Whence it comes that symmetry is only wanted in breadth, not in height or depth.
Sceptic, for obstinate.
Descartes useless and uncertain.
No one calls another a courtier but he who is not one himself, a pedant save a pedant, a provincial but a provincial, and I would wager it was the printer who put it on the title of Letters to a Provincial.
The chief talent, that which rules all others.
If the lightning were to strike low-lying places, etc., poets, and those whose only reasonings are on things of that nature would lack proofs.
Poetical beauty.—As we talk of poetical beauty, so ought we to talk of mathematical beauty and medical beauty; yet we do not use those terms, because we know perfectly the object of mathematics, that it consists in proofs, and the object of medicine, that it consists in healing, but we do not understand wherein consists charm which is the object of poetry. We do not know what is the natural model to be imitated, and for want of that knowledge we invent a set of extravagant terms, "the golden age, the wonder of our times, fatal," etc., and fall this jargon poetic beauty.
But if we imagine a woman on that pattern, which consists in saying little things in great words, we shall see a pretty girl bedecked with mirrors and chains absurd to our taste, because we know better wherein consists the charm of woman than the charm of verse. But those who do not know, would admire her in such trimmings, and in many villages she would be taken for the queen, wherefore sonnets made on such a pattern have been called The Village Queens.
Those who judge of a work without rule are in regard to others as those who possess a watch are in regard to others. One says, "it was two hours ago," another, "it is only three-quarters of an hour." I look at my watch and say to the one, "you are weary of us," and to the other, "time flies fast with you, for it is only an hour and a half." And I laugh at those who say that time goes slowly with me, and that I judge by fancy. They do not know that I judge by my watch.