Nothing so reduces the heights as a broken and skittering rhythm of words, such as pyrrhics and trochees and dichoree, which run wholly off into the dancing-step. For all measured-up writing immediately appears clever and small-souled and quite without passion, riding upon the same monotonous surface. §1
And worse than this, that, just as little jingles draw the audience away from the matter and force them upon themselves, so the over-rhythmic style does not surrender to the hearers the passion of the discourse but only that of the rhythm; so that, sometimes foreknowing the cadences they expect, they themselves beat time with the speakers and, anticipating, give the answering step as in a chorus. §2
No less without greatness are passages too closely strung together, chopped into small and short-syllabled bits and as it were fitted together by jutting pegs and hardness. §3