[8]
For if declamation is not a preparation for the actual
work of the courts, it can only be compared to the
rant of an actor or the raving of a lunatic. For what
is the use of attempting to conciliate a non-existent
judge, or of stating a case which all know to be
false, or of trying to prove a point on which judgment will never be passed? Such waste of effort
is, however, a comparative trifle. But what can be
more ludicrous than to work oneself into a passion
and to attempt to excite the anger or grief of
our hearers, unless we are preparing ourselves by
[p. 277]
such mimic combats for the actual strife and the
pitched battles of the law-courts?
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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