On the other hand, the opposite type of hearer is the fluttering feather-head who uses no discrimination, but punctuates with loud cheers at every word and syllable. While he is frequently obnoxious to the disputant himself, he is invariably a nuisance [Sidenote: D] to the hearers. He worries them on to their feet against their judgement, and drags them willy-nilly to join in the chorus because they are ashamed to refuse. Thanks to his applause deranging the lecture and making an imbroglio of it, he gets no good from it, but goes home with one of three descriptions to his credit—fleerer, sycophant, or ignoramus.
It is true that, when hearing a case in court, we must lean [Sidenote: E] neither towards hostility nor towards favour, but towards justice as we best understand it. But at a lecture on a subject of learning there is neither law nor oath to debar us from granting the speaker an indulgent reception. The reason why the ancients placed the statue of Hermes in the company of the Graces was that speaking has a special claim to a gracious friendliness. It is impossible for any one to be so complete a failure or so utterly astray as to offer us nothing deserving of a cheer, in the shape of a thought, a reference to others, the mere choice of theme or purpose, or, possibly, in the wording or arrangement of the matter,
_As among urchin-foot or mid coarse broom The tender snowflake springeth into bloom._
[Sidenote: F] There are persons who, for exhibition purposes, can lend a fair measure of plausibility to a panegyric upon vomiting or fever, or even a pot; and surely a deliverance by a man who has some sort of claim to be thought, or to call himself, a philosopher cannot absolutely fail to afford a well-disposed or courteous audience some opportunity of finding relief in applause.
According to Plato young persons in the bloom of life can always manage somehow to excite a lover’s passion. If they are white he calls them ‘saint-like’; if swarthy, ‘virile’. [Sidenote: 45] A hook-nose is ‘regal’, a snub nose ‘piquant’; a sallow skin is a ‘complexion of honey’. He uses these pretty names, and is pleased and satisfied. Love has, indeed, an ivy-like gift for clinging to any pretext. Much less will an eager and earnest student of letters ever fail in inventiveness. In every speaker he will discover some grounds for reasonable applause. In the speech of Lysias, though Plato objects to its want of arrangement, and though he has no praise for its inventiveness, he nevertheless commends him for his manner of statement, and because there is ‘a clear round finish in the chiselling of every word’. [Sidenote: B] We might find fault with Archilochus for his subject-matter, Parmenides for his versification, Phocylides for his commonplaceness, Euripides for his garrulity, Sophocles for his inequality. Similarly one of the orators has no characterization, another exerts no passion, a third is lacking in grace and charm. Nevertheless each wins praise for a power to move and sway us in his own peculiar way.