"When a number of distinct images are collected by these erratick and hasty surveys, the fancy is busied in arranging them; and combines them into pleasing pictures with more resemblance to the realities of life as experience advances, and new observations rectify the former."
— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Author
Work Title
Date
August 27, 1751
Metaphor
"When a number of distinct images are collected by these erratick and hasty surveys, the fancy is busied in arranging them; and combines them into pleasing pictures with more resemblance to the realities of life as experience advances, and new observations rectify the former."
Metaphor in Context
When a number of distinct images are collected by these erratick and hasty surveys, the fancy is busied in arranging them; and combines them into pleasing pictures with more resemblance to the realities of life as experience advances, and new observations rectify the former. While the judgment is yet uninformed and unable to compare the draughts of fiction with their originals, we are delighted with improbable adventures, impracticable virtues, and inimitable characters: But, in proportion as we have more opportunities of acquainting ourselves with living nature, we are sooner disgusted with copies in which there appears no resemblance. We first discard absurdity and impossibility, then exact greater and greater degrees of probability, but at last become cold and insensible to the charms of falshood, however specious, and from the imitations of truth, which are never perfect, transfer our affection to truth itself.
Categories
Provenance
Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson.
Citation
Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, vol. 5 of The Works of Samuel Johnson, eds. W. J. Bate and Albrecht B. Strauss (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1969). <Link to www.yalejohnson.com>
Date of Entry
04/19/2018
