Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

All motion that awakens sublime ideas is such as conveys the notion of great force and power. Motions of this kind are generally in straight or angular lines. Such motions are seen in the working of machinery, and in the efforts of animal nature. Quick motion is more sublime than slow. Motions that awaken ideas of beauty are generally slow and curving. Such are the windings of the quiet rivulet, the gliding motion of birds through the air, the waving of trees, and the curling of vapor.

In regard to the beauty and sublimity of forms and color, it is equally true, as in reference to sound, that the alteration of circumstances will very materially alter the nature of the emotions connected with them. If they are so combined as to cause incongruous emotions, or if they do not harmonize with the general design of any composition, emotions of the sublime or beautiful are not awakened. For example, if the vivid green, which is agreeable in itself from the pleasing emotions which have been connected with it, is combined with a scene of melancholy and desolation, where the design of the artist is to awaken other than lively emotions, it appears incongruous and displeasing.

The art of the poet consists in the use of such language as awakens emotions of beauty and sublimity, either by recalling conceptions of various forms, colors, and motions in nature, which are beautiful and sublime, or the strong and powerful, or the soft and gentle emotions of mind.

Emotions of moral sublimity are such as are felt in witnessing exhibitions of the force of intellect or of strong feelings.

Emotions of moral beauty are those that are felt in witnessing the exhibition of the gentler and tender emotions of mind. These emotions are much more powerful and delightful than when they are more faintly recalled by those objects of perception which are called sublime and beautiful.

The taste is improved by cultivating a love for intellectual endowments and moral qualities. It is also cultivated by gaining an extensive knowledge of objects and scenes which, either in history, or in poetry, or in any compositions of the fine arts, have been associated with emotions. It is also cultivated by learning the rules of fitness and propriety, by studying works of taste, by general reading, by intercourse with persons of refinement and taste, and by a nice observation of the adaptation and fitness of things in the daily intercourse and pursuits of life.

The highest efforts of taste are exhibited in the works of artists who make such pursuits the express object of their profession.

But in ordinary life the cultivation of taste is chiefly exhibited in the style, furniture, and decoration of private dwellings, and in the dress and ornaments of the person. In reference to these, there is the same opportunity for gratifying the eye as there is in the compositions of the fine arts. On these subjects there are rules in regard to color, outline, and combination, and also rules of fitness and propriety, of which every person of taste sensibly feels the violation. In the construction of dwelling-houses, in the proportion of rooms, in the suitableness of colors, in the fitness of all circumstances to the spot of location, to the habits and circumstances of the proprietor, to ideas of convenience, and to various particulars which may be objects of regard, in all these respects the eye of taste ever is prepared to distinguish beauties or defects.

As it regards dress, every individual will necessarily exhibit, to a greater or less extent, the degree in which taste has been cultivated. A person of real refinement of taste will always have the dress consistent with the circumstances of fortune, the relative rank in life, the station and character, the hour of the day, the particular pursuit or profession, and the period of life.

If a person is dressed with a richness and elegance which fortune does not warrant, if the dress is either inferior or superior to that of others of the same rank and station, if it is unfitted to the hour or the pursuit, if youth puts on the grave dress of age, or age assumes the bright colors and ornaments of youth, in all these cases the eye of taste is offended.