31

All the false beauties 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.