built Stone Lodge, and was now looking about for a suitable
opportunity of making an arithmetical figure in Parliament. Stone Lodge was
situated on a moor within a mile or two of a great town - called Coketown in the
present faithful guide-book.
    A very regular feature on the face of the country, Stone Lodge was. Not the
least disguise toned down or shaded off that uncompromising fact in the
landscape. A great square house, with a heavy portico darkening the principal
windows, as its master's heavy brows overshadowed his eyes. A calculated, cast
up, balanced, and proved house. Six windows on this side of the door, six on
that side; a total of twelve in this wing, a total of twelve in the other wing;
four-and-twenty carried over to the back wings. A lawn and garden and an infant
avenue, all ruled straight like a botanical account-book. Gas and ventilation,
drainage and water-service, all of the primest quality. Iron clamps and girders,
fireproof from top to bottom; mechanical lifts for the housemaids, with all
their brushes and brooms; everything that heart could desire.
    Everything? Well, I suppose so. The little Gradgrinds had cabinets in
various departments of science too. They had a little conchological cabinet, and
a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet; and the
specimens were all arranged and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore looked
as though they might have been broken from the parent substances by those
tremendously hard instruments their own names; and, to paraphrase the idle
legend of Peter Piper, who had never found his way into their nursery, If the
greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it for good
gracious goodness' sake, that the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped it!
    Their father walked on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. He was an
affectionate father, after his manner; but he would probably have described
himself (if he had been put, like Sissy Jupe, upon a definition) as an eminently
practical father. He had a particular pride in the phrase eminently practical,
which was considered to have a special application to him. Whatsoever the public
meeting held in Coketown, and whatsoever the subject of such meeting, some
Coketowner was sure to seize the occasion of alluding to his eminently practical
friend Gradgrind. This always pleased the eminently practical friend. He knew it
to be his due, but his due was acceptable.
    He had reached the neutral ground upon the outskirts of the town, which was
neither town nor country, and yet