Hard Times

The chapter opens with a flashback: years earlier, Gradgrind overheard young Louisa begin a sentence 'Tom, I wonder—' and stepped into the light to say, 'Louisa, never wonder!' That one command is the spring of the whole mechanical art of educating reason without cultivating sentiment. By means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, settle everything somehow, and never wonder. Dickens widens this to Coketown's workers: despite all the tabular statements and improvement societies, they persist in wondering — reading Defoe and Goldsmith after fifteen-hour shifts instead of Euclid, finding comfort in human stories rather than economic calculations. Gradgrind cannot make this sum come out right. In the twilight of the hair-cutting chamber, Tom tells Louisa he is sick of his life and hates everything except her. He calls himself a Donkey — obstinate, stupid, getting as much pleasure as one. Louisa watches the sparks drop from the fire and die, and tells him quietly: 'I have such unmanageable thoughts that they will wonder.' She confesses the fire made her think how short her life would be, and how little she could hope to do in it. Tom's comfort is practical: when he goes to live at Bounderby's, he'll use Louisa's influence over the old man as a lever. 'You are his little pet, you are his favourite; he'll do anything for you.' Louisa says nothing. She goes on looking at the fire. Mrs. Gradgrind enters and forbids the wondering. Louisa says nothing to that either.