Citations

Even the most beautiful and valuable writings, when their own author is reciting them, become such as to kill with boredom. In this connection a philologist friend of mine has observed that if it is true that Octavia fainted when she heard Virgil read the sixth book of the Aeneid, we may well believe that that happened, not so much because she was reminded of her son Marcellus, as they say, as through boredom on hearing the reading.