twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you
are; it had never known wonder on the
subject, having at five years old dissected the
Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven
Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine-
driver. No little Gradgrind had ever associated
a cow in a field with that famous cow
with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog
who worried the cat who killed the rat who
ate the malt, or with that yet 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. He had virtually retired from the
wholesale hardware trade before he built
Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for
a suitable opportunity of making an
arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge
was situated on a moor within a mile or two
of a great town—called Coketown in the
present faithful guide-book.

A very regular feature on the face of the
country, Stone Lodge was. Not the least
disguise toned down or shaded off that
uncompromising fact in the landscape. A great
square house, with a heavy portico darkening
the principal windows, as its master's heavy
brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated,
cast up, balanced, and proved house. Six
windows on this side of the door, six on that
side; a total of twelve in this wing, a total of
twelve in the other wing; four and twenty
carried over to the back. A lawn and garden
and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like
a botanical account-book. Gas and ventilation,
drainage and water-service, all of the
primest quality. Iron clamps and girders,
fireproof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts
for the housemaids, with all their brushes and
brooms; everything that heart could desire.

Everything? Well, I suppose so. The
little Gradgrinds had cabinets in various
departments of science too. They had a
little conchological cabinet, and a little
metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical
cabinet; and the specimens were all arranged
and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore
looked as though they might have been broken
from the parent substances by those
tremendously hard instruments their own names;
and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter
Piper, who had never found his way into their
nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds
grasped at more than this, what was it for
good gracious goodness sake, that the greedy
little Gradgrinds grasped at!

Their father walked on in a hopeful and
satisfied frame of mind. He was an affectionate
father, after his manner; but he would
probably have described himself (if he had been
put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as "an
eminently practical" father. He had a
particular pride in the phrase eminently practical,
which was considered to have a special
application to him. Whatsoever the public
meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever
the subject of such meeting, some Coketowner
was sure to seize the occasion of alluding
to his eminently practical friend Gradgrind.
This always pleased the eminently practical
friend. He knew it to be his due, but his
due was acceptable.

He had reached the neutral ground upon
the outskirts of the town, which was neither
town nor country, and yet was either spoiled,
when his ears were invaded by the sound of
music. The clashing and banging band
attached to the horse-riding establishment
which had there set up its rest in a wooden
pavilion, was in full bray. A flag, floating
from the summit of the temple, proclaimed
to mankind that it was "Sleary's Horse-
riding" which claimed their suffrages. Sleary
himself, a stout modern statue with a
money-box at its elbow, in an ecclesiastical
niche of early Gothic architecture,
took the money. Miss Josephine Sleary, as
some very long and very narrow strips of
printed bill announced, was then inaugurating
the entertainments with her graceful equestrian
Tyrolean flower-act. Among the other
pleasing but always strictly moral 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 backhanded over his head thus
forming a fountain of solid iron in mid air, 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 Button, 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 of course, but passed on as a
practical man ought to pass on, either brushing
the noisy insects from his thoughts, or
consigning them to the House of Correction.
But, the turning of the road took him by the
back of the booth, and at the back of the
booth a number of children were congregated
in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to
peep in at the hidden glories of the place.

This brought him to a stop. "Now, to
think of these vagabonds," said he, "attracting
the young rabble from a model school!"

A space of stunted grass and dry rubbish
being between him and the young rabble, he
took his eyeglass out of his waistcoat to look
for any child he knew by name, and might
order off. Phenomenon almost incredible
though distinctly seen, what did he then