Hor. I am glad that speaking low is the fashion among well-bred people in England; for bawling and impetuosity I cannot endure.
Cleo. Yet this latter is more natural; and no man ever gave in to the contrary practice, the fashion you like, that was not taught it either by precept or example: and if men do not accustom themselves to it whilst they are young, it is very difficult to comply with it afterwards: but it is the most lovely, as well as most rational piece of good manners that human invention has to boast of in the art of flattery; for when a man addresses himself to me in a calm manner, without making gestures or other motions with head or body, and continues his discourse in the same submissive strain and composure of voice, without exalting or depressing it, he, in the first place, displays his own modesty and humility in an agreeable manner; and, in the second, makes me a great compliment in the opinion which he seems to have of me; for by such a behaviour he gives me the pleasure to imagine that he thinks me not influenced by my passions, but altogether swayed by my reason: he seems to lay his stress on my judgment, and therefore to desire, that I should weigh and consider what he says without being ruffled or disturbed: no man would do this unless he trusted entirely to my good sense, and the rectitude of my understanding.
Hor. I have always admired this unaffected manner of speaking, though I never examined so deeply into the meaning of it.
Cleo. I cannot help thinking, but that, next to the laconic and manly spirit that runs through the nation, we are very much beholden for the strength and beauty of our language to this tranquillity in discourse, which for many years has been in England, more than any where else, a custom peculiar to the beau monde, who, in all countries, are the undoubted refiners of language.
Hor. I thought that it was the preachers, play-wrights, orators, and fine writers that refined upon language.
Cleo. They make the best of what is ready coined to their hands; but the true and only mint of words and phrases is the court; and the polite part of every nation are in possession of the jus et norma loquendi. All technic words indeed, and terms of art, belong to the respective artists and dealers, that primarily and literally make use of them in their business; but whatever is borrowed from them for metaphorical use, or from other languages, living or dead, must first have the stamp of the court, and the approbation of beau monde before it can pass for current; and whatever is not used among them, or comes abroad without their sanction, is either vulgar, pedantic, or obsolete. Orators therefore, historians, and all wholesale dealers in words, are confined to those that have been already well received, and from that treasure they may pick and choose what is most for their purpose; but they are not allowed to make new ones of their own, any more than bankers are suffered to coin.
Hor. All this while I cannot comprehend what advantage or disadvantage speaking loud or low can be of to the language itself; and if what I am saying now was set down, it must be a real conjurer that, half a year hence, should be able to tell by the writing, whether it had been bawled out or whispered.
Cleo. I am of opinion that when people of skill and address accustom themselves to speak in the manner aforesaid, it must in time have an influence upon the language, and render it strong and expressive.
Hor. But your reason?
Cleo. When a man has only his words to trust to, and the hearer is not to be affected by the delivery of them, otherwise than if he was to read them himself, it will infallibly put men upon studying not only for nervous thoughts and perspicuity, but likewise for words of great energy, for purity of diction, compactness of style, and fullness, as well as elegancy of expressions.