...argues in the novel's preface, are too distant from the actions of common life, therefore she proposes that 'the life of a man more ordinarily good, whose...or piety, as more within the reach of imitation'. Although it is hard to see this ordinary man in Ellison, he starts adult life at the lower end of gentility....

...novel's eponymous paragon as an alternative to the "great men" of whom we normally read. Instead we have "the life of a man more ordinarily good, whose station...opportunities of acting are on a level with a great part of mankind."22 Sir George's actions are "within the extent of every gentleman's power." Clearly, however,...