For
in the matter of taste nothing is unimportant. Taste influences us in
every department of life, as our tastes are, so are we. The whole
quality of our inner and outer life takes its tone from the things in
which we find pleasure, from our standard of taste. If we are severe in
our requirements, hard to please, and at least honest with ourselves, it
will mean that a spur of continual dissatisfaction pricks us, in all we
do, into habitual striving for an excellence which remains beyond our
reach. But on the other hand we shall have to guard against that peevish
fastidiousness which narrows itself down until it can see nothing but
defects and faults, and loses the power of humbly and genuinely
admiring. This passive dissatisfaction which attempts nothing of its
own, and only finds fault with what is done by others, grows very fast
if it is allowed to take hold, and produces a mental habit of merely
destructive criticism or perpetual scolding. Safe in attempting nothing
itself, unassailable and self-righteous as a Pharisee, this spirit can
only pull down but not build up again. In children it is often the
outcome of a little jealousy and want of personal courage; they can be
helped to overcome it, but if it is allowed to grow up, dissatisfaction
allied to pusillanimity are very difficult to correct.
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