Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

It is important, too, that the figure should

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not depend on ambiguous collocations of words (a trick which is far more foolish than the last); an example of this is to be found in the controversial theme, where a father, accused of a criminal passion for his unmarried daughter, asks her for the name of her ravisher.

Who dishonoured you?

he says. She replies:

My father, do you not know?

[*]( The sense of the words depends on the punctuation, according as we place a full-stop or a comma after My father. )

The facts themselves must be allowed to excite the suspicions of the judge, and we must clear away all other points, leaving nothing save what will suggest the truth. In doing this we shall find emotional appeals, hesitation and words broken by silences most effective. For thus the judge will be led to seek out the secret which he would not perhaps believe if he heard it openly stated, and to believe in that which he thinks he has found out for himself. But however excellent our figures,