United States or Mongolia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Such stories are found in the traditions written down long after the events narrated, by men who knew nothing of the facts at first hand. Exceptions to this rule occur alone in such startling events as the mysterious calamity that befell Sennacherib; which strongly impressed the imagination of the people and naturally gave rise to exaggerations that we can no longer resolve.
The realists imitate life deliberately, and we measure their worth by their truth, but they select the intense moments. The romancers and weavers of fairy tales, on the other hand, instead of choosing the vivid moments of real life, in order to stimulate the emotions, accomplish the same end by exciting wonder and amazement at the exaggerations and unheard-of novelties which they create.
The forgery once known in Berlin, the rumor of it, with a thousand exaggerations, might easily fly to every Bourse in Europe, and I feared that by 2 o'clock the story might possibly become known on the Frankfort Exchange.
This idea once suggested was easily confirmed by the account of the young lady's behaviour at the opera, which was reported to Lord Oldborough with proper exaggerations, and with a total misrepresentation of Godfrey's conduct. The fainting at the ball was also recollected, and many other little circumstances combined to bring conviction to Lord Oldborough's mind.
The new school of poetry which they formed, and which recognized no other guide than genius, truth and feeling, was perhaps partial in its tendency and indefinite as to its objects; it produced among much that was great and beautiful some morbid extravagances and wild exaggerations; but viewed as a state of transition it was both salutary and promising; it counteracted other much more dangerous and mischievous innovations of the age; it preserved many noble minds from the contagion of cold and heartless theories, and contained within itself the fruitful elements of a still more fortunate period.
Indeed, the latter, although with no aid from the chief actor, obtained an outline of the whole story, from the rescue of his friend to his guidance of the successful expedition, and it was repeated with many variations and exaggerations.
Was this compatible with the extravagant pictures he had drawn of the wealth of the island, and its golden mountains, in which he had pretended to find the Ophir of ancient days, the source of all the riches of Solomon? They inferred that he had either deceived the sovereigns by designing exaggerations, or grossly wronged them by malpractices, or was totally incapable of the duties of government.
There he will find all that gravity of deportment and chivalry of disposition which Cervantes is said to have sneered away; and there he will hear, in everyday conversation, those grandiose expressions, which, when met with in the romances of chivalry, are scoffed at as ridiculous exaggerations. I had one enemy in the village it was the curate.
It is impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European, and even of the Asiatic coast. Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes, to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris. Part II.
Pseudo-culture accordingly talks of "excrescencies," "exaggerations," and the like and sets up a novel system of aesthetics, which professes to rest upon Goethe since he, too, was averse to prodigious monstrosities, and was good enough to invent "artistic calm and beauty" in lieu thereof.