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$Title{Hard Times
Chapter VII}
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$Author{Dickens, Charles}
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$Subject{bounderby
mrs
sparsit
gradgrind
sir
louisa
ma'am
lady
tom
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}
$Date{}
$Log{Hear On Bounderby*44368016.aud
}
Title:       Hard Times
Book:        Book The First: Sowing
Author:      Dickens, Charles

Chapter VII

Mrs. Sparsit

     Mr. Bounderby being a bachelor, an elderly lady presided over his
establishment, in consideration of a certain annual stipend.  Mrs. Sparsit was
this lady's name; and she was a prominent figure in attendance on Mr.
Bounderby's car, as it rolled along in triumph with the Bully of humility
inside.

     For, Mrs. Sparsit had not only seen different days, but was highly
connected.  She had a great aunt living in these very times called lady
Scadgers.  Mr. Sparsit, deceased, of whom she was the relict, had been by the
mother's side what Mrs. Sparsit still called "a Powler." Strangers of limited
information and dull apprehension were sometimes observed not to know what a
Powler was, and even to appear uncertain whether it might be a business, or a
political party, or a profession of faith.  The better class of minds,
however, did not need to be informed that the Powlers were an ancient stock,
who could trace themselves so exceedingly far back that it was not surprising
if they sometimes lost themselves - which they had rather frequently done, as
respected horseflesh, blind-hookey, Hebrew monetary transactions, and the
Insolvent Debtors Court.

     The late Mr. Sparsit, being by the mother's side a Powler, married this
lady, being by the father's side a Scadgers.  Lady Scadgers (an immensely fat
old woman, with an inordinate appetite for butcher's meat, and a mysterious
leg which had now refused to get out of bed for fourteen years) contrived the
marriage, at a period when Sparsit was just of age, and chiefly noticeable for
a slender body, weakly supported on two long slim props, and surmounted by no
head worth mentioning.  He inherited a fair fortune from his uncle, but owed
it all before he came into it, and spent it twice over immediately afterwards.
Thus when he died, at twenty-four (the scene of his decease, Calais, and the
cause brandy), he did not leave his widow, from whom he had been separated
soon after the honeymoon, in affluent circumstances.  That bereaved lady,
fifteen years older than he, fell presently at deadly feud with her only
relative, Lady Scadgers; and, partly to spite her ladyship, and partly to
maintain herself, went out at a salary.  And here she was now, in her elderly
days, with the Coriolanian style of nose and the dense black eyebrows which
had captivated Sparsit, making Mr. Bounderby's tea as he took his breakfast.

     If Bounderby had been a Conqueror, and Mrs. Sparsit a captive Princess
whom he took about as a feature in his state processions, he could not have
made a greater flourish with her than he habitually did. Just as it belonged
to his boastfulness to depreciate his own extraction, so it belonged to it to
exalt Mrs. Sparsit's.  In the measure that he would not allow his own youth to
have been attended by a single favourable circumstance, he brightened Mrs.
Sparsit's juvenile career with every possible advantage, and showered
wagon-loads of early roses all over that lady's path.  "And yet, sir," he
would say, "how does it turn out after all?  Why here she is at a hundred a
year (I give her a hundred, which she is pleased to term handsome), keeping
the house of Josiah Bounderby of Coketown!"

[Hear On Bounderby]
Showing off Mrs. Sparsit

     Nay, he made this foil of his so very widely known, that third parties
took it up, and handled it on some occasions with considerable briskness.  It
was one of the most exasperating attributes of Bounderby, that he not only
sang his own praises but stimulated other men to sing them.  There was a moral
infection of clap-trap in him.  Strangers, modest enough elsewhere, started up
at dinners in Coketown, and boasted, in quite a rampant way, of Bounderby.
They made him out to be the Royal arms, the Union-Jack, Magna Charta, John
Bull, Habeas Corpus, the Bill of Rights, an Englishman's house is his castle,
Church and State, and God save the Queen, all put together.  And as often (as
it was very often) as an orator of this kind brought into his peroration,

     "Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade,
     A breath can make them, as a breath has made,"

- it was, for certain, more or less understood among the company that he had
heard of Mrs. Sparsit.

     "Mr. Bounderby," said Mrs. Sparsit, "you are unusually slow, sir, with
your breakfast this morning."

     "Why, ma'am," he returned, "I am thinking about Tom Gradgrind's whim;"
Tom Gradgrind, for a bluff independent manner of speaking - as if somebody
were always endeavouring to bribe him with immense sums to say Thomas, and he
wouldn't; "Tom Gradgrind's whim, ma'am of bringing up the tumbling girl."

     "The girl is now waiting to know," said Mrs. Sparsit, "whether she is to
go straight to the school, or up to the Lodge."

     "She must wait, ma'am," answered Bounderby, "till I know myself.  We
shall have Tom Gradgrind down here presently, I suppose.  If he should wish
her to remain here a day or two longer, of course she can, ma'am."

     "Of course she can if you wish it, Mr. Bounderby."

     "I told him I would give her a shake-down here, last night, in order that
he might sleep on it before he decided to let her have any association with
Louisa."

     "Indeed, Mr. Bounderby?  Very thoughtful of you!"

     Mrs. Sparsit's Coriolanian nose underwent a slight expansion of the
nostrils, and her black eyebrows contracted as she took a sip of tea.

     "It's tolerably clear to me," said Bounderby, "that the little puss can
get small good out of such companionship."

     "Are you speaking of young Miss Gradgrind, Mr. Bounderby?"

     "Yes, ma'am, I am speaking of Louisa."

     "Your observation being limited to 'little puss,'" said Mrs. Sparsit,
"and there being two little girls in question, I did not know which might be
indicated by that expression."

     "Louisa," repeated Mr. Bounderby.  "Louisa, Louisa."

     "You are quite another father to Louisa, sir." Mrs. Sparsit took a little
more tea; and, as she bent her again contracted eyebrows over her steaming
cup, rather looked as if her classical countenance were invoking the infernal
gods.

     "If you had said I was another father to Tom - young Tom, I mean, not my
friend, Tom Gradgrind - you might have been nearer the mark.  I am going to
take young Tom into my office.  Going to have him under my wing, ma'am."

     "Indeed?  Rather young for that, is he not, sir?" Mrs. Sparsit's "sir,"
in addressing Mr. Bounderby, was a word of ceremony, rather exacting
consideration for herself in the use, than honouring him.

     "I'm not going to take him at once; he is to finish his educational
cramming before then," said Bounderby.  "By the Lord Harry, he'll have enough
of it, first and last!  He'd open his eyes, that boy would, if he knew how
empty of learning my young maw was, at his time of life." Which, by the by, he
probably did know, for he had heard of it often enough. "But it's
extraordinary the difficulty I have on scores of such subjects, in speaking to
any one on equal terms.  Here, for example, I have been speaking to you this
morning about tumblers.  Why, what do you know about tumblers?  At the time
when, to have been a tumbler in the mud of the streets, would have been a
godsend to me, a prize in the lottery to me, you were at the Italian Opera.
You were coming out of the Italian Opera, ma'am, in white satin and jewels, a
blaze of splendour, when I hadn't a penny to buy a link to light you."

     "I certainly, sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a dignity serenely
mournful, "was familiar with the Italian Opera at a very early age."

     "Egad, ma'am, so was I," said Bounderby, " - with the wrong side of it.
A hard bed the pavement of it's Arcade used to make, I assure you. People like
you, ma'am, accustomed from infancy to lie on Down feathers, have no idea how
hard a paving-stone is, without trying it.  No, no, it's of no use my talking
to you about tumblers.  I should speak of foreign dancers, and the West End of
London, and May Fair, and lords and ladies and honourables."

     "I trust, sir," said Mrs. Sparsit, with decent resignation, "it is not
necessary that you should do anything of that kind.  I hope I have learnt how
to accommodate myself to the changes of life.  If I have acquired an interest
in hearing of your instructive experiences, and can scarcely hear enough of
them, I claim no merit for that, since I believe it is a general sentiment."

     "Well, ma'am," said her patron, "perhaps some people may be pleased to
say that they do like to hear, in his own unpolished way, what Josiah
Bounderby of Coketown, has gone through.  But you must confess that you were
born in the lap of luxury, yourself.  Come, ma'am, you know you were born in
the lap of luxury."

     "I do not, sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit with a shake of her head, "deny
it."

     Mr. Bounderby was obliged to get up from the table, and stand with his
back to the fire, looking at her; she was such an enhancement of his position.

     "And you were in crack society.  Devilish high society," he said, warming
his legs.

     "It is true, sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, with an affectation of humility
the very opposite of his, and therefore in no danger of jostling it.

     "You were in the tiptop fashion, and all the rest of it," said Mr.
Bounderby.

     "Yes, sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, with a kind of social widowhood upon
her.  "It is unquestionably true."

     Mr. Bounderby, bending himself at the knees, literally embraced his legs
in his great satisfaction and laughed aloud.  Mr. and Miss Gradgrind being
then announced, he received the former with a shake of the hand, and the
latter with a kiss.

     "Can Jupe be sent here, Bounderby?" asked Mr. Gradgrind.

     Certainly.  So Jupe was sent there.  On coming in, she curtseyed to Mr.
Bounderby, and to his friend Tom Gradgrind, and also to Louisa; but in her
confusion unluckily omitted Mrs. Sparsit.  Observing this, the blustrous
Bounderby had the following remarks to make:

     "Now, I tell you what, my girl.  The name of that lady by the teapot, is
Mrs. Sparsit.  That lady acts as mistress of this house, and she is a highly
connected lady.  Consequently, if ever you come again into any room in this
house, you will make a short stay in it if you don't behave towards that lady
in your most respectful manner.  Now, I don't care a button what you do to me,
because I don't affect to be anybody.  So far from having high connections, I
have no connections at all, and I come of the scum of the earth.  But towards
that lady, I do care what you do; and you shall do what is deferential and
respectful, or you shall not come here."

     "I hope, Bounderby," said Mr. Gradgrind, in a conciliatory voice, "that
this was merely an oversight."

     "My friend Tom Gradgrind suggests, Mrs. Sparsit," said Bounderby, "that
this was merely an oversight.  Very likely.  However, as you are aware, ma'am,
I don't allow of even oversights towards you."

     "You are very good indeed, sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, shaking her head
with her State humility.  "It is not worth speaking of."

     Sissy, who all this time had been faintly excusing herself with tears in
her eyes, was now waved over by the master of the house to Mr. Gradgrind.  She
stood, looking intently at him, and Louisa stood coldly by, with her eyes upon
the ground, while he proceeded thus:

     "Jupe, I have made up my mind to take you into my house; and, when you
are not in attendance at the 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 expressly
understand that the whole of that subject is past, and 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 to all who come into communication with you, 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, beckoning her
nearer to him before he said so, and dropping his voice.

     "Only to father and Merrylegs, sir.  At least I mean to father, when
Merrylegs was always there."

     "Never mind Merrylegs, Jupe," said Mr. Gradgrind, with a passing frown.
"I don't ask about him.  I understand you to have been in the habit of reading
to your father?"

     "O yes, sir, thousands of times.  They were the happiest - O, of all the
happy times we had together, sir!"

     It was only now when her sorrow broke out, that Louisa looked at her.

     "And what," asked Mr. Gradgrind, in a still lower voice, "did you read to
your father, Jupe?"

     "About the Fairies, sir, and the Dwarf, and the Hunchback, and the
Genies," she sobbed out; "and about - "

     "Hush!" said Mr. Gradgrind, "that is enough.  Never breathe a word of
such destructive nonsense any more.  Bounderby, this a case of rigid training,
and I shall observe it with interest."

     "Well," returned Mr. Bounderby, "I have given you my opinion already, and
I shouldn't do as you do.  But, very well, very well.  Since you are bent upon
it, very well!"

     So, Mr. Gradgrind and his daughter took Cecilia Jupe off with them to
Stone Lodge, and on the way Louisa never spoke one word, good or bad.  And Mr.
Bounderby went about his daily pursuits.  And Mrs. Sparsit got behind her
eyebrows and meditated in the gloom of that retreat, all the evening.