Charles Dickens - Hard Times

Strange to relate, Mr. Gradgrind was not so collected at this moment as his daughter was. He took a paper-knife in his hand, turned it over, laid it down, took it up again, and even then had to look along the blade of it, considering how to go on.

“What you say, my dear Louisa, is perfectly reasonable. I have undertaken then to let you know that—in short, that Mr. Bounderby has informed me that he has long watched your progress with particular interest and pleasure, and has long hoped that the time might ultimately arrive when he should offer you his hand in marriage. That time, to which he has so long, and certainly with great constancy, looked forward, is now come. Mr. Bounderby has made his proposal of marriage to me, and has entreated me to make it known to you, and to express his hope that you will take it into your favourable consideration.”

Silence between them. The deadly statistical clock very hollow. The distant smoke very black and heavy.

“Father,” said Louisa, “do you think I love Mr. Bounderby?”

Mr. Gradgrind was extremely discomfited by this unexpected question. “Well, my child,” he returned, “I—really—cannot take upon myself to say.”

“Father,” pursued Louisa in exactly the same voice as before, “do you ask me to love Mr. Bounderby?”

“My dear Louisa, no. No. I ask nothing.”

“Father,” she still pursued, “does Mr. Bounderby ask me to love him?”

“Really, my dear,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “it is difficult to answer your question—”

“Difficult to answer it, Yes or No, father?

“Certainly, my dear. Because;” here was something to demonstrate, and it set him up again; “because the reply depends so materially, Louisa, on the sense in which we use the expression. Now, Mr. Bounderby does not do you the injustice, and does not do himself the injustice, of pretending to anything fanciful, fantastic, or (I am using synonymous terms) sentimental. Mr. Bounderby would have seen you grow up under his eyes, to very little purpose, if he could so far forget what is due to your good sense, not to say to his, as to address you from any such ground. Therefore, perhaps the expression itself—I merely suggest this to you, my dear—may be a little misplaced.”

“What would you advise me to use in its stead, father?”

“Why, my dear Louisa,” said Mr. Gradgrind, completely recovered by this time, “I would advise you (since you ask me) to consider this question, as you have been accustomed to consider every other question, simply as one of tangible Fact. The ignorant and the giddy may embarrass such subjects with irrelevant fancies, and other absurdities that have no existence, properly viewed—really no existence—but it is no compliment to you to say, that you know better. Now, what are the Facts of this case? You are, we will say in round numbers, twenty years of age; Mr. Bounderby is, we will say in round numbers, fifty. There is some disparity in your respective years, but in your means and positions there is none; on the contrary, there is a great suitability. Then the question arises, Is this one disparity sufficient to operate as a bar to such a marriage? In considering this question, it is not unimportant to take into account the statistics of marriage, so far as they have yet been obtained, in England and Wales . I find, on reference to the figures, that a large proportion of these marriages are contracted between parties of very unequal ages, and that the elder of these contracting parties is, in rather more than three-fourths of these instances, the bridegroom. It is remarkable as showing the wide prevalence of this law, that among the natives of the British possessions in India , also in a considerable part of China , and among the Calmucks of Tartary, the best means of computation yet furnished us by travellers, yield similar results. The disparity I have mentioned, therefore, almost ceases to be disparity, and (virtually) all but disappears.”

“What do you recommend, father,” asked Louisa, her reserved composure not in the least affected by these gratifying results, “that I should substitute for the term I used just now? For the misplaced expression?”

“Louisa,” returned her father, “it appears to me that nothing can be plainer. Confining yourself rigidly to Fact, the question of Fact you state to yourself is: Does Mr. Bounderby ask me to marry him? Yes, he does. The sole remaining question then is: Shall I marry him? I think nothing can be plainer than that?”

“Shall I marry him?” repeated Louisa, with great deliberation.

“Precisely. And it is satisfactory to me, as your father, my dear Louisa, to know that you do not come to the consideration of that question with the previous habits of mind, and habits of life, that belong to many young women.”

“No, father,” she returned, “I do not.”

“I now leave you to judge for yourself,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “I have stated the case, as such cases are usually stated among practical minds; I have stated it, as the case of your mother and myself was stated in its time. The rest, my dear Louisa, is for you to decide.”

From the beginning, she had sat looking at him fixedly. As he now leaned back in his chair, and bent his deep-set eyes upon her in his turn, perhaps he might have seen one wavering moment in her, when she was impelled to throw herself upon his breast, and give him the pent-up confidences of her heart. But, to see it, he must have overleaped at a bound the artificial barriers he had for many years been erecting, between himself and all those subtle essences of humanity which will elude the utmost cunning of algebra until the last trumpet ever to be sounded shall blow even algebra to wreck. The barriers were too many and too high for such a leap. With his unbending, utilitarian, matter-of-fact face, he hardened her again; and the moment shot away into the plumbless depths of the past, to mingle with all the lost opportunities that are drowned there.

Removing her eyes from him, she sat so long looking silently towards the town, that he said, at length: “Are you consulting the chimneys of the Coketown works, Louisa?”

“There seems to be nothing there but languid and monotonous smoke. Yet when the night comes, Fire bursts out, father!” she answered, turning quickly.

“Of course I know that, Louisa. I do not see the application of the remark.” To do him justice he did not, at all.

She passed it away with a slight motion of her hand, and concentrating her attention upon him again, said, “Father, I have often thought that life is very short. “—This was so distinctly one of his subjects that he interposed.

“It is short, no doubt, my dear. Still, the average duration of human life is proved to have increased of late years. The calculations of various life assurance and annuity offices, among other figures which cannot go wrong, have established the fact.”

“I speak of my own life, father.”

“O indeed? Still,” said Mr. Gradgrind, “I need not point out to you, Louisa, that it is governed by the laws which govern lives in the aggregate.”

“While it lasts, I would wish to do the little I can, and the little I am fit for. What does it matter?”

Mr. Gradgrind seemed rather at a loss to understand the last four words; replying, “How, matter? What matter, my dear?”

“Mr. Bounderby,” she went on in a steady, straight way, without regarding this, “asks me to marry him. The question I have to ask myself is, shall I marry him? That is so, father, is it not? You have told me so, father. Have you not?”

“Certainly, my dear.”

“Let it be so. Since Mr. Bounderby likes to take me thus, I am satisfied to accept his proposal. Tell him, father, as soon as you please, that this was my answer. Repeat it, word for word, if you can, because I should wish him to know what I said.”