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which we blame in Cicero have their admirers, and
in great number.

32. There is a certain standard of grace and beauty which consists in a
certain relation between our nature, such as it is, weak or strong, and the
thing which pleases us.

Whatever is formed according to this standard pleases us, be it house, song,
discourse, verse, prose, woman, birds, rivers, trees, rooms, dress, etc.
Whatever is not made according to this standard displeases those who have
good taste.

And as there is a perfect relation between a song and a house which are made
after a good model, because they are like this good model, though each after
its kind; even so there is a perfect relation between things made after a
bad model. Not that the bad model is unique, for there are many; but each
bad sonnet, for example, on whatever false model it is formed, is just like
a woman dressed after that model.

Nothing makes us understand better the ridiculousness of a false sonnet than
to consider nature and the standard and, then, to imagine a woman or a house
made according to that standard.

33. Poetical beauty.--As we speak of poetical beauty, so ought we to speak
of mathematical beauty and medical beauty. But we do not do so; and the
reason is that we know well what is the object of mathematics, and that it
consists in proofs, and what is the object of medicine, and that it consists
in healing. But we do not know in what grace consists, which is the object
of poetry. We do not know the natural model which we ought to imitate; and
through lack of this knowledge, we have coined fantastic terms, "The golden
age," "The wonder of our times," "Fatal," etc., and call this jargon
poetical beauty.

But whoever imagines a woman after this model, which consists in saying
little things in big words, will see a pretty girl adorned with mirrors and
chains, at whom