Hard Times | Page 3

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Hard Times by Charles Dickens Scanned and proofed by David Price
[email protected]

Hard Times

BOOK THE FIRST - SOWING

CHAPTER I
- 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 else. You can only form the
minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them.
This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on
which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'
The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker's square
forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the
schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a
forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious
cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the
speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the
speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by
the speaker's hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep
the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as
if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker's
obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, - nay, his very neckcloth,
trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as
it was, - all helped the emphasis.
'In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!'
The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little,
and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in
order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the
brim.


CHAPTER II
- 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 over, and who is
not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir - peremptorily

Thomas - Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication
table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature,
and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple
arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George
Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all
supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind - no, sir!
In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private
circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. In such terms, no doubt, substituting
the words 'boys and girls,' for 'sir,' Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind
to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.
Indeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage before mentioned, he seemed a
kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of
the regions of childhood at one discharge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too,
charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to
be stormed away.
'Girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, 'I
don't know that girl. Who is that