Dictation, by either urging or delaying the natural pace of composition, leads to crude, random, or inept expression. It is neither writing nor speaking; for it has neither the accuracy of the one nor the impetus of the other. Incidentally it precludes those motor activities which help composing when one is alone.[16] Though solitude is best—night, the closed door, the single light—since you cannot always have it, learn abstraction. X. iii. 3-28, paraphrased. In transition Quintilian observes that meditation (_cogitatio_, X. vi) for speaking without writing can go so far as to fix not only the order of points, which is enough, but even the connection of words. The value to the speaker of practise in writing is to make channels (_formæ_) for such meditation. Since meditation must always leave a margin for improvisation, the plan must be such as may be easily left and resumed. In other words, to give the speaker secure control, the plan must be progressive. Iterating this in the next chapter,[17] Quintilian adds that the other main means to extempore power is concrete realization.[18] Writing gives speaking precision; speaking gives writing ease (X. vii. 29). From this summary of their general relations in education, Quintilian passes to the use of writing in the preparation of a particular speech. “Busy pleaders commonly write the most essential parts and the beginnings [i.e., of paragraphs, so as to be readier to pick up the constructive pattern after weaving in rebuttal impromptu]. The rest of their prepared matter they grasp by meditation: and what arises suddenly they meet extempore.” X. vii. 30. Brief notes to be held in the hand are admissible, but not what is advised by Lænas, to write out the whole speech and then sum it up in outline.[19] X. vii. 32, paraphrased. The secure control that Quintilian seeks to promote, that _firma facilitas_ which is the subject of the whole tenth book, is evidently quite different from mere fluency. With the gift of gab in boys he has long ago expressed his impatience. “Impromptu garrulity, without the meditation that the master intends, almost without hesitation in rising to speak, is really the brag of a mountebank” (II. iv. 15). He not only presupposes, he specifically inculcates, most careful preparation. (8) _Memory_