Ten Girls from Dickens Part 17

"In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir! Nothing but Facts!"

The speaker, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, and the schoolmaster, Mr.

M'Choak.u.mchild, 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.

"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, "I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?"

"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.

"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Call yourself Cecilia."

"It's father as calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl with another curtsey.

"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?"

"He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir."

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

"We don't want to know anything about that here. Your father breaks horses, don't he?"

"If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring."

"You mustn't tell us about the ring here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horse-breaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and horse-breaker. Give me your definition of a horse."

(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand).

"Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!" said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals!

Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours!"

"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you know what a horse is."

She curtsied again, blushed, and sat down, and the third gentleman present stepped forth, briskly smiling and folding his arms. "That's a horse," he said. "Now, let me ask you, boys and girls, would you paper a room with representations of horses?"

After a pause, one-half of the children cried in chorus, "Yes, sir!"

Upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face that Yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, "No, sir!"

"Of course, No. Why wouldn't you?"

A pause. One boy ventured the answer, because he wouldn't paper a room at all, but would paint it.

"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 pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with a representation of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality--in fact? Of course, No. 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. This is a new principle, a great discovery," said the gentleman.

"Now I'll try you again. 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."

"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, "why would you carpet your room with representations of flowers?"

"If you please, sir, I'm very fond of flowers," returned the girl.

"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?"

"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, please sir.

They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, sir, and I would fancy--"

"Ay, ay, ay! but you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "You are never to fancy."

"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind. 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 b.u.t.terflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and b.u.t.terflies 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 colors of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste."

The girl curtseyed and sat down. She was very young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded; while the teacher proceeded to give a lesson based upon hard Fact for the benefit of his visitors.

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 in it to be a model, just as the five young Gradgrinds were all models.

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; no little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are"; each little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear, and driven Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No little Gradgrind had ever a.s.sociated a cow in a field with that famous cow with a crumpled horn who tossed the dog, who worried the cat, who killed the rat, who ate the malt, or with that more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb. It had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous, ruminating quadruped with several stomachs.

To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr. Gradgrind directed his steps, walking on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind.

He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but allowed no foolish sentiment to interfere with the practical basis of his childrens'

education and bringing-up.

He had reached the outskirts of the town, when his ears were invaded by the sound of the band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion. A flag floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was Sleary's Horse-Riding which claimed their suffrages. Among the many pleasing wonders which must be seen to be believed, Signor Jupe was that afternoon to "elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog, Merrylegs," He was also to exhibit "his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred weight in rapid succession back-handed over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in midair, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn." The same Signor Jupe was to "enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste Shakesperean quips and retorts." Lastly, he was to wind them up by appearing in his favorite character of Mr. William b.u.t.ton, of Tooley Street, in "the highly novel and laughable Hippo Comedietta of The Tailor's Journey to Brentford."

Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities, but pa.s.sed on, as a practical man ought to pa.s.s on. But, at the back of the booth he saw a number of children congregated in a number of stealthy att.i.tudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place. What did he then behold but his own Louisa peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and his own Thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a hoof of the graceful Tyrolean Flower-act!

Dumb with amazement, Mr. Gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said:

"Louisa!! Thomas!!"

Both rose, red and disconcerted.

"In the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!" said Mr. Gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; "what do you do here?"

"Wanted to see what it was like," returned Louisa shortly.

"You!" exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind. "Thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; who may be said to be replete with Fact; who have been trained to mathematical exactness; Thomas and you, here! In this degraded position! I am amazed."

"I was tired, father," said Louisa.

"Tired? Of what?" asked the astonished father.

"I don't know of what--of everything, I think."