splendid; six suns would be only vulgar. One Tower Of
Giotto is sublime; a row of Towers of Giotto would be only like a row
of white posts. The poetry of art is in beholding the single tower;
the poetry of nature in seeing the single tree; the poetry of love in
following the single woman; the poetry of religion in worshipping the
single star. And so, in the same pensive lucidity, I find the poetry of
all human anatomy in standing on a single leg. To express complete and
perfect leggishness the leg must stand in sublime isolation, like the
tower in the wilderness. As Ibsen so finely says, the strongest leg is
that which stands most alone.

This lonely leg on which I rest has all the simplicity of some Doric
column. The students of architecture tell us that the only legitimate
use of a column is to support weight. This column of mine fulfils its
legitimate function. It supports weight. Being of an animal and organic
consistency, it may even improve by the process, and during these few
days that I am thus unequally balanced, the helplessness or dislocation
of the one leg may find compensation in the astonishing strength and
classic beauty of the other leg. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson in Mr.
George Meredith's novel might pass by at any moment, and seeing me in
the stork-like attitude would exclaim, with equal admiration and a more
literal exactitude, "He has a leg." Notice how this famous literary
phrase supports my contention touching this isolation of any admirable
thing. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, wishing to make a clear and perfect
picture of human grace, said that Sir Willoughby Patterne had a leg. She
delicately glossed over and concealed the clumsy and offensive fact
that he had really two legs. Two legs were superfluous and irrelevant,
a reflection, and a confusion. Two legs would have confused Mrs.
Mountstuart Jenkinson like two Monuments in London. That having had one
good leg he should have another--this would be to use vain repetitions
as the Gentiles do. She would have been as much bewildered by him as if
he had been a centipede.

All pessimism has a secret optimism for its object. All surrender
of life, all denial of pleasure, all darkness, all austerity, all
desolation has for its real aim this separation of something so that it
may be poignantly and perfectly enjoyed. I feel grateful for the slight
sprain which has introduced this mysterious and fascinating division
between one of my feet and the other. The