It is saying less than the truth to affirm that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well-chosen and well-tended fruit tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural intervals.
A woman’s friendship borders more closely on love than man’s. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble or friendly acts; whilst women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment.
You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it – low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion – and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national.
Nature has her proper interest; and he will know what it is, who believes and feels, that every Thing has a Life of its own, and that we are all one Life.
The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive.
Even to admire otherwise than on the whole and where “I admire” is but a synonyme for “I remember, I liked it very much when I was reading it ,” is too much an effort, would be too disquieting an emotion!
