Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet hide not the
unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find
in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your
skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is
in the wind.
Some of you say, "It is the north wind who has woven the clothes we
wear."
And I say, Ay, it is the north wind,
But shame was his loom, and the softening of the sinews was his
thread.
And when his work was done he laughed in the forest.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the
unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a
fetter and a fouling of the mind?
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and
the winds long to play with your hair.
