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dens by the hair.
No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in
the moon before it could speak distinctly. No little Gradgrind had
ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I
wonder what you are! No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on
the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old
dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven
Charles's Wain like a locomotive engine-driver. No little
Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow
with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who
killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow
who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those celebrities,
and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating
quadruped with several stomachs.
To his matter-of-fact home, which was called Stone Lodge, Mr.
Gradgrind directed his steps. He had virtually retired from the
wholesale hardware trade before he built Stone Lodge, and was now
looking about for a suitable opportunity of making an arithmetical
figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was situated on a moor within a
mile or two of a great town - called Coketown in the present
faithful guide-book.
A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was.
Not the least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising
fact in the landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico
darkening the principal windows, as its master's heavy brows
overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast up, balanced, and proved
house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on that side; a
total of twelve in this wing, a total of twelve in the other wing;
four-and-twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden
and an infant avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical account-
book. Gas and ventilation, drainage and water-service, all of the
primest quality. Iron clamps and girders, fire-proof from top to
bottom; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with all their brushes
and brooms; everything that heart could desire.
Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had
cabinets in various departments of science too. They had a little
conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a
little mineralogical cabinet; and the specimens were all arranged
and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore looked as though they
might have been broken from the parent substances by those
tremendously hard instruments their own names; and, to paraphrase
the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found his way into
their nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than
this, what was it for good gracious goodness' sake, that the greedy
little Gradgrinds grasped it!
Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind.
He was an affectionate father, after his manner; but he would
probably have described himself (if he had been put, like Sissy
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