’Tis compensation: they who ‘mid the wise
Are naught, surpass in gift of speech to mobs.
My own observation tells me that persons who make a business of speaking in a way to please and curry favour with the rabble, generally prove correspondingly dissolute and pleasure-loving in their lives. Nor, indeed, should we expect anything else; for if they have no regard to propriety when catering for the |C| gratification of other people, it is not likely that they will permit right and sound principles to have the upper hand of their own voluptuous self-indulgence, nor that they will cultivate self-control rather than enjoyment.
|*| And how can children learn from them anything admirable? Among admirable things is the practice of neither saying nor doing anything at random; and, as the proverb goes, ‘admirable things are difficult.’ Meanwhile, speeches made offhand are a mass of reckless slovenliness, without a notion where to begin or where to end.
Apart from other faults, extempore speakers drop into a terrible prolixity and verbiage, whereas premeditation keeps |D| a speech safe within the lines of due proportion. When Pericles, ‘as tradition informs us,’ was called upon by the assembly, he frequently refused the call, on the ground that his thoughts were ‘not arranged’. Demosthenes, who took him for his own political model, acted in the same way. If the Athenians called upon him to address them, he would resist, with the words, ‘I have not arranged my thoughts.’ This, it is true, may be unauthentic and a fabrication; but in the speech against Meidias we have an explicit statement as to the advantage of preparation. His words are: ‘I admit, gentlemen, that I come prepared; and I have no wish to deny it. I have even conned over my speech to the best of my poor ability. It would have been insane conduct, if, after and amid such harsh treatment, I had paid no regard to what I meant to say to you on the subject.’
That impromptu speaking should be rejected altogether, or, |E| failing this, that it should be practised only on unimportant subjects, I do not say. I am recommending a tonic regimen. Before manhood, I claim that there should be no speaking on the spur of the moment. But when the ability has taken firm root, it is only right for speech to enjoy free play as occasion invites. Though persons who have been in prison for a long time may subsequently be liberated, they are unsteady on their feet, |F| a protracted habit of wearing chains making them unable to step out. Similarly if those who have for a long time kept their speaking under close constraint some day find it necessary to speak offhand, they nevertheless retain the same style of expression. But to let mere children make extempore speeches is to become responsible for the worst of twaddle and futility. There is a story of a wretched painter who showed Apelles a picture, with the remark, ‘I have just painted this at one |7| sitting.’ ‘I can see,’ said Apelles, ‘without your telling me, that it has been quick work. But my wonder is that you haven’t painted more than one as good.’
While (to return to the original matter in hand) we must be careful to avoid a style which is theatrical and bombastic, we must be equally on our guard against one which is low and trivial. If the turgid style is unbusinesslike, too thin a style is ineffective. Just as the body should be not only healthy but also in good condition, so language must be full of strength |B| and not simply free from disease. Keep on the safe side, and you are merely commended: face some risk, and you are admired. I take the same view of the mental disposition also. One should neither be over-bold, and so become brazen, nor yet timid and bashful, and so become mean-spirited. The rule of art and taste is The middle course in all things.
|*| While I am still upon the subject of this part of education there is an opinion which I desire to express. A style consisting of single clauses I regard in the first instance as no slight evidence of poor taste, and, in the next, as too finical a thing ever to |C| be maintained in practice. Here, as in everything else that caters for ear or eye, monotony is as cloying and irksome as variety is delightful.
There is no subject in the ‘regular curriculum’ of which the eye or ear of a freeborn boy should be permitted to remain uninformed. But while he receives a cursory education in those subjects in order to taste their quality, the most important place—complete all-round proficiency being impossible—must belong to philosophy. We may explain by a comparison with |D| travel, in which it is an excellent thing to visit a large number of cities, but good policy to settle in the best. As the philosopher Bion wittily remarked, when the suitors could obtain no access to Penelope they satisfied themselves with her handmaids, and when a man is unable to get hold of philosophy he makes dry bones of himself upon the remaining subjects, which are of no account.
Philosophy, then, should be put at the head of all mental culture. The services which have been invented for the care of the body are two—medicine and gymnastics—the one imparting health, the other good condition. But for the weaknesses and ailments of the soul philosophy is the only thing to be prescribed. It is from and with philosophy that we can tell what is becoming or disgraceful, what is just or unjust, |E| what course, in short, is to be chosen or shunned. It teaches us how to behave towards the Gods, our parents, our elders, the laws, our rulers, friends, wives, children, and servants: that we should worship the Gods, honour our parents, respect our elders, obey the laws, give way to our rulers, love our friends, be continent towards our wives, show affection to our children, and abstain from cruelty to our slaves. Above all, it warns us against excess of joy when prosperous and excess of grief when unfortunate; against dissoluteness in our pleasures, or fury and brutality in our anger. These I judge to be chief among |F| the blessings conferred by philosophy. To bear adversity nobly is to act the brave man,[[57]] to bear prosperity unassumingly, the |*| modest mortal. To get the better of pleasures by reason needs wisdom; to master anger requires no ordinary character.