Good taste is that taste which is a good possession, a friend to the whole man. It will not suffer him to dote on things however seductive, which rob him of some nobler companionships. To have a foretaste of such a loss, and to reject instinctively whatever will cause it, is the very essence of refinement. Good taste comes, therefore, from experience, in the best sense of that word; it comes from having united in one’s memory and character the fruit of many diverse undertakings.
Mere taste is apt to be bad taste, since it regards nothing but a chance feeling. Chance feeling needs to fortify itself with reasons and to find its level in the great world. When it has added fitness to its sincerity, beneficence to its passion, it will have acquired a right to live. Violence and self-justification will not pass muster in a moral society, for vipers possess both, and must nevertheless be stamped out. Citizenship is conferred only on creatures with human and co-operative instincts. A civilized imagination has to understand and to serve the world.
The truth is that mere sensation or mere emotion is an indignity to a mature human being. A refined mind finds as little happiness in love without friendship as sensuality without love; it may succumb to both, but it accepts neither.
