It is not every story, every character, every incident, but those only which answer their end.--Painting of artificial things not good; a thing being useful does not therefore make it most pleasing in picture.--Natural manners, good and bad.--Sentiment.
Burke discusses the criteria for effective storytelling in drama, emphasizing the importance of natural manners and sentiment.
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By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
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