[Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle]@TWC D-Link book
Sartor Resartus

CHAPTER V
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Of this sort the following has surprised us.

The first purpose of Clothes, as our Professor imagines, was not warmth or decency, but ornament.

"Miserable indeed," says he, "was the condition of the Aboriginal Savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round him like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick natural fell.

He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living on wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements, without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly unerring skill.

Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_).


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