My Virtual Reading Room

Our class read it in the last year of high school here. I think it's one of Dickens' best novels.

I agree--and this was in response to some amiable people whom I'd seen commenting on FB that "it was only 100-200 people who got detained at airports", etc.

The name is, of course, deliberate.

Dostoevsky was fond of giving his characters meaningful last names, too...

And--well--the quote came to mind in response to some remarks recently about "oh, it was only 100-200 people stuck in airports", etc.

"Hard Times" is one of Dickens' best novels, IMHO--if you'd not read it before, take a look sometime; you can get the full text online if you like.

Yet, what was to be done? M'Choakumchild
reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once
possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest
conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that she was
extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful
incident happened to be connected therewith; that she would burst
into tears on being required (by the mental process) immediately to
name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at
fourteen-pence halfpenny; that she was as low down, in the school,
as low could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the
elements of Political Economy, she had only yesterday been set
right by a prattler three feet high, for returning to the question,
'What is the first principle of this science?' the absurd answer,
'To do unto others as I would that they should do unto me.'

Mr. Gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very
bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill
of knowledge, as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and
tabular statements A to Z; and that Jupe 'must be kept to it.' So
Jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser.

'It would be a fine thing to be you, Miss Louisa!' she said, one
night, when Louisa had endeavoured to make her perplexities for
next day something clearer to her.

'Do you think so?'

'I should know so much, Miss Louisa. All that is difficult to me
now, would be so easy then.'

'You might not be the better for it, Sissy.'

Sissy submitted, after a little hesitation, 'I should not be the
worse, Miss Louisa.' To which Miss Louisa answered, 'I don't know
that.'

There had been so little communication between these two - both
because life at Stone Lodge went monotonously round like a piece of
machinery which discouraged human interference, and because of the
prohibition relative to Sissy's past career - that they were still
almost strangers. Sissy, with her dark eyes wonderingly directed
to Louisa's face, was uncertain whether to say more or to remain
silent.

'You are more useful to my mother, and more pleasant with her than
I can ever be,' Louisa resumed. 'You are pleasanter to yourself,
than I am to myself.'

'But, if you please, Miss Louisa,' Sissy pleaded, 'I am - O so
stupid!'

Louisa, with a brighter laugh than usual, told her she would be
wiser by-and-by.

'You don't know,' said Sissy, half crying, 'what a stupid girl I
am. All through school hours I make mistakes. Mr. and Mrs.
M'Choakumchild call me up, over and over again, regularly to make
mistakes. I can't help them. They seem to come natural to me.'

'Mr. and Mrs. M'Choakumchild never make any mistakes themselves, I
suppose, Sissy?'

'O no!' she eagerly returned. 'They know everything.'

'Tell me some of your mistakes.'

'I am almost ashamed,' said Sissy, with reluctance. 'But to-day,
for instance, Mr. M'Choakumchild was explaining to us about Natural
Prosperity.'

'National, I think it must have been,' observed Louisa.

'Yes, it was. - But isn't it the same?' she timidly asked.

'You had better say, National, as he said so,' returned Louisa,
with her dry reserve.

'National Prosperity. And he said, Now, this schoolroom is a
Nation. And in this nation, there are fifty millions of money.
Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn't this a
prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state?'

'What did you say?' asked Louisa.

'Miss Louisa, I said I didn't know. I thought I couldn't know
whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether I was in a
thriving state or not, unless I knew who had got the money, and
whether any of it was mine. But that had nothing to do with it.
It was not in the figures at all,' said Sissy, wiping her eyes.

'That was a great mistake of yours,' observed Louisa.

'Yes, Miss Louisa, I know it was, now. Then Mr. M'Choakumchild
said he would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an
immense town,[...]