Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.
That man was beautiful. Timing, speed, reflexes, rhythm, his body, everything was beautiful. And to me, still, I would say pound for pound... I'd say I'm the greatest heavyweight of all time, but pound for pound, I still say Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest of all time.
What strength belongs to every plant and animal in nature. The tree or the brook has no duplicity, no pretentiousness, no show. It is, with all its might and main, what it is, and makes one and the same impression and effect at all times. All the thoughts of a turtle are turtle's, and of a rabbit, rabbit's. But a man is broken and dissipated by the giddiness of his will; he does not throw himself into his judgments; his genius leads him one way but 't is likely his trade or politics in quite another.
Physical elegance comes from the body. This is no superficial matter but rather the way that man found to honour the way he places his two feet on the ground.
Man is the hunter; women are the game; those sleek and shining creatures of the chase. We hunt them for the beauty of their skins; they love us for it, and we ride them down.
I think the worst woman that ever existed would have made a man of very passable reputation -- they are all better than us and their faults such as they are must originate with ourselves.
Yet birth, and lust, and illness, and death are changeless things, and when one of these harsh facts springs out upon a man at some sudden turn of the path of life, it dashes off for the moment his mask of civilization and gives a glimpse of the stranger and stronger face below.