Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/43

 use of them under a short skirt, when, as now, they carry me out beyond the pale of civilization away from tiresome dull people. There is nothing in the world that can become so maddeningly wearisome as people, people, people!

And so, Devil, accept, for my two good legs, my sincerest gratitude. I lie on the ground for some minutes and meditate idly. There is a worldful of easy indolent, beautiful sensuality in the figure of a young woman lying on the ground under a warm setting sun. A man may lie on the ground—but that is as far as it goes. A man would go to sleep, probably, like a dog or a pig. He would even snore, perhaps—under the setting sun. But then, a man has not a good young feminine body to feel with, to receive into itself the spirit of a warm sun at its setting, on a day in October,—and so let us forgive him for sleeping, and for snoring.

When I rise again to a sitting posture all the brightness has focused itself to