This story is worth a diversion. Some one in a certain Greek school
speaking loud as I do, the master of the ceremonies sent to him to speak
softly: "Tell him, then, he must send me," replied the other, "the tone
he would have me speak in." To which the other replied, "That he should
take the tone from the ears of him to whom he spake." It was well said,
if it is to be understood: "Speak according to the affair you are
speaking about to your auditor," for if it mean, "'tis sufficient that he
hear you, or govern yourself by him," I do not find it to be reason. The
tone and motion of my voice carries with it a great deal of the
expression and signification of my meaning, and 'tis I who am to govern
it, to make myself understood: there is a voice to instruct, a voice to
flatter, and a voice to reprehend. I will not only that my voice reach
him, but, peradventure, that it strike and pierce him. When I rate my
valet with sharp and bitter language, it would be very pretty for him to
say; "Pray, master, speak lower; I hear you very well":

"Est quaedam vox ad auditum accommodata,
non magnitudine, sed proprietate."

["There is a certain voice accommodated to the hearing, not by its
loudness, but by its propriety."--Quintilian, xi. 3.]

Speaking is half his who speaks, and half his who hears; the latter
ought to prepare himself to receive it, according to its bias; as with
tennis-players, he who receives the ball, shifts and prepares, according
as he sees him move who strikes the stroke, and according to the stroke
itself.

Experience has, moreover, taught me this, that we ruin ourselves by