blood--in the flesh--and in the bone--that with such the disease of dirt
more especially lies. We beg pardon, no less in the hair. Now such
persons do not know that they are dirty--that they are unclean beasts.
On the contrary, they often think themselves pinks of purity--incarnations
of carnations--impersonations of moss-roses--the spiritual essences
of lilies, "imparadised in form of that sweet flesh." Now, were such
persons to change their linen every half hour night and day, that is,
were they to put on forty-eight clean shirts in the twenty-four
hours,--and it would not be reasonable, perhaps, to demand more of
them,--yet though we cheerfully grant that one and all of the shirts
would be dirty, we as sulkily deny that at any given moment from sunrise
to sunset, and over again, the wearer would be clean. He would be just
every whit and bit as dirty as if he had known but one single shirt all
his life--and firmly believed his to be the only shirt in the universe.

Men, again, on the other hand, there are--and, thank God, in great
numbers--who are naturally so clean, that we defy you to make them
_bonâ fide_ dirty. You may as well drive down a duck into a dirty
puddle, and expect lasting stains on its pretty plumage. Pope says the
same thing of swans--that is, poets--when speaking of Aaron Hill diving
into the ditch--

"He bears no tokens of the sabler streams,
But soars far off among the swans of Thames."


Pleasant people of this kind of constitution you see going about of a
morning rather in dishabille--hair uncombed haply--face and hands even
unwashed--and shirt with a somewhat day-before-yesterdayish hue. Yet are
they, so far from being dirty, at once felt, seen, and smelt, to be