[31]
History, also, may provide the orator with a nutriment which we may compare to some rich and
pleasant juice. But when we read it, we must
[p. 21]
remember that many of the excellences of the historian
require to be shunned by the orator. For history
has a certain affinity to poetry and may be regarded
as a kind of prose poem, while it is written for the
purpose of narrative, not of proof, and designed from
beginning to end not for immediate effect or the
instant necessities of forensic strife, but to record
events for the benefit of posterity and to win glory
for its author. Consequently, to avoid monotony of
narrative, it employs unusual words and indulges in
a freer use of figures.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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