On the other hand, the opposite type of hearer is the fluttering feather-head who uses no discrimination, but punctuates with loud cheers at every word and syllable. While he is frequently obnoxious to the disputant himself, he is invariably a nuisance |D| to the hearers. He worries them on to their feet against their judgement, and drags them willy-nilly to join in the chorus because they are ashamed to refuse. Thanks to his applause deranging the lecture and making an imbroglio of it, he gets no good from it, but goes home with one of three descriptions to his credit—fleerer, sycophant, or ignoramus.
It is true that, when hearing a case in court, we must lean |E| neither towards hostility nor towards favour, but towards justice as we best understand it. But at a lecture on a subject of learning there is neither law nor oath to debar us from granting the speaker an indulgent reception. The reason why the ancients placed the statue of Hermes in the company of the Graces was that speaking has a special claim to a gracious friendliness. It is impossible for any one to be so complete a failure or so utterly astray as to offer us nothing deserving of a cheer, in the shape of a thought, a reference to others, the mere choice of theme or purpose, or, possibly, in the wording or arrangement of the matter,
As among urchin-foot or mid coarse broom
The tender snowflake springeth into bloom.
|F| There are persons who, for exhibition purposes, can lend a fair measure of plausibility to a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, or even a pot; and surely a deliverance by a man who has some sort of claim to be thought, or to call himself, a philosopher cannot absolutely fail to afford a well-disposed or courteous audience some opportunity of finding relief in applause.
According to Plato young persons in the bloom of life can always manage somehow to excite a lover’s passion. If they are white he calls them ‘saint-like’; if swarthy, ‘virile’. |45| A hook-nose is ‘regal’, a snub nose ‘piquant’; a sallow skin is a ‘complexion of honey’. He uses these pretty names, and is pleased and satisfied. Love has, indeed, an ivy-like gift for clinging to any pretext. Much less will an eager and earnest student of letters ever fail in inventiveness. In every speaker he will discover some grounds for reasonable applause. In the speech of Lysias, though Plato objects to its want of arrangement, and though he has no praise for its inventiveness, he nevertheless commends him for his manner of statement, and because there is ‘a clear round finish in the chiselling of every word’. |B| We might find fault with Archilochus for his subject-matter, Parmenides for his versification, Phocylides for his commonplaceness, Euripides for his garrulity, Sophocles for his inequality. Similarly one of the orators has no characterization, another exerts no passion, a third is lacking in grace and charm. Nevertheless each wins praise for a power to move and sway us in his own peculiar way.
The hearer, then, has ample scope for showing good feeling to a speaker. In some instances it is sufficient if, without further declaration by word of mouth, we contribute a kindly eye, a genial expression, a friendly and agreeable mood. There are certain things for which even the man who is a total failure may |C| look, and which are but ordinary items of common etiquette for any and every audience. I mean an upright posture in our chairs, with no lolling or lounging; eyes kept directly upon the speaker; an air of businesslike attention; composure of countenance, with no sign, I need not say of insolence or peevishness, but of being taken up with other thoughts.
If in every exacting task beauty is made up of a number of factors happily combined in a due proportion and harmony, ugliness is the prompt and immediate outcome of the faulty |D| omission or addition of this or that one element. And in this particular matter of listening, not only is there impropriety in a scowling brow, a disagreeable expression, a roving glance, a twisting of the body, and a crossing of the legs; but nodding or whispering to a neighbour, smiling, yawning sleepily, looking at the ground, and actions of a similar nature, are censurable and should be studiously avoided.
There are some who think that, though the speaker has a duty, the hearer has none. They expect the former to present himself with his thoughts studiously prepared; yet, without a thought or care for their own obligations, they drop casually in and take their seats, for all the world as if they had come to a dinner to enjoy themselves while others are doing the work. Yet even a polite table-companion has his part to play, much |E| more a polite hearer. He is a partner in the speech and a coadjutor of the speaker; and he has no right to be sharply criticizing the mistakes, and taking every phrase and fact to task, while himself free from responsibility for the impropriety and the frequent solecisms which he commits as a hearer. In ball-play the catcher has to regulate his movements according to those of the thrower. So, in the case of a speech, there is a certain consonance of action in which both speaker and listener are concerned, if each is to sustain his proper part. |F|
Our expressions in applauding must not, however, be used without discrimination. It is an unpleasing phrase of Epicurus when, in speaking of the little epistles from his friends, he says, ‘We give them a rattling clapping.’ But what of those who nowadays introduce such outré expressions into our lecture-rooms? The Capital! Well said! and Very true! which were the terms of commendation used by the hearers of Plato, Socrates, and Hypereides, are not enough for these persons. With their exclamations Divine! An inspiration! or Unapproachable! they commit a gross impropriety, libellously making out that the speaker requires far-fetched eulogies of an |46| outrageous kind. Highly obnoxious also are those who accompany their attestations with an oath, as if they were in a court of law. And equally so those who blunder in their descriptive terms; for instance, when the lecturer is a philosopher and they call out, A shrewd hit!, or an old man and they exclaim Cleverly put! or Brilliant!, thus misapplying to a philosopher the expressions used at academic exercises, where the speaking is not serious but merely an exhibition of adroitness. To offer |B| to a sober discourse such meretricious praise is like crowning an athlete with a wreath of lilies or roses instead of laurel or wild olive. Once when the poet Euripides was going over a song |*| with an original setting for the benefit of the members of his chorus, and one of them happened to laugh, he observed: ‘If you had not been an ignorant dolt, you could not have laughed while I was teaching you a mixolydian[[46]] piece.’ So, I take it, a serious and practical philosopher might very well make short work of the airs and affectations of a hearer by saying, ‘I presume your case is one of foolishness or ill breeding; otherwise you would not have been piping out and jigging about at my remarks, when I was teaching, or admonishing, or arguing concerning religion, statesmanship, or the duties of |C| office.’ Just frankly consider what it means, when a philosopher is speaking, and the shouting and hurrahing inside the building make people outside wonder whether it is a flute-player, a harpist, or a dancer who is being applauded.