Chapter I - The One Thing Needful

Hard Times

by Charles Dickens

'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 gallons of facts poured into them until they were full
to the brim.