Friday Nudibranch Blogging

If "compression is the first grace of style,"
Nembrotha lineolata has it. Contractility is a virtue
as modesty is a virtue.
It is not the acquisition of any one thing
that is able to adorn,
or the incidental quality that occurs
as a concomitant of something well said,
that we value in style,
but the principle that is hid:
in the absence of feet, “a method of conclusions”;
“a knowledge of principles”,
in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.

--Marianne Moore, very slightly adapted for the occasion by yours truly