Therefore it is good for us also, when we are labouring on some subject
which demands a lofty and majestic style, to imagine to ourselves how
Homer might have expressed this or that, or how Plato or Demosthenes
would have clothed it with sublimity, or, in history, Thucydides. For by
our fixing an eye of rivalry on those high examples they will become
like beacons to guide us, and will perhaps lift up our souls to the
fulness of the stature we conceive.
2
And it would be still better should we try to realise this further
thought, How would Homer, had he been here, or how would Demosthenes,
have listened to what I have written, or how would they have been
affected by it? For what higher incentive to exertion could a writer
have than to imagine such judges or such an audience of his works, and
to give an account of his writings with heroes like these to criticise
and look on?
3
Yet more inspiring would be the thought, With what feelings will future
ages through all time read these my works? If this should awaken a fear
in any writer that he will not be intelligible to his contemporaries it
will necessarily follow that the conceptions of his mind will be crude,
maimed, and abortive, and lacking that ripe perfection which alone can
win the applause of ages to come.