Bitter taste

“ Where do all these things come from? We do not see the colors, or smell the perfumes, or taste the sweet and the sour and the bitter in the air and water, and we could not see, or smell, or taste, them in the earth. ”

“ Suppose, again, a set of taste-cells sensitive to bitter substances: it is conceivable that in whatever way these were irritated, a bitter taste would result. If so, a substance which, applied to one part of the tongue, would cause a sweet sensation, might cause a bitter if applied to a part of the tongue richly supplied with taste-cells sensitive to bitters. This may explain why sulphate of magnesia excites at the root of the tongue a bitter taste, while applied to the tip it causes a sweet or an acid taste. ”

“ But how comes it to pass, that a thing which hath a sweet Air, is bitter in Taste? The cause is, because the Fæces of that thing are putrid and stinking in the Elements, that is the Choler or Heat; for whatsoever is unnaturally hot, hath a bitter Taste; the Air and the Taste are both one Spirit, and as the Spirit of the Air presses outwards through a hot thing, so doth the Air embrace the Taste about, and descends the subtile Taste, that it should not be burnt by the vehement [Pg 198] burning Choler, as in the Herbal is at large express'd. ”

“ A sweet taste is pleasant even though we were not desiring it at the moment, and a bitter taste is unpleasant though we had no expectation of getting it and no desire awakened to avoid it. On the other hand, the sight of our stone hitting the tree is pleasant only because we were aiming at the tree, and {179} the sight of the stone going to one side of the tree is unpleasant just for the same reason. ”

“ Here there is no diversity in their sentiments; and that there is not appears fully from the consent of all men in the metaphors which are taken from the sense of taste. A sour temper, bitter expressions, bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms [199] well and strongly understood by all. And we are altogether as well understood when we say a sweet disposition, a sweet person, a sweet condition, and the like. ”

“ On its being able to move about, it seeks objects within its reach, and wishing to gratify the sense of taste, applies every thing to the mouth; by this it distinguishes the bitter from the sweet, and on seeing what is sweet a second time, will point to it and wish to obtain it, whilst what is bitter will not be desired. ”

“ Words arise in response to the demands of practical life. It is practically more important that some substances “taste good,” and others “taste bad,” than that there are just four elementary taste qualities. Hence for certain primitive circumstances two taste words are all that are needed in ordinary conversation. It by no means follows from this that the salt, sour, and bitter, 25which all fall in the “bad taste” category, are not discriminable from one another by the taste organs of the savage. ”

“ Hence also when liquids are filtered through ashes, a bitter substance, the taste they yield is bitter. There are many wells, too, of which some are bitter, others acid, while others exhibit other tastes of all kinds. ”

“ Certain taste cells located near the back of the tongue are stimulated only by a bitter taste. Sweet substances are perceived by cells near the tip of the tongue, sour substances along the sides, and salt about equally all over the surface. A substance must be dissolved in fluid in order to be tasted. Many things which we believe we taste are in reality perceived by the sense of smell. Such are spicy sauces and flavors of meats and vegetables. ”

“ And although it may be sweet to the material taste, it is nevertheless bitter, inasmuch as it produces abhorrence and disgust in the godlike nature of man, and, after a brief period of self-deception, is turned into the bitter woe of fatal results. Darkness and light, bitter and sweet, therefore, are not tautological metaphors for evil and good ”

“ I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse. ”

“ The pleasantness or unpleasantness characteristic of many sensations is called their "feeling-tone", and sensations that are markedly pleasant or unpleasant are said to have a strong or pronounced feeling-tone. Bitter is intrinsically unpleasant, sweet pleasant, the salty taste, when not too strong, neither one nor the other, so that it has no definite feeling-tone. Odors, as well as tastes, usually have a rather definite feeling-tone. Of sounds, smooth tones are pleasant, grating noises unpleasant. ”

“ And methinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone—that faculty which, holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely have been disregarded—it was now that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. ”

“ And that the other senses may also come in for their share in misery, the smell shall be for ever regaled with the loathsome exhalations of those infernal dungeons, and the intolerable stench of those half putrified carcases which are broiling there: the taste shall be oppressed with a most ravenous hunger and thirst, and the feeling, with an insupportable fire. ”

“ The soft palate, also, possesses the sense of taste; hence, an article that has an agreeable flavor may very properly be spoken of as palatable, as is often done. All parts of the tongue do not perceive equally well the same flavors. Thus, the front extremity and margin, which is the portion supplied by the "fifth pair" of nerves, perceives more acutely sweet and sour tastes; but the base of the tongue, supplied by the glosso-pharyngeal nerve, is especially sensitive to salt and bitter substances. ”

“ He neglects that other element, a grain of natural worth, which somehow delights in good for itself. This taste, I think, is quite as innate, and as active in us, as that other taste for evil which causes there to be something not wholly displeasing in the misfortunes of our friends. ”

“ The history of letters evinces, that the false taste which has preceded the brilliant ages of literature, has ever been eradicated by the true; but that after a purity of taste had triumphed for some time, a bad taste, different from the first, began to insinuate itself, increased by little and little, and at last obtained an evil ascendancy. ”

“ If taste attains its full maturity before truth and morality have been established in our heart by a better road than that which taste would take, the sensuous world would remain the limit of our aspirations. We should not know, either in our ideas or in our feelings, how to pass beyond the world of sense, and all that imagination failed to represent would be without reality to us. But happily it enters into the plan of nature, that taste, although it first comes into bloom, is the last to ripen of all the faculties of the mind. ”

“ We often, however, counteract this salutary monitor by depraving our sense of taste, by the too free use of vinous or spirituous liquors, which so far deadens the sense of taste, that sweet substances become unpleasant, and nothing but acrid and stimulating things can make an impression on our diminished and vitiated sense of taste. ”

“ But even those who are endued with good natural taste, often judge implicitly and by rote, without ever consulting their own taste. Instances of this passive indolence, or rather this unconsciousness of one's own faculties, appear every day; not only in the fine arts, but in cases where the mere taste, according to the original meaning of the word, is alone concerned. ”

“ Now taste is of two kinds, the first consisting in the negative avoidance of all that is ill-considered and discordant, the other positive and a by-product; it is that harmony which always results from the expression of intense and disinterested emotion. ”

“ But is there no other physical property by which these luminaries directly contribute to the gratification of taste? It is true that light, abstractedly from all objects is agreeable, and agreeable on the same principle that sweetness is to the taste, i. e., from the mere character of the nervous impression. But this is a pleasure merely passive, and in an active being it is, perhaps, on that account, one grade lower than the gratification afforded by the beauty of form, and is more allied to the gross pleasure of literal taste. ”

“ The term ‘disgust,’ in its simplest sense, means something offensive to the taste. It is curious how readily this feeling is excited by anything unusual in the appearance, odour, or nature of our food. ”

“ Bad taste, really bad taste, that is to say—the taste which, to vary the French phrase, leads to artistic crime—was repulsive to him, and this dislike no doubt sometimes led him to what is more ordinarily called bad taste: the merciless mockery of pretensions which most people have agreed to respect. ”

“ Let the ear be unmusically disposed, and the sweetest sounds put together with the greatest art, will give it no entertainment. And if the organs of taste are indisposed, either naturally or by a disease, the most delicious food is brought in vain, which, as it finds no taste, will give no relish. And if it be thus in the lowest pleasures, can it be otherwise in the highest? If a guest sits idle at a nice and plentiful table, merely because he wants a stomach to eat, or a palate to relish what he finds there, shall an indisposed soul enjoy God? ”

“ Smells and Tastes have some share too in ideas of greatness; but it is a small one, weak in its nature, and confined in its operations. I shall only observe, that no smells or tastes can produce a grand sensation, except excessive bitters, and intolerable stenches. It is true, that these affections of the smell and taste, when they are in their full force, and lean directly upon the sensory, are simply painful, and accompanied with no sort of delight ”

“ Similarly, without the sense of taste, sweet or sour has no meaning, and in like manner only those who can hear know what music is, and only those who have a sense of smell are able to enjoy the perfume of a flower. ”

“ I burned with passion for this charming girl; but would I have done so in her taste for literature and science had not been backed up by her personal charms? I suspect not. I like a dish pleasing to the palate, but if it is not pleasing to the eye as well, I do not taste it but put down as bad. The surface is always the first to interest, close examination comes afterwards. ”

“ Just in that degree to which sense impressions fail to produce in us 184immediate pleasures and aversions, fail to provoke us to instinctive emotions of joy and disgust, fail to stir in us moods of irritation and acquiescence,—in just that degree do they declare themselves to be adequate raw materials for the fine arts. If, as we are often told, the primary purpose of art is to please, this must be an entirely unexpected state of affairs, and the low position of taste in the æsthetic scale becomes quite unintelligible. ”

“ There is an inseparable connection between the two senses of smell and taste, for when anosmia or loss of the sense of smell occurs, all taste, except for bitterness, sweetness, sourness, and saltness, is completely lost, so far as ideas of flavour, &c., are concerned. ”

“ Developing as one of the earliest forms of sensitiveness, intimately associated with the vital processes of life and growth, affording manifold richness of pleasure and aversion, full of paradoxical surprises and puzzling problems, and figuratively expressing one of the rarest of human qualities, “the sense of taste” constitutes one of man’s most interesting contacts with the outer world. ”

“ This taste, though it is the first step above the dullness that cannot be interested in anything beyond its own immediate world, nor care for what it neither sees, touches, tastes, nor puts to any present use, is still the lowest form that such a liking can take. ”

“ Such is the impetuosity of uncultivated or perverted human tendencies that the desire for acquisition, some [Pg 160] times called greed, impels one to swallow one mouthful of food to take in another, without ever dreaming that the very last contribution of taste to the last remnant of a delicious morsel is like the last flicker of a candle, more brilliant than any of the preceding ones. In eating, the last taste, when saliva, the medium of taste, is most perfectly in possession of the solution, is better than all the other stages of the process. ”

“ I considered that the taste of the day is refined and delicate to excess, and that to disgust that delicacy of taste, by a slovenly inattention to it, would be to forfeit, at once, all hope of being useful; and for this reason, though I have written more verse this last year than perhaps any man in England, I have finished, and polished, and touched, and retouched, with the utmost care. ”

“ And again, if the taste devotes itself to continual eating and feasting, and to innumerable winebibbings, then it draws the soul downwards, and into darkness and into drunkenness. Yet again in the case of the smell. If the nose be in the habit of taking delight in the things which have sweet smells, that is, in scented unguents, and in aromatic perfumes, and in balsams, it falls at length into a state of numbness, and it binds tightly the soul in that state of numbness along with it. ”

“ Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains; so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter. Not to mention, that men of such lively passions are apt to be transported beyond all bounds of prudence and discretion, and to take false steps in the conduct of life, which are often irretrievable.
There is a delicacy of taste observable in some men, which very much resembles this delicacy of passion, and produces the same sensibility to beauty and deformity of every kind, as that does to prosperity and adversity, obligations and injuries. ”