An effeminate behaviour in a man,
a rough manner in a woman; these are ugly because unsuitable to
each character, and different from the qualities which we expect
in the sexes. It is as if a tragedy abounded in comic beauties,
or a comedy in tragic. The disproportions hurt the eye, and
convey a disagreeable sentiment to the spectators, the source of
blame and disapprobation. This is that INDECORUM, which is
explained so much at large by Cicero in his Offices.
Among the other virtues, we may also give Cleanliness a place;
since it naturally renders us agreeable to others, and is no
inconsiderable source of love and affection. No one will deny,
that a negligence in this particular is a fault; and as faults
are nothing but smaller vices, and this fault can have no other
origin than the uneasy sensation which it excites in others; we
may, in this instance, seemingly so trivial, clearly discover the
origin of moral distinctions, about which the learned have
involved themselves in such mazes of perplexity and error.
But besides all the AGREEABLE qualities, the origin of whose
beauty we can, in some degree, explain and account for, there
still remains something mysterious and inexplicable, which
conveys an immediate satisfaction to the spectator, but how, or
why, or for what reason, he cannot pretend to determine.
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