These remarks are not to be regarded as simply an indictment of garrulity. They are an attempt to cure it. An ailment is [Sidenote: D] overcome by diagnosis and treatment, but diagnosis comes first. No one can be trained to avoid or to rid his mental constitution of a thing which causes him no distress. That distress we learn to feel at our disorders, when reason leads us to perceive the injury and shame which result from them. Thus in the present instance we perceive that the babbler is hated where he desires to be liked, annoys where he wishes to ingratiate himself, is derided where he thinks he is admired, and spends without gaining anything by it. He wrongs his friends, assists his [Sidenote: E] enemies, and ruins himself. The first step, therefore, in physicing this disorder, is to reflect upon the disgrace and pain which it causes. The second is to consider the advantages of the contrary behaviour, constantly hearing, remembering, and keeping at our call the praises of reticence, the solemn and sacramental associations of silence, and the fact that it is not by your unbridled talker at large that admiration, regard, and reputation for wisdom are won, but by the man of short and pithy speech, who can pack much sense into few words. We find Plato commending such persons, and saying that, in [Sidenote: F] their deliverance of crisp, terse, and compact utterances, they resemble a skilful javelineer. Lycurgus, again, forced his fellow-citizens to acquire this gift of compression and solidity by applying the pressure of silence from their earliest childhood. The Celtiberians produce steel from iron by first burying it in the ground and then clearing away the earthy surplusage. So is it with Lacedaemonian speech. It has no surplusage, but is steadily hardened down to absolute effectiveness by the removal of everything unessential. And this knack of theirs of saying a pithy thing, or making a keen and nimble retort, is the result of a great habit of silence. [Sidenote: 511] We must not omit to give our chatterer examples of such brevities, in order to show how pretty and effective they are. For instance: _The Lacedaemonians to Philip_: _Dionysius at Corinth_;