164 ON BEAUTY IN 



people and persecuted by every body, presents 

 to our view a symmetry of no ordinary beauty. 

 The length of his body is wonderfully well 

 adapted to that of his neck; and when he 

 carries his prey, there is such a stateliness in 

 his whole contour, that it is impossible not to 

 be struck with the elegance of his motions. 



The sloth again is astonishing in its anatomy, 

 which is so peculiarly adapted to its habits that 

 we cannot help pronouncing it a production 

 perfect in every point of view. The strange 

 stories which we have had of it, have been 

 penned in the closet, not in the forest. I saw 

 in the " Nation," an Irish newspaper, of last 

 week, that we may shortly expect a living sloth 

 in London. I am rejoiced at this, because the 

 public will then find by actual observation that 

 I had sure ground to go upon when I ventured 

 to take a new view of this animal, whose eco- 

 nomy, up to that time, had been marvellously 

 misrepresented. But we live to learn, as the 

 old woman said when her cat was too lazy to 

 kill a mouse. The cat, by the way, is terribly 

 elegant in its frolics over the captured mouse ; 

 and it exhibits such suppleness of body, and 

 such elasticity in its springs, as can only be 



