Hard Times Full Text

_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....

MURDERING THE INNOCENTSTHOMAS 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...

A LOOPHOLEMR. 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 in it to be a model—...

MR. BOUNDERBYNOT 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 approach that spiritual r...

THE KEYNOTECOKETOWN, 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 strike the key-note, Coke...

SLEARY’S HORSEMANSHIPTHE 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-board, the Peg...

MRS. SPARSITMR. 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 she was a promine...

NEVER WONDERLET 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 brother one day, by saying...

SISSY’S PROGRESSSISSY 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, to run away. It...

STEPHEN BLACKPOOLI 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 reason why I would gi...

NO WAY OUTTHE Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid r...

THE OLD WOMANOLD 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 with the sleeve of...

RACHAELA 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 and a brood of hung...

THE GREAT MANUFACTURERTIME 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 inexorable than iro...

FATHER AND DAUGHTERALTHOUGH 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 l...

HUSBAND AND WIFEMR. 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 to do that, or wh...

_REAPING_CHAPTER I EFFECTS IN THE BANKA 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, whi...

MR. JAMES HARTHOUSETHE Gradgrind party wanted assistance in cutting the throats of the Graces. They went about recruiting; and where could they enlist recruits more hopefully, than among the fine g...

THE WHELPIT 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 case with Tom. It...

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 friends and fellow-su...

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 was into the dr...

FADING AWAYIT 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, but plodded strai...

GUNPOWDERMR. 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 listlessness for the g...

EXPLOSIONTHE 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 that had had so whole...

HEARING THE LAST OF ITMRS. 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 eyebrows, that her eyes...

MRS. SPARSIT’S STAIRCASEMRS. 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, notwithstanding her a...

LOWER AND LOWERTHE 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 of his wife’s deceas...

DOWNTHE 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 the vacation.He sat...

_GARNERING_CHAPTER I ANOTHER THING NEEDFULLOUISA 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...

VERY RIDICULOUSMR. 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 during that insane...

VERY DECIDEDTHE 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 danger of dismemberm...

LOSTTHE 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 of his promptitude an...

FOUNDDAY 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 with her in her small ne...

THE STARLIGHTTHE 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 on its own head but on...

WHELP-HUNTINGBEFORE 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 held her father’s a...

PHILOSOPHICALTHEY 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, blinking at his old patron...

FINALIT 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 anticipated him, and...