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And the author of the Imitation puts the same thing admirably when he says: "Obscurior etiam via ad coelum videbatur quando tam pauci regnum coelorum quaerere curabant,"+ the fewer there are who follow the way to perfection, the harder that way is to find.

Even Quintilian remarks that things which are said by a highly educated man are often easier to understand and much clearer; and that the less educated a man is, the more obscurely he will write plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo que a doctissimo quoque dicuntur.... Erit ergo etiam obscurior quo quisque deterior.

Proprium humani ingenii est, odisse quem laeseris: Domitiani vero natura praeceps in iram, et quo obscurior, eo irrevocabilior, moderatione tamen prudentiaque Agricolae leniebatur: quia non contumacia neque inani jactatione libertatis famam fatumque provocabat.

Quintilian has already said, plerumque accidit ut faciliora sint ad intelligendum et lucidiora multo, quae a doctissimo quoque dicuntur.... Erit ergo etiam obscurior, quo quisque deterior. A man's way of expressing himself should not be enigmatical, but he should know whether he has something to say or whether he has not. It is an uncertainty of expression which makes German writers so dull.

N.D. 1, 60 auctore ... obscurior. CUR ... VITA: a hint at suicide, which the ancients thought a justifiable mode of escape from troubles, particularly those of ill health or old age. See n. on 73 vetat Pythagoras. Esse in vita is stronger than vivere; cf. Qu. Fr. 1, 3, 5. NIHIL HABEO QUOD ACCUSEM: 'I have no reason to reproach'. Cf. the common phrase quid est quod ...? Quod, adverbial acc.