About the Book
BOOK THE FIRST_SOWING_CHAPTER ITHE ONE THING NEEDFUL'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing butFacts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root outeverything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals uponFacts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is theprinciple on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principleon which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and thespeaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoringevery sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasiswas helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had hiseyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in twodark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by thespeaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis washelped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, anddictatorial. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's hair, whichbristled on the skirts of his bald head, a plantation of firs to keep thewind from its shining surface, all covered with knobs, like the crust ofa plum pie, as if the head had scarcely warehouse-room for the hard factsstored inside. The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, squarelegs, square shoulders, -nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him bythe throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as itwas, -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 oflittle vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperialgallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim.CHAPTER IIMURDERING THE INNOCENTSTHOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts andcalculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two arefour, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing foranything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir-peremptorily Thomas-ThomasGradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplicationtable always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel ofhuman nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a merequestion of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to getsome other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, orAugustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (allsupposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of ThomasGradgrind-no, sir!In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whetherto his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. Insuch terms, no doubt, substituting the words 'boys and girls, ' for 'sir, 'Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchersbefore him, who were to be filled so full of facts.
