958 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters . 
useful, nothing is more suitable for a youth in acquiring glory 
and wealth than the eloquence best to be gained, where there is 
an abundance of material for the mind and a ready supply of 
words for the tongue. 
“To pour forth words, on the other hand, when the matter 
is not understood, is pardonable in a fool, but not in a teacher or 
a scholar. Yet you will see many of this kind, who spend the 
whole live-long day in one long harangue, saying nothing at all 
or very little. You are tired out from listening and they, unless 
they are too verbose, from talking; yet whither they are tending 
or what they are trying to say, you cannot ascertain. You 
think they are ending but they have just begun. If you stay to 
see where they are going to come out; if you try to recollect 
what they have woven together there will occur to you the lines— 
‘Velut aegri somnia, vanas 
Fingentis species, ut nec pes, nec caput uni 
Feddatur formae’— 
You think that their brains are affected and that they cannot 
hold their tongues for want of the power of reason: you imagine 
that they have suffered continuous sleepless nights and their 
reason has therefore become dulled, giving rise to melancholy. 
If, however, you should on this account, be moved by a sense of 
pity for them and should urge them to moderation, they would 
be incensed and all the opprobiums which one man can heap 
upon another they would pile upon you. They rail alike at 
those who pity them as at those who deride them, and no one, 
be he friend or foe, can escape from their vituperation. Once 
you have begun with them you must of necessity bear with 
them to the end or you will sustain the evils of their insolent 
tongues. Stop therefore unless you wish to be defiled by a 
sordid mouth: the more foul matter is disturbed the greater the 
stench that arises therefrom, and as you sit there and ponder, 
the saying of that far-sighted man inevitably occurs to your 
mind— 
‘Vesanum tetigisse timent, fugiuntque poetam 
Qui sapiunt, agitant pueri, incautique sequunturd 
