After a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes, sir!" Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face 110 that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, "No, sir!"—as the custom is in these examinations. "Of course, no. Why wouldn't you?" A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the answer, Because he would n't paper a 115 room at all, but would paint it. "You must paper it," said the gentleman rather warmly. "You must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you like it or not. Don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. What do you mean, boy?" "I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, “why you wouldn't paper a room with representations of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality-in fact? Do you?" "Yes, sir!" from one half. "No, sir!" from the other. "Of course, no," said the gentleman with an indignant look at the wrong half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what you don't have in fact. What is called Taste in only another name for Fact." Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation. "This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said the gentleman. "Now, I'll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir!" was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of No was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said Yes; among them Sissy Jupe. 120 125 130 135 "Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the calm 140 strength of knowledge. Sissy blushed and stood up. "So you would carpet your room or your husband's room, if you were a grown woman, and had a husband-with repre145 sentations of flowers, would you?" said the gentleman. "Why would you?" "If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers," returned the girl. "And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, 150 and have people walking over them with heavy boots?" "It would n't hurt them, sir. They would n't crush and wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy-" "Ay, ay, ay! But you must n't fancy," cried the gentleman, 155 quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it! You are never to fancy." "You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind.” "Fact, fact, fact!" said the gentleman. And "Fact, fact, 160 fact!" repeated Thomas Gradgrind. "You are to be in all things regulated and governed," said the gentleman, "by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard 165 the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your 170 crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary 175 colors) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste." From "Hard Times." GLOSSARY. Peremptorily; supposititious; galvanizing; farrier; irradiated; graminivorous; antennæ; bolus; Millennium; elated. STUDY. What is odd about the sentences in the first paragraph? Do they seem in any way appropriate to sum up Mr. Gradgrind? Do they suggest, by their snappy, nervous energy, an air of finality and certainty? What is gained by the strange comparisons of Mr. Gradgrind to a cannon and to a galvanizing apparatus? Does his opening notice of Sissy Jupe suggest that he knows much about children? Was it fitted to give her confidence in herself? Did she fail to answer the question put because she knew nothing about horses? Introduce Bitzer. How much more does he know about horses than Sissy? Is his definition any proof that he ever saw a horse, or would know one if he should see it? What do you think of Gradgrind's comment? What do you learn of the third gentleman? Does the "fistic phraseology" make his nature clear to you? Does Dickens hold to the Gradgrind theory of "facts" when describing his characters? State the points on art made by this gentleman. What illustrations did he use? Do you think Sissy's views on the subject were as hopeless as she was made to feel? HANDS OVER SEA CHARLES DICKENS It is not easy for a man to speak of his own books. I dare say that few persons have been more interested in mine than I, and if it be a general principle in nature that a lover's love is blind, and that a mother's love is blind, I believe it may be said of an author's attachment to the creatures of his own imagination, that 5 it is a perfect model of constancy and devotion, and is the blindest of all. But the objects and purposes I have had in view are very plain and simple, and may be easily told. I have always had, and always shall have, an earnest and true desire to contribute, as far as in me lies, to the common stock of healthful cheerfulness and 10 enjoyment. I have always had, and always shall have, an invincible repugnance to that mole-eyed philosophy which loves the darkness, and winks and scowls in the light. I believe that Virtue shows quite as well in rags and patches as she does in purple and fine linen. I believe that she and every beautiful object in external 15 nature, claim some sympathy in the breast of the poorest man who breaks his scanty loaf of daily bread. I believe that she goes barefoot as well as shod. I believe that she dwells rather oftener in alleys and byways than she does in courts and palaces, and that 20 it is good, and pleasant, and profitable to track her out, and follow her. I believe that to lay one's hand upon some of those rejected ones whom the world has too long forgotten, and too often misused, and to say to the proudest and most thoughtless-"These creatures have the same elements and capacities of goodness as yourselves, 25 they are molded in the same form, and made of the same clay; and though ten times worse than you, may, in having retained anything of their original nature amidst the trials and distresses of their condition, be really ten times better." I believe that to do this is to pursue a worthy and not useless vocation. Gentlemen, 30 that you think so too, your fervent greeting sufficiently assures me. That this feeling is alive in the Old World as well as in the New, no man should know better than I-I, who have found such wide and ready sympathy in my own dear land. That in expressing it, we are but treading in the steps of those great master-spirits who have 35 gone before, we know by reference to all the bright examples in our literature from Shakespeare downward. There is one other point connected with the labors (if I may call them so) that you hold in such generous esteem, to which I cannot help adverting. I cannot help expressing the delight, the more than 40 happiness it was to me to find so strong an interest awakened on this side of the water, in favor of that little heroine of mine, to whom your President has made allusion, who died in her youth. I had letters about that child, in England, from the dwellers in log houses, amongst the morasses, and swamps, and densest 45 forests, and deepest solitudes of the Far West. Many a sturdy hand, hard with the ax and spade, and browned by the summer's sun, has taken up the pen, and written to me a little history of domestic joy or sorrow, always coupled, I am proud to say, with something of interest in that little tale, or some comfort or happiness 50 derived from it; and my correspondent has always addressed me, not as a writer of books for sale, resident some four or five thousand miles away, but as a friend to whom he might freely impart the joys and sorrows of his own fireside. Many a mother-I could reckon them now by dozens, not by units-has done the like, and has told me how she lost such a child at such a time, and where she 55 lay buried, and how good she was, and how, in this or that respect, she resembled Nell. I do assure you that no circumstance of my life has given me one-hundredth part of the gratification I have derived from this source. I was wavering at the time whether or not to wind up my Clock and come and see this country, and this 60 decided me. I felt as if it were a positive duty, as if I were bound to pack up my clothes, and come and see my friends; and even now I have such an odd sensation in connection with these things, that you have no chance of spoiling me. I feel as though we were agreeing—as indeed we are, if we substitute for fictitious characters 65 the classes from which they are drawn-about third parties, in whom we had a common interest. At every new act of kindness on your part, I say to myself, "That's for Oliver; I should not wonder if that were meant for Smike; I have no doubt that is intended for Nell"; and so I become a much happier, certainly, 70 but a more sober and retiring man than ever I was before. GLOSSARY. Invincible; adverting; little heroine; Clock; Oliver; Smike. STUDY. This selection is part of a speech made by Dickens at a dinner given to him on one of his American tours. What does he tell you about the objects and purposes he had in view in his books? Does what he says about those in the lower walks of life help explain his enormous popularity? What illustrations of the effects of the story of Little Nell does he give in the second part of the extract? How can he join in the praise of his own characters without being egotistic? What is there about the situation that would tend to make him "sober and retiring"? Is it a great sense of his responsibility? Great souls by instinct to each other turn, JOSEPH ADDISON. |
