A quotation

“It seems to us that the author, despite his attempts at verisimilitude, has himself most clumsily destroyed every semblance of truth by setting the events he is describing in the present day. In fact, several characters he puts on his stage have such vicious habits that it is impossible to imagine they can have lived in our age, in this age of philosophy, in which the light of reason has spread everywhere and made us all, as we know, into honourable men, and modest and retiring women.” –from the Publisher’s Note to Dangerous Liaisons