Nor would I have the reader think that what has hitherto been said has been discoursed so much to blame as to cure that vicious and infectious malady of loquaciousness. For though we surmount and vanquish the vices of the mind by judgment and exercise, yet must the judgment precede. For no man will accustom himself to avoid and, as it were, to extirpate out of his soul those vices, unless he first abominate them. Nor can we ever detest those evil habits of the mind as we ought to do, but when we rightly judge by reason’s light of the prejudice they do us, and the ignominy we sustain thereby. For example, we consider and find that these profuse babblers, desirous of being beloved, are universally hated; while they study to gratify, they become troublesome; while they seek to be admired, they are derided. If they aim at profit, they lose all their labor; in short, they injure their friends, advantage their enemies, and undo themselves. And therefore the first remedy and cure for this spreading malady will be this, to reckon up all the shameful infamies and disasters that attend it. The second remedy is to take into serious consideration the practice of the opposite virtue, by always hearing, remembering, and having ready at hand the due praises and encomiums of reservedness and taciturnity, together with the majesty, sanctimony, and mysterious profoundness of silence. Let them consider how much more beloved, how much more admired, how far they are reputed to excel in prudence, who deliver their minds in few words, roundly and sententiously, and contract a great deal of sense within a small compass of speech, than such as fly out into voluminous language, and suffer their tongues to run before their wit. The former are those whom Plato so much praises, and likens unto skilful archers, darting forth their sentences thick and close, as it were crisped and curled one within another. To this same shrewdness of expression Lycurgus accustomed his fellow-citizens from their childhood by the exercise of silence, contracting and thickening their discourse into a compendious delivery. For as the Celtiberians make steel of iron by burying it in the ground, thereby to refine it from the gross and earthy part, so the Laconic way of speech has nothing of bark upon it, but by cutting off all superfluity of words, it becomes steeled and sharpened to pierce the understanding of the hearers. So their consciousness of language, so ready to turn the edge to all manner of questions, became natural by their extraordinary practice of silence. And therefore it would be very expedient for persons so much given to talk, always to have before their eyes the short and pithy sayings of those people, were it only to let them see the force and gravity which they contain. For example: The Lacedaemonians to Philip; Dionysius in Corinth. And when Philip wrote thus to the Spartans: If once I enter into your territories, I will destroy ye all, never to rise again; they answered him with the single word, If. To King Demetrius exclaiming in a great rage, What! have the Spartans sent me but one ambassador? the ambassador nothing terrified replied, Yes; one to one. Certainly they that spoke short and concisely were much admired by the ancients. Therefore the Amphictyons gave order, not that the Iliad or the Odyssey or Pindar’s paeans should be written upon Pythian Apollo’s temple; but Know thyself; Nothing too much; Give sureties, and mischief is at hand. So much did they admire conciseness of speech, comprehending full sense in so much brevity, made solid as it were by the force of a hammer. Does not the Deity himself study compendious utterance in the delivery of his oracles? Is he not therefore called Loxias, The name Loxias is usually derived from λοξός , indirect. (G.) because he avoids rather loquacity than obscurity? Are not they that signify their meaning by certain signs, without words, in great admiration and highly applauded Thus Heraclitus, being desired by his fellow-citizens to give them his opinion concerning Concord, ascended the public pulpit, and taking a cup of cold water into his hand, first sprinkled it with a little flour, then stirring it with a sprig of pennyroyal, drank it off, and so came don again; intimating thereby, that if men would but be contented with what was next at hand, without longing after dainties and superfluities, it would be an easy thing for cities to live in peace and concord one with another. Scilurus, king of the Scythians, left fourscore sons behind him; who, when he found the hour of death approaching, ordered them to bring him a bundle of small javelins, and then commanded every one singly to try whether lie could break the bundle, as it was, tied up altogether; which when they told him it was impossible for them to do, he drew out the javelins one by one, and brake them all himself with case; thereby declaring that, so long as they kept together united and in concord, their force would be invincible, but that by disunion and discord they would enfeeble each other, and render their dominion of small continuance. He then, that by often repeating and reflection shall enure himself to such precedents as these, may in time perhaps be more delighted with these short and conclusive apophthegms than with the exorbitances of loose and lavish discourse. For my own part, I must acknowledge that I am not a little ashamed of myself, when I call to mind that same domestic servant of whom I am now going to speak, and consider how great a thing it is to advise before a man speaks, and then to be able to maintain and stick to what he has resolved upon. Pupius Piso, the rhetorician, being unwilling to be disturbed with much talk, gave orders to his servants to answer to such questions only as he should ask them, and say no more. Then having a design to give an entertainment to Clodius, at that time magistrate, he ordered him to be invited, and provided a splendid banquet for him, as in all probability he could do no less. At the time appointed several other guests appeared, only they waited for Clodius’s coming, who tarried much longer than was expected; so that Piso sent his servant several times to him, to know whether he would be pleased to come to supper or no. Now when it grew late and Piso despaired of his coming, What! said he to his servant, did you call him? Yes, replied the servant. Why then does he not come away? Because he told me he would not come. Why did you not tell me so before? Because, sir, you never asked me the question. This was a Roman servant. But an Athenian servant, while he is digging and delving, will give his master an account of the articles and capitulations in a treaty of peace. So strangely does custom prevail in all things, of which let us now discourse. For there is no curb or bridle that can tame or restrain a libertine tongue; only custom must vanquish that disease. First therefore, when there are many questions propounded in the company where thou art, accustom thyself to silence till all the rest have refused to give an answer. For, as Sophocles observes, Although in racing swiftness is required, In counselling there’s no such haste desired; no more do speech and answer aim at the same mark with running. For it is the business of a racer to get the start of him that contends with him; but if another man gives a sufficient answer, there needs no more than to commend and approve what he says, and so gain the reputation of a candid person. If not, then to tell wherein the other failed and to supply the defect will neither be unseasonable nor a thing that can justly merit distaste. But above all things, let us take special heed, when another is asked a question, that we do not chop in to prevent his returning an answer. And perhaps it is as little commendable, when a question is asked of another, to put him by, and under take the solution of what is demanded ourselves. For thereby we seem to intimate that the person to whom the question was put was not able to resolve it, and that the propounder had not discretion sufficient to know of whom to ask it. Besides, such a malapert forwardness in answering is not only indecent, but injurious and affrontive. For he that prevents the person to whom the question is put in returning his answer, would in effect insinuate a What need had you to ask of him?—What can he say to it?—When I am in presence, no man ought to be asked those questions but myself. And yet many times we put questions to some people, not for want of an answer, but only to minister occasion of discourse to provoke them to familiarity, and to have the pleasure of their wit and conversation, as Socrates was wont to challenge Theaetetus and Charmides. Therefore to prevent another in returning his answers, to abstract his ears, and draw off his cogitations from another to himself, is the same thing as to run and salute a man who designs to be saluted by somebody else, or to divert his eyes upon ourselves which were already fixed upon another; considering that if he to whom the question is put refuse to return an answer, it is but decent for a man to contain himself, and by an answer accommodate to the will of the propounder, modestly and respectfully to put in, as if it had been at the request or in the behalf of the other. For they that are asked a question, if they fail in their answer, are justly to be pardoned; but he that voluntarily presumes to answer for another gives distaste, let his answer be never so rational; but if he mistake, he is derided by all the company. The second point of exercise, in reference to our own answering of questions, wherein a man that is given to talk ought to be extremely careful, is first of all not to be over-hasty in his answers to such as provoke him to talk on purpose to make themselves merry and to put an affront upon him. For some there are who, not out of any desire to be satisfied, but merely to pass away the time, study certain questions, and then propound them to persons which they know love to multiply words, on purpose to make themselves sport. Such men therefore ought to take heed how they run headlong and leap into discourse, as if they were glad of the occasion, and to consider the behavior of the propounder and the benefit and usefulness of the question. When we find that the propounder is really desirous to be informed, it is convenient then for a man to bethink himself awhile, and make some pause between the question and the answer; to the end that the proposer, if he pleases to make any additions to his proposal, may have time to do it, and himself a convenient space to consider what answer to make, for fear of running at random and stifling the question before it be fully propounded, or of giving one answer for another for want of considering what he ought to say,—which is the effect of an over-hasty zeal to be talking. True it is, indeed, that the Pythian priestess was wont to give her oracular answers at the very instant, and sometimes before the question was propounded. For that the Deity whom she serves Both understands the mute that cannot speak, And hears the silent e’er his mind he break. See Herod. I. 47. But it behooves a man that would return a pertinent answer, to stay till he rightly apprehend the sense and understand the intent of him that propounds the question, lest he may happen to make good the proverb, A rake we called for; they refused a bowl. Besides, we must subdue this inordinate and insatiate greediness of having all the talk, that it may not seem as if we had some old flux of humors impostumated about the tongue, which we were willing to have lanced and let out by a question. Socrates therefore, though never so thirsty after violent exercise, never would allow himself the liberty to drink, till he had drawn one bucket of water and poured it out upon the ground; to the end he might accustom his sensual appetite to attend reason’s appointment.