Here, the weight of the body is advanced from the heel to the toes;
the toes are least turned out; and still nearer and stronger points of
support and action are chosen. The outer edge of the heel first touches
the ground, and the sole of the foot projects the weight.
These are essential to the increased quickness of this pace--(Plate
VIII. figs. 5 and 6); and it is important to remark, as to all these
paces, that the weight is successively more thrown forward, and the
toes are successively less turned out. In the grandest form of the
march, the toes, as we have seen, are, in the posterior foot, though
but for a moment, even thrown backwards; in the moderate pace, they
have an intermediate direction; and in the quick pace, they are thrown
more directly forward, as in the six figures of Plate VIII.
It is this direction of the toes, and still more the nearer and
stronger points of support and action, namely, the heel and sole of the
foot, which are essential to the quick pace so universally practised,
but which, together with the great inclination of the body, being
ridiculously transferred to the moderate pace, make unfortunate people
look so awkward, as we shall now explain. The time of the moderate
pace is, as it were, filled up by the more complicated process of the
step--by the gradual and easy breaking of the descent of the foot
on its outer edge, or the ball of the little toe, by the deliberate
positing of the foot, by its equally gradual and easy projection from
its inner edge, or the ball of the great toe. The quick pace, if its
time be lengthened, has no such filling up: the man stumps at once down
on his heel, and could rise instantly from his sole, but finds that,
to fill up his time, he must pause an instant; he feels he should do
something, and does not know what; his hands suffer the same momentary
paralysis as his feet; he gradually becomes confused and embarrassed:
deeply sensible of this, he at last exhibits it externally; a smile or
a titter arises, though people do not well know at what, but, in short,
the man has walked like a clown, because the mechanism of his step has
not filled up its time, or answered its purpose.
I trust that the mechanism and time of the three paces are here
simply, clearly, and impressively described. The following is the more
imperfect, but still useful, military description, with its words of
command:--