[46]
By “just
what is necessary” I mean not the bare minimum
necessary to convey our meaning; for our brevity
must not be devoid of elegance, without which it
would be merely uncouth: pleasure beguiles the
attention, and that which delights us ever seems less
long, just as a picturesque and easy journey tires us
less for all its length than a difficult short cut through
an arid waste.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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