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Again, this course doth blind the hearer's mind, so that he cannot discern what he that pretends to instruct him doth mean, or how he doth assert his doctrine. Truth will not be discerned through the smoke of wrathful expressions; right being defaced by foul language will not appear, passion being excited will not suffer a man to perceive the sense or the force of an argument.
Bishop Gilbert Haven, of happy memory, had been discussing a religious subject with a friend who was not convinced by his arguments. "Wait till you hear me from the pulpit," he said; "there you cannot answer me." The preacher if I may use an image which would hardly have suggested itself to him has his hearer's head in chancery, and can administer punishment ad libitum.
The broken metaphor and bad logic of motive which had stirred his hearer's contempt were quite consistent with a mode of putting the facts which made it difficult for Lydgate to vent his own indignation and disappointment. After some rapid reflection, he only asked "What did Mrs. Casaubon say?"
This is not done to make the hearer care for the thing described, which is never heard of after, but to give a hint of Timon and what is to befall him, and to create a melodic effect upon the hearer's sense which shall put him in a state to yield readily to the illusion of the piece.
There is that irony in nature which brings it to pass that if the sayer be a man with any stuff in him, provided he tells no lies wittingly to himself and is never unkindly, he may lie and lie and lie all the day long, and he will no more be false to any man than the sun will shine by night; his lies will become truths as they pass into the hearer's soul.
The man made a slight grimace, and craned forwards with an interrogative ear held ready for a repetition. "Name of Cable," repeated the captain. "Dirty!" he added, just by way of inviting his hearer's attention, and adding that personal note without which even the shortest conversation is apt to lose interest. This direct address seemed to have the desired effect, for the man stood aside.
We shall see presently that in all cases where the words occur they are immediately followed by words or deeds of His which hold forth something on which, if the hearer's faith lay hold, darkness and gloom will fly like morning mists before the rising sun.
She would gladly have given all the French she could jabber for a pair of golden bells with pearl-tipped tongues, like those Ariadne wore; and, clasping her hands, she answered, in a tone that went to the hearer's heart, "They are too sweet for anything! If uncle would only let me wear some, I should be perfectly happy." "I wouldn't mind what he says.
But love fights doggedly and unconqueredly long after volatile and ephemeral passion has fled a stubborn field, and this was the love of the daughter of "the bravest man God ever made." "You are jumping at conclusions, dear," she said, with a careless indulgence which made her hearer's jaws meet with a venomous click.
A divine preparation of the nature, divine activities of the soul, precede all high uses of communication. Though Demosthenes or Phillips speak, it is the hearer's own spirit that convinces him. Conviction cannot be forced upon one from without. Hence the well-known futility of belligerent controversy.
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