"Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

masterly strokes perceived with more exquisite relish and
satisfaction, than the negligences or absurdities with disgust
and uneasiness. A polite and judicious conversation affords
him the highest entertainment; rudeness or impertinence is as
great a punishment to him. In short, delicacy of taste has the
same effect as delicacy of passion: It enlarges the sphere
both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to
pains as well as pleasures, which escape the rest of mankind.

I believe, however, every one will agree with me, that,
notwithstanding this resemblance, delicacy of taste is as much
to be desired and cultivated as delicacy of passion is to be
lamented, and to be remedied, if possible. The good or ill
accidents of life are very little at our disposal; but we are
pretty much masters what books we shall read, what diversions
we shall partake of, and what company we shall keep.
Philosophers have endeavoured to render happiness entirely
independent of every thing external. That degree of perfection
is impossible to be attained: But every wise man will
endeavour to place his happiness on such objects chiefly as
depend upon himself: and that is not to be attained so much by
any other means as by this delicacy of sentiment. When a man
is possessed of that talent, he is more happy by what pleases
his taste, than by what gratifies his appetites, and receives
more enjoyment from a poem or a piece of reasoning than the
most expensive luxury can afford.

Whatever connexion there may be originally between these two
species of delicacy, I am persuaded, that nothing is so proper
to cure us of this delicacy of passion, as the cultivating of
that higher and more refined taste, which enables us to judge
of the characters of men, of compositions of genius, and of
the productions of the nobler arts. A greater or less relish
for those obvious beauties, which strike the senses, depends
entirely upon the greater or less sensibility of the temper:
But with regard to the sciences and liberal arts, a fine taste
is, in some measure, the same with strong sense, or at least
depends so much upon it, that they are inseparable. In order
to judge aright of a composition of genius, there are so many
views to be taken in, so many circumstances to be compared,
and such a knowledge of human nature requisite, that no man,
who is not possessed of the soundest judgment, will ever make
a tolerable critic in such performances. And this is a new
reason for cultivating a relish in the liberal arts. Our
judgment will strengthen by this exercise: We shall form
juster notions of life: Many things, which please or afflict
others, will appear to us too frivolous to engage our
attention: And we shall lose by degrees that sensibility and
delicacy of passion, which is so incommodious.