Talkativeness seems to me an intemperance of conversation which cannot be condemned on the ground of malice, for those afflicted with it wish to harm no one and do injury to none; yet it is nonetheless a genuine trouble and a genuine embarrassment for those who endure it. Tell me, then, if you please, what this failing ought to be called: it would seem to require a name expressing at once the loquacity and the distress it causes. The babbler is a person of this sort. The moment he meets you: "Ah! my dear fellow," he says, "what brings you out so early? It is scarcely daylight, and you are already up." — "I am going," one answers, "to such a place, on such business." — "Very good, very good; but meanwhile, just imagine the dream I had last night: I saw myself... no, I cannot tell it as it was, it was so strange! But here is roughly what it was: I found myself in a boat, the sea was calm, and then suddenly a wind arose... and I saw in the sky... you are laughing, but it is so. Then I woke, and being eager to know whether we should have rain, I went out and looked at the weather." Then, without waiting for a reply: "How far along is your lawsuit?" And before one has opened one's mouth: "As for mine, here is how it goes: I appeared yesterday before the judge, and I said... he answered me... they objected... then I replied... I believe I have already told you that; but this happened to me besides..." Thereupon, if one lets him see that one is pressed: "I will walk along with you," he cries, "I am going that way, and we can talk as we go." And he hurries on, talking as he goes: "You know I have decided to buy a field; I have seen a property I like: eighty minae. The first day I did not even look at it; the next day I returned with the seller, we went over it, and I calculated what each part might yield. The price seems high, but I think I can obtain it on better terms. We lunched at his house, and he served us... you will laugh... such a quantity of dishes that I cannot name them all: first a hare, then..." He enumerates everything, dish by dish, with the details of the cooking, omitting not a single ragout. "Moreover," he continues, "such a friend of mine came to see me; he said things to me... and I answered him... he seemed put out... I will tell you about it another time." That very day, in the marketplace, he seizes by the hand a busy man on his way to his banker: "Have you heard what has happened? Such a thing has befallen such a person; you cannot guess; listen: it was said publicly... and then..." The banker waits, the creditors wait, the shop is closed, the hour passes, and the babbler goes on. If it happens that he escorts someone to the door, he walks on as far as the public square; and when he finally stops, he says in parting: "You have told me hardly anything today." If he is at a dinner where some difficult point is being debated, he cannot fail to interrupt the first speaker in mid-sentence to have his say; and when the matter is ripe and everyone is agreed: "That," he says, "is exactly how I should have resolved the question myself." He reads to his friends the documents of his case, and before he is through the first page he comments on every line: "You see plainly that this is not all." If one asks him for a letter, he writes far into the night, fills four sheets, apologizes for the length, begins again, promises never again to write so long, and writes no less the next day. He does not wait to be questioned before telling; he answers before the question; and what he might say in three words he spreads out into a discourse. If he calls on a sick man, he first inquires into everything concerning the patient, then relates his own health, what he has eaten, what has harmed him, what he has taken, and how he has spent the night; he goes on to other sick people he knows, names their physicians, reports their words, discusses their remedies; and when at last he is begged to let the patient rest: "It is," he says, "to show my friendship that I stay." Such is roughly the character of the babbler. He has, I repeat, no malice; he is even naturally well-disposed; but his mind knows no restraint: knowing how to say everything, he does not know when to be silent.