Richard Whately Quotes
Grace is in a great measure a natural gift; elegance implies cultivation; or something of more artificial character. A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call them "elegant" animals would be absurd.
Whately, Richard. A Selection of English Synonyms. London, John W. Parker and Son, 1851, p. 88.
This Puritanical point of view, has always characterized a significant segment of American society. It is responsible for the rather limited pomp and circumstances, ceremony and protocol of American politics compared with most of the rest of the world. Ironically, when Adams later became President, he thought that America had gone too far and needed more formality and elegance—especially in the treatment of the Presidency. He was then opposed by most who preferred his earlier view and that of his opponent, Thomas Jefferson.
Richard Whately was an English academic, rhetorician, logician, philosopher, economist, and theologian who also served as a reforming Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. He was a leading Broad Churchman, a prolific and combative author over a wide range of topics, a flamboyant character, and one of the first reviewers to recognise the talents of Jane Austen.
