The third kind of composition is the mean between the two already mentioned. I call it harmoniously blended for lack of a proper and better name. It has no form peculiar to itself, but is a sort of judicious blend of the two others and a selection from the most effective features of each. This kind, it seems to me, deserves to win the first prize; for it is a sort of mean, and excellence in life and conduct [and the arts] is a mean, according to Aristotle and the other philosophers of his school. As I said before, it is to be viewed not narrowly but broadly. It has many specific varieties. Those who have adopted it have not all had the same aims nor the same methods; some have made more use of this method, others of that; while the same methods have been pursued with less or greater vigour by different writers, who have yet all achieved eminence in the various walks of literature. Now he who towers conspicuous above them all,
Out of whose fulness all rivers, and every sea, have birth,
And all upleaping fountains, is, we must admit, Homer. For whatever passage you like to take in him has had its manifold charms brought to perfection by a union of the severe and the polished forms of arrangement. Of the other writers who have cultivated the same golden mean, all will be found to be far inferior to Homer when measured by his standard, but still men of eminence when regarded in themselves: among lyric poets Stesichorus and Alcaeus, among tragedians Sophocles, among historians Herodotus, among orators Demosthenes, and among philosophers (in my opinion) Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle. It is impossible to find authors who have succeeded better in blending their writings into harmonious wholes. As regards types of composition the foregoing remarks will suffice. I do not think it necessary to quote specimen passages from the authors just mentioned, since they are known to all and need no illustration.
Now if any one thinks that these things are worth much toil and great effort, he is, according to Demosthenes, decidedly in the right. Nay, if he considers the credit which attends success in them and the sweetness of the fruit they yield, he will count the toil a pleasure. I beg pardon of the Epicurean choir who care nothing for these things. The doctrine that “writing,” as Epicurus himself says, “is no trouble to those who do not aim at the ever-varying standard” was meant to forestall the charge of gross laziness and stupidity.