佚名/Anonymous
There is a certain delicacy of passion to which some people are subject that makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy up on every prosperous event, as well as a piercing a grief when they meet with crosses and adversity. Favours and good offices easily engage their friendship, while the smallest injury provokes their resentment.Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure；but they are as sensibly touched with contempt.People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent sorrows, than men of more cool and sedate tempers.But, I believe, when every thing is balanced, there is no one that would not rather chose to be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition.Good or ill fortune is very little at our disposal and when a person that has this sensibility of temper meets with any misfortune, his sorrow or resentment takes entire possession of him, and deprives him of all relish in the common occurrences of life, the right enjoyment of which forms the greatest part of our happiness.Great pleasures are much less frequent than great pains, so that a sensible temper must meet with fewer trials in the former way than in the latter.
There is a delicacy of taste observable in some men, which very much resembles this delicacy of passion, and produces the same sensibility to beauty and deformity of every kind, as that does to prosperity and adversity, obligations and injuries. When you present a poem or a picture to a man possessed of this talent, the delicacy of his feeling or sentiments makes him be touched very sensibly by every part of it；nor are the masterly strokes perceived with a more exquisite relish and satisfaction, than the negligences or absurdities with disgust and uneasiness.A polite and judicious conversation affords him the highest entertainment.Rudeness or impertinence is as great a punishment to him.In short, delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion：it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and misery, and makes us sensible to pains as well as pleasures that escape the rest of mankind.