I think one of the drollest stories I ever heard of absent-mindedness, is this of old P., the barrister. He and his friend M. were sitting close together about the hearth of a winter night. There was no light; they were alone and silent. Suddenly P. got thinking of some project, and according to his villanous and immemorial habit, meditatively began to scratch his cranium. He came to a pause; but recovering the sequence of his thoughts, felt compelled likewise to resume the physical operation. But this time P. wildly clutched not his own, but M.'s profuser locks, and furiously recommenced. M. stood it for a moment, inwardly convulsed with laughter, then lightly removed the offending hand; and P. roared out angrily, faltering in the middle of his speech with a bewilderment beautiful to see: "Great George! don't you suppose I have a right, a right to— to— You don't mean to say that wasn't my own head!"
Standing is the most royal and natural pose. I have a sympathy for that Roman emperor who sprang to his feet to meet the quick death that came upon him.
Spenser: "The noblest mind the best contentment has." Thoreau, by way of exemplification: "I shall not fret to be a giant, but be the biggest pygmy that I can."
Hawthorne wrote with his conscience. It was a sort of celestial-colored ink which he kept by him, and into which ever and anon he dipped his pen.
I was struck anew, of late, with the complete ideality of the Venus of Melos, its charm of detail, out-naturing Nature: the head so delicately moulded, the neck so slender yet so strong, the scarce-deviating outline from shoulder to hip; the very apotheosis of health and beauty, with a spirituality over all that sets you thinking of a sweet and ample heart within.