[18]
This does not, however, mean that we should
devote ourselves to the study of words alone. For
I am compelled to offer the most prompt and determined resistance to those who would at the very
portals of this enquiry lay hold of the admissions
I have just made and, disregarding the subject
matter which, after all, is the backbone of any
speech, devote themselves to the futile and crippling
study of words in a vain desire to acquire the gift of
elegance, a gift which I myself regard as the fairest
of all the glories of oratory, but only when it is
natural and unaffected.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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