HARLES DICKENS._ Photogravure
from a Photograph.]

THE ONE THING NEEDFUL

From 'Hard Times'

"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 schoolroom, and the
speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring
every sentence with a line on the school-master'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.

* * * * *

Thomas Gradgrind, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and
calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are
four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for
anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir,--peremptorily Thomas,--Thomas
Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication
table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel
of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to.