Book 3
7.4
Appropriate style also makes the fact appear credible; for the mind of the hearer is imposed uponOr, draws a wrong conclusion. under the impression that the speaker is speaking the truth, because, in such circumstances, his feelings are the same, so that he thinks (even if it is not the case as the speaker puts it) that things are as he represents them; and the hearer always sympathizes with one who speaks emotionally, even though he really says nothing.
7.5
This is why speakers often confound their hearers by mere noise.
7.6
Character also may be expressed by the proof from signs, because to each class and habit there is an appropriate style. I mean class in reference to age—child, man, or old man; to sex—man or woman; to country—Lacedaemonian or Thessalian. I call habits those moral states which form a man's character in life;
7.7
for not all habits do this. If then anyone uses the language appropriate to each habit, he will represent the character; for the uneducated man will not say the same things in the same way as the educated. But the hearers also are impressed in a certain way by a device employed ad nauseam by writers of speeches:Alluding to Isocrates. Who does not know? Everybody knows; for the hearer agrees, because he is ashamed to appear not to share what is a matter of common knowledge.
7.8
The opportune or inopportune use of these devices applies to all kinds of Rhetoric.Or, to all the special rules given above.
7.9
But whenever one has gone too far, the remedy may be found in the common piece of advice—that he should rebuke himself in advance;The exaggeration should be brought forward first, by way of forestalling the objection, and accompanied by some limiting phrase. Quintilian (Quint. Inst. Orat. 8.3.37) gives as examples: so to say, if I may be allowed to say so. then the excess seems true, since the orator is obviously aware of what he is doing.
