On Portents If strange things happen where she is, So that men say that graves open And the dead walk, or that futurity Becomes a womb and the unbor… - Robert Graves

You mean that people who continue virtuous in an old-fashioned way must inevitably suffer in times like these?

…A story that was the subject of every variety of misrepresentation, not only by those who then lived but likewise in succeeding times: so true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity. TACITUS

There should be two main objects in ordinary prose writing: to convey a message, and to include in it nothing that will distract the reader’s attention or check his habitual pace of reading — he should feel that he is seated at ease in a taxi, not riding a temperamental horse through traffic.