Venus herself, as she drops her garments and steps on to the
model-throne, leaves behind her on the floor every weapon in her
armory by which she can pierce to the grosser passions of men."
Burton, in the _Anatomy of Melancholy_ (Part III, Sect. II,
Subsect. 3), deals at length with the "Allurements of Love," and
concludes that "the greatest provocations of lust are from our
apparel." The artist's model, as one informs me, is much less
exposed to liberties from men when nude than when she is
partially clothed, and it may be noted that in Paris studios the
model who poses naked undresses behind a screen.
An admirable poetic rendering of this element in the philosophy
of clothing has been given by Herrick, that master of erotic
psychology, in "A Lily in Crystal," where he argues that a lily
in crystal, and amber in a stream, and strawberries in cream,
gain an added delight from semi-concealment; and so, he
concludes, we obtain
"A rule, how far, to teach,
Your nakedness must reach."
In this connection, also, it is worth noting that Stanley Hall,
in a report based on returns from nearly a thousand persons,
mostly teachers, ("The Early Sense of Self," _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1898, p. 366), finds that of the three functions of
clothes--protection, ornament, and Lotzean "self-feeling"--the
second is by far the most conspicuous in childhood.
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