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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: were grounded upon reason, and that a little grain of the romance
is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human
nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that
is sordid, vicious, and low. If there were no other use in the
conversation of ladies, it is sufficient that it would lay a
restraint upon those odious topics of immodesty and indecencies,
into which the rudeness of our northern genius is so apt to fall.
And, therefore, it is observable in those sprightly gentlemen about
the town, who are so very dexterous at entertaining a vizard mask
in the park or the playhouse, that, in the company of ladies of
virtue and honour, they are silent and disconcerted, and out of
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