Hard Times. Чарльз Диккенс. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Чарльз Диккенс
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия:
Жанр произведения: Классическая проза
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9780007480432
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      HARD TIMES

      Charles Dickens

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

       14. The Great Manufacturer

       15. Father and Daughter

       16. Husband and Wife

      Book The Second – Reaping

       1. Effects in the Bank

       2. Mr. James Harthouse

       3. The Whelp

       4. Men and Brothers

       5. Men and Masters

       6. Fading Away

       7. Gunpowder

       8. Explosion

       9. Hearing the Last of It

       10. Mrs. Sparsit’s Staircase

       11. Lower and Lower

       12. Down

      Book The Third – Garnering

       1. Another Thing Needful

       2. Very Ridiculous

       3. Very Decided

       4. Lost

       5. Found

       6. The Starlight

       7. Whelp-hunting

       8. Philosophical

       9. Final

      Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

      History of Collins

       About the Author

       Copyright

       About the Publisher

BOOK THE FIRST

       CHAPTER 1

       The One Thing Needful

      ‘Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’

      The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s hair, which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep the wind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust of a plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard facts stored inside. The speaker’s obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, – nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, – all helped the emphasis.

      ‘In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!’

      The speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial