1Everyone has his own reason for giving readings; 1mine, as I have often said already, is that if anything has escaped me — as certainly it has — I may be told of it. 2So I am all the more surprised that you write that there were some who criticised me for reading speeches at all; 2unless, indeed, they think that these alone need no correcting. 3I should gladly ask them why they allow — if indeed they do allow it — that history ought to be read aloud, which is composed not for display but for faithfulness and truth; 3why tragedy, which demands not a lecture hall but a stage and actors; 3why lyric poetry, which demands not a reader but a chorus and a lyre.
3But the reading of these is already accepted by custom. 4Is the man who began it, then, to be blamed? 4Although some of our own people, and Greeks too, used to read out speeches as well. 5Still, it is pointless to read out what you have already delivered. 5Yes, if you read all the same things, to all the same people, and straight away; 5but if you insert much and change much, if you bring in some new listeners and some of the same ones but after an interval, why should the reason for reading what you have delivered be less acceptable than that for publishing it? 6But it is difficult for a speech to give satisfaction while it is being read aloud.
6That now concerns the effort of the reader, not a reason for not reading. 7Nor indeed do I want to be praised while I am reading aloud, but when I am read. 7So I omit no kind of correction. 7First I go over what I have written by myself; 7then I read it to two or three people; 7next I hand it to others to annotate, and their notes, if I am in doubt, I weigh once more with one or two others; 7last of all I read it to a larger number, and, believe me, it is then that I correct most keenly; 8for I attend the more carefully the more anxiously I concentrate.
8Respect, modesty and fear are the best judges, and you may take it to be so: if you are about to speak with someone, however learned, but only one, are you not less disturbed than if you were speaking with many, even unlearned? 9When you rise to plead, is it not then above all that you distrust yourself, then that you wish, I will not say most things, but everything changed? 9especially if the stage is wider and the ring of listeners more extensive; 9for we stand in awe even of those shabby people in dark clothes. 10If you think that your opening words are disapproved of, are you not unnerved and do you not collapse?
10I suppose it is because in mere numbers there is a kind of great collective wisdom, and those who individually have little judgement have a great deal all together. 11So Pomponius Secundus — the well-known writer of tragedies — if ever a rather intimate friend thought something should be cut which he himself thought should be kept, used to say: 'I appeal to the people', and so, according to the people's silence or applause, he followed either his own opinion or his friend's. 12So much did he grant to the people; 12whether rightly or not is no concern of mine. 12For I am accustomed to invite not the people but particular, chosen persons, whom I can watch and whom I can trust, whom, in short, I can both observe as individuals and fear as though they were not individuals.
13For what Marcus Cicero thought about the pen, I think about fear: fear is, fear is the harshest corrector. 13The very thought that we are going to read corrects; 13entering the hall corrects; 13turning pale, shuddering, looking around corrects. 14So I do not regret my custom, which I find most useful, and I am so far from being deterred by those people's gossip that I even ask you to point out something I might add to these practices. 15For nothing is enough for my care. 15I reflect how great a thing it is to give something into men's hands, and I cannot persuade myself that what you wish to please always and everyone should not be gone over with many people and often.
15Farewell.