Here I think two threads cross. The question of whether our feelings, our taste, our sentiments are really reliable has something to do with beauty being an achievement.
We tend to think of beauty as being something that has an independent existence. Mont Blanc is not beautiful because I make an effort to see its beauty. It just is and most people would argue there was something wrong with me if I can't see it.
But if Mont Blanc is sublime rather than beautiful, what is beauty then? I mean, if the sublime is the word for the sort of thing that has power—something that just hits me when I see it and is even a little terrifying if I get right close to it—then how do I respond to beauty?
On this account the "beauty" of Ava Gardner is something more like the sublime.
The sort of beauty that Austen writes about is not something that just happens to people, it is something within human reach. And Austen reaches over a bit for the word "pretty" for Catherine Morland.) And we can reach from both sides. We can achieve beauty and we can see it, but only if we have properly developed taste.
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