Xv.—: A fool speaks all his mind, but a wise man reserves something for hereafter

This aphorism seems principally levelled, not against the futility of light persons, who speak what they should conceal, nor against the pertness with which they indiscriminately and injudiciously fly out upon men and things, nor against the talkative humor with which some men disgust their hearers, but against a more latent failing, viz., a very imprudent and impolitic management of speech; when a man in private conversation so directs his discourse as, in a continued string of words, to deliver all he can say, that any way relates to the subject, which is a great prejudice to business. For, 1, discourse interrupted and infused by parcels, enters deeper than if it were continued and unbroken; in which case the weight of things is not distinctly and particularly felt, as having not time to fix themselves; but one reason drives out another before it had taken root. 2. Again, no one is so powerful or happy in eloquence, as at first setting out to leave the hearer perfectly mute and silent; but he will always have something to answer, and perhaps to object in his turn. And here it happens, that those things which were to be reserved for confutation, or reply, being now anticipated, lose their strength and beauty. 3. Lastly, if a person does not utter all his mind at once, but speaks by starts, first one thing, then another, he will perceive from the countenance and answer of the person spoken to, how each particular affects him, and in what sense he takes it; and thus be directed more cautiously to suppress or employ the matter still in reserve.