Plainness

“ It has been well remarked that whoever imagines legitimate manners can be taken up and laid aside, put on and off, for the moment, has missed their deepest law. A noble and attractive every-day bearing comes of goodness, of sincerity, of refinement, and these are bred in years, not moments. ”

“ Graces free and uncultivated were there likewise, and the honest outpourings of the heart, subjected to no dull sneer from the lips of false refinement, burst forth with the touching force of simplicity and truth. The universal weaknesses of our nature mingled with all the rest, and varied the drama through a thousand parts. ”

“ Nature has given you a gentle and sensible soul, and has imparted an exquisitely lively imagination, and a certain admixture of melancholy which disposes to despondent revery. It is from this peculiar mental constitution that arise the woes that now afflict you. Your goodness, candor, and sincerity preclude your suspecting in others either fraud or malignity. ”

“ With the identification of the provinces of Truth and Thought no quarrel arises, and the Will and the Good are, as we shall see, intimately connected, but the attempts to fit Beauty into a neat pigeon-hole with Feeling have led to calamitous distortions. ”

“ You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. 'What is this Truth you seek? what is this Beauty?' men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. ”

“ The simplicity which characterizes us has its noble side, which should arouse respect and emotion in those who have lost it. Is it the faults or the vices that are found among us that make you sick at heart? ”

“ This constitutes a radical distinction between them and the things called beautiful. Acts are hurtful or beneficial, moral or immoral, virtuous or vicious. But it is only an abuse of language, to call them beautiful or ugly.
“That it is jargon, the slightest reflection is sufficient to evince; for what is the beauty of an act, detached from its consequences? We shall be told, perhaps, that the beauty of an act was never supposed to be detached from its consequences. The beauty consists in the consequences. ”

“ For bad taste, for indelicacy, for vulgarity, for disregard of sound argument—that is, argument that sounds well—and for general obstinacy, there is nothing to compare with a conscience that remains in moderately good working order. ”

“ What has really occurred when, as we say, vice is present? In speaking of extirpating evil and implanting goodness, of introducing order and beauty to replace a former ugliness, we talk in terms of real things in the Soul. ”

“ The feeling of the inward dignity of certain spiritual attitudes, as peace, serenity, simplicity, veracity; and of the essential vulgarity of others, as querulousness, anxiety, egoistic fussiness, etc.,—are quite inexplicable except by an innate preference of the more ideal attitude for its own pure sake. The nobler thing tastes better, and that is all that we can say. ' Experience' of consequences may truly teach us what things are wicked, but what have consequences to do with what is mean and vulgar? ”

“ The more I think about myself, the more—I say it in all modesty—the subject seems to grow. I should call myself many-sided, and in many respects unlike ordinary men. Take, for instance, the question of taste. ”

“ It is remarkable how conceited plain people are of their persons. You hear the fact mentioned and commented on in society, as if it were surprising; and you catch yourself "wondering" at some illustration of it, as if experience had not furnished you with numberless examples of the same kind. ”

“ This is the reading of all the modern editions, and is copied from the quarto. The folio reads, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. The true reading seems to be this, If you be honest and fair, you should admit your honesty to no discourse with your beauty. ”

“ Now I would ask my good friend, who denies abstract beauty and justice, and affirms a many beautiful and a many just, whether everything he sees is not in some point of view different—the beautiful ugly, the pious impious, the just unjust? ”

“ How “low, flat, stale, and unprofitable, seem all the uses of this world,” when the mind, boldly soaring beyond this lower sphere, indulges the idea that the pleasures which result from a life of innocence and virtue may be faintly analogous to the felicities of heaven! ”

“ And by what scale do you measure, so as to form a correct decision—is your standard of your own merit so accurately settled, that you can instantly perceive truth from flattery, appropriating just so much of a compliment as you deserve, and rejecting the rest. ”

“ A high, pure tone of morality pervades each set of verses, and each strikes the reader as inspired by some real event, or condition of mind, and not by some idle fancy or fleeting sentiment.”—Spectator. ”

“ Perhaps no where does a more beautiful treatise of the kind exist. The good sense and wisdom of the thoughts, the delicacy of the feelings, and the charm of the style, are, throughout, equally conspicuous. ”

“ In what sense we can talk either of a right or a wrong taste in morals, eloquence, or beauty, shall be consider'd afterwards. In the mean time, it may be observ'd, that there is such an uniformity in the general sentiments of mankind, as to render such questions of but small importance. ”

“ I will, therefore, say, that the inward beauty, whether fully represented or not by the outward form, implies, in the first place, the absence of all those qualities which tend to lower and vulgarise life. ”

“ The rude familiarity of the lower orders, and indeed the unpolished state of society in general, would neither surprise nor disgust if they seemed to flow from that simplicity of character, that honest ignorance of the gloss of refinement which may be looked for in a new and inexperienced people. ”

“ Perhaps in every face, whether it has beauty of line or the homely ruggedness graved by generations of positive character, the dominant feature is a certain poise of mind: these men would think, and then judge ”

“ Lovely indeed is that grace of manner, that perfect ease and refinement which 77 so many attempt to acquire, and for which it is to be feared so much too often is renounced—the native vigour of mind, the blush of indignant and offended integrity, the open candour of truth, and all the long list of modest unassuming virtues, known only to a new and unsullied heart. ”

“ If shame, and delight in esteem, be spoken of as real, as any settled ground of pain or pleasure, both these must be in proportion to the supposed wisdom and worth of him by whom we are contemned or esteemed. Must it then be thought enthusiastical to speak of a sensibility of this sort, which shall have respect to an unerring judgment, to infinite wisdom, when we are assured this unerring judgment, thin infinite wisdom, does observe upon our actions? ”

“ Where the mind is pure, the thoughts elevated, and the sentiments liberal and kind, a pleasing expression will be found to pervade the most rugged set of features that were ever bestowed upon a human being. ”

“ This cheap praise, which is taken so unceremoniously, engenders in those who give it a false and sophistical tone, with which they quiet their consciences, ever muttering, "You ought not to have said this; it is not just—it is not true." ”

“ A day stripped so staringly bare would be for them appalling. So with ease, elegance, tributes of affection, social recognitions—some of us require amounts of these things which to others would appear a mass of lying and sophistication. ”

“ If you have truth—not the truth of policy, but religious truth—your manners will be sincere. They will have earnestness, simplicity and frankness—the best qualities of manners. They will be free from assumption, pretence, affectation, flattery and obsequiousness, which are all incompatible with sincerity. ”

“ And as what is called beauty arises from an exact proportion of the limbs, together with a certain sweetness of complexion, so the beauty of the mind consists in an equality and constancy of opinions and judgments, joined to a certain firmness and stability, pursuing virtue, or containing within itself the very essence of virtue. ”

“ For everyone's real character is covered by many wrappings of pretence and is concealed by a kind of veil: face, eyes, expression very often lie, speech most often of all. Wherefore, how can you expect to find in that class [3] any who, while foregoing for the sake of money all from which we can scarcely tear ourselves away, [4] will yet love you sincerely and not merely pretend to do so from interested motives? ”

“ The quality of our taste, the predominance of our feelings, or even the casualty of circumstance, may produce associations of ideas, confirmed by habit into predilection or enmity. To search for the cause of these varying opinions, to examine the foundation of these attachments and prejudices, and to reduce them all to the rule of equity is the office of the judgment, that most important effort of the reasoning powers. ”

“ All beauties of language, all flights of poetry, all particular scenes and speeches, powerful and impressive as they may be, are merely subordinate. No character, how exquisitely or elaborately soever conceived and finished, is drawn for itself ”

“ And the shadings of character, manners, feelings, ambitions, will be infinite.
“'The nature of a people' is always of a similar shade in its vices and its virtues, in its frivolities and in its labor. ”

“ And hence we may conclude, if there be any dignity, any truth, any beauty, in virtue, there must be a real difference, superior and inferior characteristic power of pleasing in the exterior of the human form. ”

“ If you are, gentle reader, you are showing yourself unworthy of your own soulfulness, unworthy of the elegant society into which I have introduced you. I have been giving simply the plain facts—a mere skeleton upon which you, versed in society columns and society novels, and skilled in the art of hiding ugly truths under pretty lies, may readily drape the flesh and the garments of sentimentality and snobbishness. ”

“ If the real truth were known and told about people and things, what a different appearance they would make! The gloss of the world is like the apocryphal mantle of charity, covering a multitude of defects and sins. ”

“ Worthy, whether that insipid flattery, perhaps sacrificed at the expense of truth, does not misguide many of us into erroneous paths? You declare we are handsome—and your conduct demonstrates you to be more solicitous for the possession of beautiful, than of mental charms. ”

“ In all his better stories—for he often wrote poor ones—there was the atmosphere of sincerity, of realism, the marks of an acute observer, without prejudice and with a justifiable leaning toward a belief in the fundamental worth of humanity. ”

“ This is because nature, opposed to affectation, and truth, opposed to deception, must in every case inspire us with esteem. Thus we experience, even in the presence of simplicity originating in surprise, a really moral pleasure, though it be not in connection with a moral object. ”

“ Since, then, the pleasures of each class and the life of each are in dispute, and the question is not which life is more or less honorable, or better or worse, but which is the more pleasant or painless—how shall we know who speaks truly? ”

“ And an imperfect appearance of this character we were compelled, in our last chapter, to recognize in the individual habits of the soul. Further in the beauty which presents us with a realized type, we find another form of the union of fact with principle. ”

“ We look on all that in ourselves with which we can discover a resemblance in others; and consider those resemblances as the materials of moral knowledge. It is in the differences that it actually consists. ”

“ Of those who have the opportunity to observe them, accordingly, some extol, in the highest degree, their rude but charming simplicity, their truth and faithfulness, the strength of their filial and conjugal affection, and their superiority of spirit in rising above the sordid sentiments and gross vices of civilization. ”

“ Quietness, simplicity, and solemnity, would have been her objects, such as would neither invite criticism, call for observation, nor serve as a display for vanity and pomp. She would have been the last to desire to publish their intentions, or to call on her neighbors for congratulations or envy. ”