What, for
novelty, what, for singleness, what, for separateness, can equal the
last? Of many thousand kisses the poor last--but even the kisses of your
mouth are all numbered.
UNSTABLE EQUILIBRIUM
It is principally for the sake of the leg that a change in the dress of
man is so much to be desired. The leg, completing as it does the form of
man, should make a great part of that human scenery which is at least as
important as the scenery of geological structure, or the scenery of
architecture, or the scenery of vegetation, but which the lovers of
mountains and the preservers of ancient buildings have consented to
ignore. The leg is the best part of the figure, inasmuch as it has the
finest lines and therewith those slender, diminishing forms which, coming
at the base of the human structure, show it to be a thing of life by its
unstable equilibrium. A lifeless structure is in stable equilibrium; the
body, springing, poised, upon its fine ankles and narrow feet, never
stands without implying and expressing life. It is the leg that first
suggested the phantasy of flight. We imagine wings to the figure that is
erect upon the vital and tense legs of man; and the herald Mercury,
because of his station, looks new-lighted.
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