It makes a formidable catalogue. Because, you see, humanity proceeds by the method of trial and error; there is no other way to proceed. The pendulum of life swings to one extreme, and then it swings to the other. Every movement has its lunatic fringe, people who show us where to stop; and what our Harvard professor has done is to make a whole book of these extravagances and insanities. He takes the fringe for the movement; and so, of course, it is easy for him to prove that the human spirit ought never to have been set free; it was a violation of “decorum.” That is his favorite word, to which he comes back in every chapter. The rest of America has another name for it; we call it “the Harvard manner.” “Of course,” says Mrs. Ogi, “you have to do up a Harvard Tory--that is fore-ordained. But I recall the lunatics I have met in the radical movement--not merely the harmless cranks, but the dangerous and hateful beasts! What Rousseau means to me is that I used to hear his praises sung by a man who has lived for twenty years by seducing young girls and getting their money.” Says Ogi: “If you are going to judge a wave by its scum, I shall have to make a study of the criminals of classicism: the horrors perpetrated by perfect gentlemen who respected the three unities, and wrote triolets, and wore exactly the right clothes. There will be a section in this volume devoted to Harvard University--see ‘The Goose-Step,’ pages 62 to 91.” Says Mrs. Ogi: “Come back to Rousseau, and explain to us why a college professor should take so much trouble to kill a man who died a hundred and fifty years ago.” “The professor does not know why Rousseau is still alive, but I can tell him--because Rousseau’s revolution is only half completed. The political part happened, and gave us--world capitalism! We aren’t satisfied, and we are gathering our muscles for another leap, and all the world’s Tories are hanging to our coat-tails, trying to hold us back. They dig out all the old mummies from their coffins, and dress them up and paint them to look like life, and set them up to cry warnings to us. Even Voltaire’s ‘l’Infame’! There is a clerical party in every country in Europe, and Catholic trade unions, called ‘Christian Socialist,’ to cheat the workers. In the United States there are the Knights of Columbus, and Tammany Hall, and parades of priests and cardinals up Fifth Avenue, generously financed by Wall Street. And naturally, in such a crisis the three unities and the rest of the classical tradition are not overlooked; so here comes our learned professor with his stately volume, to prove to us that Rousseau did not have the Harvard manner. The very same conspiracy, you see, that Rousseau faced during his life.” “The persecution complex?” asks Mrs. Ogi.