[60]
And yet we
show no reluctance in indulging this vicious practice.
For no one thinks his own singing hideous, and it
involves less trouble than genuine pleading. There
are, moreover, some persons who, in thorough conformity with their other vices, are possessed with a
perpetual passion for hearing something that will
soothe their ears. But, it may be urged, does not
[p. 277]
Cicero1 himself say that there is a suggestion of
singing in the utterance of an orator? And is not
this the outcome of a natural impulse? I shall
shortly proceed to show to what extent such musical
modulations are permissible: but if we are to call
it singing, it must be no more than a suggestion
of singing, a fact which too many refuse to
realise.
1 Or. xviii. 57.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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