[17]
The failure of the orators of the Asiatic
and other decadent schools did not lie in their
inability to grasp or arrange the facts on which
they had to speak, nor, on the other hand, were
those who professed what we call the dry style of
oratory either fools or incapable of understanding
the cases in which they were engaged. No, the
fault of the former was that they lacked taste and
restraint in speaking, while the latter lacked power,
whence it is clear that it is here that the real faults
and virtues of oratory are to be found.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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