Hard Times, Charles Dickens [little red riding hood ebook txt] 📗

again she answered not one word. This so far surprised him, as to induce him gently to repeat, “a proposal of marriage, my dear.” To which she returned, without any visible emotion whatever:

“I hear you, father. I am attending, I assure you.”

“Well!” said Mr. Gradgrind, breaking into a smile, after being for the moment at a loss, “you are even more dispassionate than I expected, Louisa. Or, perhaps, you are not unprepared for the announcement I have it in charge to make?”

“I cannot say that, father, until I hear it. Prepared or unprepared, I wish to hear it all from you. I wish to hear you state it to me, father.”

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