Beauty (3)

A lot of what Scruton says is congenial to Austen. This line, for example, could be Elinor Dashwood's motto:

Through the pursuit of beauty we shape the world as our home and, by doing so, we amplify our joys and find consolation for our sorrows.

Scruton has, if you listen to him, has shockingly little to say about the first part—about amplifying our joys. Austen does.

I think this stems, in part*, for her reaction to the division of the sublime and the beautiful. There is a lot of analysis, good work, on the different ways that Radcliffe and Austen treat nature, but all of it, I think, misses one big point. Radcliffe is interested mostly in the sublime—big, tragic, scary and "masculine" things. Austen is interested mostly in the beautiful—intimate, domestic, comforting and "feminine" things. The comfort in Austen comes from love, from sisters, from homes and from a certain kind of marriage.

This sort of taste and beauty gets remarkably little attention even now. I've used this example before, but I think you can see it in a painting like this.