Institutio Oratoria

But nowadays our rhetoricians regard Cicero as lacking both polish and learning; we are far superior, for we look upon everything that is dictated by nature as beneath our notice, and seek not for the true ornaments of speech, but for meretricious finery, as though there were any real virtue in words save in their power to represent facts. And if we have to spend all our life in the laborious effort to discover words which will at once be brilliant, appropriate and lucid, and to arrange them with exact precision, we lose all the fruit of our studies.

And yet we see the majority of modern speakers wasting their time over the discovery of single words and over the elaborate weighing and measurement of such words when once discovered. Even if the special aim of such a practice were always to secure the best words, such an ill-starred form of industry would be much to be deprecated, since it checks tile natural current of our speech and extinguishes the warmth of imagination by the delay and loss of self-confidence which it occasions.

For the orator who cannot

For the man who follows these instructions will find that facts and words appropriate to their expression will present themselves spontaneously. But it must be remembered that a long course of preliminary study is necessary and that the requisite ability must not merely be acquired, but carefully stored for use; for the anxiety devoted to the search for words, to the exercise of the critical faculty and the power of comparison is in its place while we are learning, but not when we are speaking. Otherwise, the orator who has not given sufficient attention to preliminary study will be like a man who, having no fortune, lives from hand to mouth.

If, on the other hand, the powers of speech have been carefully cultivated beforehand, words will yield us ready service, not merely turning up when we search for them, but dwelling in our thoughts and following them as the shadow follows the body.

There are, however, limits even to this form of study; for when our words are good Latin, full of meaning, elegant and aptly arranged, why should we labour further? And yet there are some who are never weary of morbid self-criticism, who throw themselves into an agony of mind almost over separate syllables, and even when they have

While, then, style calls for the utmost attention, we must always bear in mind that nothing should be done for the sake of words only, since words were invented merely to give expression to things: and those words are the most satisfactory which give the best expression to the thoughts of our mind and produce the effect which we desire upon the minds of the judges.

Such words will assuredly be productive of a style that will both give pleasure and awaken admiration; and the admiration will be of a kind far other than that which we bestow on portents, while the pleasure evoked by the charm will have nothing morbid about it, but will be praiseworthy and dignified.