With the much-read man it is general information; with the [Sidenote: B] expert in letters, the rules of literary art; with the much-travelled man, accounts of foreign parts. These subjects also must therefore be shunned. They are an enticement to loquacity, which is led on to them like an animal towards its wonted fodder. One admirable feature in the conduct of Cyrus was that, in his matches with his mates, he challenged them to compete at something in which he was not more, but less, expert than they. Thus, while he caused no pain by eclipsing them, he also derived advantage from a lesson. With the chatterer it is the other way about. If any subject is mooted which gives him the opportunity of asking and learning something he does not know, he cannot even pay so small a fee [Sidenote: C] for it as merely holding his tongue, but he blocks the topic and elbows it aside, working steadily round till he drives the conversation into the well-worn track of stale old twaddle. We have had an example of this among ourselves, where a person who happened to have read two or three books of Ephorus used to weary every one to death, and put any convivial party to rout, by everlastingly describing the battle of Leuctra and its sequel, until he earned the nickname of ‘Epaminondas’. If, however, we are to choose between evils, this is the least, and we must divert loquacity into this channel. Talkativeness will be [Sidenote: D] less disagreeable when its excess is in an expert connexion. In the next place such persons should habituate themselves to putting things in a written or conversational form when alone. The case is not as with Antipater the Stoic. He gained his sobriquet of ‘Pen-Valiant’ because, being—as it would appear—unable and unwilling to come out and meet the vehement attacks made by Carneades upon the Porch, he kept filling his books with written disputations against him. But if the babbler turns to writing and valiantly fights shadows with his pen, the occupation will keep him from attacking people at large and will render him daily more bearable to his company. It will be as with dogs. Let them vent their anger on sticks and stones, and they are less ferocious to human beings. [Sidenote: E] Another extremely beneficial course for talkers to adopt is to associate continually with their superiors and elders, out of respect for whose standing they will develop a habit of holding their tongues.