_Loquacity._
XLVII. I consider talkative people as a sort of tyrants of
conversation; for according to my opinion, who admit of a limited
species of reason in brutes, talking is a faculty more peculiar to man
than reasoning; and engrossing all the conversation to a man’s self is
a most arbitrary proceeding. He who is always desirous of being heard,
and is impatient of attending to any one else, usurps a privilege
to himself, which should be enjoyed in general by all mankind, as a
prerogative proper to their being. But what fruit can be gathered
from his torrent of words? None, except the tiring and disgusting his
hearers may be called a fruit, who after they are rid of him, make
amends for the silence he had imposed on them, by speaking of him with
derision and contempt. No time is worse employed, than that which is
consumed in hearing talkative people; who are generally men without
discretion or reflection, for if they had any, they would be more
reserved and keep within reasonable bounds, in order to avoid making
themselves contemptible; and if they want reflection, they must want
judgement also, and how can he who wants judgement talk with propriety?
Or what benefit can result to those who listen to an extravagant
prating man, except that of his affording them an opportunity for the
meritorious exercise of their patience? Thus what Theocritus said of
the verbose fluency of Anaximenes, may be applied to all talkative
people; that he considered them as a luxuriant river of words, in
the whole stock of whose waters, you could not find one drop of
understanding: _Verborum flumen, mentis gutta._
XLVIII. What flows from such tongues, may be compared to vomitings
of the soul; or to the sickly discharges from an unsound mind, which
throws up before it has digested them, all the mental species or
aliment it has received. They would have that pass for a faculty or
power of explaining themselves, which in reality is nothing more than
the want of a retentive faculty, or the power of keeping down what is
in them. I would describe this malady, by calling it a relaxation of
the rational faculty; whereas others might be apt to say, that is not
the case, for the species are thrown up, for want of space to contain
them in the part destined for their reception.
XLIX. Let no man plume himself too much, upon his being well attended
to or applauded when he first begins to speak in public; for this may
be a favourable tempting breeze, that may encourage him to loose the
sails of loquacity; but although it may be a favourable and a tempting
one, it may be a breeze of but short duration. Conversation is the food
of the soul, but the cravings of the soul, are as various, as delicate,
and as capricious as those of the body. The most noble diet persisted
in for too long a time, becomes satiating, and loathsome. Thus the
oratory of him, who for a certain space shall be listened to with
pleasure by his hearers, may become tiresome to them after a while,
and they would not attend to what he said, if he persisted in talking
too long. The planets a man should consult the aspect of, to know
when he should enter deep, or go but a little way into the gulph of
conversation, are the eyes of his auditors; their pleasing serenity, or
lowering appearances, should be the signs, that should either encourage
him to spread all the sails of rhetoric and make great way; or else
should warn him of the hazard and risque of proceeding any further, and
that for the present it would be most prudent for him to lay-by, and
wait a more safe and favourable opportunity to pursue his course.
L. But even these appearances may be fallacious and deceiving, and more
especially to persons of high rank and authority; for the dependants
of such, not only flatter them with their tongues, but with their
eyes also. Why should I confine their adulation to the expressions of
their tongues and their eyes, when they convert their whole bodies,
and every limb and member of them, to instruments of delusion and
flattery? for with certain fawning movements, and certain mysterious
gestures of complaisance and admiration, they attend to and applaud all
that is said or done by a man in power, on whom they are in any shape
depending. He at the same time, big with his own cleverness, and his
chops watering with approbation of himself, with the drivel running out
at both corners of his mouth, vents his oratory, and talks whatever
comes uppermost, be it good or bad, in a full persuasion, that the
words of Apollo of Delphos were never listened to with more attention,
or more respect. But, unhappy man, how do you deceive yourself! for you
tire every body, and you disgust every body; and, the worst is, that
those who had been just listening to you with such seeming applause, as
soon as your back is turned, to relieve themselves from the pain the
forced tribute of their adulation to you gave them, vent themselves in
repeated bursts of laughter and derision at your folly. Great people
may believe what I say, and be convinced that this is the way of the
world; and they may also believe me when I tell them, that power in the
hands of a weak man, only tends to make him appear more ridiculous;
and that in the hands of a discreet one, if he is not extremely so, it
tends in a great measure to cast a blemish on his understanding.