Page:The Daughters of England.djvu/112

Rh It is no uncommon thing amongst young women, to hear them say, they like a thing they do not know why—nay, so warm are their expressions, one would be led to suppose their preference arose from absolute love, and yet,

It is that habitual tendency of feeling or tone of mind, which I have called taste, that decides their choice; and it is thus that our moral worth or dignity depend upon the exercise of good taste, in the selection we make of the intellectual materials we work with in the formation of character, and the general arrangement of the whole, so as to render the trifling subservient to the more important, and each estimable according to the purpose for which it is used.

I am aware that religious principle is the only certain test by which character can be tried; but I am speaking of things as they are, not as they ought to be; and I wish to prove the great importance of taste, by showing that it is a principle busily at work in directing the decisions of the female mind on points supposed to be too trifling for the operation of religious feeling, and often before any definite idea of religion has been formed. It is strictly in subservience to religion, that I would speak of good taste as being of extreme importance to woman; because it serves her purpose in all those little variations of human life, which are too sudden in their occurrence, and too minute in themselves, for the operation of judgment; but which at the same time constitute so large a sum of woman's experience.

It may be said, that the rules of good taste are so arbitrary, that no one can fully understand them. I can only repeat, what I have said on this subject in "The Poetry of Life," and I think the rule is sufficient for women in general. It is, that the majority of opinion amongst those who