Chapter 8: VIII

VIII Never Wonder Let us strike the keynote again, before pursuing the tune. When she was half a dozen years younger, Louisa had been overheard to begin a conversation with her brother one day, by saying “Tom, I wonder”—upon which Mr. Gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the light and said, “Louisa, never wonder!” Herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affecti…