Towards democracy

Towards Democracy — 25

When the faces of their children come to me pleading, pleading—every bit as much as the children of the city poor—pleading for one touch of nature: Of children who have been stuffed with lies all their lves, who have been told that they cannot do without this and that and a thousand things—all of which are wholly unnecessary, and a nuisance, (as who should tell one that it were not safe to walk on the naked Earth, but only on ground embarrassed with straw and ali manner of rubbish up to one’s knees ;)

Of children who have been taught to mix the nonsense manners and diarrhcea of drawing-rooms with their ideals of right and wrong ; to despise manual labor and to reverence ridicule ; to eat and drink and dress and sleep in unbelief and against all their natural instincts; and in all things to mingle the disgust of repletion with the very thought of pleasure—till their young judgments are confused and their instincts actually cease to be a guide to them;

Of strong healthy boys who positively believe they will starve unless they enter the hated professions held out to them;

When I see avenues of young girls and women, with sideway flopping heads, debarred from Work, debarred from natural Sexuality, weary to death with nothing to do, (and this thy triumph, O deadly respectability discussing stocks!)

When I see, flickering around, miserable spectrums and nostrums of reform—mere wisps devoid of all bodyphilanthropic chatterboxes, [Nay, I do not hold with you! For if you kill me to death talking to me in a drawing room, what in the name of heaven are you going to do to the unfortunate in hospital ?]