unfortunates I ever saw, and found him very hot and frightened, and
crying loudly, fixed by the neck between two iron railings, while
a milkman and a beadle, with the kindest intentions possible, were
endeavoring to drag him back by the legs, under a general impression
that his skull was compressible by those means. As I found (after
pacifying him) that he was a little boy, with a naturally large head, I
thought that, perhaps, where his head could go, his body could follow,
and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him
forward. This was so favorably received by the milkman and beadle, that
he would immediately have been pushed into the area, if I had not held
his pinafore, while Richard and Mr. Guppy ran down through the kitchen,
to catch him when he should be released. At last he was happily got
down without any accident, and then he began to beat Mr. Guppy with a
hoop-stick in quite a frantic manner.
Nobody had appeared belonging to the house, except a person in pattens,
who had been poking at the child from below with a broom; I don’t know
with what object, and I don’t think she did. I therefore supposed that
Mrs. Jellyby was not at home; and was quite surprised when the person
appeared in the passage without the pattens, and going up to the back
room on the first floor, before Ada and me, announced us as, “Them two
young ladies, Missis Jellyby!” We passed several more children on the
way up, whom it was difficult to avoid treading on in the dark; and as
we came into Mrs. Jellyby’s presence, one of the poor little things
fell down-stairs--down a whole flight (as it sounded to me), with a
great noise.
Mrs. Jellyby, whose face reflected none of the uneasiness which we
could not help showing in our own faces, as the dear child’s head
recorded its passage with a bump on every stair--Richard afterwards
said he counted seven, besides one for the landing--received us with
perfect equanimity. She was a pretty, very diminutive, plump woman,
of from forty to fifty, with handsome eyes, though they had a curious
habit of seeming to look a long way off. As if--I am quoting Richard
again--they could see nothing nearer than Africa!
“I am very glad indeed,” said Mrs. Jellyby, in an agreeable voice,
“to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for
Mr. Jarndyce; and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of
indifference to me.”
We expressed our acknowledgments, and sat down behind the door, where
there was a lame invalid of a sofa. Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair,
but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The
shawl in which she had been loosely muffled, dropped on to her chair
when she advanced to us; and as she turned to resume her seat, we
could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up the back,
and that the open space was railed across with a lattice-work of
stay-lace--like a summer-house.
The room, which was strewn with papers and nearly filled by a great
writing-table covered with similar litter, was, I must say, not only
very untidy, but very dirty. We were obliged to take notice of that
with our sense of sight, even while, with our sense of hearing, we
followed the poor child who had tumbled down-stairs: I think into the
back kitchen, where somebody seemed to stifle him.
But what principally struck us was a jaded, and unhealthy-looking,
though by no means plain girl, at the writing-table, who sat biting
the feather of her pen, and staring at us. I suppose nobody ever was
in such a state of ink. And, from her tumbled hair to her pretty feet,
which were disfigured with frayed and broken satin slippers trodden
down at heel, she really seemed to have no article of dress upon her,
from a pin upwards, that was in its proper condition or its right place.
“You find me, my dears,” said Mrs. Jellyby, snuffing the two great
office candles in tin candlesticks which made the room taste strongly
of hot tallow (the fire had gone out, and there was nothing in
the grate but ashes, a bundle of wood, and a poker), “you find
me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The
African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in
correspondence with public bodies, and with private individuals anxious
for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to
say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a
hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee
and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the
Niger.”
As Ada said nothing, but looked at me, I said it must be very
gratifying.
“It _is_ gratifying,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “It involves the devotion
of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it
succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know,
Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that _you_ never turned your
thoughts to Africa.”
This application of the subject was really so unexpected to me, that I
was quite at a loss how to receive it. I hinted that the climate----
“The finest climate in the world!” said Mrs. Jellyby.
“Indeed, ma’am?”
“Certainly. With precaution,” said Mrs. Jellyby. “You may go into
Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn,
with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa.”
I said, “No doubt”--I meant as to Holborn.
“If you would like,” said Mrs. Jellyby, putting a number of papers
towards us, “to look over some remarks on that head, and on the
general subject (which have been extensively circulated), while I
finish a letter I am now dictating--to my eldest daughter, who is my
amanuensis----”
The girl at the table left off biting her pen, and made a return to our
recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky.
“I shall then have finished for the present,” proceeded Mrs. Jellyby,
with a sweet smile; “though my work is never done. Where are you,
Caddy?”
“‘--Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs--’” said Caddy.
“‘And begs,’” said Mrs. Jellyby, dictating, “‘to inform him, in
reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project--’ No, Peepy!
Not on any account!”
Peepy (so self-named) was the unfortunate child who had fallen
down-stairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting
himself, with a strip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his
wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most--the
bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, “Go along, you naughty
Peepy!” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.
However, as she at once proceeded with her dictation, and as I
interrupted nothing by doing it, I ventured quietly to stop poor Peepy
as he was going out, and to take him up to nurse. He looked very much
astonished at it, and at Ada’s kissing him; but soon fell fast asleep
in my arms, sobbing at longer and longer intervals, until he was quiet.
I was so occupied with Peepy that I lost the letter in detail, though I
derived such a general impression from it of the momentous importance
of Africa, and the utter insignificance of all other places and things,
that I felt quite ashamed to have thought so little about it.
“Six o’clock!” said Mrs. Jellyby. “And our dinner hour nominally (for
we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss Summerson
their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps? You will
excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad child!
Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!”
I begged permission to retain him, truly saying that he was not at all
troublesome; and carried him up-stairs and laid him on my bed. Ada
and I had two upper rooms, with a door of communication between. They
were excessively bare and disorderly, and the curtain to my window was
fastened up with a fork.
“You would like some hot water, wouldn’t you?” said Miss Jellyby,
looking round for a jug with a handle to it, but looking in vain.
“If it is not being troublesome,” said we.
“Oh, it’s not the trouble,” returned Miss Jellyby; “the question is, if
there _is_ any.”
The evening was so very cold, and the rooms had such a marshy smell,
that I must confess it was a little miserable; and Ada was half crying.
We soon laughed, however, and were busily unpacking, when Miss Jellyby
came back to say, that she was sorry there was no hot water; but they
couldn’t find the kettle, and the boiler was out of order.
We begged her not to mention it, and made all the haste we could to get
down to the fire again. But all the little children had come up to the
landing outside, to look at the phenomenon of Peepy lying on my bed;
and our attention was distracted by the constant apparition of noses
and fingers in situations of danger between the hinges of the doors.
It was impossible to shut the door of either room; for my lock, with
no knob to it, looked as if it wanted to be wound up; and though the
handle of Ada’s went round and round with the greatest smoothness, it
was attended with no effect whatever on the door. Therefore I proposed
to the children that they should come in and be very good at my table,
and I would tell them the story of Little Red Riding Hood while I
dressed; which they did, and were as quiet as mice, including Peepy,
who awoke opportunely before the appearance of the wolf.
Soon after seven o’clock, we went down to dinner. The dinner was long,
because of such accidents as the dish of potatoes being mislaid in
the coal scuttle. Mrs. Jellyby paid no attention to such matters
and told us all about the various committees, and the five thousand
circulars that were sent out. After dinner, Mr. Jellyby sat in a corner
in a state of great dejection. I sat in another and told Peepy, in
whispers, the story of Puss in Boots, until Mrs. Jellyby, accidentally
remembering the children, sent them to bed. As Peepy cried for me to
take him, I carried him up-stairs.
“What a strange house!” said Ada, when we got up-stairs.
“My love,” said I, “it quite confuses me. I can’t understand it.”
“What?” asked Ada.
“All this, my dear,” said I. “It _must_ be very good of Mrs.
Jellyby to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of
Natives--and yet--Peepy and the housekeeping!”
SISSY JUPE
X
SISSY JUPE
DICKENS called the novel in which Sissy Jupe appears _Hard Times_.
It was certainly hard times for children who had to go to the kind of
schools that Mr. Thomas Gradgrind believed in. Mr. Gradgrind was a
big square man, with a square coat and square shoulders, who thought
that he knew all about education. He thought that the children in
the schoolroom were like so many little pitchers, and the teacher’s
business was to fill them with facts.
“Now, what I want is Facts,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Teach these boys and
girls nothing but Facts. This is the principle on which I bring up my
own children, and this is the principle for these children. Stick to
Facts.”
Mr. Gradgrind, with another gentleman, had come to visit the school.
Now Sissy Jupe was a bright little girl who would really enjoy using
her own mind, but she didn’t know how to use Mr. Gradgrind’s mind, and
she was very much upset when the great man pointed his square finger at
her and said:
* * * * *
“Girl number twenty. I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?”
“Sissy Jupe, sir,” explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and
courtesying.
“Sissy is not a name,” said Mr. Gradgrind. “Don’t call yourself Sissy.
Call yourself Cecilia.”
“It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,” returned the girl in a trembling
voice, and with another courtesy.
“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. You mustn’t tell us
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, sir.”
“You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describe
your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and
horsebreaker. 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.”
The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer,
perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which,
darting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely whitewashed
room, irradiated Sissy. For the boys and girls sat on the face of
the inclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a
narrow interval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny
side, came in for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being
at corner of a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught
the end. But, whereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired that
she seemed to receive a deeper and more lustrous color from the sun,
when it shone upon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired
that the self-same rays appeared to draw out of him what little color
he ever possessed. His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but
for the short ends of lashes which, by bringing them into immediate
contrast with something paler than themselves, expressed their form.
His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the
sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely
deficient in the natural tinge that he looked as though, if it were
cut, he would bleed white.
“Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition of a horse.”
“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders,
four eye-teeth, and twelve incisors. 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.”...
The third gentleman now slipped forth, briskly smiling.
“That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, 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!”--as the custom is, in these
examinations.
“Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?”
A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing,
ventured the answer, “Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but
would paint it.”
“You _must_ paper it,” said the gentleman, rather warmly.
“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 and a
dismal pause, “why you wouldn’t paper a room with representations of
horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms
in reality--in fact? Do you?”
“Yes, sir!” from one half. “No, sir!” from the other.
“Of course no,” said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong
half. “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. What
is called Taste, is only another name for Fact.”
Thomas Gradgrind nodded his approbation.
“This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,” said the
gentleman.
“Now, I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a room.
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, smiling in the calm strength
of knowledge.
Sissy blushed, and stood up.
“So you would carpet your room--or your husband’s room, if you were a
grown woman, and had a husband--with representations of flowers, would
you,” said the gentleman. “Why would you?”
“If you please sir, I am 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, if you
please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and
pleasant, and I would fancy----”
“Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn’t fancy,” cried the gentleman, quite elated
by coming so happily to his point. “That’s it! You are never to fancy.”
“You are not, Cecilia Jupe,” Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, “to do
anything of that kind.”
“Fact, fact, fact!” said the gentleman. And “Fact, fact, fact!”
repeated Thomas Gradgrind.
“You are to be in all things regulated and governed,” said the
gentleman, “by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact,
composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a
people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word
Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You are not to have,
in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in
fact. 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
butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted
to paint foreign birds and butterflies 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 courtesied, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked
as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world
afforded.
THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA
XI
THE CHILD OF THE MARSHALSEA
WHEN Dickens wrote _Little Dorrit_, he must often have thought
of the times when as a boy he went to see his father in the debtors’
prison. As a shy little boy he had to do all sorts of errands which
took him over the prison and through the narrow streets that were near
it.
Amy Dorrit, or little Dorrit, as she was called, was born in the great
rambling prison called the Marshalsea. It was the only home she knew.
Her father had got into debt and was sent to prison until the debt was
paid. Of course he couldn’t pay it so long as he was locked up and not
given a chance to earn anything. So there he stayed year after year
till he had become the oldest inhabitant, and rather enjoyed the honor.
But it was hard on little Dorrit.
She had one good friend, the officer who was called the turnkey,
because he had the keys of the prison and was the one who locked the
prisoners in. When she began to walk and talk, he bought her a little
armchair, and gave her toys. She became very fond of the turnkey, and
was delighted when he dressed and undressed her dolls.
After a while, little Dorrit began to wonder what the world outside the
prison walls was like. She saw the turnkey turn his great key in the
door and thought, how wonderful it would be to go out through it!
She sat by the barred window, looking out. “Thinking of the fields?”
the turnkey said, one day.
“Where are they?” she asked.
“Why, they are over there, my dear,” said the turnkey with a flourish
of the keys. “Just about there.”
“Does anybody open them, or shut them? Are they locked?”
“Well,” he said, “not in general.”
“Are they pretty, Bob?” She called him Bob because he asked her to.
“Lovely. Full of flowers. There’s buttercups and there’s daisies, and
there’s--dandelions and all manner of games.”
“Is it pleasant to be there, Bob?”
“Prime,” said the turnkey.
“Was father ever there?”
“Oh, yes. He was there sometimes.”
“Is he sorry not to be there now?”
“N--not particular,” said the turnkey.
“Nor any of the people? Oh, are you quite sure and certain, Bob?”
Bob changed the subject, but this was the beginning of little Sunday
excursions which these two curious companions took. Every other Sunday
afternoon the turnkey would open the prison doors with his big key and
would go off with little Dorrit into the green fields. He would pick
out some meadow or green lane and light his pipe, while the little girl
would gather grasses and wild flowers to bring home to her father.
After some years had passed, Mr. Dorrit was released from prison and
his fortune was restored, but little Dorrit always remembered the kind
turnkey who had given her the first happy hours in the green fields.
THE CRATCHITS
XII
THE CRATCHITS
EVERYBODY knows the Cratchits. When Christmas comes people take up _A
Christmas Carol_ and turn to the account of the Christmas dinner
which Bob Cratchit and his family enjoyed in their poor little house in
the suburbs of London. Here it is just as Dickens wrote it.
* * * * *
Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out but poorly
in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and
make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by
Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while
Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes,
and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob’s private
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor of the day) into
his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned
to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller
Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the
baker’s they had smelled the goose and known it for their own; and
basking in luxurious thoughts of sage-and-onion, these young Cratchits
danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies,
while he (not proud, although his collar nearly choked him) blew the
fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the
saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled.
[Illustration:
_Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons_
TINY TIM AND BOB CRATCHIT ON CHRISTMAS DAY]
“What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs. Cratchit. “And
your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha warn’t as late last Christmas Day by
half-an-hour!”
“Here’s Martha, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
“Here’s Martha, mother!” cried the two young Cratchits. “Hurrah!
There’s _such_ a goose, Martha!”
“Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs.
Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and
bonnet for her with officious zeal.
“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and
had to clear away this morning, mother!”
“Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs. Cratchit. “Sit ye
down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”
“No, no! There’s father coming,” cried the two young Cratchits, who
were everywhere at once. “Hide, Martha, hide!”
So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at
least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down
before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look
seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore
a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!
“Why, where’s our Martha?” cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.
“Not coming,” said Mrs. Cratchit.
“Not coming!” said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits;
for he had been Tim’s blood horse all the way from church, and had come
home rampant. “Not coming upon Christmas Day!”
Martha didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke;
so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into
his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him
off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the
copper.
“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had
rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his
heart’s content.