All 3 Uses of
elegant
in
Leaves of Grass
- Fear grace, elegance, civilization, delicatesse,
Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey—juice,
Beware the advancing mortal ripening of Nature,
Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of states and men.†Chpt 23 *elegance = the quality of being refined and tasteful
- without
labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one
particle of it,
To take the best of the farmer's farm and the rich man's elegant
villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and
the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens,
To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through,
To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go,
To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter
them, to gather the love out of their hearts,
To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave
them behind you,
To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for
traveling souls.†Chpt 7
- Not Youth Pertains to Me
Not youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk,
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant,
In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for learning
inures not to me,
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me—yet there are two or three things
inure to me,
I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying soldier,
And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp,
Composed these songs.†Chpt 21
Definitions:
-
(1)
(elegant as in: an elegant gown) refined and tasteful in appearance, behavior or style
-
(2)
(elegant as in: as elegant equation) a solution that is simpler (and often more comprehensive) than most would anticipate