"And how is it useful if it could?" said Mr. Ricardo.
"Useful?" said my father, meditating—"why, sir, the want of it is a death-blow to I know not what proportion of the efforts that are made after usefulness. How many an appeal from the pulpit has been ruined, simply by bringing in a coarse or unhappy figure, which the speaker's want of cultivation did not allow him to appreciate! How many a word, intended for counsel or kindness, has fallen to the ground, because the kindly person did not know how to work out his intentions!"
"But, you cannot give tact, father," I repeated.
"No, Cary—that is true—tact cannot be given; it is the growth only of minds endowed with peculiarly fine sensibilities; but the mind trained to nice judging in one set of matters can exercise the same acumen upon others, so soon as its attention is fairly called out to them. Taste is a thing of particular growth and cultivation in each separate branch; but certainly the mind that has attained high excellence in one is finely prepared to take lessons in another."
"There may be something in that," said Mr. Ricardo, as if he thought there wasn't much.
"But, beyond that," said my father, "the cultivation of taste opens truly a new world of enjoyment utterly closed to every one destitute of it. Nature's stores of beauty and wonder, the fine analogies of moral truth that lie hidden under them, the new setting forth of nature which is Art's beautiful work,—how numberless, how measureless the sources of pleasure to the mind once quickened to see and taste them! Once quickened, it will not cease to rejoice in them, and more and more. And as the mind always assimilates itself to those objects with which it is very conversant, and as these sources of pleasure are all pure, it follows, that not only a refined but a purifying influence also is at work in all this; and the result should be, if nothing untoward counteract, that everything gross, everything improper, in the strict sense of the word, everything unseemly, unlovely, impure, becomes disgustful, and more and more. And whatever is the reverse of these meets with a juster appreciation, a keener relish, a truer love than could be felt for them by a mind not so cultivated. This refining and purifying effect will be seen in the whole character. It will make those solid qualities, which are, indeed, more worth in themselves, show with yet new lustre and tell with higher effect, and not the outward attire only, but the very inward graces of the mind will be worn with a more perfect adjustment."
"Hum—well," said Mr. Ricardo, about a minute after my father had done speaking, "you have made a pretty fair case of it."
My father smiled, and we all three paced up and down the walk in silence. I thought we had done with the subject.
"That's a beautiful sky!" said Mr. Ricardo, coming to a stand, with his face to the west.