Chapter 18: Questions and Interrogations
And what should we say about these—questions and interrogations? Does not Demosthenes, by using various species of these figures, make what is said more effective and agitated:
Tell me, do you wish to go around asking each other, “Is there any news?” What could be newsier than this, that a man from Macedonia is attacking Greece? “Is Philip dead?” “No, by heaven, but he is sick.” What difference does it make to you? Should he suffer something, you will soon create another Philip.
And further on, he says:
Let’s sail to Macedonia. “Where shall we land?” some one asks. The war itself will find out the weakness in Philip’s affairs.
Mentioned just by itself, the matter is altogether lacking, but the enthusiastic and rapid quality of the question and answer and his confrontation with himself as though he were another person, by means of the figure, not only make what was said more sublime, but also more believable. 2. What is emotional, you see, stirs us more when the speaker does not seem to have rehearsed it, but when it seems to be born at just the right moment, when asking and answering oneself imitate the exact right moment for emotion. You see, almost as those interrogated by others are stimulated by the immediacy of the occasion and confront what is asked with the truth of a legal proceeding, so the figure of question and answer, stirring the audience, deceives it into the opinion that the points speculated on were spoken in the excitement of being on the spot. And, besides, surely this passage from Herodotus is one of the sublime:
If thus…
(a lacuna of 2 leaves [4 pages or about 4%] occurs here)
