We admire the mechanism of a joint, and then invent clothing which shall deprive it of its play, and ourselves of its use! Here nothing interferes with the freedom of the limbs, or disturbs the mechanism of the frame and its action. It is plastic to the hand, to relax or gird, as the occasion may require. Each figure as he stands before you is a statue, and each change of attitude, a study. When we raise a statue to a hero, we eschew our own dress--the dress he wore. Our fancy weaves for him a haik: we borrow the majesty of its large folds, although we have never beheld the splendid simplicity of its dead colour. It is the dress for kings and patriarchs.[293] The exposure of the body to the air does not give the impression of cold in the way that those whose clothing has a similar character or integuments will suppose; whoever has worn the kilt will know this. The fact is, that the air supplies warmth, and when freely circulating round the body, a sort of respiration takes place through the skin, which, while conducive to strength and health, supplies that light and agreeable sensation which belongs to a costume, where there is clothing enough to secure warmth, and freedom enough to admit air. Of the value of this freedom we have a striking illustration at home, and to which no other country in Europe affords a parallel. The butcher-boys and the Blue-coat school boys go about without that covering to, or protection for, the head, which for all other degrees, and in all other countries, is deemed essential to health and comfort. Do they suffer from being bare-headed? No. What then is the value of our prophylactics, and what do we know about the management of ourselves? Nay, children suffering from all sorts of diseases and weakness are cured, and they cease to complain when their heads cease to be covered. As to comfort, they all prefer it, as every one does prefer the simplest things, when, by some accident, the chain is broken of that servitude of manners which we have forged for ourselves. Now that we have our portraits taken by the sun’s rays, and numberless scientific men are tracing the effects of light on the functions of animals and the growth of plants, separating the parts of rays, and finding in them agencies of so many, so powerful, and such distinct kinds--it may not be absurd to speak of the merit of a costume that admits to the body light, as well as air. We are always in the dark. On light and heat a series of experiments have been reported to scientific societies by fifty philosophers; but none of them has ever thought of letting his own toes see the sun. Modern science always overpowers me with melancholy--so much light in the focus, and such darkness in the hemisphere! Contrast the majestic ignorance of primeval times; then, grand with so much ease; now, with so much toiling, mean.