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Human, All-Too-Human, Part 2

Part 2 — 110.

Paul V. (Paul Victor) Cohn translation

Literary and Colloquial Style.—The art of writing demands, first and foremost, substitutions for the means of expression which speech alone possesses—in other words, for gestures, accent, intonation, and look. Hence literary style is quite different from colloquial style, and far more difficult, because it has to make itself as intelligible as the latter with fewer accessaries. Demosthenes delivered his speeches differently from what we read; he [pg 251] worked them up for reading purposes.—Cicero's speeches ought to be “demosthenised” with the same object, for at present they contain more of the Roman Forum than we can endure.

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