Institutio Oratoria

I have known some who thought that they had produced a brilliant imitation of the style of that divine orator, by ending their periods with the phrase esse videatur. [*](cp. ix. iv. 73. Tac. Dial. 23. ) Consequently it is of the first importance that every student should realise what it is that he is to imitate, and should know why it is good.

The next step is for each student to consult his own powers when he shoulders his burden. For there are some things which, though capable of imitation, may be beyond the capacity of any given individual, either because his natural gifts are insufficient or of a different character. The man whose talent is for the plain style should not seek only what is bold and rugged, nor yet should he who has vigour without control suffer himself through love of subtlety at once to waste his natural energy and fail to attain the elegance at which he aims: for there is nothing so unbecoming as delicacy wedded to ruggedness.

True, I did express the opinion that the instructor whose portrait I painted in my second book, [*](Ch. 8.) should not confine himself to teaching those things for which he perceived his individual pupils to have most aptitude. For it is his further duty to foster whatever good qualities he may perceive in his pupils, to make good their deficiencies as far as may be, to correct their faults and turn them to better things. For he is the guide and director of the minds of others. It is a harder task to mould one's own nature.

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