[51]
For the rest, allegory
is often used by men of little ability and in the
conversation of everyday life. For those hackneyed
phrases of forensic pleading, “to fight hand to hand,”
“to attack the throat,” or “to let blood” are all of
them allegorical, although they do not strike the
attention: for it is novelty and change that please
in oratory, and what is unexpected always gives special
delight. Consequently we have thrown all restraint
to the wind in such matters, and have destroyed the
charm of language by the extravagant efforts which
we have made to attain it.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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