CHAPTER XV

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 usually anything you like), they proved there, in an army

constantly strengthening by the arrival of new recruits. In that charmed

apartment, the most complicated social questions were cast up, got into

exact totals, and finally settled—if those concerned could only have been

brought to know it. As if an astronomical observatory should be made

without any windows, and the astronomer within should arrange the starry

universe solely by pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in _his_

Observatory (and there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye upon

the teeming myriads of human beings around him, but could settle all

their destinies on a slate, and wipe out all their tears with one dirty

little bit of sponge.

To this Observatory, then: a stern room, with a deadly statistical clock

in it, which measured every second with a beat like a rap upon a

coffin-lid; Louisa repaired on the appointed morning. A window looked

towards Coketown; and when she sat down near her father’s table, she saw

the high chimneys and the long tracts of smoke looming in the heavy

distance gloomily.

‘My dear Louisa,’ said her father, ‘I prepared you last night to give me

your serious attention in the conversation we are now going to have

together. You have been so well trained, and you do, I am happy to say,

so much justice to the education you have received, that I have perfect

confidence in your good sense. You are not impulsive, you are not

romantic, you are accustomed to view everything from the strong

dispassionate ground of reason and calculation. From that ground alone,

I know you will view and consider what I am going to communicate.’

He waited, as if he would have been glad that she said something. But

she said never a word.

‘Louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has

been made to me.’

Again he waited, and again she answered not one word. This so far

surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, ‘a proposal of

marriage, my dear.’ To which she returned, without any visible emotion

whatever:

‘I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure you.’

‘Well!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for the

moment at a loss, ‘you are even more dispassionate than I expected,

Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the announcement I have

it in charge to make?’

‘I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared or unprepared, I

wish to hear it all from you. I wish to hear you state it to me,

father.’

Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this moment as

his daughter was. He took a paper-knife in his hand, turned it over,

laid it down, took it up again, and even then had to look along the blade

of it, considering how to go on.

‘What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reasonable. I have

undertaken then to let you know that—in short, that Mr. Bounderby has

informed me that he has long watched your progress with particular

interest and pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ultimately

arrive when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That time, to

which he has so long, and certainly with great constancy, looked forward,

is now come. Mr. Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage to me, and

has entreated me to make it known to you, and to express his hope that

you will take it into your favourable consideration.’

Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very hollow. The

distant smoke very black and heavy.

‘Father,’ said Louisa, ‘do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?’

Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected question.

‘Well, my child,’ he returned, ‘I—really—cannot take upon myself to say.’

‘Father,’ pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, ‘do you ask

me to love Mr. Bounderby?’

‘My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.’

‘Father,’ she still pursued, ‘does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?’

‘Really, my dear,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘it is difficult to answer your

question—’

‘Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father?

‘Certainly, my dear. Because;’ here was something to demonstrate, and it

set him up again; ‘because the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on

the sense in which we use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not do

you the injustice, and does not do himself the injustice, of pretending

to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I am using synonymous terms)

sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have seen you grow up under his eyes,

to very little purpose, if he could so far forget what is due to your

good sense, not to say to his, as to address you from any such ground.

Therefore, perhaps the expression itself—I merely suggest this to you, my

dear—may be a little misplaced.’

‘What would you advise me to use in its stead, father?’

‘Why, my dear Louisa,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, completely recovered by this

time, ‘I would advise you (since you ask me) to consider this question,

as you have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply as

one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass such

subjects with irrelevant fancies, and other absurdities that have no

existence, properly viewed—really no existence—but it is no compliment to

you to say, that you know better. Now, what are the Facts of this case?

You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. Bounderby

is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your

respective years, but in your means and positions there is none; on the

contrary, there is a great suitability. Then the question arises, Is

this one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage? In

considering this question, it is not unimportant to take into account the

statistics of marriage, so far as they have yet been obtained, in England

and Wales. I find, on reference to the figures, that a large proportion

of these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages,

and that the elder of these contracting parties is, in rather more than

three-fourths of these instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable as

showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the

British possessions in India, also in a considerable part of China, and

among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet

furnished us by travellers, yield similar results. The disparity I have

mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all

but disappears.’

‘What do you recommend, father,’ asked Louisa, her reserved composure not

in the least affected by these gratifying results, ‘that I should

substitute for the term I used just now? For the misplaced expression?’

‘Louisa,’ returned her father, ‘it appears to me that nothing can be

plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact you

state to yourself is: Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he

does. The sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him? I think

nothing can be plainer than that?’

‘Shall I marry him?’ repeated Louisa, with great deliberation.

‘Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear

Louisa, to know that you do not come to the consideration of that

question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that

belong to many young women.’

‘No, father,’ she returned, ‘I do not.’

‘I now leave you to judge for yourself,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘I have

stated the case, as such cases are usually stated among practical minds;

I have stated it, as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its

time. The rest, my dear Louisa, is for you to decide.’

From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned

back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn,

perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was

impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up

confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a

bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting,

between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will

elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be

sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and

too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian,

matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into

the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost

opportunities that are drowned there.

Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently towards the

town, that he said, at length: ‘Are you consulting the chimneys of the

Coketown works, Louisa?’

‘There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet

when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!’ she answered, turning

quickly.

‘Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of the

remark.’ To do him justice he did not, at all.

She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating

her attention upon him again, said, ‘Father, I have often thought that

life is very short.’—This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he

interposed.

‘It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human

life is proved to have increased of late years. The calculations of

various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures which

cannot go wrong, have established the fact.’

‘I speak of my own life, father.’

‘O indeed? Still,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, ‘I need not point out to you,

Louisa, that it is governed by the laws which govern lives in the

aggregate.’

‘While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am

fit for. What does it matter?’

Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words;

replying, ‘How, matter? What matter, my dear?’

‘Mr. Bounderby,’ she went on in a steady, straight way, without regarding

this, ‘asks me to marry him. The question I have to ask myself is, shall

I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so,

father. Have you not?’

‘Certainly, my dear.’

‘Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied

to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you please, that

this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I

should wish him to know what I said.’

‘It is quite right, my dear,’ retorted her father approvingly, ‘to be

exact. I will observe your very proper request. Have you any wish in

reference to the period of your marriage, my child?’

‘None, father. What does it matter!’

Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken her

hand. But, her repetition of these words seemed to strike with some

little discord on his ear. He paused to look at her, and, still holding

her hand, said:

‘Louisa, I have not considered it essential to ask you one question,

because the possibility implied in it appeared to me to be too remote.

But perhaps I ought to do so. You have never entertained in secret any

other proposal?’

‘Father,’ she returned, almost scornfully, ‘what other proposal can have

been made to _me_? Whom have I seen? Where have I been? What are my

heart’s experiences?’

‘My dear Louisa,’ returned Mr. Gradgrind, reassured and satisfied. ‘You

correct me justly. I merely wished to discharge my duty.’

‘What do _I_ know, father,’ said Louisa in her quiet manner, ‘of tastes

and fancies; of aspirations and affections; of all that part of my nature

in which such light things might have been nourished? What escape have I

had from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be

grasped?’ As she said it, she unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon

a solid object, and slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust or

ash.

‘My dear,’ assented her eminently practical parent, ‘quite true, quite

true.’

‘Why, father,’ she pursued, ‘what a strange question to ask _me_! The

baby-preference that even I have heard of as common among children, has

never had its innocent resting-place in my breast. You have been so

careful of me, that I never had a child’s heart. You have trained me so

well, that I never dreamed a child’s dream. You have dealt so wisely

with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that I never had a child’s

belief or a child’s fear.’

Mr. Gradgrind was quite moved by his success, and by this testimony to

it. ‘My dear Louisa,’ said he, ‘you abundantly repay my care. Kiss me,

my dear girl.’

So, his daughter kissed him. Detaining her in his embrace, he said, ‘I

may assure you now, my favourite child, that I am made happy by the sound

decision at which you have arrived. Mr. Bounderby is a very remarkable

man; and what little disparity can be said to exist between you—if any—is

more than counterbalanced by the tone your mind has acquired. It has

always been my object so to educate you, as that you might, while still

in your early youth, be (if I may so express myself) almost any age.

Kiss me once more, Louisa. Now, let us go and find your mother.’

Accordingly, they went down to the drawing-room, where the esteemed lady

with no nonsense about her, was recumbent as usual, while Sissy worked

beside her. She gave some feeble signs of returning animation when they

entered, and presently the faint transparency was presented in a sitting

attitude.

‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, who had waited for the achievement of

this feat with some impatience, ‘allow me to present to you Mrs.

Bounderby.’

‘Oh!’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘so you have settled it! Well, I’m sure I

hope your health may be good, Louisa; for if your head begins to split as

soon as you are married, which was the case with mine, I cannot consider

that you are to be envied, though I have no doubt you think you are, as

all girls do. However, I give you joy, my dear—and I hope you may now

turn all your ological studies to good account, I am sure I do! I must

give you a kiss of congratulation, Louisa; but don’t touch my right

shoulder, for there’s something running down it all day long. And now

you see,’ whimpered Mrs. Gradgrind, adjusting her shawls after the

affectionate ceremony, ‘I shall be worrying myself, morning, noon, and

night, to know what I am to call him!’

‘Mrs. Gradgrind,’ said her husband, solemnly, ‘what do you mean?’

‘Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa!

I must call him something. It’s impossible,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a

mingled sense of politeness and injury, ‘to be constantly addressing him

and never giving him a name. I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is

insupportable to me. You yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well

know. Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister! Not, I believe, unless

the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my

relations. Then, what am I to call him!’

Nobody present having any suggestion to offer in the remarkable

emergency, Mrs. Gradgrind departed this life for the time being, after

delivering the following codicil to her remarks already executed:

‘As to the wedding, all I ask, Louisa, is,—and I ask it with a fluttering

in my chest, which actually extends to the soles of my feet,—that it may

take place soon. Otherwise, I know it is one of those subjects I shall

never hear the last of.’

When Mr. Gradgrind had presented Mrs. Bounderby, Sissy had suddenly

turned her head, and looked, in wonder, in pity, in sorrow, in doubt, in

a multitude of emotions, towards Louisa. Louisa had known it, and seen

it, without looking at her. From that moment she was impassive, proud

and cold—held Sissy at a distance—changed to her altogether.