Hard Times.

FOR THESE TIMES.

THIS tale was originally published in "Household Words;" the first chapter making its appearance in No. 210, for April, 1854, and the last in No. 229, for Aug. 12, 1854. In the same year it was brought out independently, in one octavo volume of 352 pages, and was inscribed to Thomas Carlyle. In a letter to Mr. Charles Knight (quoted in his "Passages of a Working Life "), Mr. Dickens thus explains his design in writing this story:

My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else, the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this time; the men who, through long years to come, will do more to damage the really useful truths of political economy than I could do (if I tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average of cold in the Crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeen on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur, and who would comfort the laborer in travelling twelve miles a day to and from his work by telling him that the average distance of one inhabited place from another on the whole area of England is not more than four miles.

"Let us not lose the use of Dickens's wit and insight," says Mr. Ruskin ( Unto this Last,' ch. i.), "because he chooses to speak in a circle of stagc-fire. He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times,' should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. They will find much that is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, which Dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told."

CHARACTERS INTRODUCED.

Bitzer. A light-haired and light-eyed pupil of Mr. M'Choakumchild's, in Mr. Gradgrind's model school; crammed full of hard facts, but with all fancy, sentiment, and affection taken out of him.

His cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends of lashes, which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with something paler than

themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hair might have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his forehead and face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge, that he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.

"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind, "your definition of a horse."

"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth; namely, twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

After he leaves school, Bitzer is employed as light porter and clerk at Mr. Bounderby's Bank. When Mr. Gradgrind's son, after robbing the bank, endeavors to escape, he starts in pursuit, and pounces on him just as he is about to leave his father's house for Liverpool.

"Bitzer," said Mr. Gradgrind, broken down, and miserably submissive to him, "have you a heart?"

"The circulation, sir," returned Bitzer, smiling at the oddity of the question, "could n't be carried on without one. No man, sir, acquainted with the facts established by Harvey relating to the circulation of the blood, can doubt that I have a heart."

"Is it accessible " cried Mr. Gradgrind, "to any compassionate influence?" "It is accessible to reason, sir," returned the excellent young man; "and to nothing else."

(Bk. I, ch. ii, v; Bk. II, ch. i, iv, vi, viii, ix, xi; Bk. III, ch. viiix.)

Blackpool, Mrs. Wife of Stephen Blackpool. Soon after her marriage, she takes to drinking, and goes on from bad to worse, until she becomes a curse to her husband, to herself, and to all around her. (Bk. I, ch. x-xiii; Bk. III, ch. ix.) Blackpool, Stephen. A simple, honest, power-loom weaver, in Mr. Bounderby's factory. A rather stooping man, with a knitted brow, a pondering expression of face, and a hard-looking head sufficiently capacious on which his iron-gray hair lay long and thin. His lot is a hard one. Tied to a miserable, drunken wife, who has made his home a desolation and a mockery, and for whom he has long ceased to feel either respect or love, he finds himself unable to marry as he would like to do- a woman (Rachael) who has been a kind and dear friend to him for many years; and he goes to Mr. Bounderby for advice.

"I ha' coom to ask yo', sir, how I am to be ridded o' this woman." Stephen infused a yet deeper gravity into the mixed expression of his attentive face. "What do you mean?" said Bounderby, getting up to lean his back against the chimney-piece. "What are you talking about? You took her for better, for worse."

"I mun' be ridden o' her. I cannot bear 't nommore. I ha' lived under 't so long, for that I ha' had'n the pity and comforting words o' th' best lass living or dead. Haply, but for her, I should ha' gone hottering mad."

"He wishes to be free to marry the female of whom he speaks, I fear, sir,” observed Mrs. Sparsit in an undertone, and much dejected by the immorality of the people.

"I do. The lady says what 's right. I do. I were a-coming to 't. I ha' read i’ th' papers that great fok (fair faw 'em a'! I wishes 'em no hurt!) are not bonded together for better, for worse, so fast, but that they can be set free fro' their misfortnet marriages, an' marry ower agen. When they dunnot agree, for that their tempers is ill-sorted, they has rooms o' one kind an' another in their houses, above a bit, and they can live asunders. We fok ha' only one room, an' we can't. When that won't do, they ha' gowd an' other cash, an' then they say, 'This for yo', an' that for me;' an' they can go their separate ways. We can't. Spite o' all that, they can be set free for smaller wrongs than mine. So I mun' be ridden o' this woman, and I wan' t' know how."

"No how," returned Mr. Bounderby.

"If I do her any hurt, sir, there's a law to punish me?"

"Of course, there is."

"If I flee from her, there's a law to punish me?"

"Of course, there is."

"If I marry toother dear lass, there's a law to punish me?" "Of course, there is."

"If I was to live wi' her, an' not marry her, which it never could or would, an' her so good, every innocent child belonging to me?"

"Of course, there is."

saying such a thing could be, there's a law to punish me in

"Now, a' God's name," said Stephen Blackpool, "show me the law to help me!" "Hem! There 's a sanctity in this relation of life," said Mr. Bounderby," and -and- it must be kept up."

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not that way,

'T is

"No, no, dunnot say that, sir! 'Tan't kep' up that way, kep' down that way. I'm a weaver, I were in a fact'ry when a chilt; but I ha' gotten een to see wi', and eern to year wi'. I read in th' papers every 'Sizes, every Sessions and you read too: I know it! - with dismay, how th' supposed unpossibility o' ever getting unchained from one another, at any price, on any terms, brings blood upon this land, and brings many common married fok to battle, murder, and sudden death. Let us ha' this right understood. Mine's a grievous case, an' I want if yo' will be so good-t' know the law that helps me."

"Now, I tell you what!" said Mr. Bounderby, putting his hands in his pockets. "There is such a law."

Stephen, subsiding into his quiet manner, and never wandering in his attention, gave a nod.

"But it's not for you at all. It costs money. It costs a mint of money." "How much might that be?" Stephen calmly asked.

"Why, you'd have to go to Doctors' Commons with a suit, and you'd have to go to a court of Common Law with a suit, and you 'd have to go to the House of Lords with a suit, and you 'd have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again; and it would cost you (if it was a case of very plain sailing), I suppose, from a thousand to fifteen hundred pound,” said Mr. Bounderby,—“perhaps twice the money."

"There's no other law?" "Certainly not."