Note 34 — INTRODUCTION

The immediately preceding sentence in Quintilian is “venio nunc ad ornatum, in quo sine dubio plus quam in ceteris dicendi partibus sibi indulget orator.” This may be compared with Dionysius’ view that it is the accessory arts (such as the heightening of style) that best reveal the orator’s power: ἐξ ὧν μάλιστα διάδηλος ἡ τοῦ ῥήτορος γίνεται δύναμις (de Thucyd. c. 23). In this attitude there is always some danger (unless, like Dionysius himself, a writer has a saving belief in the virtue of simplicity) of falling into that vice of écrire trop bien, which, according to M. Anatole France, is the worst of all literary vices.