[35]
On the other
hand, hiatus is not to be regarded as so very terrible
a crime: in fact I do not know which is the worse
fault in this connexion, carelessness or a pedantic
[p. 527]
solicitude for correctness. For anxiety on this score
is bound to check the flow of our language and to
divert us from more important considerations.
Therefore while it is a sign of carelessness to admit
hiatus here, there and everywhere, it is a symptom
of grovelling timidity to be continually in terror of
it, and there is good reason for the view that all the
followers of Isocrates and more especially Theopompus
pay accessive attention to the avoidance of this
detect.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.