[35]
These
good qualities, which I have mentioned above, do
not indeed cease to be virtues in other portions of the
speech; for it is our duty to avoid obscurity in every
part of our pleading, to preserve due proportion
throughout and to say nothing save what is likely
to win belief. But they require special observance
in that portion of the speech which is the first
from which the judge can learn the nature of the
case: if at this stage of the proceedings he fails to
understand, remember or believe what we say, our
labour is but lost in the remainder of the speech.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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