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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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It i * tolerably certain that nobody of any independence 6 f ttlind , sensibility or decency , can help feeling that the best principles of human nature and civilized society are shamefully outraged , when a " liege lord " is seen to take his unequal " half " into a market-place for sale , with a halter round her neck . To become an annuitant from a similar bargain , by private contract with the " bidder " in a draw inc * -room , is a
mere variety in the less-important furniture of the marketplace ; the grossness and vulgar insensibility remaining the same in result—nay , much worse from the periodical reminiscence . Can it possibly excite then , the least wonder that such . an individual should adopt and persevere in a regular c Plan for the perversion , of public taste , ' not perhaps as a perversion , but simply to make the taste of the public as gross as his own , that
grossness being his idea of perfection . The corporal senses were given to man , not merely as the medium whereby the intellect should be developed , but to produce a sensational enjoyment . This enjoyment may be either limited to the rjlienoinena of the successive moments of
Actual operation , or be enhanced and prolonged beyond the Actual ; decreased or increased in its amount , in proportion to the kind and degree of re-action in the mind , and the character of the associations . Wo do not say that the former limited class of enjoyments is gross and degrading merely because it is exclusively animal , for this in a mere animal is its perfect nature , and nothing more can be required ; but we say it is gross and degraded when such enjoyments are the principal
use a man makes of his numerous faculties , because according to the predominant exercise of the animal portion he degrades his nature . The elevation or degradation of social nature ; except with individuals of already iixed , and more than ordinarily strong characters ; is almost entirely in the power of circumstances , or surrounding * influences , so that there are
no opinions , customs , or tastes too gross , heartless , or absurd for trie public to adopt when under such influences during a sufficient length of time . Those who constitute the lowest of all grades , the refuse of society , are the first in whom a depraved , degraded , sensual , or mechanical taste will find a Sympathy ana support ; the next class so influenced will most Certainly be the very highest in the social scheme , or what is Called the " higher orders ; " next follow the litterateurs and ft
scholastic classes ; then the middle and " respectable classes , and all is done . The error is complete and unanimous , until the yeasty impulses of men and things bring about a change . Concerning the gradual fall of the intellectual class , which would be the last , it was unnecessary to speculate , because its numbers fcre so fevf , and its best members so likely to be arrayed against * ach other , that the half-dozen who remained " fighting upon
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TndestructibiUty of the Drama . 331
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1836, page 331, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2658/page/3/
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