[21]
In
his letters to intimate friends, it is true, and occasionally in his dialogues, he tells the truth of his own
eloquence, though in the latter case he is careful
always to place the remarks in question in the
mouth of some other character. And yet I am not
sure that open boasting is not more tolerable, owing
to its sheer straightforwardness, than that perverted
form of self-praise, which makes the millionaire say
that he is not a poor man, the man of mark describe
himself as obscure, the powerful pose as weak,
and the eloquent as unskilled and even inarticulate.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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