‘This little book, like the great branch of mental science to which it is an introduction, makes no attempt to “form the taste” of the public and still less to direct the doings of the artist. It deals not with ought but with is, leaving to Criticism the inference from the latter to the former. It does not pretend to tell how things can be made beautiful or even how we can recognise that things are beautiful. It takes Beauty as already existing and enjoyed, and seeks to analyse and account for Beauty's existence and enjoyment.’
Vernon Lee’s The Beautiful is an exploration of the psychological and philosophical significances of the concepts of beauty and aesthetic preferences. In a series of compelling essays, Vernon Lee sought to analyse the reason for the existence of beauty and its enjoyment.
Vernon Lee, pseudonym of Violet Paget, was a British writer best known for her works on aesthetics.