16
The same thing is bound to happen, I think, to a man who tries to show his eloquence among works of art like these. Amid the mass of beautiful things, what he says goes unheeded, vanishes and is absorbed, as if a candle were taken toa great fire and thrown in, or’ an ant pointed out on the back of an elephant or a camel. This danger, certainly, the speaker must guard against, and also that his voice be not disturbed when he speaks in a hall so musical and echoing, for it resounds, replies, refutes—in fact, it drowns his utterance, just as the trumpet drowns the flute when they are played together, and as the sea drowns chanty-men when they undertake to sing for the rowers against the noise of the surf. For the great volume of sound overpowers and crushes into silence all that is weaker.
