“To fear to own the art he practises,”

does not allow me to conceal that I take delight in it; or whether it is your eagerness which has extorted this volume from me; still it was worth while to make a reply to those whom I suspected of being likely to find fault with me.

But if the circumstances which I have mentioned had no existence, still who would be so harsh and uncivilised as not to grant me this indulgence, so that, when my forensic labours and my public exertions were interrupted, I might devote my time to literature rather than to inactivity of which I am incapable, or to melancholy which I resist?  For it was a love of letters which formerly led me into the courts of justice and the senate-house, and which now delights me when I am at home.  Nor am I occupied only with such subjects as are contained in this book, but with much more weighty and important, ones; and if they are brought to perfection, then my private literary labours will correspond to my forensic exertions.  However, at present let us return to the discussion we had commenced.

XLIV.  Our words then must be arranged either so that the last may as correctly as possible be consistent with the first, and also so that our first expressions may be as agreeable as possible; or so that the very form of our sentences and their neatness may be well rounded off; or so that the whole period may end in a musical and suitable manner.  And, in the first place, let us consider what kind of thing that is which above all things requires our diligence, so that a regular structure as it were may be raised, and yet that this may be effected without any labour.  For the labour would be not only infinite, but childish.  As in Lucilius, Scaevola is represented as attacking Albucius very sensibly: 

  “How neatly all your phrases are arranged;
  Like tesselated pavement, or a box
  Inlaid with deftly wrought mosaic.”

The care taken in the construction must not be too visible.  But still a practised pen will easily perfect this manner of arranging its phrases.  For as the eye does in reading, so in speaking, the eye will see beforehand what follows, so that the combination of the last words of a sentence with the first may not leave the whole sentence either gaping or harsh.  For sentiments ever so agreeable or dignified offend the ears if they are set down in ill-arranged sentences; for the judgment of the ears is very fastidious.  And the Latin language is so particular on this point, that no one can be so ignorant as to leave quantities of open vowels.  Though this is a point on which men blame Theopompus, because he was so ostentatious in his avoidance of such letters, although his master Isocrates did the same; but Thucydides did not; nor did that other far superior writer, Plato.  And he did this not only in those conversations which are called Dialogues, when it ought to have been done designedly; but even in that oration[61] addressed to the people, in which it is customary at Athens for those men to be extolled who have been slain in fighting for their country.  And that oration was so greatly approved of that it was, as you know, appointed to be recited every year; and in that there is a constant succession of open vowels, which Demosthenes avoided in a great degree as vicious.