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‘Pindar once found himself in a similar difficulty with an overabundant theme: Ismenus? Melia’s distaff golden-bright? Cadmus? the race from dragon’s teeth that came? Thebe’s dark circlet? the all-daring might Of Heracles? great Bacchus’ merry fame? White-armed Harmonia’s bridal?—Ay, but which? My Muse, we’re poor in that we are too rich.
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You, I dare say, are in the same quandary. Logic and life, rhetoric and philosophy, popularity and death—ay, but which? The maze is quite easy to escape from, though;
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you have only to take hold of one single clue, no matter which—his oratory, if you will, so that it is taken by itself—, and stick to that one throughout your present discourse. You will have ample material; his oratory is not of the Periclean type. Pericles could lighten and thunder, and he could hit the right nail on the head; so much tradition tells us; but we have nothing to judge for ourselves by, no doubt because, beyond the momentary impression produced, there was in his performances no element of permanence, nothing that could stand the searching test of time. But with Demosthenes’s work—well, that it will be your province to deal with, if your choice goes that way.
