Chapter 12

What terms are named i’ the treaty,

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.

Counsel hath other ends than running hath,

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 wanthimfor?‘, or ‘What doesheknow?‘, or, ‘WhenIam 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 desiredto 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 deliveroracles on the instant, even before the question is asked, inasmuch as the God whom she serves

Understandeth the dumb, and heareth a man though he speak not.

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:

Asked for a bucket, they refused a tub.

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 largeNoon 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 GreatKing’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 eulogiesthey 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

Where the pain is, there also goes the hand;

|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:

O bed most dear!

Bacchis thought thee a god, thou blessed lamp;And greatest god thou art, methinks, through her.

Bacchis thought thee a god, thou blessed lamp;

And greatest god thou art, methinks, through her.

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

Giveth the most part of the day to thatWherein he showeth to the most advantage.

Giveth the most part of the day to that

Wherein he showeth to the most advantage.

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 alsomust 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: ‘Whatisthis 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.

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