Cultivated taste.
Wilkie Collins, in his ‘"Woman in
White,"’ makes the following observations upon this subject.
They are curious, and, we believe, true, upon the whole:
‘
"At any time, and under any circumstances of human interest, is it not strange to see how little real hold the objects of the natural world amidst which we live can gain on our hearts and minds?
We go to Nature for comfort in trouble and sympathy in joy, only in books.
Admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature.
As children, we, none of us, possess it. No uninstructed man or woman possesses it. Those whose lives are most exclusively passed amidst the ever changing wonders of sea and land are also those most universally insensible to every aspect of Nature not directly associated with the human interest of their calling.
Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilized accomplishments which we all learn as an art; and more: that capacity is rarely practised by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and unoccupied.
How much share have the attractions of Nature ever had in the pleasurable or painful interests and emotions of ourselves or our friends?
What space do they ever occupy in the thousand little narratives of personal experience which pass every day by word of mouth from one of us to the other?
All that our minds can compass, all that our hearts can learn, can be accomplished with equal certainty and equal profit to ourselves in the poorest as in the richest prospect that the face of the earth can show."
’
These ideas will appear strange to many, but we are disposed to think there is a great deal of truth in them.
Lord Macaulay has proved in his history that the magnificent views in the Scottish highlands, which now command the attention of every traveller, were not at all estimated a century ago. He quotes from the books of a number of travellers of that period to prove the fact.
It was not until
Scott began to throw around them the halo of his genius, that they began to be admired and appreciated.
We doubt very much whether English travellers would admire the beauties of the
Rhine, the
Alps, and
Italy, half as much as they do, had
Childe Harold never been written.
A taste for art is a cultivated taste, beyond all doubt.
No man admires the masterpieces of the great painters at first sight, as he does after long study.
Their beauties grow upon the student, and he finds a new one every day.
Campbell, the poet, who is said to have possessed a fine taste for the arts, spent several hours every morning while at
Rome before the
Apollo Belvidere; and he declared it would take him a lifetime to arrive at a proper perception of all its beauties.
If then a proper appreciation of the beauties of art is an acquirement, why may not a proper appreciation of the beauties of Nature be an acquirement likewise?
The faculty which enables us to perceive the one is the same faculty that enables us to perceive the other.
Let any man look for the first time upon any natural object which he has heard much spoken of; the sea for instance, or the
Falls of Niagara.
He is almost sure to be disappointed.
It is only by studying them for a long time that they unfold themselves in their true beauty and majesty.
