prove this I need only refer to the passage already quoted: “I swear it
by the men,” etc. It is the very brilliancy of the orator’s figure which
blinds us to the fact that it _is_ a figure. For as the fainter lustre
of the stars is put out of sight by the all-encompassing rays of the
sun, so when sublimity sheds its light all round the sophistries of
rhetoric they become invisible.

3
A similar illusion is produced by the painter’s art. When light and
shadow are represented in colour, though they lie on the same surface
side by side, it is the light which meets the eye first, and appears not
only more conspicuous but also much nearer. In the same manner passion
and grandeur of language, lying nearer to our souls by reason both of a
certain natural affinity and of their radiance, always strike our mental
eye before we become conscious of the figure, throwing its artificial
character into the shade and hiding it as it were in a veil.


XVIII

The figures of question and interrogation[1] also possess a specific
quality which tends strongly to stir an audience and give energy to the
speaker’s words. “Or tell me, do you want to run about asking one
another, is there any news? what greater news could you have than that a
man of Macedon is making himself master of Hellas? Is Philip dead? Not
he. However, he is ill. But what is that to you? Even if anything
happens to him you will soon raise up another Philip.”[2] Or this
passage: “Shall we sail against Macedon? And where, asks one, shall we
effect a landing? The war itself will show us where Philip’s weak places
lie.”[2] Now if this had been put baldly it would have lost greatly in