ree love. The cruel taunt of Foulon, "Let them eat grass,"
might now be represented as the dying cry of an idealistic vegetarian.
Those great scissors of science that would snip off the curls of the
poor little school children are ceaselessly snapping closer and closer
to cut off all the corners and fringes of the arts and honors of the
poor. Soon they will be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and
hacking feet to fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the
body is more than raiment; that the Sabbath was made for man; that all
institutions shall be judged and damned by whether they have fitted the
normal flesh and spirit. It is the test of political sanity to keep your
head. It is the test of artistic sanity to keep your hair on.

Now the whole parable and purpose of these last pages, and indeed of all
these pages, is this: to assert that we must instantly begin all over
again, and begin at the other end. I begin with a little girl's hair.
That I know is a good thing at any rate. Whatever else is evil, the
pride of a good mother in the beauty of her daughter is good. It is one
of those adamantine tendernesses which are the touchstones of every age
and race. If other things are against it, other things must go down. If
landlords and laws and sciences are against it, landlords and laws and
sciences must go down. With the red hair of one she-urchin in the gutter
I will set fire to all modern civilization. Because a girl should have
long hair, she should have clean hair; because she should have clean
hair, she should not have an unclean home: because she should not have
an unclean home, she should have a free and leisured mother; because
she should have a free mother, she should not have an usurious landlord;
because there should not be an usurious landlord, there should be a
redistribution of property; because there should be a redistribution
of property, there shall be a revolution. That little urchin with the
gold-red hair, whom I have just watched toddling past my house, she
shall not be lopped and lamed and altered; her hair shall not be cut
short like a convict's; no, all the kingdoms of the earth shall be
hacked about and mutilated to suit her. She is the human and sacred
image; all around her the social fabric shall sway and split and fall;
the pillars of society shall be shaken, and the roofs of ages come
rushing down, and not one hair of her head shall be harmed.

THREE NOTES

I. ON FEMA