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:
I blame thee not; for though thy words are wrong,
Thine acts are right.
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
Hath goodly portion, I trow,
Of the Muses violet-tress’d.
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: |*|
But to me it is hateful