 | Gay Wilson Allen, Harry Hayden Clark - 1962 - 676 pages
...instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art that no common mind is able to disunite them. In narratives where historical veracity...what we cannot credit we shall never imitate — but the highest and purest that humanity can reach, which, exercised in such trials as the various revolutions... | |
 | 1856 - 668 pages
...reader, it cannot be plead in behalf of fiction. Dr. Johnson observes, in a number of the " Rambler" : In narratives where historical veracity has no place,...what we cannot credit, we shall never imitate. But the highest and purest which humanity can reach, which, exercised in such trials as the various revolutions... | |
 | Samuel Johnson - 1968 - 400 pages
...instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art, that no common mind is able to disunite them. In narratives, where historical...what we cannot credit we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can reach, which, exercised in such trials as the various 7. Swift-Pope... | |
 | W. W. Robson, William Wallace Robson - 1984 - 288 pages
...drawn'. He urges the novelist to use the opportunity of fiction to display ideal types of human life. 'In narratives where historical veracity has no place,...what we cannot credit, we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can reach.' 'Vice', he says, 'for vice is necessary to be shown,... | |
 | George Alexander Kennedy, Marshall Brown - 1989 - 532 pages
...its true state, diversified only by accidents that daily happen in the world'; instead he recommends 'the most perfect idea of virtue; of virtue not angelical, nor above probability'. Silencing the name of his nemesis, Johnson clearly would like to stem a tide; indeed, his only extended... | |
 | Joseph F. Bartolomeo - 1994 - 228 pages
...advocacy of exemplary characters, where the double negative hardly indicates a ringing endorsement: "In narratives, where historical veracity has no place,...not be exhibited the most perfect idea of virtue." 139 And however confident Johnson may sound elsewhere in the essay, his remarks on readers of fiction... | |
 | Aileen Douglas - 1995 - 244 pages
...disgust the reader, implicitly defines Fathom by Johnsonian prescripts. In "Rambler 4" Johnson argues: "In narratives where historical veracity has no place,...what we cannot credit we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can reach . . . Vice, for vice is necessary to be shewn, should... | |
 | Lionel Kelly - 1995 - 399 pages
...instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art, that no common mind is able to disunite them. In narratives where historical veracity...idea of virtue; of virtue not angelical, nor above IO probability, for what we cannot credit, we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that... | |
 | Andrew Lynch - 1997 - 198 pages
...a private love of cMvalric stories, publicly stressed their obligation to provide a moral example: In narratives, where historical veracity has no place,...what we cannot credit we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can reach. 31 By these standards, Malory must fail, since for... | |
 | Emma Clery, Robert Miles - 2000 - 322 pages
...instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art, that no common mind is able to disunite them. In narratives, where historical...what we cannot credit we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can reach, which, exercised in such trials as the various revolutions... | |
| |
In narratives, where historical veracity has no place* I cannot discover, why there should not be exhibited the most perfect idea of virtue ; of virtue not angelical, nor above probability, for what we cannot credit we shall never imitate ; but the highest... 
