It is evident that the sharp point of one man is always running into another man’s sensitive or soft edge. Each man is in continual apprehension of every other man: not only does each fear each, but their sensitive edges—those on which they are receptive of all except the roughest impressions—are turned away from each other.
On the sensitive edge is the face and all the means of expression of feeling. The other edge is covered with a horny thickening of the skin, which at the sharp point becomes very dense and as hard as iron. It will be evident, on moving the figures about that no two men could naturally come face to face with each other.
In this land no such thing as friendship or familiar intercourse between man and man is possible. The very name of it is ridiculous to them. For the only way in which one man can turn his sensitive edge to another man is if one of them will consent to stand on his head. Fathers hold their male children in this way when little, but the first symptom of manhood is connected with a resentment against this treatment.
If now two women, Mulier and Femina, be looked at, the same relation will be seen to hold good between them. By their nature they are predisposed, by accident, to injure one another, and their impressionable sides are, by the very conditions of their being, turned away from each other.
If now, however, Homo and Mulier be placed together, a very different relationship manifests itself. They cannot injure one another, and each is framed for the most delightful converse with the other. Nothing can be more secure from the outside world than a pair of approximately the same height; each protects the sensitive edge of each, and their armoured edges and means of offence are turned against all comers, either in one direction or the other. But, if the pair, through a mutual misunderstanding, happen to be disadjusted, and, their feet on the rim, turn their sharpnesses against one another, they are absolutely exposed to the harms and arrows of the world.
Still, even in this case they cannot wound one another—a happy immunity.
In the annals of this race which I have by me I find a curious history, which, unintelligible for ages to them, admits by us of a simple explanation.