Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in WomanWalker, Alexander
Philosophy
Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classification of Beauty in Woman
Walker, Alexander
Beauty, Personal; Women
Nothing, then, can be more favorable to virtue than the decoration of
every house with the beautiful copies of the glorious works of ancient
Greece; and it is only humiliating to think that what has been so
extensively done in this respect in the best houses, is less owing to our
own taste than to the poor wanderers from Lucca or Barga. Experiment on
this subject is peculiarly easy in London: let any one spend an hour in
the shop of the very able Mr. Sarti, of Dean street, where he will meet
the most liberal attention, and let him ask himself, in coming out,
whether his moral feeling, as well as his taste, is not improved.
Those who cannot make this experiment, will perhaps be satisfied with the
assurance of Hogarth, who says: "The rest of the body, not having
advantages in common with the face, would soon satiate the eye, were it
to be as constantly exposed, nor would it have more effect than a marble
statue." Surely this is decisive enough in its way! Now let them mark what
follows. "But," he continues, "when it is artfully clothed and decorated,
the mind at every turn resumes its imaginary pursuits concerning it. Thus,
if I may be allowed a simile, the angler chooses not to see the fish he
angles for, until it is fairly caught." He meant of course--"the _fish_
chooses not to see the _angler_, until it is fairly caught!"
Be it known then to all, even the most aristocratic as to sexual
association--I say the most aristocratic, and not the most religious,
because religion is in some countries made the pander to aristocracy--be
it known that the critical judgment and pure taste for beauty are the sole
protection against low and degrading connexions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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