How irreconcileable are your Doctrines to the
Example you afford us! However, since you press me to justify your
Practice against your Declarations, by giving a Definition of what is
meant by TASTE, I shall not avoid the invidious Office of pointing out
your superior Excellence to others, by proving that TRUTH and BEAUTY
are coincident, and that the warmest Admirers of these CELESTIAL
TWINS, have consequently Souls more nearly allied to ?therial Spirits
of a higher Order. The effect of a _good_ TASTE is that instantaneous
Glow of Pleasure which thrills thro' our whole Frame, and seizes upon
the Applause of the Heart, before the intellectual Power, Reason, can
descend from the Throne of the Mind to ratify it's Approbation, either
when we receive into the Soul beautiful Images thro' the Organs
of bodily Senses; or the Decorum of an amiable Character thro' the
Faculties of moral Perception; or when we recall, by the imitative
Arts, both of them thro' the intermediate Power of the Imagination.
Nor is this delightful and immediate Sensation to be excited in an
undistempered Soul, but by a Chain of Truths, dependent upon one
another till they terminate in the hand of the Divine COMPOSER of the
whole.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25