90 A SHORT ESSAY ON LEGS. 



to stand upon, and the other to make a wheel run 

 round. The surgeon views legs — on other people — 

 as objects affording facilities for amputation. The 

 boxer professionally regards his legs as " pins," upon 

 which the striking apparatus is kept off the ground. 

 The soldier's opinion of his legs is modified according 

 to the temperament of the individual, and the position 

 of the enemy. Some people employ their legs in 

 continually mounting the same stairs, and never 

 getting any higher ; while others use those limbs in 

 continually pacing the same path and never going 

 any farther. 



And of all these modes of employing the legs, the 

 last, which is called " taking a walk," is the dreariest 

 and least excusable. 



For, in the preceding cases,, the owners of the legs 

 gain their living, or at all events their life, by such 

 employment of those members ; and in the case of 

 the interminable stairs, the individual is not acting 

 by his own free will. But it does seem wonderful 

 that a being possessed of intellectual powers should 

 fancy himself to be the possessor of a right leg and 

 a left one, merely that the right should mechanically 

 pass the left so many thousand times daily and in its 

 turn be passed by the left ; while the sentient being 

 above was occupied in exactly the same manner as 

 if both legs were at rest, snugly tucked under a table. 



Sad to relate, such is the general method of taking 

 recreation. 



