Hard Times

_Final_ 222 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE _Stephen and Rachael in the Sick-room_ ...

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL ‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything els...

MURDERING THE INNOCENTS THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing...

A LOOPHOLE MR. GRADGRIND walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable satisfaction. It was his school, and he intended it to be a model. He intended every child i...

MR. BOUNDERBY NOT being Mrs. Grundy, who _was_ Mr. Bounderby? Why, Mr. Bounderby was as near being Mr. Gradgrind’s bosom friend, as a man perfectly devoid of sentiment can approa...

THE KEYNOTE COKETOWN, to which Messrs. Bounderby and Gradgrind now walked, was a triumph of fact; it had no greater taint of fancy in it than Mrs. Gradgrind herself. Let us strik...

SLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIP THE name of the public-house was the Pegasus’s Arms. The Pegasus’s legs might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse upon the sign-...

MRS. SPARSIT MR. BOUNDERBY being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend. Mrs. Sparsit was this lady’s name; and...

NEVER WONDER LET us strike the key-note again, before pursuing the tune. When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to begin a conversation with her broth...

SISSY’S PROGRESS SISSY JUPE had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M’Choakumchild and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months of her probation, t...

STEPHEN BLACKPOOL I ENTERTAIN a weak idea that the English people are as hard-worked as any people upon whom the sun shines. I acknowledge to this ridiculous idiosyncrasy, as a r...

NO WAY OUT THE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the...

THE OLD WOMAN OLD STEPHEN descended the two white steps, shutting the black door with the brazen door-plate, by the aid of the brazen full-stop, to which he gave a parting polish ...

RACHAEL A CANDLE faintly burned in the window, to which the black ladder had often been raised for the sliding away of all that was most precious in this world to a striving wife ...

THE GREAT MANUFACTURER TIME went on in Coketown like its own machinery: so much material wrought up, so much fuel consumed, so many powers worn out, so much money made. But, less ...

FATHER AND DAUGHTER ALTHOUGH Mr. Gradgrind did not take after Blue Beard, his room was quite a blue chamber in its abundance of blue books. Whatever they could prove (which is us...

HUSBAND AND WIFE MR. BOUNDERBY’S first disquietude on hearing of his happiness, was occasioned by the necessity of imparting it to Mrs. Sparsit. He could not make up his mind how...

EFFECTS IN THE BANK A SUNNY midsummer day. There was such a thing sometimes, even in Coketown. Seen from a distance in such weather, Coketown lay shrouded in a haze of its own, ...

MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE THE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits more hopefully, t...

THE WHELP IT was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought up under one continuous system of unnatural restraint, should be a hypocrite; but it was certainly the...

MEN AND BROTHERS ‘OH, my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed and a grinding despotism! Oh, my fr...

MEN AND MASTERS ‘WELL, Stephen,’ said Bounderby, in his windy manner, ‘what’s this I hear? What have these pests of the earth been doing to _you_? Come in, and speak up.’ It wa...

FADING AWAY IT was falling dark when Stephen came out of Mr. Bounderby’s house. The shadows of night had gathered so fast, that he did not look about him when he closed the door,...

GUNPOWDER MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE, ‘going in’ for his adopted party, soon began to score. With the aid of a little more coaching for the political sages, a little more genteel listle...

EXPLOSION THE next morning was too bright a morning for sleep, and James Harthouse rose early, and sat in the pleasant bay window of his dressing-room, smoking the rare tobacco th...

HEARING THE LAST OF IT MRS. SPARSIT, lying by to recover the tone of her nerves in Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, kept such a sharp look-out, night and day, under her Coriolanian eyebro...

MRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASE MRS. SPARSIT’S nerves being slow to recover their tone, the worthy woman made a stay of some weeks in duration at Mr. Bounderby’s retreat, where, notwiths...

LOWER AND LOWER THE figure descended the great stairs, steadily, steadily; always verging, like a weight in deep water, to the black gulf at the bottom. Mr. Gradgrind, apprised o...

DOWN THE national dustmen, after entertaining one another with a great many noisy little fights among themselves, had dispersed for the present, and Mr. Gradgrind was at home for ...

ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL LOUISA awoke from a torpor, and her eyes languidly opened on her old bed at home, and her old room. It seemed, at first, as if all that had happened since t...

VERY RIDICULOUS MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE passed a whole night and a day in a state of so much hurry, that the World, with its best glass in his eye, would scarcely have recognized him ...

VERY DECIDED THE indefatigable Mrs. Sparsit, with a violent cold upon her, her voice reduced to a whisper, and her stately frame so racked by continual sneezes that it seemed in d...

LOST THE robbery at the Bank had not languished before, and did not cease to occupy a front place in the attention of the principal of that establishment now. In boastful proof o...

FOUND DAY and night again, day and night again. No Stephen Blackpool. Where was the man, and why did he not come back? Every night, Sissy went to Rachael’s lodging, and sat wit...

THE STARLIGHT THE Sunday was a bright Sunday in autumn, clear and cool, when early in the morning Sissy and Rachael met, to walk in the country. As Coketown cast ashes not only o...

WHELP-HUNTING BEFORE the ring formed round the Old Hell Shaft was broken, one figure had disappeared from within it. Mr. Bounderby and his shadow had not stood near Louisa, who h...

PHILOSOPHICAL THEY went back into the booth, Sleary shutting the door to keep intruders out. Bitzer, still holding the paralysed culprit by the collar, stood in the Ring, blinkin...

FINAL IT is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself. Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously a...