I Z
light-haired that the self-same rays appeared to draw out of
him what little colour he ever possessed. His skin was so un-
wholesomely 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.
'Now girl number twenty,' said Mr. Gradgrind. 'You know what a
horse is
She curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she
could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. (pp. 3-5.)
Sissy knows horses intimately and so cannot define them. It is not that she's
ignorant. She knows, but is inarticulate. Any way, it's very difficult. What
is a horse But Bitzer knows. Has the rational definition. And he has expe
rience on his side,meaning he knows what is wanted.
What we have here is the question of knowledge. What knowledge do we want
in our schools? In our universities? In our homes? Sissy Jupe knowledge, PLUS
Articulateness
The point made, though, is that Innocence belongs with Knowledge, not with
Ignorance - and Knowledge is defined in these terms by Dickens - in a dramatic
sketch. There, he says, is "Wetenschap", if you take my comedy in the right
spirit. Knowledge, that is, of horses - there's my example.
It is very comic, but he's deadly serious. Real knowledge is intimate
knowledge, is felt knowledge, is apprehended by our imaginations - and not
only by our intellects. But now I'm beginning to preach, and Dickens doensnt
He enacts
Let's take those circus people - Mr. Thleary's lot, for it ;j.s they, basi
cally, who oppose the hard fact, hard hearted, calculators, in Hard Times- the
Bitzers, the BounderbysSparsits and Harthouses. What are we to make of the
circus people?
I'm sure Dingle Foot, and his likes, would have us believe that they are
too lightweight, too eccentric, too much on the fringe of real life,for us to
take them seriously. That Dickens merely idealises them into a power, a power
of Innocent vitality, that nobody else can believe in. The answer is that in an
ordinary world, that might be true. But the world of Hard Times is a utilitarian
world, a world of calculators, and in that kind of extremist's world, of
