“Well, gentlemen of the jury,” says Mr. Point
o’ View, “the last speaker has made many striking
points in praise of the hall, and has adorned it with
his words. I myself am so far from intending to
criticise it that I have in mind to add the points
which he omitted, for the more beautiful you think
it, the more hostile to the speaker's interest it will
be, as I shall show.

 

“First, then, since he has mentioned women,
jewelry and gold, permit me also to make use of the
comparison. I assert that, far from contributing to
the good looks of a beautiful woman, abundant

 

jewelry is actually a detriment. Everyone who
meets her is dazzled by her gold and her expensive
gems, and instead of praising her complexion, her
eyes, her neck, her arm or her finger, he neglects
them and lets his eyes wander ta her sard or her
emerald, her necklace or her bracelet. She might
fairly get angry at being thus slighted for her
ornaments, when observers are too occupied to pay
her compliments and think her looks a side-issue.

 

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.