16

Eloquence is an art of saying things in such a way--(1) that those to
whom we speak may listen to them without pain and with pleasure; (2)
that they feel themselves interested, so that self-love leads them more
willingly to reflection upon it.

It consists, then, in a correspondence which we seek to establish
between the head and the heart of those to whom we speak on the one
hand, and, on the other, between the thoughts and the expressions which
we employ. This assumes that we have studied well the heart of man so as
to know all its powers, and then to find the just proportions of the
discourse which we wish to adapt to them. We must put ourselves in the
place of those who are to hear us, and make trial on our own heart of
the turn which we give to our discourse in order to see whether one is
made for the other, and whether we can assure ourselves that the hearer
will be, as it were, forced to surrender. We ought to restrict
ourselves, so far as possible, to the simple and natural, and not to
magnify that which is little, or belittle that which is great. It is not
enough that a thing be beautiful; it must be suitable to the subject,
and there must be in it nothing of excess or defect.


17

Rivers are roads which move,[8] and which carry us whither we desire to
go.