Chapter 23.—How the Various
Styles Should Be Mingled.
52. Now it is a matter of
importance to determine what style should be alternated with what
other, and the places where it is necessary that any particular
style should be used. In the majestic style, for instance, it is
always, or almost always, desirable that the introduction should be
temperate. And the speaker has it in his discretion to use the
subdued style even where the majestic would be allowable, in order
that the majestic when it is used may be the more majestic by
comparison, and may as it were shine out with greater brilliance
from the dark background. Again, whatever may be the style of the
speech or writing, when knotty questions turn up for solution,
accuracy of distinction is required, and this naturally demands the
subdued style. And accordingly this style must be used in
alternation with the other two styles whenever questions of that
sort turn up; just as we must use the temperate style, no matter
what may be the general tone of the discourse, whenever praise or
blame is to be given without any ulterior reference to the
condemnation or acquittal of any one, or to obtaining the
concurrence of any one in a course of action. In the majestic
style, then, and in the quiet likewise, both the other two styles
occasionally find place. The temperate style, on the other hand,
not indeed always, but occasionally, needs the quiet style; for
example, when, as I have said, a knotty question comes up to be
settled, or when some points that are susceptible of ornament are
left unadorned and expressed in the quiet style, in order to give
greater effect to certain exuberances (as they may be called) of
ornament. But the temperate style never needs the aid of the
majestic; for its object is to gratify, never to excite, the
mind.