Hem

“ A heart, the doors and walls of which are in perfect order, through which flows freely the full stream of a healthy man's red blood; lungs deep, clear, easily filled, easily emptied; a body that can bend and twist and be straightened again in ceaseless rhythmical movement; limbs tireless; the very spirit of primeval man conquering primeval nature—all these go into the cutting of the hemp. ”

“ And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
⁠And should I then presume?
⁠And how should I begin? ”

“ Where to wear the most clothes.—The face and hands are kept warm by the blood and we do not cover them except in the coldest weather. Our feet are more tender and need to be covered enough to keep them warm. ”

“ Their only clothing is a strip of cloth about the waist, and they are accustomed to paint their bodies blue. They hang weights to their ears, about as large as a crown-piece, which stretches them to an immoderate length. ”

“ Now is done thy long day's work;
Fold thy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.
⁠Let them rave. ”

“ On the surface of the skin there is secreted a substance, which, though varying in anatomical structure and appearance exceedingly, as it forms the fine epidermis, the nails, the hair, etc., is yet throughout all their shapes identical in chemical character, and may be described as the same substance. ”

“ These sensations may originate212 upon the skin, the eye, the ear, the mouth, the nostrils, upon the beginning of all the mucous surfaces, &c.; all the bodies in nature may produce them, and all the external organs may perceive them. ”

“ A pair of substantial mammary glands has the advantage over the two hemispheres of the most learned Professor's brain, in the art of compounding a nutritious fluid for infants. ”

“ The teeth!—the teeth!—they were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. ”

“ He sat looking down at his hands—his fine strong unscarred hands. Suddenly, and unreasonably he thought of another pair of hands—his mother’s—with the knuckles enlarged, the skin broken—expressive—her life written on them. Scars. She had them. ”

“ Look, how this ring encompasseth thy finger,
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart;
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine. ”

“ Their bodies were different, as were also the color of their eyes, the length of their noses, and the circumstances of their existence, but something inside them meant the same thing, wanted the same release, would have left the same impression on the memory of an onlooker. ”

“ And when the folk of that ward sighted such mighty fine sight and marvelous spectacle, all stood at gaze and they considered the forms and figures of the handmaids, marveling at their beauty and loveliness, for each and every wore robes inwrought with gold and studded with jewels, no dress being worth less than a thousand dinars. They stared as intently at the bowls, and albeit these were covered with pieces of brocade, also orfrayed and dubbed with precious stones, yet the sheen outshot from them dulled the shine of sun. ”

“ And the touch of thy flesh is like to the savour of lotos.
In thy hair is a perfume of ecstasy,
And a perfume of sleep,
Between thy thighs is a valley of delight,
And between thy breasts is a valley of peace. ”

“ an almost chemical change seemed to dissolve and recompose the very elements of his body. A rigour passed over him, blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a steady thumping in his ears. It was first love. ”

“ All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay —
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better — I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.
Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky. ”

“ Call to the soul, when man doth sleep:
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
If a star were confin'd into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that lock'd her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee! ”

“ High above his birthplace the snowy Alps paint themselves against the sky, an aerial dream of beauty, softened by the tender hues of dawn and sunset, serenely fair through the rift of the tempest; even their white death takes a nameless grace from distance and atmosphere, clothing itself in beauty as a spirit in clay, and tempting wanderers to their graves: but no such beauty clothes the man whose daily vision beholds them; hard, clamorous, disputatious, with one hand he rends the rotten splendors of Rome from its tottering Image, and with the other plunges baby-souls to inevitable damnation ”

“ Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls:
I ride with the voices of waterfalls!
I swing on as one in a dream — I swing
Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!
The world is gone like an empty word:
My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird! ”

“ How loved, how honour'd once, avails thee not,
To whom related, or by whom begot;
A heap of dust alone remains of thee,
'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!
Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung,
Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue. ”

“ The skin becomes dry and hot; an irresistible lassitude is felt, accompanied with headache; the face and hair are red with sand, which, to complete the discomfort, finds its way even under one's clothing. ”

“ The blessed body dried alone long time with wringing of the nails and weight of the body. For I understood that for tenderness of the sweet hands and of the sweet feet, by the greatness, hardness, and grievousness of the nails the wounds waxed wide and the body sagged, for weight by long time hanging. And [therewith was] piercing and pressing of the head, and binding of the Crown all baked with dry blood, with the sweet hair clinging, and the dry flesh, to the thorns, and the thorns to the flesh drying ”

“ For the old pupils of Eden, the thought of its church is perhaps closest to memory and dearest to heart, among the many close and dear relics that accompany them through life. Its picture has value, and even a word concerning it is not worthless, for its aisles, its altar, its nooks, keep sacred hours of the past safe in those quiet shadows which breathe out incense. ”

“ Nor fairer garden yet was never known:
The maidens danced about it morn and noon,
And learned bards of it their ditties made;
The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon
Water'd the root and kiss'd her pretty shade.
But well-a-day!—the gardener careless grew;
The maids and fairies both were kept away,
And in a drought the caterpillars threw
Themselves upon the bud and every spray.
God shield the stock! If heaven send no supplies,
The fairest blossom of the garden dies. ”

“ God has covered your bones with flesh. Your flesh is soft and warm. In your flesh there is blood. God has put skin outside, and it covers your flesh and blood like a coat. Now all these things, the bones, and flesh, and blood, and skin, are called your body. ”

“ And yet it breathes, the bosom is there, the hips, the legs are indicated.—Then the material grows supple, becoming a delicate fabric of fine wool, a long divided garment that lends itself to every movement. ”

“ With respect to the texture of the skin—a hand possessing a delicate and highly-sensitive skin is accompanied by a similar structure of the tegumentary envelope of the entire body, and is always associated with an excitable organisation, with a highly sensitive, mobile disposition. A coarse, dry texture of the skin denotes a preponderance of muscular force over sensibility, and a character more remarkable for solidity and resolution than for imagination or vivacity of conception. The hand partakes of the nature of the whole body ”

“ We will begin with the skin,—for though the skin covers the whole body, and is so exposed to view, there are many things concerning it with which you are not familiar.—The skin is that thin covering which is spread over the whole surface of the body. It serves to bind together and to protect from injury the more delicate parts which are beneath it. Come, Albert, tell me some of the things which you have observed respecting the skin. ”

“ I said: “I never saw the flesh of any person’s face like the flesh in the faces which that man paints. He reminds me of wax-work. Why does he paint the same waxy flesh in all four of his pictures? I don’t see the same colored flesh in all the faces about us.” ”

“ The Rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The Canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the Roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:
But—for their virtue only is their show—
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall vade, my verse distils your truth. ”

“ The skin is remarkably complex in its structure, and is divided into two distinct layers, which may be readily separated: the deeper layer,—the true skin, dermis, or corium; and the superficial layer, or outer skin,—the epidermis, cuticle, or scarf skin.
The true skin consists of elastic and white fibrous tissue, the bundles of which interlace in every direction. Throughout this feltwork structure which gradually passes into areolar tissue are numerous muscular fibers, as about the hair-follicles and the oil glands. ”

“ Here then it becomes apparent that special care is required in the selection of clothes, which can exercise a strong influence, either for good or evil, on the performance of the skin functions, and here we find that wool, which is the natural clothing of man as of the lower animals—a statement to which I shall recur hereafter—provides for our necessities. ”

“ In all the colder regions the well-furred skins of several families of beasts could, by the ready help of a thorn for a needle, and the animal’s own sinews for thread, be fashioned, after a manner, into the requisites of dress. ”

“ We may yet visit many lovely and lonely places,—meadows thick with violet, or the homes of the shy Rhodora, or those sloping forest-haunts where the slight Linnaea hangs its twin-born heads,—but no scene will linger on our vision like this annual Feast of the Lilies. On scorching mountains, amid raw prairie-winds, or upon the regal ocean, the white pageant shall come back to us again, with all the luxury of summer heats, and all the fragrant coolness that can relieve them. ”

“ The outer skin joins to the inner at the mouth, the nose, and other openings of the body, and there is a constant sympathy between the two skins, and thus between the inner organs and the surface of the body. ”

“ Pan's body, or the body of nature, is, with great propriety and elegance, painted shaggy and hairy, as representing the rays of things; for rays are as the hair, or fleece of nature, and more or less worn by all bodies. ”

“ Looked at in itself, each fleck is ugly, a greyish patch which effaces the colour it rests on. Yet the brilliant beauty of these fruits is largely dependent on those flecks of light. So it is with some little mole on the body of a beautiful woman, or a mutinous irregularity in the curve of her mouth, or some freak in the distribution of her hair. ”

“ If, on the one hand, the child is bathed in perspiration, or, on the other, if the skin feels hot and dry, without your being able to account for this in any other way, you may conclude it is too warmly dressed. ”

“ How, then, comes it, may the reflective mind repeat, that the grand Tissue of all Tissues, the only real Tissue, should have been quite overlooked by Science,—the vestural Tissue, namely, of woollen or other cloth; which Man's Soul wears as its outmost wrappage and overall; wherein his whole other Tissues are included and screened, his whole Faculties work, his whole Self lives, moves, and has its being? ”

“ Everyone knows how a garment, having been worn a certain time, clings to the shape of the body better than when it was new; there has been a change in the tissue, and this change is a new habit of cohesion ”

“ Bed Clothes.—The perfection of dress, for day or night, where warmth is the purpose, is that which confines around the body sufficient of its own warmth, while it allows escape to the exhalations of the skin. ”

“ The skin is the covering of the body, and has very important functions to perform. It is more abundantly supplied with nerves and blood-vessels than any other part; and there is no spot of the skin where the point of the finest needle would not pierce a nerve and blood-vessel. ”

“ The skin itself, as is known to everyone, is an envelope which contains the whole body within it. It is composed of three separate layers, the outer being insensible, and laid on as a protection to the delicate and tender structures which lie beneath. It is hardly possible to convey to the general reader a notion of the intricate and wonderfully complicate nature of the dermis, or true skin. ”

“ The skin consists of two layers, the derma, or true skin, and the epidermis, or cuticle. It is the principal seat of the sense of touch, and on the surface of the upper layer are the sensitive papillae, which receive and respond to impressions; and within, or imbedded beneath it, are organs with special functions, viz., the sweat glands, hair follicles and sebaceous glands. Its value as a means of depuration is incalculable, as by it, vast quantities of the aqueous and gaseous refuse matter is conveyed from the body. ”