[14]
In
fact, if we break up and disarrange any sentence
that may have struck us as vigorous, charming or
elegant, we shall find that all its force, attraction
and grace have disappeared. Cicero in his Orator
breaks up some of his own utterances in this way:
βNeque me divitiae movent, quibus omnes Africanos et
Laelios multi venalicii mercatoresque superarunt. Change
the order but a little so that it will run multi superarunt mercatores venaliciique,β1 and so on. Disarrange
these periods in such a manner, and you will find
that the shafts you have hurled are broken or wide
of the mark.
1 Or. 70, 232. βNor do riches move me, in which many a merchant and slave-dealer has surpassed all such great men as Africanus and Laelius.β
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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