HINTS TO RURAL IMPROVERS. 113 



are combined in the same mind. Thus, a person may have a deli- 

 cate organization, which will enable him to receive pleasure from 

 every thing that possesses grace or beauty, but with it so little power 

 of discrimination as to be unable to select among many pleasing 

 objects, those which, under given circumstances, are the most beauti- 

 ful, harmonious, or fitting. Such a person may be said to have na- 

 tural sensibility, or fine perceptions, but not good taste ; the latter 

 belongs properly to one who, among many beautiful objects, rapidly 

 compares, discriminates, and gives due rank to each, according to 

 its merit. 



Now, although that delicacy of organization, usually called taste, 

 is a natural gift, which can no more be acquired than hearing can 

 be by a deaf man, yet, in most persons, this sensibility to the Beau- 

 tiful may be cultivated and ripened into good taste by the study and 

 comparison of beautiful productions in nature and art. 



This is precisely what we wish to insist upon, to all persons 

 about to commence rural embellishments, who have not a cultivated 

 or just taste ; but only sensibility, or what they would call a natural 

 taste. 



Three-fourths of all the building and ornamental gardening of 

 America, hitherto, have been amateur performances often the pro- 

 ductions of persons who, with abundant natural sensibility, have 

 taken no pains to cultivate it and form a correct, or even a good 

 taste, by studying and comparing the best examples already in 

 existence in various parts of this or other countries. Now the 

 study of the best productions in the fine arts is not more necessaiy 

 to the success of the young painter and sculptor than that of build- 

 ings and grounds to the amateur or professional improver, who 

 desires to improve a country residence well and tastefully. In both 

 cases comparison, discrimination, the use of the reasoning faculty, 

 educate the natural delicacy of perception into taste, more or less 

 just and perfect, and enable it not only to arrive at Beauty, but to 

 select the most beautiful for the end in view. 



There are at the present moment, without going abroad, oppor- 

 tunities of cultivating a taste in landscape-gardening, quite sufficient 

 to enable any one of natural sensibility to the Beautiful, combined 

 with good reasoning powers, to arrive at that point which may be 

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