Part 19 (1/2)
”Farewell, Thethilia!” he said, ”my latht wordth to you ith thith: Thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient to the Thquire, and forget uth. But if, when you're grown up and married and well off, you come upon any horthe-riding ever, don't be hard upon it, don't be croth with it, give it a Bethpeak if you can, and think you might do worth.
People must be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow,” continued Sleary, ”they can't be alwayth a working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a learning.
Make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. I've got my living out of horthe-riding all my life, I know, but I conthider that I lay down the philothophy of the thubject when I thay to you, Thquire, make the betht of uth; not the wurtht!”
The Sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs; and the fixed eye of Philosophy--and its rolling eye, too,--soon lost the three figures, and the basket in the darkness of the street.
To Mr. Bounderby's house the weeping Sissy was conducted, and remained there while Mr. Gradgrind returned to Stone Lodge to mature his plans for the clown's daughter. He soon came back to Mr. Bounderby's, bringing his daughter Louisa with him, and Sissy Jupe stood before them, with downcast eyes, while Mr. Gradgrind thus addressed her:
”Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and when you are not at school, to employ you about Mrs. Gradgrind, who is rather an invalid. I have explained to Miss Louisa--this is Miss Louisa--the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to understand that the subject is not to be referred to any more. From this time you begin your history. You are at present ignorant, I know.”
”Yes, sir, very,” she answered curtseying.
”I shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; and you will be a living proof of the advantages of the training you will receive. You will be reclaimed and formed. You have been in the habit now of reading to your father, and those people I found you among, I dare say?” said Mr. Gradgrind.
”Only to father and to Merrylegs, sir. At least I mean to father, when Merrylegs was always there.”
”Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe,” said Mr. Gradgrind with a frown. ”I don't ask about him. I understand you have been in the habit of reading to your father, and what did you read to him, Jupe?”
”About the fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the Genies,” she sobbed out: ”And about--”
”Hus.h.!.+” exclaimed Mr. Gradgrind, ”that is enough. Never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more.”
Then Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to Stone Lodge, where she speedily grew as pale as wax, and as heavy-eyed as all the other victims of Mr. Gradgrind's practical system of training. She had not an easy time of it, between Mr. M'Choak.u.mchild and Mrs. Gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months of her probation, to run away. It hailed facts all day long, so very hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a closely ruled ciphering book, that a.s.suredly she would have run away, but for only one restraint. She believed that her father had not deserted her; she lived in the hope that he would come back, and in the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she was.
The wretched ignorance with which Jupe clung to this consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing on a sound arithmetical basis that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled Mr. Gradgrind with pity. Yet, what was to be done? Mr. M'Choak.u.mchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of Political Economy, she had only yesterday returned to the question, ”What is the first principle of this science?” the absurd answer, ”To do unto others as I would that they should do unto me.”
Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge, and that Jupe must be ”kept to it.” So Jupe was kept to it, and became low spirited, but no wiser.
”It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!” She said one night, when Louisa had endeavored to make her perplexities for next day something clearer to her, to which Louisa answered, ”I don't know that, Sissy. You are more useful to my mother. You are pleasanter to yourself, than _I_ am to _myself._”
”But, if you please, Miss Louisa,” Sissy pleaded, ”I am--Oh so stupid!
All through school hours I make mistakes. To-day for instance, Mr.
M'Choak.u.mchild was explaining to us about Natural Prosperity.”
”National, I think it must have been,” observed Louisa.
”National Prosperity,” corrected Sissy, ”and he said, Now, this schoolroom is a Nation, and in this nation there are fifty millions of money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty. Isn't this a prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state? Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it. It was not in the figures at all,” said Sissy, wiping her eyes.
”That was a great mistake of yours,” observed Louisa.
”Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was now. Then Mr. M'Choak.u.mchild said he would try me again. And he said, This Schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark was, that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a million or a million million. And that was wrong too. Then Mr.
M'Choak.u.mchild said he would try me once more. And he said That in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or burned to death. What is the percentage? And I said, Miss;” here Sissy fairly sobbed in confessing to her great error; ”I said it was nothing, Miss--to the relations and friends of the people who were killed--I shall never learn,” said Sissy.
”And the worst of all is, that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, and although I am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, I am afraid I don't like it.”
Louisa stood looking at the pretty, modest head, as it drooped abashed before her, until it was raised again to glance at her face. Then she asked:
”Did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well taught too?”
Sissy hesitated before replying, for this was forbidden ground, but Louisa insisted upon continuing the conversation.