pretty well united on the point that these
unlucky infants were never to wonder. Body
number one, said they must take everything
on trust. Body number two, said they must
take everything on political economy. Body
number three, wrote leaden little books for
them, showing how the good grown-up baby
invariably got to the Savings Bank, and the
bad grown-up baby invariably got transported.
Body number four, under dreary pretences of
being droll (when it was very melancholy
indeed), made the shallowest pretences of
concealing pitfalls of knowledge, into which it
was the duty of these babies to be smuggled
and inveigled. But, all the bodies agreed
that they were never to wonder.

There was a library in Coketown, to which
general access was easy. Mr. Gradgrind
greatly tormented his mind about what the
people read in this library: a point whereon
little rivers of tabular statements periodically
flowed into the howling ocean of tabular
statements, which no diver ever got to any
depth in and came up sane. It was a
disheartening circumstance, but a melancholy
fact, that even these readers persisted in
wondering. They wondered about human nature,
human passions, human hopes and fears, the
struggles, triumphs and defeats, the cares and
joys and sorrows, the lives and deaths, of
common men and women. They
sometimes, after fifteen hours' work, sat down
to read mere fables about men and women,
more or less like themselves, and children,
more or less like their own. They took De
Foe to their bosoms, instead of Euclid, and
seemed to be on the whole more comforted by
Goldsmith than by Cocker. Mr. Gradgrind
was for ever working, in print and out of print,
at this eccentric sum, and he never could make
out how it yielded this unaccountable product.

"I am sick of my life, Loo. I hate it
altogether, and I hate everybody except you,"
said the unnatural young Thomas Gradgrind
in the hair-cutting chamber at twilight.

"You don't hate Sissy, Tom."

"I hate to be obliged to call her Jupe.
And she hates me," said Tom moodily.

"No she does not, Tom, I am sure."

"She must," said Tom. " She must just
hate and detest the whole set-out of us.
They'll bother her head off, I think, before
they have done with her. Already she's
getting as pale as wax, and as heavy as—I am."

Young Thomas expressed these sentiments,
sitting astride of a chair before the fire, with
his arms on the back, and his sulky face on
his arms. His sister sat in the darker corner
by the fireside, now looking at him, now
looking at the bright sparks as they dropped
upon the hearth.

"As to me," said Tom, tumbling his hair
all manner of ways with his sulky hands, " I
am a Donkey, that's what I am. I am as
obstinate as one, I am more stupid than one,
I get as much pleasure as one, and I should
like to kick like one."

"Not me, I hope, Tom?"

"No. Loo; I wouldn't hurt you. I made
an exception of you at first. I don't know
this—jolly old—Jaundiced Jail—" Tom
had paused to find a sufficiently complimentary
and expressive name for the parental
roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a
moment by the strong alliteration of this one,
"would be without you."

"Indeed, Tom? Do you really and truly
say so?"

"Why, of course I do. What's the use of
talking about it! " returned Tom, chafing
his face on his coat-sleeve as if to mortify
his flesh, and have it in unison with his
spirit.

"Because, Tom," said his sister, after
silently watching the sparks awhile, "as I get
older, and nearer growing up, I often sit
wondering here, and think how unfortunate it is
for me that I can't reconcile you to home
better than I am able to do. I don't know
what other girls know. I can't play to you,
or sing to you. I can't talk to you so as to
lighten your mind, for I never see any amusing
sights or read any amusing books that it would
be a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about,
when you are tired."

"Well, no more do I. I am as bad as you
in that respect; and I am a Mule too, which
you're not. If father was determined to make
me either a Prig or a Mule, and I am not a
Prig, why, it stands to reason, I must be a
Mule. And so I am," said Tom, desperately.

"It's a great pity," said Louisa, after
another pause, and speaking thoughtfully out of
her dark corner; "it's a great pity, Tom.
It's very unfortunate for both of us."

"Oh! You," said Tom; " you are a girl,
Loo, and a girl comes out of it better than a
boy does. I don't miss anything in you. You
are the only pleasure I have—you can brighten
even this place—and you can always lead me
as you like."

"You are a dear brother, Tom; and while
you think I can do such things, I don't so
much mind knowing better. Though I do
know better, Tom, and am very sorry for it."
She came and kissed him, and went back into
her corner again.

"I wish I could collect all the Facts we hear
so much about," said Tom, spitefully setting
his teeth, "and all the Figures, and all the
people who found them out; and I wish I
could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder
under them, and blow them all up together!
However, when I go to live with old
Bounderby, I'll have my revenge."

"Your revenge, Tom?"

"I mean, I'll enjoy myself a little, and go
about and see something, and hear something.
I'll recompense myself for the way in which
I have been brought up."

"But don't disappoint yourself beforehand,
Tom. Mr. Bounderby thinks as father thinks,
and is a great deal rougher, and not half so
kind."