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 [Sidenote: 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. [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: 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 [Sidenote: *] 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