you. I have seen a little here and there,
- 4:34:59Speaker 5: up and down. I have found it all to be
- 4:35:01Speaker 5: very worthless, as everybody has, and as some confess they have, and.
- 4:35:04Speaker 6: Some do not.
- 4:35:05Speaker 5: And I'm going in for your respected father's opinions, really,
- 4:35:08Speaker 5: because I have no choice of opinions, and may as
- 4:35:11Speaker 5: well back them as anything else.
- 4:35:14Speaker 6: Have you none of your own.
- 4:35:15Speaker 5: Asked Louisa, I have not so much as the slightest
- 4:35:18Speaker 5: predilection left. I assure you I attach not the least
- 4:35:22Speaker 5: importance to any opinions. The result of the varieties of
- 4:35:25Speaker 5: boredom I have undergone is a conviction. Unless conviction is
- 4:35:29Speaker 5: too industrious a word for the lazy sentiment. I entertain
- 4:35:32Speaker 5: on the subject that any set of ideas will do
- 4:35:35Speaker 5: just as much good as any other set, and just
- 4:35:37Speaker 5: as much harm as any other set.
- 4:35:39Speaker 6: There is an English.
- 4:35:40Speaker 5: Family with a charming Italian motto, what will be will be.
- 4:35:45Speaker 5: It's the only truth going. This vicious assumption of honesty
- 4:35:49Speaker 5: and dishonesty, a vice so dangerous, so deadly, and so common,
- 4:35:53Speaker 5: seemed he observed a little to impress her in his favor.
- 4:35:57Speaker 5: He followed up the advantage by saying, in his pleasantest manner,
- 4:36:01Speaker 5: a manner to which she might attach as much or
- 4:36:03Speaker 5: as little meaning as she pleased. The side that can
- 4:36:06Speaker 5: prove anything in a line of units tens, hundreds and thousands,
- 4:36:09Speaker 5: Missus Bounderby, seems to me to afford the most fun
- 4:36:13Speaker 5: and to give a man the best chance. I am
- 4:36:16Speaker 5: quite as much attached to it as if I believed it.
- 4:36:18Speaker 5: I am quite ready to go in for it to
- 4:36:20Speaker 5: the same extent as if I believed it. And what
- 4:36:22Speaker 5: more could I possibly do if I did believe it?
- 4:36:26Speaker 5: You are a singular politician, said Louisa. Pardon me, I
- 4:36:30Speaker 5: have not even that merit. We are the largest party
- 4:36:33Speaker 5: in the state. I assure you, Missus Bounderby, if we
- 4:36:35Speaker 5: all fell out of our adopted ranks and were reviewed together,
- 4:36:39Speaker 5: mister Bounderby, who had been danger of bursting in silence,
- 4:36:43Speaker 5: interposed here with a project for postponing the family dinner
- 4:36:47Speaker 5: till half past six, and taking mister James Harthouse in
- 4:36:50Speaker 5: the meantime on a round of visits to the voting
- 4:36:53Speaker 5: and interesting notabilities of Coketown and its vicinity. The round
- 4:36:56Speaker 5: of visits was made, and mister James Harthouse with a
- 4:36:59Speaker 5: discreet use of his blue coaching came off triumphantly, though
- 4:37:03Speaker 5: with a considerable accession of boredom. In the evening, he
- 4:37:07Speaker 5: found the dinner table laid for four, but they sat
- 4:37:09Speaker 5: down only three. It was an appropriate occasion for mister
- 4:37:13Speaker 5: Bounderby to discuss the flavor of the haperth of stewed
- 4:37:16Speaker 5: eels he had purchased in the streets at eight years old,
- 4:37:19Speaker 5: and also of the inferior water specially used for laying
- 4:37:22Speaker 5: the dust with which he had washed down that repast.
- 4:37:26Speaker 5: He likewise entertained his guests over the soup and fish,
- 4:37:29Speaker 5: with the calculation that he Bounderby had eaten in his
- 4:37:32Speaker 5: youth at least three horses under the guise of polonies
- 4:37:35Speaker 5: and saveloys. These recitals Jem in a languid manner, received
- 4:37:40Speaker 5: with charming every now and then, and they probably would
- 4:37:44Speaker 5: have decided him to go in for Jerusalem again tomorrow
- 4:37:47Speaker 5: had he been less curious. Respecting Louisa, is there nothing,
- 4:37:52Speaker 5: he thought, glancing at her as she sat at the
- 4:37:54Speaker 5: head of the table, where her youthful figure, small and
- 4:37:57Speaker 5: slight but very graceful, looked as pretty as if mists placed.
- 4:38:01Speaker 5: Is there nothing that.
- 4:38:02Speaker 6: Will move that face.
- 4:38:04Speaker 5: Yes, by Jupiter, there was something, and here it was
- 4:38:07Speaker 5: in an unexpected shape.
- 4:38:09Speaker 6: Tom appeared.
- 4:38:10Speaker 5: She changed as the door opened, and broke into a
- 4:38:12Speaker 5: beaming smile, a beautiful smile. Mister James Harthouse might not
- 4:38:17Speaker 5: have thought so much of it, but that he had
- 4:38:19Speaker 5: wondered so long at her impassive face. She put out
- 4:38:22Speaker 5: her hand, a pretty little soft hand, and her fingers
- 4:38:25Speaker 5: closed upon her brother's, as if she would have carried
- 4:38:28Speaker 5: them to her lips. Aye Aye, thought the visitor. This
- 4:38:32Speaker 5: whelp is the only creature she cares for. So so
- 4:38:37Speaker 5: the whelp was presented and took his chair. The appellation
- 4:38:40Speaker 5: was not flattering, but not unmerited. When I was your age,
- 4:38:45Speaker 5: young Tom, said Bounderby, I was punctual, or I got
- 4:38:48Speaker 5: no dinner when you were my age, resumed Tom.
- 4:38:52Speaker 6: You hadn't a.
- 4:38:53Speaker 5: Wrong balance to get right, and you hadn't to dress afterwards.
- 4:38:57Speaker 5: Never mind that, now, said Bounderby. Well then grumbled Tom.
- 4:39:01Speaker 5: Don't begin with me, missus, Bounderby, said Harthouse, perfectly, hearing
- 4:39:06Speaker 5: this under strain as it went on. Your brother's face
- 4:39:10Speaker 5: is quite familiar to me. Can can I have seen
- 4:39:12Speaker 5: him abroad or at some public school, perhaps, No, she resumed,
- 4:39:17Speaker 5: quite interested. He has never been abroad yet, and was
- 4:39:21Speaker 5: educated here at home, Tom Love, I'm telling mister Harthouse
- 4:39:25Speaker 5: that he never saw you abroad. No such luck, sir,
- 4:39:28Speaker 5: said Tom. There was little enough in him to brighten
- 4:39:32Speaker 5: her face, for he was a sullen young fellow, and
- 4:39:34Speaker 5: ungracious in his manner, even to her. So much the
- 4:39:37Speaker 5: greater must have been the solitude of her heart and
- 4:39:40Speaker 5: her need of some one on whom to bestow it.
- 4:39:42Speaker 5: So much the more is this Whelp the only creature
- 4:39:45Speaker 5: she has ever cared for, thought mister James Harthouse, turning
- 4:39:49Speaker 5: it over and over so much, the more, so much
- 4:39:53Speaker 5: the more, both in his sister's presence and after she
- 4:39:57Speaker 5: had left the room, the Whelp took no pains to
- 4:40:00Speaker 5: his contempt for mister bounderby whenever he could indulge it
- 4:40:03Speaker 5: without the observation of that independent man, by making right
- 4:40:07Speaker 5: faces or shutting one eye without responding to these telegraphic communications.
- 4:40:12Speaker 5: Mister Harthouse encouraged him much in the course of the evening,
- 4:40:15Speaker 5: and showed an unusual liking for him at last, when
- 4:40:19Speaker 5: he rose to return to his hotel, and was a
- 4:40:21Speaker 5: little doubtful whether he knew the way by night. The
- 4:40:24Speaker 5: Whelp immediately proffered his services as guide, and turned out
- 4:40:28Speaker 5: with him to escort him thither. End of Chapter two,
- 4:40:34Speaker 5: Chapter three The Whelp. He was very remarkable that a
- 4:40:39Speaker 5: young gentleman who had been brought up under one continuous
- 4:40:42Speaker 5: system of unnatural restraint should be a hypocrite, but it
- 4:40:45Speaker 5: was certainly the case with Tom. It was very strange
- 4:40:48Speaker 5: that a young gentleman who had never been left to
- 4:40:50Speaker 5: his own guidance for five consecutive minutes should be incapable
- 4:40:54Speaker 5: at last of governing himself, But so it was with Tom.
- 4:40:58Speaker 5: It was altogether unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination
- 4:41:02Speaker 5: had been strangled in his cradle should be still inconvenienced
- 4:41:05Speaker 5: by its ghost in the form of groveling sensualities. But
- 4:41:09Speaker 5: such a monster, beyond all doubt, was Tom.
- 4:41:13Speaker 6: Do you smoke?
- 4:41:14Speaker 5: Asked mister James Harthouse when they came to the hotel.
- 4:41:17Speaker 5: I believe you, said Tom. He could do no less
- 4:41:20Speaker 5: than ask Tom up. And Tom could do no less
- 4:41:22Speaker 5: than go up. What with a cooling drink adapted to
- 4:41:26Speaker 5: the weather, but not so weak as cool And what
- 4:41:29Speaker 5: with a rarer tobacco than was to be bought in
- 4:41:32Speaker 5: those parts. Tom was soon in a highly free and
- 4:41:35Speaker 5: easy state at his end of the sofa, and more
- 4:41:37Speaker 5: than ever disposed to admire his new friend.
- 4:41:39Speaker 6: At the other end.
- 4:41:41Speaker 5: Tom blew his smoke aside after he had been smoking
- 4:41:44Speaker 5: a little while, and took an observation of his friend.
- 4:41:47Speaker 5: He don't seem to care about his dress, thought Tom,
- 4:41:49Speaker 5: And yet how capitally.
- 4:41:51Speaker 6: He does it.
- 4:41:52Speaker 5: What an easy swell he is. Mister James Harthouse, happening
- 4:41:56Speaker 5: to catch Tom's eye, remarked that he drank nothing and
- 4:41:59Speaker 5: filled his glass with his own negligent hand. Thank you,
- 4:42:03Speaker 5: said Tom. Thankye well, mister Harthouse. I hope you have
- 4:42:07Speaker 5: had about a dose of old bounderby to night. Tom
- 4:42:10Speaker 5: said this with one eye, shut up again, and looked
- 4:42:13Speaker 5: over his glass knowingly at his entertainer. A very good fellow, indeed,
- 4:42:17Speaker 5: returned mister James Harthouse. You think so, don't you, said Tom,
- 4:42:21Speaker 5: and he shut up his eye again. Mister James Harthouse smiled, and,
- 4:42:26Speaker 5: rising from his end of the sofa and lounging with
- 4:42:28Speaker 5: his back against the chimney piece, so that he stood
- 4:42:30Speaker 5: before the empty fire grate, as he smoked in front
- 4:42:33Speaker 5: of Tom, and looking down at him, observed, what a
- 4:42:36Speaker 5: comical brother in law you are. What a comical brother
- 4:42:40Speaker 5: in law Old Bounderby is I think you mean, said Tom,
- 4:42:44Speaker 5: You are a piece a caustic Tom retorted mister James Harthouse.
- 4:42:48Speaker 5: There was something so very agreeable in being so intimate
- 4:42:51Speaker 5: with such a waistcoat, and being called Tom in such
- 4:42:54Speaker 5: an intimate way by such a voice, and being on
- 4:42:57Speaker 5: such offhand tern so soon with such a pair of whiskers,
- 4:43:00Speaker 5: that Tom was uncommonly pleased with himself. Oh, I don't
- 4:43:04Speaker 5: care for Old Bounderby, said he. If you mean that,
- 4:43:07Speaker 5: I have always called Old Bounderby by the same name
- 4:43:10Speaker 5: when I have talked about him, and I have always
- 4:43:11Speaker 5: thought of him in the same way. I'm not going
- 4:43:14Speaker 5: to begin to be polite now about Old Bounderby. It
- 4:43:17Speaker 5: would be rather late in the day. Don't mind me,
- 4:43:21Speaker 5: returned James. But take care when his wife is by.
- 4:43:24Speaker 5: You know his wife, said Tom My sister lou Oh yes,
- 4:43:29Speaker 5: and he laughed and took a little more of the
- 4:43:31Speaker 5: cooling drink. James Harthouse continued to lounge in the same
- 4:43:35Speaker 5: place and attitude, smoking.
- 4:43:37Speaker 6: His cigar in his own easy way, and.
- 4:43:39Speaker 5: Looking pleasantly at the Whelp, as if he knew himself
- 4:43:41Speaker 5: to be a kind of agreeable demon who had only
- 4:43:44Speaker 5: to hover over him, and he must give up his
- 4:43:46Speaker 5: whole soul if required. It certainly did seem that the
- 4:43:49Speaker 5: Whelp yielded to this influence. He looked at his companions sneakingly.
- 4:43:53Speaker 5: He looked at him admiringly. He looked at him boldly,
- 4:43:57Speaker 5: and put up one leg on the sofa. My sister Lou,
- 4:44:01Speaker 5: said Tom, she never cared for Old Bounderby. That's the
- 4:44:05Speaker 5: past tense, Tom returned mister James Harthouse, striking the ash
- 4:44:09Speaker 5: from his cigar with his little finger. We are in
- 4:44:12Speaker 5: the present tense now verb neuter, not to care, indicative mood,
- 4:44:18Speaker 5: present tense. First person singular, I do not care. Second
- 4:44:22Speaker 5: person singular thou dost not care? Third person singular, she
- 4:44:27Speaker 5: does not care, returned Tom Good. Very quaint, said his friend.
- 4:44:31Speaker 5: Though you don't mean it, but I do mean it,
- 4:44:34Speaker 5: cried Tom upon my honor. Why you won't tell me,
- 4:44:37Speaker 5: mister Harthouse, that you really suppose my sister Lou does
- 4:44:39Speaker 5: care for Old Bounderby, My dear fellow, returned the other,
- 4:44:44Speaker 5: what am I bound to suppose when I find two
- 4:44:46Speaker 5: married people living in harmony and happiness. Tom had by
- 4:44:50Speaker 5: this time got both his legs on the sofa. If
- 4:44:53Speaker 5: his second leg had not been already there when he
- 4:44:55Speaker 5: was called a dear fellow, he would have put it
- 4:44:57Speaker 5: up at that.
- 4:44:57Speaker 6: Great stage of the conversation.
- 4:44:59Speaker 5: Feeling it necessary to do something, then he stretched himself
- 4:45:03Speaker 5: out at greater length, and reclining with the back of
- 4:45:05Speaker 5: his head on the end of the sofa, and smoking,
- 4:45:08Speaker 5: with an infinite assumption of negligence, turned his common face
- 4:45:11Speaker 5: and not too sober eyes toward the face looking down
- 4:45:15Speaker 5: upon him, so carelessly, yet so potently. You know our governor,
- 4:45:18Speaker 5: mister Harthouse, said Tom. And therefore you needn't be surprised
- 4:45:21Speaker 5: that lou married Old Bounderby. She never had a lover,
- 4:45:24Speaker 5: and the governor proposed Old mc Bounderby, and she took him.
- 4:45:29Speaker 5: Very dutiful in your interesting sister, said mister James Harthouse. Yes,
- 4:45:33Speaker 5: but she wouldn't have been as dutiful, and it would
- 4:45:35Speaker 5: not have come off as easily returned the whelp if
- 4:45:38Speaker 5: it hadn't been for me. The tempter merely lifted his
- 4:45:42Speaker 5: eyebrows but the whelp was obliged to go on. I
- 4:45:45Speaker 5: persuaded her, he said, with an edifying air of superiority.
- 4:45:50Speaker 5: I was stuck into Old Bounderby's bank, where I never
- 4:45:53Speaker 5: wanted to be, and I knew I should get into
- 4:45:55Speaker 5: scrapes there if she put Old Bounderby's pipe out. So
- 4:45:59Speaker 5: I told her my wish, and she came into them.
- 4:46:02Speaker 5: She would do anything for me. It was very game
- 4:46:05Speaker 5: of her, wasn't it. It was charming, Tom. Not that
- 4:46:08Speaker 5: it was altogether so important to her as it was
- 4:46:11Speaker 5: to me, continued Tom coolly. Because my liberty and comfort
- 4:46:15Speaker 5: and perhaps my getting on depended on it, and she
- 4:46:18Speaker 5: had no other lover. Staying at home was like staying
- 4:46:21Speaker 5: in jail, especially when I was gone. It wasn't as
- 4:46:24Speaker 5: if she gave up another lover for Old Bounderby. But
- 4:46:27Speaker 5: still it was a good thing in her, perfectly delightful.
- 4:46:30Speaker 5: And she gets on so placidly, Oh, returned Tom, with
- 4:46:34Speaker 5: a contemptuous patronage. She's a regular girl. The girl can
- 4:46:38Speaker 5: get on anywhere. She has settled down to the life,
- 4:46:41Speaker 5: and she don't mind. It does just as well as another. Besides,
- 4:46:45Speaker 5: though lou is a girl, she's not a common sort
- 4:46:48Speaker 5: of girl. She can shut herself up within herself and think,
- 4:46:52Speaker 5: as I have often known her, sit and watched the
- 4:46:54Speaker 5: fire for an hour at a stretch. Aye, aye, as
- 4:46:58Speaker 5: resources of her own, said Harthouse, smoking quietly. Not so
- 4:47:03Speaker 5: much of that, as you may suppose, returned Tom, For
- 4:47:05Speaker 5: our governor had her crammed with all sorts of dry
- 4:47:08Speaker 5: bones and sawdustance.
- 4:47:09Speaker 6: It's his system.
- 4:47:11Speaker 5: Formed his daughter on his own model, suggested Harthouse. His daughter,
- 4:47:15Speaker 5: Ah and everybody else. Why he formed me that way?
- 4:47:19Speaker 5: Said Tom. Impossible he did, though, said Tom, shaking his head.
- 4:47:24Speaker 5: I mean to say, mister Harthouse, that when I first
- 4:47:27Speaker 5: left home and went to Old Bounderby's, I was flat
- 4:47:30Speaker 5: as a warming pan and knew no more about life
- 4:47:33Speaker 5: than any oyster does. Come Tom, I can hardly believe
- 4:47:36Speaker 5: that a joke's a joke upon my soul, said the whelp.
- 4:47:40Speaker 5: I am serious. I am indeed, He smoked with great
- 4:47:44Speaker 5: gravity and dignity for a little while, and then added,
- 4:47:46Speaker 5: in a highly complacent tone, Oh, I have picked up
- 4:47:50Speaker 5: a little since. I don't deny that, but I've done
- 4:47:52Speaker 5: it myself. No thanks to the governor and your intelligent sister.
- 4:47:57Speaker 5: My intelligent sister is about where she was. She used
- 4:48:01Speaker 5: to complain to me that she had nothing to fall
- 4:48:03Speaker 5: back upon. The girls usually fall back upon. And I
- 4:48:06Speaker 5: don't see how she has to have got over that since,
- 4:48:08Speaker 5: But she don't mind, he sagaciously added, puffing at his
- 4:48:12Speaker 5: cigar again. Girls can always get on somehow. Calling at
- 4:48:18Speaker 5: the bank yesterday evening for mister Bounderby's address, I found
- 4:48:22Speaker 5: an ancient lady there who seems to entertain great admiration
- 4:48:25Speaker 5: for your sister, observed mister James Harthouse, throwing away the
- 4:48:29Speaker 5: last small remnant of the cigar he had now smoked out.
- 4:48:33Speaker 5: Mother Sparsit, said Tom, what you've seen her already?
- 4:48:36Speaker 2: Have you?
- 4:48:37Speaker 6: His friend nodded.
- 4:48:39Speaker 5: Tom took his cigar out of his mouth, to shut
- 4:48:41Speaker 5: up his eye, which had grown rather unmanageable with the
- 4:48:44Speaker 5: greater expression, and to tap his nose several times with
- 4:48:47Speaker 5: his finger. Mother Sparsit's feeling for lou is more than admiration,
- 4:48:52Speaker 5: I should think, said Tom, say, affection and devotion, Mother
- 4:48:57Speaker 5: Sparsit never set her cap at Bounderby when he was
- 4:48:59Speaker 5: about Oh no, These were the last words spoken by
- 4:49:04Speaker 5: the whelp before a giddy drowsiness came upon him, followed
- 4:49:07Speaker 5: by complete oblivion. He was roused from the latter state
- 4:49:10Speaker 5: by an uneasy dream of being stirred up with a boot,
- 4:49:13Speaker 5: and also of a voice saying, come, it's late. Be
- 4:49:16Speaker 5: off well, he said, scrambling from the sofa, I must
- 4:49:20Speaker 5: take my leave of you, though I say, yours is
- 4:49:22Speaker 5: very good tobacco. But it's too mild. Yes, it's too mild,
- 4:49:26Speaker 5: returned his entertainer. It's it's ridiculously mild, said Tom, where's
- 4:49:31Speaker 5: the door?
- 4:49:31Speaker 6: Good night.
- 4:49:33Speaker 5: He had another odd dream of being taken by a
- 4:49:36Speaker 5: waiter through a mist which, after giving him some trouble
- 4:49:39Speaker 5: and difficulty, resolved itself into the main street in which
- 4:49:42Speaker 5: he stood alone. He then walked home pretty easily, though
- 4:49:45Speaker 5: not yet free from an impression of the presence and
- 4:49:47Speaker 5: influence of his new friend, as if he were lounging
- 4:49:50Speaker 5: somewhere in the air in the same negligent attitude, regarding
- 4:49:54Speaker 5: him with the same look. The whelp went home and
- 4:49:58Speaker 5: went to bed. If he had had any sense of
- 4:50:00Speaker 5: what he had done that night, and had been less
- 4:50:02Speaker 5: of a whelp and more of a brother, he might
- 4:50:04Speaker 5: have turned short on the road, might have gone down
- 4:50:07Speaker 5: to the ill smelling river that was dyed black, might
- 4:50:09Speaker 5: have gone to bed in it for good and all,
- 4:50:12Speaker 5: and have curtained his head forever with its filthy waters.
- 4:50:17Speaker 4: End of Chapter three, Chapter four. Men and brothers, oh
- 4:50:24Speaker 4: my friends, the down trodden operatives of Coketown, Oh my friends,
- 4:50:31Speaker 4: and fellow countrymen, the slaves of an iron handed and
- 4:50:36Speaker 4: a grinding despotism, Oh, my friends, and fellow sufferers, and
- 4:50:43Speaker 4: fellow workmen, and fellow men. I tell you that the
- 4:50:48Speaker 4: hour is come when we must rally round one another
- 4:50:53Speaker 4: is one united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors
- 4:50:59Speaker 4: that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families,
- 4:51:04Speaker 4: upon the sweat of our brows, upon the labor of
- 4:51:08Speaker 4: our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon the
- 4:51:13Speaker 4: God created glorious rights of humanity, and upon the holy
- 4:51:20Speaker 4: and eternal privileges of brotherhood. Good hear, hear, hair, Hurrah,
- 4:51:29Speaker 4: and other cries arose in many voices from various parts
- 4:51:33Speaker 4: of the densely crowded and suffocating close hall in which
- 4:51:37Speaker 4: the orator, perched on a stage, delivered himself of this
- 4:51:41Speaker 4: and what other froth and fume he had in him.
- 4:51:45Speaker 4: He had declaimed himself into a violent heat, and was
- 4:51:49Speaker 4: as hoarse as he was hot by dint of roaring
- 4:51:53Speaker 4: at the top of his voice under a flaring gaslight,
- 4:51:57Speaker 4: clenching his fists, knitting his broads, setting his teeth, and
- 4:52:02Speaker 4: pounding with his arms. He had taken so much out
- 4:52:05Speaker 4: of himself by this time that he was brought to
- 4:52:08Speaker 4: a stop and called for a glass of water. As
- 4:52:13Speaker 4: he stood there trying to quench his fiery face with
- 4:52:17Speaker 4: his drink of water. The comparison between the orator and
- 4:52:21Speaker 4: the crowd of attentive faces turned towards him was extremely
- 4:52:28Speaker 4: to his disadvantage. Judging him by nature's evidence, he was
- 4:52:33Speaker 4: above the mass and very little but the stage on
- 4:52:36Speaker 4: which he stood. In many great respects, he was essentially
- 4:52:41Speaker 4: below them. He was not so honest, He was not
- 4:52:46Speaker 4: so manly, He was not so good humored. He substituted
- 4:52:51Speaker 4: cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe, solid sense.
- 4:52:57Speaker 4: An ill made, high shouldered man, and with lowering brows
- 4:53:02Speaker 4: and his features crushed into an habitually sour expression, he
- 4:53:07Speaker 4: contrasted most unfavorably, even in his mongrel dress, with the
- 4:53:13Speaker 4: great body of his hearers in their plain working clothes.
- 4:53:18Speaker 4: Strange as it always is, to consider any assembly in
- 4:53:21Speaker 4: the act of submissively resigning itself to the dreariness of
- 4:53:26Speaker 4: some complacent person, lord or commoner, whom three fourths of
- 4:53:31Speaker 4: it could, by no human means raise out of the
- 4:53:34Speaker 4: slow of inanity to their own intellectual level. It was
- 4:53:39Speaker 4: particularly strange, and it was even particularly affecting to see
- 4:53:44Speaker 4: this crowd of earnest faces, whose honesty, in the main,
- 4:53:48Speaker 4: no competent observer free from bias, could doubt so agitated
- 4:53:54Speaker 4: by such a leader. Good Hear, Hear Hurrah. The eagerness
- 4:54:00Speaker 4: both of attention and intention exhibited in all the countenances
- 4:54:04Speaker 4: made them a most impressive sight. There was no carelessness,
- 4:54:09Speaker 4: no languor, no idle curiosity, none of the many shades
- 4:54:14Speaker 4: of indifference to be seen in all other assemblies. Visible
- 4:54:17Speaker 4: for one moment there that every man felt his condition
- 4:54:22Speaker 4: to be somehow or other worse than it might be.
- 4:54:27Speaker 4: That every man considered it incumbent on him to join
- 4:54:31Speaker 4: the rest towards the making of it better, That every
- 4:54:34Speaker 4: man felt his only hope to be in his allying
- 4:54:37Speaker 4: himself to the comrades by whom he was surrounded, and
- 4:54:41Speaker 4: that in this belief right or wrong, unhappily wrong, then
- 4:54:47Speaker 4: the whole of that crowd were gravely, deeply, faithfully in earnest.
- 4:54:53Speaker 4: Must have been plain to anyone who chose to see
- 4:54:56Speaker 4: what was there, as the bare beams of the roof
- 4:55:00Speaker 4: and the whitened brick walls. Nor could any such spectator
- 4:55:04Speaker 4: fail to know in his own breast, that these men,
- 4:55:08Speaker 4: through their very delusions, showed great qualities susceptible of being
- 4:55:14Speaker 4: turned to the happiest and best account. And that to pretend,
- 4:55:19Speaker 4: on the strength of sweeping axioms, howsoever cut and dried,
- 4:55:24Speaker 4: that they were astray, wholly without cause and of their
- 4:55:29Speaker 4: own irrational wills, was to pretend that there could be
- 4:55:32Speaker 4: smoke without fire, death without birth, harvest without seed, anything
- 4:55:39Speaker 4: or everything produced for nothing. The orator, having refreshed himself,
- 4:55:46Speaker 4: wiped his corrugated forehead from left to right several times
- 4:55:50Speaker 4: with his handkerchief folded into a pad, and concentrated all
- 4:55:55Speaker 4: his revived forces in a sneer of great disdain and bitterness. But, oh,
- 4:56:03Speaker 4: my friends and brothers, oh men and Englishmen, the downtrodden
- 4:56:10Speaker 4: operatives of Coketown, what shall we say of that? Man,
- 4:56:16Speaker 4: that working man, that I should find it necessary to
- 4:56:20Speaker 4: so libel the glorious name, who, being practically and well
- 4:56:25Speaker 4: acquainted with the grievances and wrongs of you, the injured,
- 4:56:31Speaker 4: pith and marrow of this land, and having heard you
- 4:56:35Speaker 4: with a noble and majestic unanimity that will make tyrants tremble,
- 4:56:42Speaker 4: resolve for to subscribe to the funds of the United
- 4:56:46Speaker 4: Aggregate Tribunal, and to abide by the injunctions issued by
- 4:56:52Speaker 4: that body for your benefit, whatever they may be. What
- 4:56:57Speaker 4: I ask you, will you say that of working men,
- 4:57:02Speaker 4: since such I must acknowledge him to be, who at
- 4:57:05Speaker 4: such time deserts his posts and sells his flag, who
- 4:57:11Speaker 4: at such a time turns a traitor and a craven
- 4:57:16Speaker 4: and a recreant, who at such a time is not
- 4:57:20Speaker 4: ashamed to make to you the dastardly and humiliating a
- 4:57:26Speaker 4: vowal that he will hold himself aloof and will not
- 4:57:30Speaker 4: be one of those associated in the gallant stand for
- 4:57:35Speaker 4: freedom and for right. The assembly was divided at this point.
- 4:57:42Speaker 4: There were some groans and hisses, but the general sense
- 4:57:45Speaker 4: of honor was much too strong for the condemnation of
- 4:57:49Speaker 4: a man unheard. Be sure your right, slack Bridge, put
- 4:57:55Speaker 4: him up. Let's hear him. Such things were said on
- 4:58:00Speaker 4: many sides. Finally, one strong voice called out, is the
- 4:58:03Speaker 4: man here? If the man's here, Slackbridge, let the man
- 4:58:08Speaker 4: himself stead o you, which was received with a round
- 4:58:12Speaker 4: of applause. Slackbridge the orator looked about him with a
- 4:58:17Speaker 4: withering smile, and holding out his right hand at arm's length,
- 4:58:22Speaker 4: as the manner of all Slackbridges is to still the
- 4:58:26Speaker 4: thundering sea. Waited until there was a profound silence. Oh,
- 4:58:32Speaker 4: my friends and fellow men, said Slackbridge, then shaking his
- 4:58:37Speaker 4: head with violent scorn. I do not wonder that you,
- 4:58:43Speaker 4: the prostrate sons of labor, are incredulous of the existence
- 4:58:49Speaker 4: of such a man. But he who sold his birthright
- 4:58:54Speaker 4: for a mess of pottage existed, and judas a scariot existed,
- 4:59:00Speaker 4: and castleret existed, and this man exists here. A brief
- 4:59:07Speaker 4: press and confusion near the stage ended in the man
- 4:59:11Speaker 4: himself standing at the orator's side before the concourse. He
- 4:59:16Speaker 4: was pale and a little moved in the face. His
- 4:59:18Speaker 4: lips especially showed it, but he stood quiet, with his
- 4:59:23Speaker 4: left hand at his chin. Waiting to be heard. There
- 4:59:27Speaker 4: was a chairman to regulate the proceedings, and this functionary
- 4:59:31Speaker 4: now took the case into his own hands. My friends,
- 4:59:36Speaker 4: he said, by virtue of my office as your president,
- 4:59:40Speaker 4: I ashes all your friend Slackbridge, who may be a
- 4:59:43Speaker 4: little overhead in this business, to take his seat. Whiles
- 4:59:47Speaker 4: this man, Stephan Blackpool is hern. You all know this man,
- 4:59:52Speaker 4: Stephan Blackpool. You know him along his misfortunes and his
- 4:59:57Speaker 4: good name. Chairman took him frankly by the hand and
- 5:00:02Speaker 4: sat down again. Slackbridge likewise sat down, wiping his hot forehead,
- 5:00:08Speaker 4: always from left to right, and never the reverse way.
- 5:00:13Speaker 4: My friends, Stephan began in the midst of a dead calm.
- 5:00:17Speaker 4: I had what had been spoken to me, and 'tis
- 5:00:21Speaker 4: likely that I shun't mend it. But I'd like for
- 5:00:25Speaker 4: you to hear in the truth concern my son from
- 5:00:28Speaker 4: my lips than from ony other. Months though I never
- 5:00:33Speaker 4: could speak afore, so many will out being murdered and muddled.
- 5:00:38Speaker 4: Slackbridge shook his head as if he would shake it
- 5:00:41Speaker 4: off in his bitterness. I am the one single hand
- 5:00:46Speaker 4: in Bounderby's mill. Oh, all the men there as don't
- 5:00:51Speaker 4: come in with me the proposed regulations. I cannot come in, William,
- 5:00:57Speaker 4: my friends, I doubt they're doing you good liquor they'll
- 5:01:01Speaker 4: do your hurt. Slackbridge laughed full at his arms and
- 5:01:06Speaker 4: frowned sarcastically. But tents so much for that, as I
- 5:01:11Speaker 4: stands out. If there were, I'd come in with the rest.
- 5:01:17Speaker 4: But I had my reasons mine, you see, for being hindered,
- 5:01:22Speaker 4: not only now, but all is always life long. Slackbridge
- 5:01:27Speaker 4: jumped up and stood beside him, gnashing and tearing. Oh,
- 5:01:32Speaker 4: my friends, what but this did I tell you? O,
- 5:01:36Speaker 4: my fellow countrymen? What warning but this did I give you?
- 5:01:41Speaker 4: And how shows this recreant conduct in man on whom
- 5:01:45Speaker 4: unequal laws are known to have fallen? Heavy? Oh you Englishman,
- 5:01:50Speaker 4: I ask you, how does this subordination show in one
- 5:01:54Speaker 4: of yourselves, who is thus consenting to his own undoing
- 5:01:59Speaker 4: and to you, and to your children's and your children's children's.
- 5:02:05Speaker 4: There was some applause and some crying of shame upon
- 5:02:09Speaker 4: the man, but the greater part of the audience were quiet.
- 5:02:13Speaker 4: They looked at Stephan's worn face, rendered more pathetic by
- 5:02:17Speaker 4: the homely emotions it evinced, and in the kindness of
- 5:02:22Speaker 4: their nature. They were more sorry than indignant. Tis this
- 5:02:27Speaker 4: DELI gets traded for to speak, said Stefan. And he's
- 5:02:32Speaker 4: paid for tan. He knows his work. Let him keep
- 5:02:36Speaker 4: to it. Let him give no heed to what I
- 5:02:39Speaker 4: had hadn't to bear. That's not for him, that's not
- 5:02:42Speaker 4: for nobody but me. There was propriety not to say
- 5:02:48Speaker 4: a dignity in these words. That made the hearers yet
- 5:02:52Speaker 4: more quiet and attentive. The same strong voice called out slaguage.
- 5:02:58Speaker 4: Let the man be hearn, and how d'ye tongue? Then
- 5:03:02Speaker 4: the place was wonderfully still, my brother, said Stephen, whose
- 5:03:08Speaker 4: low voice was distinctly heard. And my fellow workmen, for
- 5:03:13Speaker 4: that you are to me, though not as I knows
- 5:03:16Speaker 4: on to this delegate here I have been. I've but
- 5:03:20Speaker 4: put a word to send, and I could send no
- 5:03:24Speaker 4: more if I was to speak till strike a day.
- 5:03:28Speaker 4: I know we'll all what's afore me? I know we'll
- 5:03:31Speaker 4: that you are all resolved to have no more Ado
- 5:03:35Speaker 4: we a man who is not we in this matter?
- 5:03:39Speaker 4: I know weir that if I was a lion partiesh
- 5:03:43Speaker 4: I I ye the road, ye'd feel it right to
- 5:03:46Speaker 4: pass me by as a foreignner on stranger, what I hagettin,
- 5:03:52Speaker 4: I muns make the best on Stephen Blackpole, said the chairman, rising,
- 5:04:00Speaker 4: Think on it again, Think on it once again, lad,
- 5:04:04Speaker 4: afore thou shunned by odd old friends. There was a
- 5:04:09Speaker 4: universal murmur to the same effect, though no man articulated
- 5:04:13Speaker 4: a word. Every eye was fixed on Stephen's face. To
- 5:04:18Speaker 4: repent of his determination would be to take a load
- 5:04:21Speaker 4: from all their minds. He looked around him and knew
- 5:04:26Speaker 4: that it was so. Not a grain of anger with
- 5:04:30Speaker 4: them was in his heart. He knew them far below
- 5:04:33Speaker 4: their surface weaknesses and misconceptions, as no one but their
- 5:04:38Speaker 4: fellow laborer could I have thou on it above a bit, Sir,
- 5:04:45Speaker 4: I simply cannot come in. I mun go thee the
- 5:04:50Speaker 4: way is lays afore me, I mun take my leave
- 5:04:53Speaker 4: of our here. He made a sort of reverence to
- 5:04:58Speaker 4: them by holding up his arms, and stood for the
- 5:05:02Speaker 4: moment in that attitude, not speaking until they slowly dropped
- 5:05:06Speaker 4: at his sides. Money's the pleasant word, as soon here
- 5:05:11Speaker 4: has spoken with me. Money's the face I see here
- 5:05:16Speaker 4: as I first seen when I were young and lighter
- 5:05:19Speaker 4: heart than now, I had never had to fretch afore
- 5:05:24Speaker 4: sin ever I were born, where any of my might
- 5:05:29Speaker 4: like gone now as I have none. Now that's o
- 5:05:32Speaker 4: my maken y' all call me traitor, and that I
- 5:05:38Speaker 4: mean to say, addressing slightbridge. But tis easier to call
- 5:05:43Speaker 4: than make out. So let be. He had moved away
- 5:05:49Speaker 4: a pace or two to come down from the platform
- 5:05:52Speaker 4: when he remembered something that he had not said, and
- 5:05:54Speaker 4: returned again. Happily, he said, turning his pharaohed face slowly
- 5:05:59Speaker 4: about that he might, as it were, individually address the
- 5:06:03Speaker 4: whole audience, those both near in distance, haply when this
- 5:06:09Speaker 4: question has been taying up and discussed, there'll be a
- 5:06:15Speaker 4: threat to turn out. If I am let to work
- 5:06:18Speaker 4: among you. I hope I shall die ere ever such
- 5:06:22Speaker 4: a time comes, and I shall work solitary among you.
- 5:06:26Speaker 4: Unless it comes truly, I mun do it, my friends,
- 5:06:31Speaker 4: not to brave you, but to live. I had no
- 5:06:35Speaker 4: but work to live by and wherever can I go?
- 5:06:39Speaker 4: I who had worked sin I were no high ah
- 5:06:44Speaker 4: in a coketown. Here. I make no complaints of being
- 5:06:49Speaker 4: turned to the wall, or being outcasting or overlooking for
- 5:06:55Speaker 4: this time forward. But I hope I shall be let
- 5:06:58Speaker 4: to work if there is there's any right for me
- 5:07:01Speaker 4: at all, my friends. I think tis that not a
- 5:07:06Speaker 4: word was spoken, not a sound was audible in the building,
- 5:07:11Speaker 4: but the slight rustle of men moving a little apart,
- 5:07:15Speaker 4: all along the center of the room, to open a
- 5:07:18Speaker 4: means of passing out to the man with whom they
- 5:07:21Speaker 4: had all bound themselves to renounce companionship, looking at no one,
- 5:07:27Speaker 4: and going his way with a lowly steadiness upon him
- 5:07:31Speaker 4: that asserted nothing and sought nothing. Old Stephan, with all
- 5:07:36Speaker 4: his troubles on his head, left the scene. Then Slackbridge,
- 5:07:42Speaker 4: who had kept his oratorical arm extended during the going out,
- 5:07:47Speaker 4: as if he were repressing with infinite solicitude, and by
- 5:07:51Speaker 4: a wonderful moral power, the vehement passions of the multitude,
- 5:07:57Speaker 4: applied himself to raising their spirits. Had not the Roman brutus,
- 5:08:03Speaker 4: oh my British countrymen, condemned his son to death, and
- 5:08:08Speaker 4: had not the Spartan mothers, oh, my soon to be
- 5:08:12Speaker 4: victorious friends, driven their flying children on the points of
- 5:08:18Speaker 4: their enemy's swords. Then was it not the sacred duty
- 5:08:22Speaker 4: of the men of Coketown, with forefathers before them, an
- 5:08:28Speaker 4: admiring world in company with them and a posterity to
- 5:08:33Speaker 4: come after them, to hurl out traitors from the tents
- 5:08:38Speaker 4: they had pitched in a sacred and godlike cause. The
- 5:08:43Speaker 4: winds of heaven answered yes and bore yes east, west,
- 5:08:48Speaker 4: north and south, and consequently three cheers for the United
- 5:08:54Speaker 4: Aggregate Tribunal. Slackbridge acted as a fugul and gave the
- 5:09:01Speaker 4: time the multitude of doubtful faces. A little conscience stricken
- 5:09:06Speaker 4: brightened at the sound, and took it up private feeling
- 5:09:10Speaker 4: must yield to the common cause. Hurrah. The roof yet
- 5:09:15Speaker 4: vibrated with the cheering when the assembly dispersed. Thus easily
- 5:09:20Speaker 4: did Stephen Blackpool fall into the loneliest of lives, the
- 5:09:25Speaker 4: life of solitude among a familiar crowd. The stranger in
- 5:09:29Speaker 4: the land who looks into ten thousand faces for some
- 5:09:34Speaker 4: answering look and never finds it is in cheering society,
- 5:09:40Speaker 4: as compared with him who passes ten averted faces daily
- 5:09:44Speaker 4: that were once the countenances of friends. Such experience was
- 5:09:49Speaker 4: to be Stephen's now in every waking moment of his life,
- 5:09:53Speaker 4: at his work, on his way to it and from it,
- 5:09:56Speaker 4: at his door, at his window, everywhere. By general consent,
- 5:10:02Speaker 4: they even avoided that side of the street on which
- 5:10:05Speaker 4: he habitually walked, and left it of all the working
- 5:10:09Speaker 4: men to him only. He had been for many years
- 5:10:14Speaker 4: a quiet, silent man, associating but little with other men,
- 5:10:18Speaker 4: and used to companionship with his own thoughts. He had
- 5:10:24Speaker 4: never known before the strength of the want in his
- 5:10:28Speaker 4: heart for the frequent recognition of a nod, a look,
- 5:10:31Speaker 4: a word, or the immense amount of relief that had
- 5:10:35Speaker 4: been poured into it by drops through such small means.
- 5:10:41Speaker 4: It was even harder than he could have believed possible
- 5:10:44Speaker 4: to separate in his own conscience his abandonment by all
- 5:10:49Speaker 4: his fellows from a hapless sense of shame and disgrace.
- 5:10:55Speaker 4: The first four days of his endurance were days so
- 5:10:59Speaker 4: long and heavy that he began to be appalled by
- 5:11:02Speaker 4: the prospect before him. Not only did he see no
- 5:11:07Speaker 4: Rachel all the time, but he avoided every chance of
- 5:11:10Speaker 4: seeing her, For although he knew that the prohibition did
- 5:11:14Speaker 4: not yet formerly extend to the women working in the factories,
- 5:11:18Speaker 4: he found that some of them with whom he was
- 5:11:21Speaker 4: acquainted were changed to him, and he feared to try others,
- 5:11:25Speaker 4: and dreaded that Rachel might be even singled out from
- 5:11:30Speaker 4: the rest if she were seen in his company. So
- 5:11:33Speaker 4: he had been quite alone during the four days and
- 5:11:37Speaker 4: had spoken to no one, when as he was leaving
- 5:11:40Speaker 4: his work at night, a young man of a very
- 5:11:43Speaker 4: light complexion accosted him in the street. Your name's Blackpool,
- 5:11:48Speaker 4: ain't it, said the young man. Stephen colored to find
- 5:11:52Speaker 4: himself with his hat in his hand and his gratitude
- 5:11:55Speaker 4: for being spoken to, or in the suddenness of it,
- 5:11:58Speaker 4: or both. He made a feint of adjusting the lining
- 5:12:02Speaker 4: and said, yes, you are the end that they have
- 5:12:05Speaker 4: sent to Coventry, I mean, said Bitzer, the very light
- 5:12:09Speaker 4: young man in question. Stephan answered yes again, I suppose
- 5:12:15Speaker 4: so from they're all appearing to keep away from you.
- 5:12:18Speaker 4: Mister Bounderby wants to speak to you. You know his house,
- 5:12:21Speaker 4: don't you. Stephan said yes again, then goes straight up there. Well,
- 5:12:27Speaker 4: you said Bitzer, You're expected and have only to tell
- 5:12:31Speaker 4: the seven it's you. I belonged to the banks, So
- 5:12:34Speaker 4: if you go straight up without me, I was sent
- 5:12:37Speaker 4: to fetch you, you'll save me a walk. Stephan, whose
- 5:12:41Speaker 4: way had been in the contrary direction, turned about and
- 5:12:45Speaker 4: betook himself as in duty bound to the red brick
- 5:12:48Speaker 4: castle of the giant Bounderby, end of chapter four, Chapter five,
- 5:12:58Speaker 4: Men and masters, well, Stephen, said Bounderby, in his windy manner.
- 5:13:04Speaker 4: What's this I hear? What have these pests of the
- 5:13:08Speaker 4: earth been doing to you? Come in? Speak up? It
- 5:13:13Speaker 4: was into the drawing room that he was bidden. A
- 5:13:16Speaker 4: tea table was set out, and mister Bounderby's young wife
- 5:13:19Speaker 4: and her brother, and a great gentleman from London were present,
- 5:13:23Speaker 4: to whom Stephan made his obeisance, closing the door and
- 5:13:27Speaker 4: standing near it with his hat in his hand. And
- 5:13:31Speaker 4: this is the man I was telling you about Harthouse,
- 5:13:34Speaker 4: said mister Bounderby. The gentleman he dressed, who was talking
- 5:13:38Speaker 4: to missus Bounderby on the sofa, got up, saying in
- 5:13:42Speaker 4: an indolent way, oh really, and dawdled to the hearth
- 5:13:48Speaker 4: rug where mister Bounderby stood. Now, said Bounderby, speak up.
- 5:13:55Speaker 4: After four days he had passed this address fell rudely
- 5:13:59Speaker 4: and discording on Stephan's ear. Besides being a rough handling
- 5:14:03Speaker 4: of his wounded mind, it seemed to assume that he
- 5:14:07Speaker 4: really was the self interested deserter he had been called.
- 5:14:12Speaker 4: What were it, sir? Said stephan as you were pleased
- 5:14:15Speaker 4: to want we me, I have told you returned Bounderby,
- 5:14:20Speaker 4: speak up like a man, since you are a man,
- 5:14:23Speaker 4: and tell us about yourself in this combination. We are pardon, sir,
- 5:14:29Speaker 4: said Stephen Blackpool. I had nought to send about it.
- 5:14:33Speaker 4: Mister Bounderby, who was always more or less like a
- 5:14:36Speaker 4: wind finding something in his way here, began to blow
- 5:14:41Speaker 4: at it directly. No look here, Harthouse said, he. Here's
- 5:14:47Speaker 4: a specimen of them. When this man was here once before,
- 5:14:52Speaker 4: I warned this man against the mischievous strangers who are
- 5:14:57Speaker 4: always about and ought to be hanged wherever they are found,
- 5:15:01Speaker 4: And I told this man that he was going in
- 5:15:04Speaker 4: the wrong direction. Now, would you believe it that although
- 5:15:08Speaker 4: they have put this mark upon him, he is such
- 5:15:11Speaker 4: a slave to them still that he's afraid to open
- 5:15:14Speaker 4: his lips about them? He said, as I had nought
- 5:15:19Speaker 4: to say, sir, not as I was feared to open
- 5:15:22Speaker 4: him my lips. You said, Ah, I know what you said.
- 5:15:27Speaker 4: More than that, I know what you mean. You see
- 5:15:30Speaker 4: not always the same thing, by the Lord Harry, quite
- 5:15:33Speaker 4: different things. You had better tell us at once that
- 5:15:37Speaker 4: that fellow Slackbridge is not in the town, stirring up
- 5:15:42Speaker 4: the people to mutiny, and that he is not a
- 5:15:45Speaker 4: regular qualified leader of the people. That is a most
- 5:15:49Speaker 4: confounded scoundrel. You had better tell us so at once.
- 5:15:53Speaker 4: You can't deceive me. You want to tell us, so,
- 5:15:57Speaker 4: why don't you as sorry as you, sir? When the
- 5:16:02Speaker 4: people's leader is as bad, said Stephen, shaking his head,
- 5:16:07Speaker 4: they take such as offers happily. Tis not the smartest
- 5:16:12Speaker 4: of their misfortunes, when they can get no better. The
- 5:16:16Speaker 4: wind began to get boisterous. Now you'll think this pretty well, harthouse,
- 5:16:21Speaker 4: said Bounderby. You'll think this tolerably strong. You'll say, upon
- 5:16:26Speaker 4: my soul, this is a tidy specimen of what my
- 5:16:30Speaker 4: friends have to deal with. But this is nothing, sir.
- 5:16:34Speaker 4: You shall hear me ask this man a question, pray,
- 5:16:37Speaker 4: mister blackpool, wind springing up very fast, May I take
- 5:16:42Speaker 4: the liberty of asking you how it happens that you
- 5:16:45Speaker 4: refuse to be in this combination? How it happens, ah,
- 5:16:51Speaker 4: said mister Bounderby, with his thumbs in his arms of
- 5:16:55Speaker 4: his coat and jerking his head and shutting his eyes
- 5:16:58Speaker 4: in confidence with the oupper at wall. How it happens?
- 5:17:04Speaker 4: I'd leave her, not come to it, sir. But senor
- 5:17:06Speaker 4: put the question, and not wanting to be a veal manner,
- 5:17:10Speaker 4: and I'll answer. I have passed a promise, not to me,
- 5:17:15Speaker 4: you know, said Bounderby, gusty weather with deceitful calms one
- 5:17:20Speaker 4: now prevailing. Oh no, sir, not to you. As for me,
- 5:17:26Speaker 4: any consideration for me has had just nothing at all
- 5:17:30Speaker 4: to do with it, said Bounderby, still in confidence with
- 5:17:34Speaker 4: the wall. If only Josiah Bounderby of Coketown had been
- 5:17:38Speaker 4: in question, you would have joined and made no bones
- 5:17:42Speaker 4: about it. Why, yes, sir, tis true, though he knows,
- 5:17:47Speaker 4: said mister Bounderby, now blowing a gale, that these are
- 5:17:51Speaker 4: a set of rascals and rebels whom transportation is too
- 5:17:56Speaker 4: good for. Now, mister Harthouse, you I've been knocking about
- 5:18:01Speaker 4: in the world some time. Did you ever meet with
- 5:18:05Speaker 4: anything like that man? Out of this blessed country? And
- 5:18:09Speaker 4: mister Bounderby pointed him out for inspection with an angry finger.
- 5:18:15Speaker 4: Nay ma'am, said Stephen Blackpool, staunchly protesting against the words
- 5:18:20Speaker 4: that had been used, and instinctively addressing himself to Louisa
- 5:18:24Speaker 4: after glancing at her face, not rebels, not yet rascals.
- 5:18:29Speaker 4: No of the kind, ma'am, Not of the kind. They've
- 5:18:33Speaker 4: not done me a kindness, ma'am, as I know and feel.
- 5:18:37Speaker 4: But they are not a dozen men among them, ma'm
- 5:18:39Speaker 4: a dozen, not six. But what believes is he has
- 5:18:43Speaker 4: done his duty by the rest and by himself. God
- 5:18:47Speaker 4: forbid is I that he had known and had experience
- 5:18:51Speaker 4: all these men all my life. Ay that Hayatan a
- 5:18:55Speaker 4: drunken wiem and sitting wim and toil and wiim, and
- 5:18:59Speaker 4: love him and should fail for to stand by him
- 5:19:03Speaker 4: with the truth. Let him have done to me what
- 5:19:06Speaker 4: they may. He spoke with the rugged, earnestness of his
- 5:19:11Speaker 4: place and character, deepened perhaps by a proud consciousness, that
- 5:19:17Speaker 4: he was faithful to his class under all their mistrust.
- 5:19:20Speaker 4: But he fully remembered where he was and did not
- 5:19:24Speaker 4: even raise his voice. No, ma'am, No, they're true to
- 5:19:29Speaker 4: one another, faithful to one another, affectionate to one another
- 5:19:34Speaker 4: into death. Be poor among them, be sick among them,
- 5:19:38Speaker 4: grief among them, for only oh the money causes that
- 5:19:42Speaker 4: carries grief to a poor man's door. And they'll be
- 5:19:46Speaker 4: tender with you, gentle, Will you comfortable with you, Christian.
- 5:19:50Speaker 4: Will you be sure of that, ma'am? They'd be riven
- 5:19:55Speaker 4: to bits erever, they'd be different. In short, Bounderby, it's
- 5:20:01Speaker 4: because they are so full of virtues that they have
- 5:20:05Speaker 4: turned you adrift. Go through with it, well, you are
- 5:20:09Speaker 4: about it. Out with it? How tis, ma'am, resumed Stephen,
- 5:20:14Speaker 4: appearing still to find his natural refuge in Louise's face.
- 5:20:19Speaker 4: That what is best in us folk seems to turn
- 5:20:23Speaker 4: us most to trouble. I'm misfortune and mistake. I don't know,
- 5:20:28Speaker 4: but tis so I know tis, and I know as
- 5:20:32Speaker 4: I know. The heavens is over me. I hint the
- 5:20:34Speaker 4: smoke we're patient too, and wants in general to do right.
- 5:20:40Speaker 4: And I cannot think the fault is alway us now,
- 5:20:44Speaker 4: my friends, said Bounderby, whom he could not have exasperated more,
- 5:20:49Speaker 4: quite unconscious of it, though he was, than by, seeming
- 5:20:53Speaker 4: to appeal to anyone else