It is plain that delivery has just as much to do with oratory as with poetry. Still, the whole business of rhetoric being concerned with appearances, we must pay attention to the subject of delivery, unworthy though it is, because we cannot do without it. Still, as has been already said, other things affect the result considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers. Not, however, so much importance as people think. All such arts are fanciful and meant to charm the hearer.
Nobody uses fine language when teaching geometry.
When the principles of delivery have been worked out, they will produce the same effect as on the stage. Dramatic ability is a natural gift, and can hardly be systematically taught. Thus the arts of recitation and acting were formed, and others as well. Now it was because poets seemed to win fame through their fine language when their thoughts were simple enough, that the language of oratorical prose at first took a poetical colour, e.g. that of Gorgias. Even now most uneducated people think that poetical language makes the finest discourses.