DON QUIXOTE

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reconciling impossibilities, smoothing over difficulties, keeping the
mind on the alert, they may surprise, interest, divert, and entertain, so
that wonder and delight joined may keep pace one with the other; all
which he will fail to effect who shuns verisimilitude and truth to
nature, wherein lies the perfection of writing. I have never yet seen any
book of chivalry that puts together a connected plot complete in all its
numbers, so that the middle agrees with the beginning, and the end with
the beginning and middle; on the contrary, they construct them with such
a multitude of members that it seems as though they meant to produce a
chimera or monster rather than a well-proportioned figure. And besides
all this they are harsh in their style, incredible in their achievements,
licentious in their amours, uncouth in their courtly speeches, prolix in
their battles, silly in their arguments, absurd in their travels, and, in
short, wanting in everything like intelligent art; for which reason they
deserve to be banished from the Christian commonwealth as a worthless
breed."