[3]
I was moved to comply not so much because I
felt confidence that I was equal to the task, as
[p. 7]
because I had a certain compunction about refusing.
The subject proved more extensive than I had first
imagined; but finally I volunteered to shoulder a
task which was on a far larger scale than that which
I was originally asked to undertake. I wished on
the one hand to oblige my very good friends beyond
their requests, and on the other to avoid the beaten
track and the necessity of treading where others
had gone before.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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