Delicacy

Use in the book

The books of the ancients form an imagined encyclopedia of style, teaching how to speak of everything with delicacy, taste and beauty. Delicacy is not a rule excluding particular subjects; it concerns their treatment. The complaint against coarseness reverses a hostile description: what is called “pinched elegance” may instead be moderation that an impatient reader cannot bear. The older characterization of the Peripatetics groups delicacy with finesse and subtlety, giving the word an intellectual as well as literary use. None of these passages makes all complexity delicate or all simplicity coarse.

Places to read

1. II, p. 495, entry 2, ¶1Delicacy belongs to the art of saying everything beautifully.
2. II, p. 849, entry 3, ¶1Coarseness misnames delicacy as affected or pinched elegance.
3. I, p. 393, entry 3, ¶1Delicacy is grouped with finesse and subtlety in an attributed philosophical characterization.

Translation in this edition

The English translation retains delicacy and the bodily oddity of pinched elegance. The explanation concerning old age belongs to Voltaire’s intolerance, not Saint Evremond’s. The shortened Amyot reference and the reported quotation remain source references rather than independently authenticated judgments.