We revel in the laxness of the path we take. - Charles Baudelaire

Dandyism is not even, as many unthinking people seem to suppose, an immoderate interest in personal appearance and material elegance. For the true dandy these things are only a symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his personality... What, then, is this ruling passion that has turned into a creed and created its own skilled tyrants? What is this unwritten constitution that has created so haughty a caste? It is, a bone all, a burning need to to acquire originality, within the apparent bounds of convention, it's is a sort of cult of oneself, which can dispense even with what are commonly called illusions. It is the delight in causing astonishment, and the proud satisfaction of never oneself being astonished.

La femme ne sait pas séparer l'âme du corps.

Modernity is the transitory, fugitive, contingent, is but one half of art, of which the other half is the eternal and immutable.