"502 B" When philosophy undertakes to cure garrulity it has a difficult and intractable case in hand. The remedy is reason, which requires that the patient should listen. But the garrulous person "C" does not listen, for he is always talking. Herein lies the first trouble with an inability to keep silent; it means an inability to listen. It is the deliberate deafness of a person who appears to find fault with nature for giving him two ears and only one tongue. Euripides is, of course, right when he says of the unintelligent hearer:

But there is more reason to say of the babbler:

—or rather poured over them, since he talks though you do "D" not listen, and refuses to listen when you talk. For even if, thanks to some ebb in his loquacity, he does listen for a moment, he immediately makes up for it several times over.

There is a colonnade at Olympia which reverberates a single utterance time after time, and is therefore known as the ‘Seven-Voiced’. Say but the least thing to set garrulity sounding, and it immediately dins you with its echoes:

The passage through the babbler’s ears leads, apparently, not to his mind, but to his tongue. Consequently, while others "E" retain what is said, the loquacious person lets it all leak away, and goes about like a vessel full of noise but void of sense. Nevertheless, if we are resolved to leave no stone unturned, let us say to the babbler:

and, first and foremost, the two virtues of hearing and being heard. The garrulous person can get the benefit of neither, and makes a miserable failure of the very thing he is aiming at.

In other mental maladies—love of money, love of glory, love of pleasure—there is at least a chance of gaining the object pursued. But with the babbler that result can hardly happen. "F" What he desires is listeners, and listeners he cannot get, for they all run headlong away. If, when they are sitting in a lounge or taking a walk together, they catch sight of him approaching, they promptly pass each other the word to shift camp.

When a silence occurs at some meeting, it is said that Hermes has appeared upon the scene. Similarly, when a chatterer comes in to a wine-party or a social circle, everybody grows mum, for "503" fear of giving him an opportunity. And if he begins of his own accord to open his lips, then

the prospect of being tossed and seasick is so distressing that up they get and out they go.

For the same reason he finds no welcome from neighbours at a dinner or from messmates on a journey or a voyage. They merely tolerate him because they must. For he sticks to you anywhere and everywhere, seizing you by the clothes or the beard, and slapping you in the ribs.

as Archilochus would say—and not only Archilochus, but that wise man Aristotle. When the latter was himself once worried "B" by a chatterer, who bored him with a number of silly stories and kept repeating, ‘Isn’t it wonderful, Aristotle?’ he retorted, ‘The wonder is not at that, but at any one tolerating you, when he owns a pair of legs.’ To another person of the kind, who, after a great deal of talk, remarked, ‘Master, I have wearied you with my chatter,’ he replied, ‘Not at all; I was not listening.’ Precisely so. If a chatterer insists on talking, the mind surrenders the ears to him and lets the stream pour over them on the outside, while inwardly it goes its own way, opening "C" and reading to itself a book of quite different thoughts. It follows that he can get no hearer either to attend to him or to believe him. A babbler’s talk is as barren of effect as the seed of a person over-prone to sexualities is said to be.

And yet there is no part of us which Nature has fenced with so excellent a barricade as the tongue. In front of that organ it has planted a guard in the shape of the teeth, so that, if it will not obey orders and pull itself together inside when reason tightens the ‘silence-working reins‘,^[43] we may check its rashness by biting it till it bleeds. The phrase of Euripides is that ‘disaster is the end’ not of an ‘unchained’ treasury or storeroom, but of an ‘unchained mouth‘. To recognize that a storeroom without a door, or a purse without a fastening, is of no use to the owner, and yet to possess a mouth without lock or door, but with as perpetual an outflow as the mouth of the "D" Black Sea, is to set the lowest possible value on speech.

The result is that such a person meets with no belief, though all speech has that object, its final cause being to create precisely such credence in the hearer. A chatterer is disbelieved even when he tells the truth. For as wheat, when shut in a bin, is found to increase in bulk but to deteriorate in quality, so, when a story finds its way into a chatterer, it generates a large addition of falsehood and its credibility is thereby corrupted.

Again, any self-respecting and well-behaved person will beware of drunkenness. For while—as some put it—anger lives next door to madness, drunkenness lives in the same house. "E" Or rather it is madness, of shorter duration, it is true, but more culpable, as being in a measure voluntary. But the charge most seriously urged against drunkenness is its intemperate and irresponsible language:

Yet if this were the worst—singing, laughing, and dancing—there would be, so far, nothing very terrible.

"F" that is where the mischief and danger begin.

We may, indeed, believe that these lines of the poet give the solution of the question discussed in the philosophic schools as to the distinction between mellowness and intoxication: mellowness produces unbending, but drunkenness foolish twaddling. As the proverb-makers put it, ‘What is in the sober man’s heart is on the drunken man’s tongue.’ Hence when Bias once kept silent at a carousal, and a chatterer taunted him with stupidity, he retorted: ‘And, pray, who could keep silent over his wine, if he were a fool?’ A certain person at Athens was "504" once entertaining envoys from a king, and, as they were eager for him to get together the philosophic teachers, he made every effort to gratify them. While the rest took part in general discussion, to which each contributed his quota, Zeno said nothing. At this the visitors, pledging him in friendly and courteous terms, asked him, ‘And what are we to say to the king about you, Zeno?’ ‘Merely,’ replied he, ‘that there is one old man at Athens who is capable of holding his tongue "*" when drinking.’

Silence, then, goes with depth, the capacity to keep a secret, "B" and sobriety. Drunkenness, on the other hand, will be talking, for it means folly and witlessness, and therefore loquacity. In fact, the philosophic definition of intoxication calls it ‘silly talk in one’s cups‘. The blame, therefore, is not for drinking, if one can drink and yet at the same time hold his tongue. It is the foolish talk that converts mellowness into drunkenness.

Well, while the drunken man talks nonsense at his wine, the babbler talks it everywhere—in the market-place, in the theatre, when walking, when tipsy, by day and by night. As your doctor, he is a greater infliction than the disease; as your shipmate, more disagreeable than the sea-sickness; his praises are more annoying than another person’s blame. A tactful rogue is more pleasant company than an honest chatterer. In Sophocles, when "C" Ajax is beginning to use rough language, Nestor, in endeavouring to soothe him, says politely:

But those are not our feelings towards the twaddler. On the contrary, the tactlessness of his talk spoils and nullifies anything acceptable in what he may do.

Lysias once gave a litigant a speech which he had composed for him. After reading it several times the man came back. In a despondent tone he told Lysias that, when he first went through the speech, it appeared wonderfully good, but on taking it up a second and third time, he found it extremely weak and ineffective. ‘Well,’ said Lysias laughing, ‘isn’t it only once "D" that you have to speak it before the jury?’ And consider how persuasive and charming Lysias is! For he is another who

Of all things that are said about the great bard the truest is this—that Homer alone manages never to cloy the appetite, since he is always new, and his charm always at its height. Nevertheless, exclaiming on his own account in the words of Odysseus: "*"

he is continually avoiding that tendency to surfeit which threatens talk of every kind, carrying his hearers from one story to another, and relieving their satiety by his constant freshness.

Our babblers, on the contrary, bore us to death with their repetitions, as if our ears were palimpsests for them to scrawl rubbish upon.

Let this, then, be the first thing of which we remind them. "E" It is with talking as it is with wine. The purpose of wine is to create pleasure and friendly feeling; but to insist upon our drinking it in great quantities and without qualifying it, is to lead us into offensive and wanton behaviour. So, while talk plays the most pleasant and human part in our intercourse, those who make a wrong and rash use of it render it inhuman and insufferable. The means by which they imagine they are ingratiating themselves and gaining admiration and friendship, only makes them a nuisance and wins them ridicule and dislike.

How destitute of charm would be a person who alienated his company and drove them away with the very ‘girdle of charm’! And how destitute of culture and tact is the man "F" who arouses annoyance and hostility by means of speech!

Other infirmities and disorders may be dangerous or detestable or ridiculous. Garrulity is all three at once. It is derided for relating what everybody knows; it is hated for bearing bad news; it is endangered through blabbing secrets. This is the "505" reason why, when Anacharsis went to sleep after being entertained at dinner at Solon’s house, he was seen to be holding his right hand over his mouth. He believed—quite rightly—that the tongue requires a firmer control than any other member. It would be difficult, for instance, to count up as many persons who have been ruined by sensuality, as cities and dominions which have been brought to destruction by the divulgence of a secret. When Sulla was besieging Athens, he could not afford to spend much time upon it,

Mithridates having seized upon Asia, and the Marian party "B" being again masters of Rome. It happened, however, that a number of old men were talking at a barber’s, to the effect that no watch was kept upon the Heptachalcon and that the town was in danger of capture at that point. They were overheard by spies, who gave information to Sulla; and he promptly brought up his forces at midnight, led in his army, and almost razed the city to the ground, filling it with carnage till the Cerameicus flowed with blood. His anger with the Athenians was, however, due more to their words than to their deeds. They would leap on to the walls, and abuse him and Metella, and by jeering at him with "C"

and a number of similar scurrilities, they brought upon themselves—to use a phrase of Plato—‘a very heavy penalty’ for that ‘very light’ thing, their words.

It was, again, the talkativeness of one man that prevented Rome from obtaining its freedom by the removal of Nero. All preparations had been made, and only a single night was left before the despot was to perish. It happened, however, that the man who was to perform the assassination, when on his way to the theatre, saw a prisoner at the palace doors on the point of being brought before Nero. As he was bewailing his fate, our friend came up close and whispered to him, ‘My good "D" man, only pray that to-day may pass, and to-morrow you will be offering me thanks.’ The prisoner grasped the meaning of the hint, and reflecting, I suppose, that

chose the surer rather than the more righteous way of saving himself. That is to say, he informed Nero of the expression used. The man was thereupon promptly seized, and underwent rack, fire, and lash while denying, in the face of constraint, what he had betrayed without any constraint.

The philosopher Zeno, for fear that bodily suffering might force him to reveal some secret in spite of himself, bit through his tongue and spat it out at the despot. Leaena, again, has been gloriously rewarded for her self-command. She was the "E" mistress of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and she shared in their plot against the despots—to the best of her hopes, which was all a woman could do. For she also was inspired with the bacchic frenzy of that glorious ‘bowl of love‘, and the God had caused her also to be initiated into the secret. Well, after they had failed and met their death, she was put to the question and ordered to inform against those who still escaped detection. She refused, and the firmness with which she bore her sufferings "F" proved that, in the love of those heroes for such a woman, there was nothing unworthy of themselves. The Athenians therefore had a bronze lioness made without a tongue, and set it up in the gates of the Acropolis, that courageous animal representing her indomitable firmness, and the absence of a tongue her power of silence in keeping a solemn secret.

No uttered word has ever done such service as many which have been unuttered. You may some day utter what you have kept silent, but you cannot unsay what has been said; it has been poured out, and has run abroad. Hence, I take it, we have mankind to teach us how to speak, but gods to teach us how to keep silent, our lesson in that art being received at initiatory "506" rites and mysteries. Odysseus, who possessed most eloquence, the poet has made most reticent; he has done the same with his son, his wife, and his nurse. You hear how she says:

In the case of Odysseus himself, as he sat beside Penelope,

"B" So full of self-command was his body in every part, under such perfect discipline and control did reason hold it, that it forbade the eyes to shed a tear, the tongue to utter a sound, the heart to tremble or cry out with rage;

inasmuch as reason had extended even to his irrational movements and made his very breath and blood amenable to its authority. Most of his comrades also were of the same character. Self-command and loyalty could no further go than in their case. Though harried and dashed upon the ground by the Cyclops, they would not denounce Odysseus to him. They would not betray the plot against his eye and the implement which had "C" been sharpened in the fire for that purpose; but they chose to be eaten raw rather than tell a word of the secret.

Pittacus, therefore, was not far out, when, upon the King of Egypt sending him a sacrificial victim and bidding him pick out the ‘fairest and foulest’ part of the meat, he took out and sent him the tongue, as being the instrument of both the greatest good and the greatest evil.

Euripides’ Ino, making bold to speak for herself, says that she knows how to be

Those, indeed, who are blessed with a noble and a truly royal education, know first how to be silent and then how to talk. The famous king Antigonus, when his son asked him at what "D" hour they were to break camp, replied, ‘What are you afraid of? That you may be the only one to miss hearing the trumpet?’ Was it that he did not trust with a secret the man to whom he intended to bequeath his throne? Rather he meant to teach him self-mastery and caution in dealing with such matters. The aged Metellus, on being asked a similar question during a campaign, answered, ‘If I thought my shirt knew that secret, I would take it off and put it on the fire.’ When Eumenes heard that Craterus was advancing, he told the fact to none of his friends, but pretended that it was Neoptolemus, whom his "E" soldiers despised, whereas they entertained a great respect for the reputation of Craterus and a high esteem of his ability. As, however, no one else found out the truth, they joined battle, won the victory, killed Craterus without knowing him, and only discovered who he was from his corpse. So good a general was the silence of Eumenes in the battle, and so formidable the opponent whose presence it disguised, that his friends admired instead of blaming him for not forewarning them. Even if some one does find fault, it is better to be accused when mistrust has saved you than to be the accuser when trust proves your undoing.

What excuse can one possibly find for himself when blaming another for not holding his tongue? If the matter ought not to "F" have been known, it was wrong to tell it to any one else. If you let the secret slip from yourself, and yet ask another person to keep it, you take refuge in the loyalty of some one else while abandoning loyalty to yourself. And if he turns out as bad as you, you are deservedly undone; if better, you are saved by a miracle, through finding another person more faithful to you than yourself. ‘But So-and-So is my friend.’ So is a second person his friend, whom he again will trust as I trust him. So with that person and a third, and thus the talk will go on "507" increasing and extending in link after link of weak betrayal. The Unit never goes beyond its own limit, but is, once and for all, ‘oneness’—whence its name. But the number ‘two’ is the indefinite beginning of difference, for by the duplication it at once shifts in the direction of multitude. In the same way, so long as a piece of information is confined to the first possessor, it is really and truly a ‘secret’. But if it passes by him to a second, it must be classed as a ‘report’. ‘Winged words,’ says the poet. If you let go from your hand a thing with wings, it is not easy to get it back into your grasp; and if you let an observation slip from your lips, it is impossible to seize and secure it, but away it flies

and circulates in all directions from one set of people to another.

When a ship is caught by a wind, they put a check upon it "B" and deaden its speed with cables and anchors; but let a speech run—so to speak—out of port, and it finds no place to cast and ride at anchor. It is carried away with a roar, till he who has uttered it is dashed and sunk upon some great and terrible danger.

The Roman Senate had been engaged for a number of days "C" in debating a secret matter of policy. As it gave rise to much mystification and conjecture, a woman—otherwise irreproachable, but still a woman—kept pestering her husband and imploring him to tell her the secret. On her oath, she would be silent: if not, might a curse fall upon her. She wept and wailed because she was ‘not trusted’. From a desire to bring home her folly by a proof, the Roman said, ‘Have your way, wife. But the news is terribly ominous. We have been informed by the priests that a lark has been seen flying about with a gold helmet and a spear. We are therefore discussing the portent, and are inquiring, with the help of the augurs, whether it is good or bad. But mind you tell nobody.’ With these words he went off to the Forum. The wife at once seized hold of "D" the first maid-servant to enter the room, and, beating her own breast and tearing her hair, exclaimed, ‘O my poor husband and country! What will become of us?‘, her wish being to give the maid the opportunity of asking ‘Why, what has happened?’ At any rate she took the question as put, and told the tale, adding the invariable refrain of every babbler, ‘Tell no one about it, but hold your tongue.’ The girl no sooner left her than she looked for the fellow-servant who had least to do, and "E" imparted it to her. She in turn told it to her lover, who was paying her a visit. The story went rolling on so rapidly that it reached the Forum before the man who had invented it, and he was met by an acquaintance, who said, ‘Have you just come down from home?’ ‘This minute,’ he replied. ‘Then you haven’t heard anything?’ ‘No. Why? Is there any news?’ ‘A lark has been seen flying about with a gold helmet and a spear, and the magistrates are about to hold a Senate meeting on the matter.’ At this the man exclaimed with a laugh, ‘O wife, wife! What a speed! To think the story has got to the Forum ahead of me!’ First he interviewed the magistrates and relieved their anxiety; then, on going home, "F" he proceeded to punish his wife by saying, ‘Wife, you have been the ruin of me. The secret is public property, and the fault has been traced to my house. And so I am to be exiled, all because of your loose tongue.’ Upon her attempting to deny it by arguing ‘But there were three hundred who heard it as well as you’, he retorted ‘Pooh for your three hundred! I invented it to try you, all because of your persistence’.

In this case the man took safe precautions in putting his wife "508" to the test, by pouring into the leaky vessel not wine or oil, but water. It was otherwise with Fulvius, the close friend of Augustus. The emperor in his old age was lamenting to him over his desolate home and grieving because, two of his daughter’s children being dead, and Postumius, the only one left, being in exile on some calumnious charge, he was being driven to adopt his wife’s son as his successor, although he felt compassion "B" for his grandson and was considering the question of recalling him from abroad. Fulvius divulged what he had heard to his wife, and she to Livia; whereupon Livia took Caesar bitterly to task, asking why, if he had been so long of this mind, he did not send for his grandson, instead of putting her in a position of enmity and strife with the successor to the throne. Accordingly, when Fulvius came to him—as he regularly did—in the morning and said ‘Good morning, Caesar’, he replied ‘Good-bye, Fulvius’. Fulvius took the hint, went away home at once, sent for his wife, and said, ‘Caesar knows that I have betrayed his secret, and I propose therefore to put myself to death.’ ‘Rightly too,’ answered his wife, ‘seeing that, after living with "C" me so long, you failed to discover the looseness of my tongue and to guard against it. But after me, if you please’—and seizing the sword she despatched herself first.

The comic poet Philippides therefore acted rightly when, in answer to the friendly civilities of King Lysimachus and his question ‘What is there of mine that I can share with you?‘, he replied ‘What you choose, Sire, except your secrets.’

On the other hand garrulity goes with the equally objectionable vice of inquisitiveness. The babbler must find much to hear, so that he may have much to tell. Especially must he go round tracking and hunting out hidden secrets, so as to provide himself with a miscellaneous stock-in-trade for his foolish "D" talk. Then, like a child with a piece of ice, he neither likes to keep hold nor wants to let go. Or rather, the secrets are reptiles, which he grasps and puts in his bosom, but which he cannot hold tight, and so is devoured by them. Garfish and vipers—so we are told—burst in giving birth to their young. So the escape of a secret is ruin and destruction to him who lets it out.

Seleucus the Victorious, having lost all his army and resources in his fight with the Gauls, tore off his royal circlet with his own hands, and fled away on horseback with three or four attendants. After a long and circuitous ride away from the highroads, he was at last so overcome by want that he approached a homestead, and being fortunate enough to find the owner in "E" person, asked him for bread and water. The man not only gave him these, but supplied him liberally and in the most friendly way with whatever else he had upon his farm. In doing so he recognized the king’s face. So overjoyed was he at his fortunate opportunity of rendering him service, that, instead of restraining himself and playing up to the king’s desire to be unknown, he accompanied him as far as the road, and, on taking his leave, said, ‘Good-bye, King Seleucus.’ At this the king, holding out his right hand and drawing the man towards him as if to kiss him, gave a sign to one of the attendants to cut off his head with a sword;

whereas, if he had then had the patience to hold his tongue "F" for a little while, he would in all probability, when the king subsequently won success and power, have earned a larger return for his silence than for his hospitality.

In this case, it is true, the man’s hopes and kindly feeling formed some excuse for his lack of self-command. Most babblers, however, have no excuse at all for their own undoing. For example, people were once talking in a barber’s shop about the despotism of Dionysius, and saying how firmly established it was against all assault. At this the barber remarked laughingly, ‘How can you say that, when every few days I have my "509" razor at his throat?’ No sooner did Dionysius hear of this speech than he impaled the barber.

Barbers, by the way, are generally a garrulous crew. Their chairs being the resort of the greatest chatterers, they catch the bad habit themselves. It was a neat quip that Archelaus once gave to a loquacious barber. After putting the towel round him, the man asked, ‘How shall I cut your hair, Sire?’ ‘In silence,’ he replied. It was a barber also who reported the great disaster of the Athenians in Sicily, he having been the first to hear it at the Peiraeus from a slave, who had run away "B" from the spot. Abandoning his shop, he hurried at full speed to town,

by imparting the news to the capital,

A panic naturally ensued, and the people were gathered to an assembly, where they set to work to trace the rumour to its source. When, however, the barber was brought forward and questioned, he did not even know the name of his informant, but could only give as his authority a person unnamed and unknown. Thereupon the audience shouted in anger: ‘To the rack and the wheel with the wretch! The thing is a pure concoction! Who else has heard it? Who believes it?’ The wheel "C" had been brought, and the man had been stretched upon it, when there appeared upon the scene the bearers of the disastrous news, who had escaped from the very midst of the action. At this they all dispersed, to occupy themselves with their private griefs, leaving the poor wretch bound upon the wheel. When at a late hour towards evening he was set free, he proceeded to ask the executioner ‘whether they had also heard in what manner Nicias, the commander, had met his death’. Such a hopeless and incorrigible failing does garrulity become through force of habit.

After drinking a bitter and evil-smelling medicine, we are disgusted with the cup as well. In the same way, if you are the bearer of bad news, you are regarded with disgust and hatred by those who hear it. Hence a pretty discussion in Sophocles: "D"

Be that as it may, a speaker causes pain as well as a doer. Nevertheless there is no stopping or chastening a loose, glib tongue.

On one occasion it was discovered that the temple of Athena ‘Of the Bronze House’ at Sparta had been pillaged, and an empty flask was found lying inside. The crowd which had run together could make nothing of it, when one of their number said, ‘If you like, I will tell you my notion as to the flask. I fancy the robbers, realizing all the danger they were to run, first drank hemlock, and then brought wine with them. If they managed to escape detection, they were to neutralize "E" the effects of the poison by drinking the unmixed wine, and so get away in safety. If they were caught, they were to die an easy and painless death from the poison, before they could be put to torture.’ The theory was so ingenious and acute that it appeared to come of knowledge rather than conjecture. He was therefore surrounded and questioned on every side—‘Who are "F" you? Who knows you? How do you get to know all that?‘—till finally, under this searching examination, he confessed that he was one of the thieves.

Were not the murderers of Ibycus found out in the same way? As they were sitting in the theatre, a number of cranes happened to come in sight, and they whispered laughingly to one another, ‘Here are the avengers of Ibycus!’ They were overheard by persons sitting near them, and as a search was being made for Ibycus, who had been missing for a considerable time, the words were seized upon and reported to the magistrates. By this means the matter was brought home, and the assassins carried off to prison, where their punishment was due, not to the cranes, but to their own garrulity, which played the part "510" of an Erinys or Spirit of Vengeance in compelling them to divulge the murder. For as in the body, when a part is diseased or in pain, the neighbouring matter gathers towards it by attraction; so is it with the babbler’s tongue. Perpetually throbbing and inflamed, it must keep drawing towards itself some secret or other which ought to be concealed.

We must therefore make ourselves secure. Let Reason lie like a barrier in the way of the tongue, to restrain its flow or prevent its slipping. And let us show that we possess no less "B" sense than certain geese of which we are told. It is said that, when they cross from Cilicia over the Taurus Range—which is full of eagles—they clap a bolt or bit upon their utterance. That is to say, they take in their mouths a good-sized stone, and so fly over at night without being discovered.

Now if it were asked

it is the traitor who would always be named before any one else. Well, Euthycrates (as Demosthenes puts it) ‘roofed his house with the timber got from Macedon‘. Philocrates received a large sum of gold and proceeded to buy ‘strumpets and fish‘. Euphorbus and Philagrus, who betrayed Eretria, received lands "C" from the Persian king. But the babbler is a traitor who volunteers his services without pay, not in the way of betraying horses or fortresses, but of divulging secrets connected with lawsuits, party feuds, or political manoeuvres. Instead of any one thanking him, he actually has to thank people for listening to him. The line addressed to a man who was recklessly squandering his money by giving indiscriminate presents—

fits the prater also. ‘You do not give this information out of friendliness and goodwill. ’Tis your disease; you love to be a-talking and a-babbling.’

These remarks are not to be regarded as simply an indictment of garrulity. They are an attempt to cure it. An ailment is "D" overcome by diagnosis and treatment, but diagnosis comes first. No one can be trained to avoid or to rid his mental constitution of a thing which causes him no distress. That distress we learn to feel at our disorders, when reason leads us to perceive the injury and shame which result from them. Thus in the present instance we perceive that the babbler is hated where he desires to be liked, annoys where he wishes to ingratiate himself, is derided where he thinks he is admired, and spends without gaining anything by it. He wrongs his friends, assists his "E" enemies, and ruins himself. The first step, therefore, in physicing this disorder, is to reflect upon the disgrace and pain which it causes. The second is to consider the advantages of the contrary behaviour, constantly hearing, remembering, and keeping at our call the praises of reticence, the solemn and sacramental associations of silence, and the fact that it is not by your unbridled talker at large that admiration, regard, and reputation for wisdom are won, but by the man of short and pithy speech, who can pack much sense into few words.

We find Plato commending such persons, and saying that, in "F" their deliverance of crisp, terse, and compact utterances, they resemble a skilful javelineer. Lycurgus, again, forced his fellow-citizens to acquire this gift of compression and solidity by applying the pressure of silence from their earliest childhood.

The Celtiberians produce steel from iron by first burying it in the ground and then clearing away the earthy surplusage. So is it with Lacedaemonian speech. It has no surplusage, but is steadily hardened down to absolute effectiveness by the removal of everything unessential. And this knack of theirs of saying a pithy thing, or making a keen and nimble retort, is the result of a great habit of silence.

"511" We must not omit to give our chatterer examples of such brevities, in order to show how pretty and effective they are. For instance:

and, again, when Philip wrote to them ‘If I enter Laconia, I will turn you out‘, they wrote back, ‘If.’ When King Demetrius shouted in his indignation, ‘Have the Lacedaemonians sent only one envoy to me?‘, the envoy replied undismayed, ‘One to one.’ Among our ancient worthies also we admire "B" the men of few words. It was not the Iliad or the Odyssey or the paeans of Pindar that the Amphictyons inscribed upon the temple of the Pythian Apollo, but the maxims Know Thyself: Nothing in Excess: Give pledge, and Mischief is nigh, which they admired for their simple and compact expression, with its closely-hammered thought in small compass. And does not the god himself show a love of conciseness and brevity in his oracles, deriving his name of ‘Loxias’ from the fact that he would rather be obscure than garrulous?

Do we not also particularly praise and admire those who can say, by means of a symbol and without speaking a word, all that "C" is necessary? For instance, when his fellow-citizens insisted upon Heracleitus proposing some measure for the promotion of concord, he mounted the platform, took a cup of cold water, sprinkled it with barley-meal, stirred it with a slip of pennyroyal, drank it off, and went home. This was his way of intimating that to be satisfied with the commonest things, and to have no expensive wants, is the way to maintain a community in peace and concord. Another case is that of Scilurus, the Scythian king, who left behind him eighty sons. When he was dying, he called for a bundle of small spears, and bade them take and break it in pieces, tied together as it was, and in the mass. When they gave up the task, he himself drew the spears out one by one and snapped them all with ease, thereby demonstrating "D" how invincible was their strength if harmoniously united, how weak and short-lived if they did not hold together.

Any one, I believe, who constantly recalls these and the like examples, will cease to take a pleasure in chattering. But—speaking for myself—there is a story of a certain slave which greatly discourages me, when I reflect how hard it is to be so careful of our words as to make sure of our purpose. The orator Pupius Piso, not wishing to be troubled, ordered his slaves to talk only in answer to questions, and not a word more. Subsequently, being anxious to welcome Clodius in his official position, he gave orders for him to be invited to dinner, and prepared what was, of course, a splendid banquet. When the hour arrived, the other guests were all present and waiting for "E" Clodius. The slave who regularly carried the invitations was repeatedly sent out to see whether he was on his way. When evening came and he was given up in despair, Piso said to the slave, ‘Of course you took him the invitation?’ ‘I did,’ he answered. ‘Then why has he not appeared?’ ‘Because he refused.’ ‘Then why did you not tell me so at once?’ ‘Because you did not ask me that question.’

So much for the slave at Rome, whereas at Athens he will tell his master while digging

so great in all things is the force of habituation. To habituation let us now turn.

"F" We cannot check the babbler by taking, as it were, a grip on the reins. The malady can only be overcome by habit.

In the first place, therefore, when questions are asked of your neighbours, train yourself to keep silent until they have all failed to answer.

says Sophocles, and so has speech or answer. In running, the victor is the man who comes in first, but here the case is different. If another makes a satisfactory reply, the proper course is to lend approval and a word of support, and so win credit for good "512" feeling. If he fails, there is nothing invidious or inopportune in giving the information which he does not possess, or in supplementing his deficiencies. But above all things let us be on our guard, when a question is put to another person, that we do not anticipate him and take the answer out of his mouth. In any case in which a request is made of another it is, of course, improper for us to push him aside and offer our own services. By doing so we shall appear to be casting a slur on both parties; as if the one were incapable of performing what is asked, and as if the other did not know the right quarter from which to get what he asks for. But it is especially in connexion with answers to questions that such impudent forwardness is an outrage on "B" manners. To give the answer before the person questioned has time, implies the remark, ‘What do you want him for?‘, or ‘What does he know?‘, or, ‘When I am present, nobody else should be asked that question.’

Yet we often put a question to a person, not because we need the information, but by way of eliciting from him a few words of a friendly nature, or from a wish to lead him on to converse, as Socrates did with Theaetetus and Charmides. To take the answer out of another’s mouth, to divert attention to yourself and wrest it from another, is as bad as if, when a person desired to be kissed by some one else, you ran forward and kissed him yourself, or as if, when he was looking at another, you twisted him round in your own direction. The right and proper "C" course, even if the person who is asked for information cannot give it, is to wait, to take your cue to answer from the wish of the questioner—his invitation not having been addressed to you—and then to meet the situation in a modest and mannerly way. If a person of whom a question is asked makes a mistake in answering it, he meets with a due measure of indulgence; but one who pushes himself forward and insists on answering first, receives no welcome if he is right, while, if he is wrong, he becomes an object of positive exultation and derision.

The second item of our regimen concerns the answering of questions put to ourselves. Our garrulous friend must be particularly careful with these. In the first place he must not be deceived into giving serious replies to those who merely provoke him into a discussion in order to make a laughing-stock of him. "D" Sometimes persons who require no information simply concoct a question for the amusement and fun of the thing, and submit it to a character of this kind in order to set his foolish tongue wagging. Against this trick he must be on his guard. Instead of promptly jumping at the subject as if he were grateful, he should consider both the character of the questioner and the necessity for the question. And when it is clear that information is really desired, he must make a habit of waiting and leaving some interval between question and answer. There will then be time for the inquirer to add anything he wishes, and for himself to reflect upon his reply, instead of overrunning and muddling the question, hurriedly giving "E" first one answer and then another while the question is still going on.

The Pythian priestess, of course, is accustomed to deliver oracles on the instant, even before the question is asked, inasmuch as the God whom she serves

But if you wish your answer to be to the purpose, you must wait for the questioner’s thought to be expressed, and discover "F" precisely what he is aiming at. Otherwise it will be a case of the old saying:

In any case that ravenous greed to be talking must be checked. Otherwise it will seem as if a stream, which has long been banked up at the tongue, is taking joyful advantage of the question to disgorge itself. Socrates used to control his thirst on the same principle. He would not permit himself to drink after exercise without pouring away the first jugful drawn from the well, thereby training his irrational part to wait until reason named the time.

"513" There are three possible kinds of answer to a question—the barely necessary, the polite, and the superfluous. For instance, to the inquiry, ‘Is Socrates at home?‘, one person may reply, in an offhand and apparently grudging way, ‘Not at home;’ or, if he is disposed to adopt the Laconian style, he will omit the ‘at home’ and merely utter the negative. Thus the Lacedaemonians, when Philip had written to ask, ‘Do you "*" receive me into your city?‘, wrote a large No on a piece of paper and sent it back. Another, with more politeness, answers, ‘No, but you will find him at the bankers’ tables’—going so far, perhaps, as to add, ‘waiting for some strangers.’ But, "B" third, our inordinate chatterbox—at any rate, if he happens also to have read Antimachus of Colophon—will say, ‘No; but you will find him at the bankers’ tables, waiting for some strangers from Ionia, concerning whom he has had a letter from Alcibiades, who is near Miletus, staying with Tissaphernes, the Great King’s Satrap, the same who used formerly to help the Lacedaemonians, but who is now attaching himself to the Athenians, thanks to Alcibiades; for Alcibiades is anxious to be recalled from exile, and is therefore working upon Tissaphernes to change sides.’ In fact he will talk the whole eighth book of Thucydides and will deluge the questioner with it, until, before he has done, there is war with Miletus and Alcibiades has been exiled for "C" the second time.

Here especially should loquacity be repressed. It should be forced to follow in the footsteps of the question, and to confine the answer within the circle of which the questioner’s requirement gives the centre and radius. When Carneades, before he became famous, was once discoursing in the gymnasium, the superintendent sent and requested him to lower his voice, which was a very loud one. Upon his replying ‘Give me my limit for reach of voice’, the officer aptly rejoined ‘The person who is speaking with you’. So, in making an answer, let the limit "D" be the wishes of the questioner.

In the next place remember how Socrates used to urge the avoidance of those foods and drinks which induce you to eat when you are not hungry and to drink when you are not thirsty. So those subjects in which he most delights, and in which he indulges most immoderately, are the subjects which the babbler should shun, and whose advances he should resist. For example, military men are given to prosing about wars. Homer introduces Nestor in that character, making him relate his own deeds of prowess time after time. Take, again, those who have scored a victory in the law-courts, or who have met with surprising success at the courts of governors or kings. Generally "E" speaking, they are chronic sufferers from an itch to talk about it, and to describe over and over again how they came in, how they were introduced, how they played their parts, how they talked, how they confuted some opponent or accuser, and what eulogies they won. Their delight is more loquacious than that ‘sleepless night’ in the comedy, and is perpetually fanning itself into new flame and keeping itself fresh by telling over the tale. They are therefore prone to slip into such subjects at every pretext. For not only

"F" no less does the part which feels pleasure draw the voice and twist the tongue in its own direction, from a desire to dwell perpetually on the theme. It is the same also with amorous persons, who chiefly occupy themselves with such conversation as brings up some mention of the object of their passion. If they cannot talk to human beings about it, they do so to inanimate things:

or

No doubt it makes not a pin’s difference to the chatterer "514" what subject of conversation may arise. Nevertheless, if he has a greater predilection for one class of subjects than for another, he ought to be on his guard against that class and force himself to hold aloof from it, since those are the subjects which can always tempt him furthest into prolixity for the pleasure of the thing. It is the same with those matters in which the talker thinks that his experience or ability gives him a superiority over other people. Through egotism and vanity such a person

With the much-read man it is general information; with the "B" expert in letters, the rules of literary art; with the much-travelled man, accounts of foreign parts. These subjects also must therefore be shunned. They are an enticement to loquacity, which is led on to them like an animal towards its wonted fodder. One admirable feature in the conduct of Cyrus was that, in his matches with his mates, he challenged them to compete at something in which he was not more, but less, expert than they. Thus, while he caused no pain by eclipsing them, he also derived advantage from a lesson. With the chatterer it is the other way about. If any subject is mooted which gives him the opportunity of asking and learning something he does not know, he cannot even pay so small a fee "C" for it as merely holding his tongue, but he blocks the topic and elbows it aside, working steadily round till he drives the conversation into the well-worn track of stale old twaddle.

We have had an example of this among ourselves, where a person who happened to have read two or three books of Ephorus used to weary every one to death, and put any convivial party to rout, by everlastingly describing the battle of Leuctra and its sequel, until he earned the nickname of ‘Epaminondas’. If, however, we are to choose between evils, this is the least, and we must divert loquacity into this channel. Talkativeness will be "D" less disagreeable when its excess is in an expert connexion.

In the next place such persons should habituate themselves to putting things in a written or conversational form when alone. The case is not as with Antipater the Stoic. He gained his sobriquet of ‘Pen-Valiant’ because, being—as it would appear—unable and unwilling to come out and meet the vehement attacks made by Carneades upon the Porch, he kept filling his books with written disputations against him. But if the babbler turns to writing and valiantly fights shadows with his pen, the occupation will keep him from attacking people at large and will render him daily more bearable to his company. It will be as with dogs. Let them vent their anger on sticks and stones, and they are less ferocious to human beings. "E"

Another extremely beneficial course for talkers to adopt is to associate continually with their superiors and elders, out of respect for whose standing they will develop a habit of holding their tongues.

As part and parcel of this training we should always vigilantly apply the following reflection, when we are on the point of talking and the words begin running to our mouths: ‘What is this remark that is so pressing and importunate? With what object is my tongue so impatient? What honour do I get by speaking, or what harm by keeping quiet?’ If the thought were an oppressive weight to be got rid of, the matter would be "F" different; but it remains with you just as much, even if it is spoken. When men talk, it is either for their own sake, because they want something, or it is to help the hearer; or else they seek to ingratiate themselves with each other by seasoning with the salt of rational conversation the pastime or business in which they happen to be engaged. But if a remark is neither of advantage to the speaker nor of importance to the hearer, if it contains nothing pleasant or interesting, why is it made? The "*" meaningless and futile is as much to be avoided in words as it is in deeds.

Over and above all this, we should keep in lively recollection "515" the saying of Simonides that he ‘had often repented of talking, but never of holding his tongue’. We should remember also that practice is a potent thing and overcomes all difficulties. People get rid even of the hiccoughs or a cough by resolutely resisting them. Yet this involves trouble and pain, whereas silence not only, as Hippocrates says, ‘prevents thirst;’ it also prevents pain and suffering.