All this is true of the best
leg, and the best leg is the man's. That of the young child, in which
the Italian schools of painting delighted, has neither movement nor
supporting strength. In the case of the woman's figure it is the foot,
with its extreme proportional smallness, that gives the precious
instability, the spring and balance that are so organic. But man should
no longer disguise the long lines, the strong forms, in those lengths of
piping or tubing that are of all garments the most stupid. Inexpressive
of what they clothe as no kind of concealing drapery could ever be, they
are neither implicitly nor explicitly good raiment. It is hardly
possible to err by violence in denouncing them. Why, when a bad writer
is praised for 'clothing his thought,' it is to modern raiment that one's
nimble fancy flies--fain of completing the beautiful metaphor!
The human scenery: yes, costume could make a crowd something other than
the mass of sooty colour--dark without depth--and the multiplication of
undignified forms that fill the streets, and demonstrate, and strike, and
listen to the democrat. For the undistinguished are very important by
their numbers. These are they who make the look of the artificial world.
They are man generalised; as units they inevitably lack something of
interest; all the more have they cumulative effect.
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