Page:Correspondence of Marcus Cornelius Fronto volume 1 Haines 1919.djvu/107

 verses and proverbs that are applicable, and ingenious fictions, provided that the fiction is helped out by some witty reasoning.

4. One of the chief difficulties, however, is so to marshal our materials that their order may rest on logical connexion. The fault for which Plato blames Lysias in the Phaedrus, that he has mingled his thoughts in such careless confusion that the first could change places with the last and the last with the first without any loss, is one which we can only escape if we arrange our arguments in classes, and so concatenate them, not in a scattered way and indiscriminately piled together like a dish of mixed ingredients, but so that the preceding thought in some sort overlaps the subsequent one and dovetails into it; that the second thought may begin where the first left off; for so we seem to step rather than jump from one to the other.

5. But these do not Variety even with some sacrifice is more welcome in the discourse than a correct continuity  Merry things must be severely said, brave things with a smile  only let that sweetness be untainted and chaste, of Tusculan and Ionian strain, that is in the style of Cato or Herodotus  In every case it is easier to master the method of speaking than to possess the power of performing  to wish (others) well and to pray for their welfare, things which are compassed by voice and mind without aid.

6. Accordingly the more generously disposed a man shews himself, the more persons will he praise, nor those only whom others before him decked with praises; but he will choose out gods and men that 43