It was.
NORTH.
In such minds, when all the calm faculties of the soul are wedded in happy union to the image of Virtue, there is, I have no doubt, that habitual feeling for which the term Beauty furnishes a natural and just expression. But I apprehend that this is not the true expression of that serious and solemn feeling which accompanies the understanding of the qualities of Moral Action in the minds of the generality of men. They who in the midst of their own unhappy perversions, are visited with knowledge of those immutable distinctions, and they who in the ordinary struggles and trials incident to our condition, maintain their conduct in unison with their strongly grounded principles and better aspirations, would seldom, I apprehend, employ this language for the description of feelings which can hardly be separated, from the ideas of an awful responsibility involving the happiness and misery of the accountable subjects of a moral order of Government.
SEWARD.
You think, sir, that to assign this perception of Beauty and Deformity, as the groundwork of our Moral Nature, is to rest on too slight a foundation that part of man's constitution which is first in importance to his welfare?
NORTH.
Assuredly, my dear friend, I do. Nay, I do not fear to say that the Emotion, which may properly be termed a Feeling of Beauty in Virtue, takes place at those times when the deepest affection of our souls towards Good and Evil acts less strongly, and when the Emotion we feel is derived more from Imagination—and—
SEWARD.
And may I venture to suggest, sir, that as Imagination, which is so strong a principle in our minds, will take its temper from any prevalent feelings, and even from any fixed and permanent habits of mind, so our Feeling of Beauty and Deformity shall be different to different men, either according to the predominant strength of natural principles, or according to their course of life?