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 bare, plain, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the
speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observation. The emphasis was
helped by his square wall of a forehead, by his thin and hardset mouth,
by his inflexible and dictatorial voice, and by the hair which bristled
on the skirts of his bald head, as if the head had scarcely warehouse
room for the hard facts stowed 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, Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, and the schoolmaster, Mr.
M'Choakumchild, 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.
"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with his
square forefinger, "I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?"
"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and
curtseying.
"Sissy is not a name," said Mr.
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