わたしは雄弁術をたいへん尊重していたし，詩を愛好していた。しかしどちらも，勉学の成果であるょり天賦の才だと思っていた。きわめて強い思考力をもち，自己の思考をよく秩序づけて明断で分かりやすいものにする人ほど，たとえ低地プルターニュ方言しか話せず，修辞学など習っていなくても，自分の主張することをいつもうまく人に納得させることができる。そして着想がいかにも人の意にかない，しかもそれを文飾と優実の限りをつくして表現できる人びとは，詩法など知らなくとも最良の詩人であることに変わりはない。
I esteemed Eloquence highly, and was in raptures
with Poesy; but I thought that both were
gifts of nature rather than fruits of study.
Those in whom the faculty of Reason is predominant,
and who most skilfully dispose their thoughts
with a view to render them clear and intelligible,
are always the best able to persuade others
of the truth of what they lay down, though
they should speak only in the language of
Lower Brittany, and be wholly ignorant of
the rules of Rhetoric; and those whose minds
are stored with the most agreeable fancies,
and who can give expression to them with
the greatest embellishment and harmony, are
still the best poets, though unacquainted
with the Art of Poetry.