To these observations I shall add that masters themselves, when they have but one pupil at a time with them, cannot feel the same degree of energy and spirit in addressing him as when they are excited by a large number of hearers. 30. Eloquence depends in a great degree on the state of the mind, which must conceive images of objects and transform itself, so to speak, to the nature of the things of which we discourse. Besides, the more noble and lofty a mind is, by the more powerful springs, as it were, is it moved. Accordingly, it is both strengthened by praise and enlarged by effort, and filled with joy at achieving something great. 31. But a certain secret disdain is felt at lowering the power of eloquence, acquired by so much labor, to one auditor, and the teacher is ashamed to raise his style above the level of ordinary conversation. Let anyone imagine, indeed, the air of a man haranguing, or the voice of one entreating, the gesture, the pronunciation, the agitation of mind and body, the exertion, and, to mention nothing else, the fatigue, while he has but one auditor. Would not he seem to be affected with something like madness? There would be no eloquence in the world if we were to speak only with one person at a time.