[53]
while we must not take breath
so often as to break up our sentence, nor, on the
other hand, sustain it until it fails us from exhaustion.
For the sound produced by loss of breath is disagreeable; we gasp like a drowning man and fill our lungs
with long drawn inhalations at in appropriate moments,
giving the impression that our action is due not to
choice, but to compulsion. Therefore, in attacking
a period of abnormal length, we should collect our
breath, but quickly, noiselessly and imperceptibly.
On other occasions we shall be able to take breath
at the natural breaks in the substance of our speech.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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