a truly good man when he has
anything to say, and that another sort will be used by a man of an
opposite character and education.

And which are these two sorts? he asked.

Suppose, I answered, that a just and good man in the course of a
narration comes on some saying or action of another good man,--I should
imagine that he will like to personate him, and will not be ashamed of
this sort of imitation: he will be most ready to play the part of the
good man when he is acting firmly and wisely; in a less degree when
he is overtaken by illness or love or drink, or has met with any other
disaster. But when he comes to a character which is unworthy of him, he
will not make a study of that; he will disdain such a person, and will
assume his likeness, if at all, for a moment only when he is performing
some good action; at other times he will be ashamed to play a part which
he has never practised, nor will he like to fashion and frame himself
after the baser models; he feels the employment of such an art, unless
in jest, to be beneath him, and his mind revolts at it.

So I should expect, he replied.

Then he will adopt a mode of narration such as we have illustrated
out of Homer, that is to say, his style will be both imitative and
narrative; but there will be very little of the former, and a great deal
of the latter. Do you agree?

Certainly, he said; that is the model which such a speaker must
necessarily take.

But there is another sort of character who will narrate anything, and,
the worse he is, the more unscrupulous he will be; nothing will be too
bad for him: and he will be ready to imitate anything, not as a joke,
but in right good earnest, and before a large company. As I was just now
saying, he will attempt to represent the roll of thunder, the noise of
wind and hail, or the creaking of wheels, and pulleys, and the various
sounds of flutes, pipes, trumpets, and all sorts of instruments: he will
bark like a dog, bleat like a sheep, or crow like a cock; his entire art
will consist in imitation of voice and gesture, and there will be very
little narration.

That, he said, will be his mode of speaking.

These, then, are the two kinds of style?

Yes.

And you would agree with me in saying that one of them is simple and has
but slight changes; and if the harmony and rhythm are also chosen
for their simplicity, the result is that the speaker, if he speaks
correctly, is always pretty much the same in style, and h