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4. The next point which we have to consider is
the correction of our work, which is by far the most
useful portion of our study: for there is good reason
for the view that erasure is quite as important a
[p. 111]
function of the pen as actual writing. Correction
takes the form of addition, excision and alteration.
But it is a comparatively simple and easy task to
decide what is to be added or excised. On the
other hand, to prune what is turgid, to elevate
what is mean, to repress exuberance, arrange what
is disorderly, introduce rhythm where it is lacking,
and modify it where it is too emphatic, involves a
twofold labour. For we have to condemn what had
previously satisfied us and discover what had escaped
our notice.
[2]
There can be no doubt that the best
method of correction is to put aside what we have
written for a certain time, so that when we return
to it after an interval it will have the air of novelty
and of being another's handiwork; for thus we may
prevent ourselves from regarding our writings with
all the affection that we lavish on a newborn child.
[3]
But this is not always possible, especially in the case
of an orator who most frequently has to write for
immediate use, while some limit, after all, must be
set to correction. For there are some who return
to everything they write with the presumption that
it is full of faults and, assuming that a first draft
must necessarily be incorrect, think every change
an improvement and make some alteration as often
as they have the manuscript in their hands: they
are, in fact, like doctors who use the knife even
where the flesh is perfectly healthy. The result of
their critical activities is that the finished work is
full of scars, bloodless, and all the worse for their
anxious care.
[4]
No! let there be something in all our writing which, if it does not actually please us,
at least passes muster, so that the file may only
polish our work, not wear it away. There must
[p. 113]
also be a limit to the time which we spend on its
revision. For the fact that Cinna1 took nine years
to write his Smyrna, and that Isocrates required
ten years, at the lowest estimate, to complete his
Panegyric does not concern the orator, whose
assistance will be of no use, if it is so long
delayed.
1 C. Helvius Cinna, the friend of Catullus. The Smyrna was a short but exceptionally obscure and learned epic.
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