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“It’s when they can combine that you get something fertile and living and leading forward. Mysticism—which is a word my father held in contempt, basically—and scientific factualism, need for evidence, and so on . . . I do try to juggle them, quite consciously.”

Factualism used to be an occasion for mockery.

A more mild solution: fight factualism.

Man seeks escape from pressures of another kind�the weight of desiccating factualism and the steel girders of civilization which he has built around him to shut out the night and the enemy, nature.

The eleven articles would take few prizes for good writing, but their unemotional factualism and scope made them an impressive job of reporting.