Stick to the facts

"You are to be in all things regulated and governed, " said the gentleman, "by fact." We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether. You have nothing to do with it. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery. You never meet with qudrupeds going up and down walls, you must not have quadrupeds represented on walls. "You must use," said the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. This is fact. This is taste."

Charles Dickens on Literalist Interpretation . An excerpt from 'Hard Times', pubd 1854.