That does not offend, impossible though it be that any old woman should have spoken such words, because it does in truth lift the reader up among the bright stars.

It is thus that the sublime may be mingled with the realistic, if the writer has the power.

Thackeray also rises in that way to a high pitch, though not in many instances.

Romance does not often justify to him an absence of truth.

The scene between Lady Castlewood and the Duke of Hamilton is one, when she explains to her child's suitor who Henry Esmond is.