Institutio Oratoria

Space must also be left for jotting down the thoughts which occur to the writer out of due order, that is to say, which refer to subjects other than those in hand. For sometimes the most admirable thoughts break in upon us which cannot be inserted in what we are writing, but which, on the other hand, it is unsafe to put by, since they are at times forgotten, and at times cling to the memory so persistently as to divert us from some other line of thought. They are, therefore, best kept in store.

The next point which we have to consider is the correction of our work, which is by far the most useful portion of our study: for there is good reason for the view that erasure is quite as important a

There can be no doubt that the best method of correction is to put aside what we have written for a certain time, so that when we return to it after an interval it will have the air of novelty and of being another's handiwork; for thus we may prevent ourselves from regarding our writings with all the affection that we lavish on a newborn child.

But this is not always possible, especially in the case of an orator who most frequently has to write for immediate use, while some limit, after all, must be set to correction. For there are some who return to everything they write with the presumption that it is full of faults and, assuming that a first draft must necessarily be incorrect, think every change an improvement and make some alteration as often as they have the manuscript in their hands: they are, in fact, like doctors who use the knife even where the flesh is perfectly healthy. The result of their critical activities is that the finished work is full of scars, bloodless, and all the worse for their anxious care.

No! let there be something in all our writing which, if it does not actually please us, at least passes muster, so that the file may only polish our work, not wear it away. There must

My next task is to indicate what those should write whose aim is to acquire facility. [*](See x. i. 1. Ch. ix.) At this part of my work there is no necessity for me to set forth the subjects which should be selected for writing, or the order in which they should be approached, since I have already done this in the first book, [*](Ch. iv.) where I prescribed the sequence of studies for boys, and in the second book, where I did the same for young men. The point which concerns me now is to show from what sources copiousness and facility may most easily be derived. Our earlier orators thought highly of translation from Greek into Latin.

In the de Oratore [*](i. 155.) of Cicero, Lucius Crassus says that he practised this continually, while Cicero himself advocates it again and again, nay, he actually published translations of Xenophon and Plato, [*]( The ( Economicus of Xenophon, the Proutayorus and Timaeus of Plato. ) which were the result of this form of exercise. Messala likewise gave it his approval, and we have a number of translations of speeches from his hand; he even succeeded in coping with the delicacy of Hyperides' speech in defence of Phryne, a task of exceeding difficulty for a Roman.

The purpose of this form of exercise is obvious. For Greek authors are conspicuous for the variety of their matter, and there is much art in all their eloquence, while, when we translate them, we are at liberty to use the best words available,