These views are thus summed by Hume: “The organs of internal sensation are seldom so perfect as to allow the general principles their full play, and produce a feeling correspondent to those principles. They either labor under some defect, or are vitiated by some disorder; and by that means, excite a sentiment, which may be pronounced erroneous. When the critic has no delicacy, hejudges without any distinction, and is only affected by the grosser and more palpable qualities of the object: the finer touches pass unnoticed and disregarded. Where he is not aided by practice, his verdict is attended with confusion and hesitation. Where no comparison has been employed, the most frivolous beauties, such as rather merit the name of defects, are the object of his admiration. Where he lies under the influence of prejudice, all his natural sentiments are perverted. Where good sense is wanting, he is not qualified to discern the beauties of design and reasoning, which are the highest and most excellent. Under some or other of these imperfections, the generality of men labor; and hence, a true judge in the finer arts is observed, even during the most polished ages, to be so rare a character: strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice, can alone entitle critics to this valuable character; and the joint verdict of such, wherever they are to be found, is the true standard of taste and beauty.”
Taking the principal ideas above, Burke also concludes: “On the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty, concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human passions, manners, and actions.”
“It is sufficient for our present purpose,” Hume farther observes, “if we have proved that the taste of all individuals is not upon an equal footing, and that some men in general, however difficult to be particularly pitched upon, will be acknowledged by universal sentiment to have a preference above others.
“Though men of delicate taste be rare, they are easily to be distinguished in society by the soundness of their understanding, and the superiority of their faculties above the rest of mankind. The ascendant which they acquire, gives a prevalence to that lively approbation, with which they receive any productions of genius, and renders it generally predominant. Many men, when left to themselves, have but a faint and dubious perception of beauty, who yet are capable of relishing any fine stroke which is pointed out to them. Every convert to the admiration of the real poet or orator, is the cause of some new conversion. And though prejudices may prevail for a time, they never unite in celebrating any rival to the true genius, but yield at last to the force of nature and just sentiment.”
Hume finally obviates some apparent difficulties:—
“But notwithstanding all our endeavors to fix a standard of taste, and reconcile the discordant apprehensions of men, there still remain two sources of variation, which are not sufficient indeed to confound all the boundaries of beauty and deformity, but will often serve to produce a difference in the degrees of our approbation or blame. The one isthe different humors of particular men; the other, the particular manner and opinions of our age and country.
“A young man, whose passions are warm, will be more sensibly touched with amorous and tender images, than a man more advanced in years, who takes pleasure in wise, philosophical reflections concerning the conduct of life and moderation of the passions. At twenty, Ovid may be the favorite author; Horace at forty; and perhaps Tacitus at fifty. Vainly would we, in such cases, endeavor to enter into the sentiments of others, and divest ourselves of those propensities which are natural to us. We choose our favorite author as we do our friend, from a conformity of humor and disposition.
“Such preferences are innocent and unavoidable, and can never reasonably be the object of dispute, because there is no standard by which they can be decided.
“For a like reason, we are more pleased, in the course of our reading, with pictures and characters that resemble objects which are found in our own age or country, than with those which describe a different set of customs.
“A man of learning and reflection can make allowance for these peculiarities of manners; but a common audience can never divest themselves so far of their usual ideas and sentiments, as to relish pictures which nowise resemble them.”
Thus I believe the reader has before him a view, sufficiently clear, of that popular topic, the standard of taste, as well as of the agreement which subsists among the best writers on the subject. In the next chapter, we proceed to a more fundamental and difficult inquiry.
On the subject of the preceding chapter, even the reasonings of Hume appear to me to be of too vague and indefinite a kind. It requires the more minute scrutiny into which I shall now enter, in order to place it upon a deeper and more scientific foundation. If I can here show that, in the material qualities of the objects of nature and art, there exist elements of beauty equally invariable in themselves and in the kind of effect they produce upon the mind, it is evident there can be no farther dispute about a standard of beauty.
Many attempts have been made to determine the material elements of beauty, by Hogarth, Home, and others. All have more or less failed, from not observing that these elements are modified, varied, and complicated, as we advance from the most simple to the most complex class of natural beings, or of the arts which relate to these respectively. Many partial views of perfect truth and greatinterest have been taken, and by every one of these it will be my duty here to profit: but, from the failure just pointed out, no philosophical and systematic doctrine of beauty, ascending from its origin in elements through its higher combinations, has ever been attained by any of the numerous, deep, acute, and elegant thinkers who have devoted their time to this subject, as the foundation of taste and of the fine or intellectual arts.
Profiting, as I ought to do, by the partial views of these philosophers, I pretend here only to take one larger view—to analyze, to generalize, to systematize, the materials which they present to me.
In the hope of accomplishing this, I shall now endeavor successively to trace the elements of beauty which belong respectively to inanimate, living, and thinking beings, and to the useful, ornamental, and intellectual arts which have a reference to these, the neglect of all which I have described as the fundamental cause of previous failure.
Again, I repeat, it is to this analysis and generalization alone, and to the systemization founded upon it, that I make any pretence. The materials have long been presented by all the great writers on the subject: they have only left them in confusion, and without conclusion. I shall now proceed to employ them.
Though Burke did not accurately trace the elements of beauty in any one class of the objects of nature or art, he yet states a preliminary truth on this subject so well, that I here quote it: “It would be absurd,” he observes, “to say that all things affect us by association only; since some things must have been originally and naturally agreeable or disagreeable, from which the others derive their associated powers; and it would be, I fancy, to little purpose to look for the cause of our passions in association, until we fail of it in the natural properties of things.”
Home, advancing farther, says: “If a tree be beautiful by means of its color, its figure, its size, its motion, it is in reality possessed of so many different beauties, which ought to be examined separately, in order to have a clear notion of the whole.
“When any body is viewed as a whole, the beauty of its figure arises from regularity[12]and simplicity; and viewing the parts with relation to each other, from uniformity[12], proportion, and order.”
I will here only observe that these are the qualities, as will speedily appear, which Burke should have set down as the fundamental and first characteristics of beauty, instead of relative littleness, which belongs not to beauty generally, but only to the minor or subordinate beauty.
Even Home, having arrived thus far, says: “To inquire why an object, by means of the particulars mentioned, appears beautiful, would, I am afraid, be a vain attempt.”
But he truly adds: “One thing is clear, that regularity, uniformity, order, and simplicity, contribute each of them to readiness of apprehension, and enable us to form more distinct images of objects than can be done, with the utmost attention, where these particulars are not found.” And he subjoins: “This final cause is, I acknowledge, too slight, to account satisfactorily for a taste that makes a figure so illustrious in the nature of man; and that this branch of our constitution has a purpose still more important, we have great reason to believe.”
Now had Home seen that the characteristics of general beauty always are, with regard to the object, accordant and agreeable relations, the importance of the qualities he has just enumerated would have been evident; for, without them, these characteristics of the object could not exist: simplicity, regularity, uniformity, order, &c., are the very elements of accordant and agreeable relations. This is in reality the still more important purpose in which Home believed, and to which the readinessof apprehension he now alludes to eminently contributes.
As to simplicity, he observes, that “a multitude of objects crowding into the mind at once, disturb the attention, and pass without making any impression, or any lasting impression; and in a group, no single object makes the figure it would do apart, when it occupies the whole attention. For the same reason, even a single object, when it divides the attention by the multiplicity of its parts, equals not, in strength of impression, a more simple object comprehended in a single view: parts extremely complex must be considered in portions successively; and a number of impressions in succession, which cannot unite because not simultaneous, never touch the mind like one entire impression made as it were at one stroke.
“A square is less beautiful than a circle, because it is less simple: a circle has parts as well as a square; but its parts not being distinct like those of a square, it makes one entire impression; whereas, the attention is divided among the sides and angles of a square.... A square, though not more regular than a hexagon or octagon, is more beautiful than either, because a square is more simple, and the attention less divided.
“Simplicity thus contributes to beauty.”
By regularity is meant that circumstance in a figure by which we perceive it to be formed according to a certain rule. Thus, a circle, a square, a parallelogram, or triangle, pleases by its regularity.
“A square,” says Home—(who here furnishesthe best materials to a more general view, because he most frequently assigns physical causes, and whom, with some abbreviation, I therefore continue to quote)—“a square is more beautiful than a parallelogram, because the former exceeds the latter in regularity and in uniformity of parts. This is true with respect to intrinsic beauty only; for in many instances, utility comes in to cast the balance on the side of the parallelogram: this figure for the doors and windows of a dwelling-house, is preferred because of utility; and here we find the beauty of utility prevailing over that of regularity and uniformity.”
Thus regularity and uniformity contribute to intrinsic beauty.
“A parallelogram, again, depends for its beauty on the proportion [or relation of quantity] of its sides. Its beauty is lost by a great inequality of these sides: it is also lost by their approximating toward equality; for proportion there degenerates into imperfect uniformity, and the figure appears an unsuccessful attempt toward a square.”
Thus proportion contributes to beauty.
“An equilateral triangle yields not to a square in regularity nor in uniformity of parts, and it is more simple. Its inferiority in beauty is at least partly owing to inferiority of order in the position of its parts: the sides of an equilateral triangle incline to each other in the same angle, which is the most perfect order they are susceptible of; but this order is obscure, and far from being so perfect as the parallelism of the sides of a square.”
Thus order contributes to the beauty of visible objects.
“A mountain, it may be objected, is an agreeable object, without so much as the appearance of regularity; and a chain of mountains is still more agreeable, without being arranged in any order. But though regularity, uniformity, and order, are causes of beauty, there are also other causes of it, as color; and when we pass from small to great objects, and consider grandeur instead of beauty, very little regularity is required.”
It follows, from all that has been here said, and this has been shown by Burke, that any rugged, any sudden projection, any sharp angle, is in the highest degree contrary to the idea of beauty. Such projections and angles are destitute of all the qualities which have just been enumerated—simplicity, regularity, uniformity, proportion, order; and conformably to the principles I have laid down in a previous chapter, they can present only relations which are naturally disagreeable. This view is corroborated by the fact, that all very sharp, broken, or angular objects, were disagreeable to the boy couched by Cheselden, as they are to all eyes of very nice sensibility.
Now, as angular forms give, to the sense of touch, sharpness, roughness, or harshness, so do opposite forms give smoothness or fineness. Hence, Burke makes smoothness his second characteristic of beauty, and that far more truly than he makes littleness its first, for, as he observes, “smoothness is a quality so essential to beauty, that I donot now recollect anything beautiful that is not smooth.”
Such being really the case, I am bound to expose Knight’s sophistry on this point. “This elegant author,” says he, “has expatiated upon the gratifications of feeling smooth and undulating surfaces in general: but, I believe, these gratifications have been confined to himself; and probably to his own imagination acting through the medium of his favorite system: for, except in the communication of the sexes, which affords no general illustration, and ought therefore to be kept entirely out of the question, I have never heard of any person being addicted to such luxuries; though a feeling-board would certainly afford as cheap and innocent a gratification, as either a smelling-bottle, a picture, or a flute, provided it were capable of affording any gratification at all.”
This is a good specimen of the kind of perverted reasoning, which peculiarly distinguishes Knight.
A man affecting the character of philosopher, ought calmly to have observed that, by young people before puberty, and, consequently, when there is not the slightest sexual bias, smooth objects are generally found to be agreeable, and rough or harsh ones to be the reverse. This would at once have set him right upon this point.
If, to such a man, it should for a moment have appeared worth while to ask why we do not make use of feeling-boards, as well as of smelling-bottles, he ought to have sought the solution of his difficulty in the nature of the senses; and then, with a triflemore of ability than Payne Knight hereby shows himself to have possessed, he would have seen that smoothness affords us as much pleasure as any smell, but that, as it would have been always troublesome, and often impossible, to apply our fingers to smooth surfaces, we generally receive the varied and incessant pleasure it affords, by means of sight; that it is borne by light to the eye, as smell is by the air; and that this is the reason why, except when contact is indispensable, we have no need of anything in the way of a feeling-board.
But Knight says: “Smoothness being properly a quality, perceivable only by the touch, and applied metaphorically to the objects of the other senses, we often apply it, very improperly, to those of vision; assigning smoothness as a cause of visible beauty, to things which, though smooth to the touch, cast the most sharp, harsh, and angular reflections of light upon the eyes; and these reflections are all that the eye feels, or naturally perceives.... Such are all objects of cut-glass or polished metal; as may be seen by the manner in which painters imitate them: for, as the imitations of painting extend only to the visible qualities of bodies, they show those visible qualities fairly and impartially.... Yet the imitative representation of such objects in painting is far less harsh and dazzling than the effects of them in reality: for there are no materials that a painter can employ, capable of expressing the sharpness and brilliancy of those angular reflections of the collected and condensedrays, which are emitted from the surfaces of polished metals.”
It seems, to me, scarcely possible to find sophistry more worthless than this, or rather a more contemptible quibble; for that which, availing himself of our technicalities about light, he calls angularity, sharpness, &c., has no analogy with disagreeable angularity of form. To produce the brilliance and splendor which he calls angular, and describes as sooffensive, we polish crystalline and metallic bodies in the highest degree!—we value precisely those which thus admit of greatest splendor!—and, on that very account, the diamond (rightly or wrongly, is not the question) is deemed the most valuable object on earth!
So much for those elements of beauty, in inanimate things, which fall under the cognizance of our fundamental sense, or that of touch.
As to sight and its objects, it is true that, as this organ varies in different persons, their taste is modified, with regard to colors. But the preference of light and delicate colors to dark and glaring ones, is almost universal among persons of sensibility.
Alison, indeed, ascribes the effects of all colors to association. “White,” he says, “as it is the color of day, is expressive to us of the cheerfulness or gayety which the return of day brings: black, as the color of darkness [night], is expressive of gloom and melancholy.” And he adds: “Whether some colors may not of themselves produce agreeable sensations, and others disagreeable sensations,I am not anxious to dispute.” But this is the very point into which Alison ought to have inquired. Nature does nothing without foundation in the simplest principles; and this foundation is not only anterior to, but is the cause of all association.
That, independent of any association, blackness is naturally disagreeable, if not painful, is happily determined by the case of the boy restored to sight by Cheselden, who tells us that the first time the boy saw a black object, it gave him great uneasiness; and that, some time after, upon accidentally seeing a negro-woman, he was struck with great horror at the sight. This appears to be perfectly conclusive.
Knight indeed says: “As to the uneasiness which the boy, couched by Cheselden, felt at the first sight of a black object, it arose either from the harshness of its outline, or from its appearing to act as a partial extinguisher applied to his eyes, which, as every object that he saw, seemed to touch them, would, of course, be its effect.” It is highly probable that black operates in both these ways; and it has therefore natural effects, independent of all association.
As to sounds, Alison observes, that the cries of some animals are sublime, as the roar of the lion, the scream of the eagle, &c.; and he thinks they become so, because we associate them with the strength and ferocity of the animals which utter them. By opposite associations, he accounts for the beauty of the notes of birds. And he says, that there is a similar sublimity or beauty, in the tonesof the human voice, and that “such sounds are associated, in our imaginations, with the qualities of mind of which they are in general expressive, and naturally produce in us the conception of these qualities.”
This writer endeavors to establish his views on this subject, by observing, that “grandeur or sublimity of sound, can no otherwise arise from its loudness, than as that loudness excites an idea of power in the sonorous object, or in some other associated with it in the mind: for a child’s drum, close to the ear, fills it with more real noise, than the discharge of a cannon a mile off; and the rattling of a carriage in the street, when faintly and indistinctly heard, has often been mistaken for thunder at a distance. Yet no one ever imagined the beating of a child’s drum, or the rattling of a carriage over the stones, to be grand or sublime; which, nevertheless, they must be, if grandeur or sublimity belong at all to the sensation of loudness. But artillery and lightning are powerful engines of destruction; and with their power we sympathize, whenever the sound of them excites any sentiments of sublimity.”
Now, all this is directly opposed to the doctrine it is meant to support. It distinctly implies that loudness is so natural and so frequent a result of the violent contact of bodies, that we sometimes mistakenly ascribe power to objects, of which we have not correctly distinguished the sounds, owing to imitation, distance, &c. The occasional mistake implies the general truth.
Alison, himself, notwithstanding his doctrine of association, is accordingly led to observe, that “there are some philosophers who consider these as the natural signs of passion or affection, and who believe that it is not from experience, but by means of an original faculty, that we interpret them: and this opinion is supported by great authorities.”
He adds the following observations, which, notwithstanding the error they involve, are too much to the purpose to be omitted here, and which in reality illustrate a natural and true theory, better than they do his own:—
“It is natural, however, to suppose, that in this, as in every case, our experience should gradually lead to the formation of some general rules, with regard to this expression.
“The great divisions of sound are into loud and low, grave and acute, long and short, increasing and diminishing. The two first divisions are expressive in themselves: the two last, only in conjunction with others.
“Loud sound is connected with ideas of power and danger. Many objects in nature which have such qualities, are distinguished by such sounds; and this association is farther confirmed from the human voice, in which all violent and impetuous passions are expressed in loud tones.
“Low sound has a contrary expression, and is connected with ideas of weakness, gentleness, and delicacy. This association takes its rise, not only from the observation of inanimate nature, or of animals, where, in a great number of cases, suchsounds distinguish objects with such qualities, but particularly from the human voice, where all gentle, or delicate, or sorrowful affections are expressed by such tones.
“Grave sound is connected with ideas of moderation, dignity, solemnity, &c., principally, I believe, from all moderate, or restrained, or chastened affections being distinguished by such tones in the human voice.
“Acute sound is expressive of pain, or fear, or surprise, &c., and generally operates by producing some degree of astonishment. This association, also, seems principally to arise from our experience of such connexions in the human voice.
“Long or lengthened sound seems to me to have no expression in itself, but only to signify the continuance of that quality which is signified by other qualities of sound. A loud or a low, a grave or an acute sound prolonged expresses to us no more than the continuance of the quality which is generally signified by such sounds.
“Short or abrupt sound has a contrary expression, and signifies the sudden cessation of the quality thus expressed.
“Increasing sound signifies, in the same manner, the increase of the quality expressed.
“Decreasing sound signifies the gradual diminution of such qualities.
“Motion furnishes another sort of beauty.
“Figure, color, and motion, readily blend in one object, and one general perception of beauty. Inmany beautiful objects they all unite, and render the beauty greater.”
These characteristics are too universal not to support the doctrine of natural appropriation and power, of which association is merely a consequence.
It may be said, that all this chiefly regards mere geometrical forms, not objects in nature. But, on referring to inanimate objects, it will be found that they everywhere present these forms.
The round, the simplest form appears to characterize all elementary bodies and all that are free from compression, to be in fact the most elementary and the most readily assumed in nature. This form, accordingly, is presented by the drops of water and of every liquid, by every atom probably of oxygen, hydrogen, and azote, by the smallest as well as the largest bodies, even the innumerable celestial orbs.
All the other, the angular forms are presented by inanimate bodies under compression, or by mineral crystals.
Thus, then, do these simple geometrical forms characterize the simplest bodies in nature; and it appears that this first kind of beauty is peculiarly their own. It will, in the sequel, be as clearly seen, that each of the other classes of natural beings presents beauty of a different kind, which similarly characterizes it. Hence, no rational theory of beauty could be formed by writers, who indiscriminatingly jumbled together the characteristics of allthe kinds of beauty, and expected to find them everywhere.
As, then, from all that has been said, it appears that all the elements of beauty which have thus been noticed, belong to inanimate beings, and as this is shown by the passages I have quoted from the best writers, it seems surprising, not merely that they should not have seen this to be the case, but, that it should not have led them to observe, that there exists also a second beauty, of living beings, and third, of thinking beings, as well as others of the useful, the ornamental, and the intellectual arts respectively, in each of which some new element was only added to the characters of the preceding species.
It seems still more surprising that Alison, who deviates so widely from all fundamental principles, should have actually stumbled upon an observation of a few of the characteristics of inanimate beings, and traced them as they pass upward through some living and thinking beings—whose new characteristics, however, he did not discriminate. He observes, that “the greater part of those bodies in nature, which possess hardness, strength, or durability, are distinguished by angular forms. The greater part of those bodies, on the contrary, which possess weakness, fragility, or delicacy, are distinguished by winding or curvilinear forms. In the mineral kingdom, all rocks, stones, and metals, the hardest and most durable bodies we know, assume universally angular forms. In the vegetable kingdom, all strong and durable plants are in generaldistinguished by similar forms. The feebler and more delicate race of vegetables, on the contrary, are mostly distinguished by winding forms. In the animal kingdom, in the same manner, strong and powerful animals are generally characterized by angular forms; feeble and delicate animals, by forms of the contrary kind.”[13]
I have now to show that, in living beings, while the characters of the first and fundamental beauty, that of inanimate beings, are still partially continued, new characteristics are added to them.
Plants accordingly possess both rigid parts, like some of those described in the preceding section, and delicate parts, which, in ascending through the classes of natural beings from the simplest to the most complex, are the very first to present to us new and additional characters totally distinct from those of the preceding class.
I. To begin as nature does, then, we find the trunks and stems of plants, which are near the ground, resembling most in character the inanimate bodies from among which they spring. They assume the simplest and most universal form in nature, the round one; but as growth is their greatfunction, they extend in height and become cylindrical.
Even the branches, the twigs, and the tendrils, continue this elementary character; but it is in them, or in the stem when, like them, it is tender, that such elementary characters give way to the purposes of life, namely, growth and reproduction, and that we discover the new and additional characters of beauty which this class presents to us.
II. To render this matter plain, I must observe that the formation of rings, which unite in tubes, appears to be almost universally the material condition of growth and reproduction. Every new portion of these tubes, moreover, and every superadded ring, is less than that which preceded it.
It is from this that results the first characteristic of this second kind of beauty, namely, fineness or delicacy. Hence, Burke made the possession of a delicate frame, without any remarkable appearance of strength, his fifth condition in beauty; and he here erred only from that want of discrimination which led him to confound together all the conditions of beauty, and prevented his seeing that they belonged to different genera.
Now, as fine and delicate bodies, which are growing, will shoot in that direction where space, air, and light, can best be had, and as this, amid other twigs and tendrils, will greatly vary, so will their productions rarely continue long in the same straight line, but will, on the contrary, bend. Hence, the curved or bending form is the second characteristic of this kind of beauty.
It is worthy of remark, that, as the trunks, stems, twigs, and tendrils, of plants assume the simplest and most universal form in nature, the round one, so their more delicate parts have again the tendency to bend into a similar form.
In the young and feeble branches of plants, it is observed by Alison, that the bending form is “beautiful, when we perceive that it is the consequence of the delicacy of their texture, and of their being overpowered by the weight of the flower.... In the smaller and feebler tribe of flowers, as in the violet, the daisy, or the lily of the valley, the bending of the stem constitutes a very beautiful form, because we immediately perceive that it is the consequence of the weakness and delicacy of the flower.”
From the circumstances now described, it results that all the parts of plants present the most surprising variety. They vary their direction every moment, as Burke observes, and they change under the eye by a deviation continually carrying on, but for whose beginning or end you will find it difficult to ascertain a point.
Variety is therefore the third characteristic of this second kind of beauty; and in the indiscriminating views of Burke, he made two similar conditions, viz: “Thirdly, to have a variety in the direction of the parts; but, fourthly, to have those parts not angular, but melted as it were into each other;” thus applying these to beauty generally, to which they are not applicable, but in a confused and imperfect way.
It is scarcely necessary to observe that variety, as a character of beauty, owes its effect to the need of changing impressions, in order to enliven our sensibility, which does not fail to become inactive under the long-continued impression of the same stimulant.
It is connected with this variety that unequal numbers are preferred, as we see in the number of flowers and of their petals, in that of leaves grouped together, and in the indentations of these leaves.
From all this springs the fourth and last characteristic of this second species of beauty, namely, contrast. This strikes us when we at once look at the rigid stem and bending boughs, and all the variety which the latter display.
It will be observed, that, of all the characteristics of beauty, none tend to render our perceptions so vivid as variety and contrast.
I conclude this section with a few remarks on the errors which Alison has committed on this subject.
“In the rose,” says that writer, “and the white lily, and in the tribe of flowering shrubs, the same bending form assumed by the stem is felt as a defect; and instead of impressing us with the idea of delicacy, leads us to believe the operation of some force to twist it into this direction.”—This, however, is no defect arising from the bending form not being abstractly more beautiful, but from its being contrary to the nature of the stem of flowering shrubs to bend, from its being, as he himself observes, the result of some force to twist it.
He asserts, however, that in plants, angular forms are beautiful, when they are expressive of fineness, of tenderness, of delicacy, or such affecting qualities; and he thinks that this may perhaps appear from the consideration of the following instances:—
“The myrtle, for instance, is generally reckoned a beautiful form, yet the growth of its stem is perpendicular, the junction of its branches form regular and similar angles, and their direction is in straight or angular lines. The known delicacy, however, and tenderness of the vegetable, at least in this climate, prevail over the general expression of the form, and give it the same beauty which we generally find in forms of a contrary kind.”—The mistake here committed is in supposing the beauty of the myrtle to depend on its angularity, instead of its being evergreen, fragrant, and suggesting pleasures of association.
“How much more beautiful,” he says, “is the rose-tree when its buds begin to blow, than afterward, when its flowers are full and in their greatest perfection! yet, in this first situation, its form has much less winding surface, and is much more composed of straight lines and of angles, than afterward when the weight of the flower weighs down the feeble branches, and describes the easiest and most varied curves.”—But he answers himself by adding: “The circumstance of its youth, a circumstance in all cases so affecting, the delicacy of its blossom, so well expressed by the care which Nature has taken in surrounding the opening bud with leaves, prevail so much upon our imagination,that we behold the form itself with more delight in this situation than afterward, when it assumes the more general form of delicacy.”
“There are few things in the vegetable world,” he says, “more beautiful than the knotted and angular stem of the balsam, merely from its singular transparency, which it is impossible to look at without a strong impression of the fineness and delicacy of the vegetable.”—But it is its transparency, not its angularity, that is beautiful.
The beauty of color is not less conspicuous than that of form in this class of beings.
I have next to show that, in thinking beings, while the characters of inanimate, and those of living beauty, are still more or less continued, new characteristics are also added to them.
I. In animals, accordingly, the bones bear a close analogy to the wood of plants. They generally assume the same rounded form; but, as thinking beings are necessarily moving ones, their bones are hollow to combine lightness with strength, and they are separated by joints to permit flexion and extension.
II. As animals, like plants, grow and reproduce, a portion of their general organization, theirvascular system, which serves the purpose of growth and reproduction, consists, like plants, of trunks, branches, &c.; and the surface of their bodies, the skin, is formed by a tissue of these vessels. Accordingly, both the vessels themselves, and the tissue which they form, present the delicacy, the bending, the variety, and the contrast, which are the characters of the preceding species of beauty.
The undulating and serpentine lines which art seeks always to design in its most beautiful productions, exist in greater number at the surface of the human body than at that of any other animal. Wherever, as Hogarth observes, “for the sake of the necessary motion of the parts, with proper strength and agility, the insertions of the muscles are too hard and sudden, their swellings too bold, or the hollows between them too deep, for their outlines to be beautiful; nature softens these hardnesses, and plumps up these vacancies with a proper supply of fat, and covers the whole with the soft, smooth, springy, and, in delicate life, almost transparent skin, which, conforming itself to the external shape of all the parts beneath, expresses to the eye the idea of its contents with the utmost delicacy of beauty and grace.”
It is principally in the features of the face, as has often been observed, and on the surface of the torso and of the members of a beautiful woman, that these delicate, bending, varied, and contrasted lines are multiplied: by their union, they mark the outlines of different parts, as in the region of the neck, of the bosom, at the shoulders, on the surface of theabdomen, on the sides, and principally in the gradual transitions from the head to the neck, and from the loins to the inferior extremities.
These lines vary under different circumstances; much enbonpoint producing round lines, and leanness or old age producing straight ones.
Woman and man stand pre-eminent among animals as to this kind of beauty; and to them succeed the swifter animals, as the horse, the stag, &c.
The animals, on the contrary, of which the surface presents right lines and square forms, are correspondingly deprived of beauty; as the toad, the hog, and all the animals which seem to us ugly.
In all animals, also, the beauty of color, even when slightly varied, becomes extremely interesting.—In human beauty, considerable variety is produced by the different shades of the skin.
Such, indeed, is the variety resulting from all this, that some degree even of intricacy is produced. The undulating lines which cross in every direction, and the tortuous paths of the eye, are the means of an agreeable complication.
Hence Burke, following Hogarth, says: “Observe that part of a beautiful woman where she is perhaps the most beautiful, about the neck and breasts: the smoothness, the softness, the easy and insensible swell, the variety of the surface, which is never for the smallest space the same, the deceitful maze, through which the unsteady eye slides giddily, without knowing where to fix, or whither it is carried. Is not this a demonstration of that change of surface, continual, and yet hardly perceptible atany point, which forms one of the great constituents of beauty?
The hair affords an excellent instance of this agreeable complication. Soft curls agitated by the wind have been the theme of every poet. And yet, says Hogarth, “to show how excess ought to be avoided in intricacy, as well as in every other principle, the very same head of hair, wisped and matted together, would make the most disagreeable figure; because the eye would be perplexed, and at a fault, and unable to trace such a confused number of uncomposed and entangled lines.”
III. But animals have a higher system of organs and functions which peculiarly distinguishes them, and which presents new and peculiar characteristics of beauty. This consists of the organs by which they receive impressions from, and react upon the objects around them—the first organs which Nature presents having altogether external relations, and the first, consequently, in which we look for fitness for any purpose.
The importance of fitness to the beauty of such objects is learned imperceptibly. Lines and forms, though the most elegant, fail to please us, if ill distributed in this respect: and objects, to a great extent destitute of the other characters of natural beauty, become beautiful when regarded in relation to fitness. Thus would this sense appear to be so powerful, as in some measure to regulate our other perceptions of beauty.
It is fitness which leads us to admire in one animal, what would displease us if found in another.“The variety,” says Barry, “and union of parts, which we call beautiful in a greyhound, are pleasing in consequence of the idea of agility which they convey. In other animals, less agility is united with more strength; and, indeed, all the different arrangements please because they indicate either different qualities, different degrees of qualities, or the different combinations of them.”
In relation to the various fitness of the human body, the same writer says: “We should not increase the beauty of the female bosom, by the addition of another protuberance; and the exquisite undulating transitions from the convex to the concave tendencies, could not be multiplied with any success. In fine, our rule for judging of the mode and degree of this combination of variety and unity, seems to be no other than that of its fitness and conformity to the designation of each species.”
But it is less necessary for me to adduce authorities in support of this truth, than to answer the objections that have been made to it by some of the ablest writers on the subject—objections which have generally their origin in the narrow views which these men have taken, and in those partial hypotheses which, even when true, led them to reject all other truth.
“It is said,” observes Burke, “that the idea of a part’s being well adapted to answer its end, is one cause of beauty, or indeed beauty itself.... In framing this theory, I am apprehensive that experience was not sufficiently consulted. For, on that principle, the wedgelike snout of a swine with itstough cartilage at the end, the little sunk eyes, and the whole make of the head, so well adapted to its offices of digging and rooting, would be extremely beautiful.”—And so they are, when the beauty of fitness for their purpose is considered; but that purpose being the mere growth and fattening of an animal of sensual and dirty habits, it is a fallacy to represent this, without explanation, as a fair proof of the absence of connexion between fitness and beauty.
“If beauty in our species,” says the same writer, “was annexed to use, men would be much more lovely than women; and strength and agility would be considered as the only beauties.”—Burke was a stringer of fine words, not for woman, but for queens, when that served a selfish and venal purpose. The sentence just quoted shows that his gallantry was as ignorant as it was mean. He here asserts by implication that women are less useful than men, although it is to women that the care of the whole human race, during its most helpless years, is committed, and although they take upon themselves all that half of the duties of life which men are as little capable of performing, as women are of performing the portion suited to men.
“And,” says he, “I appeal to the first and most natural feelings of mankind, whether, on beholding a beautiful eye, or a well-fashioned mouth, or a well-turned leg, any ideas of their being well fitted for seeing, eating, or running, ever present themselves.”—Is running, then, the proper use of the leg in woman! Rousseau more truly thought itsuse was tofailin running, ornotto run! Is eating the only use of her mouth! This, too from the man who deplored that “the age of chivalry was gone!”—Nevertheless, I will venture to assert that such things never were and never will be seen, without suggesting ideas of fitness of some kind or other.
“There is,” he proceeds, “another notion current, pretty closely allied to the former; that perfection is the constituent cause of beauty. This opinion has been made to extend much farther than to sensible objects. But in these, so far is perfection, considered as such, from being the cause of beauty, that this quality, where it is highest in the female sex, almost always carries with it an idea of weakness and imperfection.”—For this plain reason, that female perfection is utterly incompatible with great muscular perfection or strength, which would indeed be injurious to the performance of every feminine function.
We may now advance another step in the subject under discussion. What, then, are the peculiar physical characters of beings thus possessing sense and motion, and thus characterized by fitness?
“It must be remembered,” says Knight, “that irregularity is the general characteristic of trees, and regularity that of animals.”—It would have been more correct to say that symmetry is this peculiar characteristic. There is little resemblance between the parts of one side; and it is symmetry which results from the uniform disposition of double parts, and from the regular division of single ones.
Hence an agreeable impression is produced by the corresponding disposition and the exact resemblance of the eyes, of the eyebrows, of the ears, of the hemispheres of the bosom, and of the different parts of which the limbs are composed; and the forehead, the nose, the mouth, the abdomen, the back, are agreeably distinguished by means of the median line which divides them.
It appears that the eye is pleased by the exactness of corresponding parts; and that symmetry is the first character of beauty in thinking beings.
Occasional irregularity makes us better appreciate the importance of symmetry. The oblique direction of the eyes, squinting, twisting of the nose or lips, unequal magnitude of the hemispheres of the bosom, or unequal length of the limbs, disfigure the most beautiful person.
But how does symmetry contribute to fitness, or why is it necessary?
“All our limbs and organs,” says Payne Knight, “serve us in pairs, and by mutual co-operation with each other: whence the habitual association of ideas has taught us to consider this uniformity as indispensable to the beauty and perfection of the animal form. There is no reason to be deduced from any abstract consideration of the nature of things, why an animal should be more ugly and disgusting for having only one eye, or one ear, than for having only one nose or one mouth; yet if we were to meet with a beast with one eye, or two noses, or two mouths, in any part of the world, we should, without inquiry, decide it to be amonster, and turn from it with abhorrence: neither is there any reason, in the nature of things, why a strict parity, or relative equality, in the correspondent limbs and features of a man or a horse, should be absolutely essential to beauty, and absolutely destructive of it in the roots and branches of a tree. But, nevertheless, the Creator having formed the one regular, and the other irregular, we habitually associate ideas of regularity to the perfection of one, and ideas of irregularity to the perfection of the other; and this habit has been so unvaried, as to have become natural.”
This is the common cant of every weak man at loss for a reason. Now, it is not by any “habitual association” with “our limbs and organs serving us in pairs,” that we are “taught to consider this uniformity indispensable to beauty,” but because, independent of all association, we could not conveniently walk upon one leg, or, indeed, on any unequal number of legs: and there being two sides in the moving organs, there are necessarily two in the sensitive organs, which are mere portions of the same general system. Thus it is locomotion to be performed that renders “a strict parity, or relative equality, in the correspondent limbs and features of a man or a horse” absolutely essential to beauty; and it is the absence of locomotion which renders it utterly worthless, and therefore very rare, in “the roots and branches of a tree.”
In animals, proportion is not less essential than symmetry. It is indeed the second character of this kind of beauty. As this part of the subjecthas been perfectly well treated by Mr. Alison, I need only quote what he has said:—
“It is this expression of fitness which is, I apprehend, the source of the beauty of what is strictly and properly called proportion in the parts of the human form.
“We expect a different form, and a different conformation of limbs, in a running footman and a waterman, in a wrestler and a racing groom, in a shepherd and a sailor, &c.
“They who are conversant in the productions of the fine arts, must have equally observed, that the forms and proportions of features, which the sculptor and the painter have given to their works, are very different, according to the nature of the character they represent, and the emotion they wish to excite. The form or proportions of the features of Jove are different from those of Hercules; those of Apollo, from those of Ganymede; those of the Fawn, from those of the Gladiator. In female beauty, the form and proportions in the features of Juno are very different from those of Venus; those of Minerva, from those of Diana; those of Niobe, from those of the Graces. All, however, are beautiful; because all are adapted with exquisite taste to the characters they wish the countenance to express.”
In “the Hercules and the Antinous, the Jupiter and the Apollo, we find that not only the proportions of the form, but those of every limb, are different; and that the pleasure we feel in these proportions arises from their exquisite fitness forthe physical ends which the artists were consulting.
“The illustration, however, may be made still more precise; for, even in the same countenance, and in the same hour, the same form of feature may be beautiful or otherwise.”
I divide the arts into the useful, the ornamental, and the intellectual, commonly called the fine arts; and I shall endeavor to show, that the objects of each of these are characterized by a peculiar kind of beauty, corresponding to one of those already described.
I shall endeavor to show that the objects of the useful arts are characterized by the simple geometrical forms which belong to inanimate beings; that those of the ornamental arts are characterized by the delicate, bending, varied, and contrasted forms of living beings; and that those of the intellectual arts are, in their highest efforts, characterized chiefly by thinking forms, as in gesture, sculpture, painting, or by functions of mind actually exercised, in oratory, poetry, music.
In all these arts, purpose is implied—not purpose in the hypothetical sense, as applied to the existence, conditions, and objects, of naturalbeings—but in the common intelligible sense of the word, as expressing the intention of men in the pursuit of these arts.
Beauty of Useful Objects.
Here the purpose being utility, this kind of beauty arises from the perception of means as adapted to an end, which of course implies, the parts of anything being fitted to answer the purpose of the whole.
This implies an act of understanding and judgment; for of no product of useful art can we perceive the extrinsic beauty, until we know its destination, and the relations which that involves.
When these are known, so powerful is the sense of utility, that, though deviation from the elementary beauty never ceases to be felt, yet that sense sanctions it to a great extent. Hence it is that an irregular dwelling-house may become beautiful, when its convenience is striking. Hence it is that, in the forms of furniture, machines, and instruments, their beauty arises chiefly from this consideration; and that every form becomes beautiful by association, where it is perfectly adapted to its end.
The greater, however, the elementary beauty, that can be introduced in useful objects, the more obvious will their utility be, and the more beautiful will they universally appear. This will be granted the moment I mention simplicity.
Of all the elements of beauty already spokenof—of all the means of producing accordant and agreeable relations—simplicity appears to be the most efficient; and in all the useful arts, no elementary consideration recommends their objects so much.
This implies all the rest, regularity, uniformity, proportion, order, &c., as far as is compatible with purpose.
Thus, in regard to uniformity, says some one, a number of things destined for the same purpose, as chairs, spoons, &c., cannot be too uniform, because they are adapted to uniform purposes; but it would be absurd to give to objects destined for one purpose the form suited to those destined for another.
So also the objects of useful art will resemble in form precisely as they resemble in purpose; and where the purpose is similar, and the deviation which is admissible is slight, this becomes a subject of great nicety, and, if ornament be at the same time admissible, a subject of exquisite taste.
It was by the transcendent exercise of these qualities, that the Greeks succeeded in fixing the orders of architecture. The most beautiful columns would have shocked the sight, if their mass had not corresponded to that of the edifice which they sustained; and the difference which existed in this respect, required a difference of ornament.
Home indeed observes, that “writers on architecture insist much upon the proportions of a column, and assign different proportions to the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian; but no architect willmaintain, that the most accurate proportions contribute more to use, than several that are less accurate and less agreeable.”
That such a man should have committed such an error is surprising. It seems evident that the different proportion in the columns of these orders is admirably suited to the different quantity of matter in their entablatures. A greater superincumbent mass, required shorter and thicker columns; a less superincumbent mass, longer and slender ones. Many experiments, much observation, were requisite to determine this; but the Greeks had the means of making them, and solved every problem on the subject; and the result of the perfection they attained is, that all err who depart from the truth they have determined.
It was, again, the differing quantities of matter in the entablatures, and the accurately-corresponding dimensions of the columns that determined, of course amid infinite experiment and observation, the nature of their ornaments. Hence, the Doric is distinguished by simplicity; the Ionic by elegance; and the Corinthian by lightness, in ornament as well as in proportion.
Even, therefore, if we were to destroy all the associations of elegance, of magnificence, of costliness, and, still more than all, of antiquity, which are so strongly connected with such forms, the pleasure which their proportions would afford, would remain, as in all cases where means are best adapted to their end.
In his objections to proportion as an element ofbeauty, Burke only confounds this kind of beauty with that which I have next to describe.
“The effects of proportion and fitness,” he says, “at least so far as they proceed from a mere consideration of the work itself, produce approbation, the acquiescence of the understanding, but not love, nor any passion of that species. When we examine the structure of a watch, when we come to know thoroughly the use of every part of it, satisfied as we are with the fitness of the whole, we are far enough from perceiving anything like beauty in the watchwork itself; but let us look on the case, the labor of some curious artist in engraving, with little or no idea of use, we shall have a much livelier idea of beauty than we ever could have had from the watch itself, though the masterpiece of Graham.”
It is an emotion of pleasure which is the inevitable result of the perception of beauty, not love, nor any passion of the kind. These will or will not follow, according to the nature of the object, and of the mind of the observer. A hill, a valley, or a rivulet, may be beautiful, and it will excite an emotion of pleasure when its beauty is discerned; but it may produce no desire or passion of love. There may exist, then, the beauty of utility, as to the structure of the watch, and that of ornament as to its case; and some minds will more readily perceive the one; others, the other.
When Burke adds, “In beauty, the effect is previous to any knowledge of the use; but to judge of proportion, we must know the end for whichany work is designed;” he forgets, that, in the instance of the barber’s block, &c., he showed that the perception of beauty, as well as proportion, required observation, experience, and reflection.
Beauty of Ornamental Objects.
There are three great arts which, under circumstances of high civilization, become ornamental, namely, landscape-gardening, architecture, and dress—the particular arts by which our persons are more or less closely invested;[14]and all of them, then, require beauty of the second kind, that which belongs particularly to vegetable beings, and is characterized by delicate, bending varied, and contrasted forms.
All these, regarded as ornamental arts, have chiefly bodily and sensual pleasures for their purpose; and this I consider as distinguishing them from the intellectual arts, which have a higher purpose.
Of landscape-gardening, the materials are plants, and therefore its beauty is evidently dependant on, or rather composed of, theirs.
The same kind of beauty will be found in every ornamental art. Hence, Alison says: “The greater part of beautiful forms in nature, are to be found in the vegetable kingdom, in the forms of flowers, of foliage, of shrubs, and in those assumed by theyoung shoots of trees. It is from them, accordingly, that almost all those forms have been imitated, which have been employed by artists for the purposes of ornament and elegance.”
On this kind of beauty, mistaking it for the only one, Hogarth founded his peculiar doctrine. “He adopts two lines, on which, according to him, the beauty of figure principally depends. One is the waving line, or a curve bending gently in opposite directions. This he calls the line of beauty; and he shows how often it is found in flowers, shells, and various works of nature; while it is common also in the figures designed by painters and sculptors, for the purpose of decoration. The other line, which he calls the line of grace, is the former waving line, twisted round some solid body. Twisted pillars and twisted horns exhibit it. In all the instances which he mentions, variety plainly appears to be so important an element of this kind of beauty, that he states a portion of the truth, when he defines the art of drawing pleasing forms to be the art of varying well; for the curve line, so much the favorite of painters, derives much of its beauty from its perpetual bending and variation from the stiff regularity of the straight line.” It is evident, however, that in this, he mistakes one kind of beauty for all.
Of architecture, considered as a fine art, much of the beauty depends on the imitation of vegetable forms. Employing materials which require the best characteristics of the first kind of beauty, it, in its choicest and ornamented parts, imitates boththe rigid trunks, and the delicate and bending forms of plants. Its columns, tapering upward, are copied from the trunks of trees; and their decorations are suited with consummate art to their dimensions, and the weight they support. The simple Doric has little ornament; the elegant Ionic has more; the light Corinthian has most.
On the subject of these finely-calculated ornaments, some observations have struck me, which I have not seen mentioned elsewhere. The Doric presents only columns, without any other ornament than that of which their mere form admits. The Ionic expresses increased lightness, by the interposition of its volute, as if the superincumbent weight had but gently pressed a soft solid into a scroll. The Corinthian expresses the utmost lightness, by forming its capitals of foliage, as if the weight above them could not crush even a leaf. The Composite expresses gayety, by adding flowers to the foliage. It is from imperfect views of this, that the meaning and effect of caryatides have been mistaken: instead of being oppressed by weight, they seem, when well employed, to have no weight to support.
In nearly all internal architectural decorations, it is the delicate, bending, varied, and contrasted vegetable forms which are imitated.
“There is scarce a room, in any house whatever,” says Hogarth, “where one does not see the waving line employed in some way or other. How inelegant would the shapes of all our moveables be without it? how very plain and unornamental themouldings of cornices and chimney-pieces, without the variety introduced by the ogee member, which is entirely composed of waving lines.”
The distinctions I have here made, are farther illustrated by the remarks of Alison, who says: “These ornaments being executed in a very hard and durable substance, are in fact only beautiful when they appear but as minute parts of the whole. The great constituent parts of every building require direct and angular lines, because in such parts we require the expression of stability and strength. It is only in the minute and delicate parts of the work, that any kind of ornament is attempted with propriety; and whenever ornaments exceed in size, in their quantity of matter, or in the prominence of their relief, that proportion which, in point of lightness or delicacy, we expect them to hold with respect to the whole of the building, the imitation of the most beautiful vegetable forms does not preserve them from the censure of clumsiness and deformity.”
In dress, considered as an ornamental art, and, as practised by the sex which chiefly studies it, the chief beauty depends on the adoption of winding forms in drapery, and of wreaths of flowers for the head, &c. These are essential to the variety and contrast, as well as to the gayety which that sex desires.
“Uniformity,” says Hogarth, “is chiefly complied with in dress, on account of fitness, and seems to be extended not much farther than dressing both arms alike, and having the shoes of the same color.For when any part of dress has not the excuse of fitness or propriety for its uniformity of parts, the ladies always call it formal.”
These irregular, varying, and somewhat complicated draperies excite that active curiosity, and those movements of imagination, to which skilful women never neglect to address themselves in modern costume.
It is with the same feeling and intention, whether these be defined or not, that, in the head-dress, they seek for bending lines and circumvolutions, and that they combine variously the waves and the tresses of the hair.
For the same reason, a feather or a flower is never placed precisely over the middle of the forehead; and if two are employed, great care is taken that their positions are dissimilar.
It has sometimes struck me as remarkable, that precious stones are almost always arranged differently from flowers. While the latter are placed irregularly, and in waving lines, not only on the head, but the bosom, and the skirt of the dress, the former are in general regularly placed, either on the median line of the person, as the middle of the forehead and, in Eastern countries, of the nose, or symmetrically in similar pendants from each ear, and bracelets on the arms and wrists.
The instinctive feeling which gives origin to this is, that flowers adorn the system of life and reproduction, and by their color and smell, associate with its emotions, which they also express and communicate to others—they, therefore, assumethe varied forms of that system; whereas, diamonds, attached generally to mental organs, or organs of sense, are significant of mental feelings, love of splendor, distinction, pride, &c.—they, therefore, assume the symmetrical form of these organs. Hence, too, flowers are recommended to the young; diamonds are permitted only to the old.
Beauty of Intellectual Objects.
I have already said, that the intellectual arts are, in their highest efforts, characterized chiefly by animal forms, as in gesture, sculpture, and painting, or by animal functions actually exercised, in oratory, poetry, and music.
In the useful arts, the purpose is utility; in the ornamental arts, it is bodily or sensual pleasure; and in the intellectual arts, it is the pleasure of imagination.
The first elements of beauty, however, are not forgotten in these arts. As simplicity is conspicuous in the works of nature, so is it a condition of beauty in all the operations of mind. In philosophy, general theorems become beautiful from this simplicity; and polished manners receive from it dignity and grace. The intellectual arts are especially dependant upon it: it has been a striking character of their most illustrious cultivators, and of their very highest efforts.
How much the characters and accidents of elementary beauty influence intellectual art, has been well shown by Mr. Knight.
“In the higher class of landscapes,” he says,“whether in nature or in art, the mere sensual gratification of the eye is comparatively so small, as scarcely to be attended to: but yet, if there occur a single spot, either in the scene or the picture, offensively harsh and glaring—if the landscape-gardener, in the one, or the picture-cleaner, in the other, have exerted their unhappy talents of polishing, all the magic instantly vanishes, and the imagination avenges the injury offered to the sense. The glaring and unharmonious spot, being the most prominent and obtrusive, irresistibly attracts the attention, so as to interrupt the repose of the whole, and leaves the mind no place to rest upon.”
“It is, in some respects,” he observes, “the same with the sense of hearing. The mere sensual gratification, arising from the melody of an actor’s voice, is a very small part, indeed, of the pleasure which we receive from the representation of a fine drama: but, nevertheless, if a single note of the voice be absolutely cracked and out of tune, so as to offend and disgust the ear, it will completely destroy the effect of the most skilful acting, and render all the sublimity and pathos of the finest tragedy ludicrous.”
This, I may observe, is a concession of much that he elsewhere inconsistently contends for; for sensual beauty could never act thus powerfully, if it possessed not fundamental importance as an element even in the most complex beauty.