Gradgrind develop his sons into perfect utilitarians. His physical description personified this characterisation of the rigid and insistent pedagogue: In a famous passage, a visiting official asks Gradgrind's students "Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" The character Sissy Jupe replies, ingenuously, that she would because, "If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers." Gradgrind is the most dynamic character in "Hard Times" since he comes to recognize that emotions are important when his daughter Louisa has an emotional breakdown. The text of the entry is
Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell) Dickens and Little Nell (Elwell) Dickens and Little Nell is a bronze sculpture by Francis Edwin Elwell that stands in Clark Park in the Spruce Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. The sculpture depicts the 19th-century British author Charles Dickens and Nell Trent, a character from his 1840-41 novel "The Old Curiosity Shop". The grouping was one of the most celebrated American sculptural works of the late 19th century. It is one of just two known statues of Dickens, who said he wanted no such representations. The sculpture was commissioned in 1890 by "Washington Post" founder Stilson Hutchins, who wanted it placed