ANY and every kind of tittle-tattle goes by the name of gossip, no matter whether the subject is the price of cauliflowers, or the foreign policy of Chile, or—darkening to scandal—the weather. In this place, I would limit gossip to that discussion of other people’s characters and affairs which is so well known to us, and to every other society. And I would call it scandal and have done with it, only scandal is a dog with a very bad name, while gossip still capers and frisks, unchecked though not encouraged. There is also this distinction: we—that is, you and I—may condescend to gossip: it is the others who talk scandal.

Now this personal kind of gossip is everywhere condemned and is everywhere an unfailing recreation. It began with the wild gestures and uncouth jabbering of our remote ancestors, squatting in their caves; perhaps it will end only when the last fire is quenched. Wise men, priests, philosophers, and prophets have thundered against it, but their very imprecations only floated about as flotsam and jetsam on the vast ocean of gossip; their very names have come down to us only as a whispered rumour. The stream of talk flows on, and as yet no denunciations have dammed it up. Gossip is an endless game without rules; a thing untouched by changing fashions and varying modes of thought; one of the few everlasting diversions of humanity. Men, who have had more say in public if less in private, have always been prompt to accuse women of devoting too much of their time and energy to this dubious sport. Gossip, they have declared, is woman’s greatest pastime. But here at least our feminists, who have spluttered over so many imaginary wrongs, have passed by one undoubted grievance, for the truth is, men are as much given to gossiping as women. Man’s talk may sound more important because it involves wider interests, yet a good deal of it is nothing more nor less than gossip.

Now it seems to me that in this perpetual chatter about other people, which we all hasten to denounce, but which gives all of us pleasure at some time or other, our delight springs, broadly speaking, from two main sources, one of which is good and the other bad. And according to which predominates gossip may be described as profitable or hurtful to those people concerned in it.

The good side of gossip arises out of that eager, seemingly insatiable curiosity which distinguishes men from the brutes and civilised men from savages. Much of our idlest chatter is secretly leavened by this curiosity, which is in its purest form a noble thing. For what is the pursuit of knowledge but the play of a splendid but entirely irrational inquisitiveness? Most of the higher branches of knowledge, metaphysics, pure mathematics, and so on, serve no practical purpose; sober philosophers and studious mathematicians are in reality the wildest of fellows, for ever pursuing a laborious quest into the absolute Unknown. A great deal of this fine curiosity goes to the making of gossip, which is something more than a casual exchange of news. When we talk over the Smiths and the Browns, not only do we record events, but we examine motives and estimate character, and in a roundabout way we exchange ideas. The greatest historian can do little more; his subject is of more importance, that is all. The difference between Mrs. Jones giving the real reason why the Johnsons left the town so suddenly, and Professor Jones, writing the Life and Times of Cardinal Richelieu, is one of degree only; both are undertaking the same kind of work, and probably both are stirred by the same motives. We are all historians without knowing it.

Our gossip and scandal is a grub, which in a hundred years’ time, with the advent of the historian, will become a chrysalis; and in four or five hundred years’ time, the hard shell will be burst open, and there will be seen the winged splendour of epic poetry or romantic drama. Have not all the subjects of history and epic poetry once been nothing more than eager talk in the court or the kitchen? ‘Have you heard the latest?’—the cry went: then followed the pretty little scandal of Helen, wife of Menelaus, and the Troy affair; or perhaps a full account of that queer business of Prince Hamlet at the Court of Denmark; or the whole story of those strange doings at Verona, in which Montague’s son, young Romeo, cut such a figure. The names and stories that were whispered in ante-rooms and bawled out in taverns, centuries ago, will yet provoke future historians, fire poets and romancers yet unborn, and will yet move unknown generations to wild laughter and tears, to anger and pity. How many noble studies have arisen out of this eternal curiosity of men! How many lovely things have flowered from this common soil of Gossip!

The other source of our pleasure in this personal kind of gossip is less innocent; indeed, it is—and ever has been—a great worker of mischief. It proceeds, I believe, from the strain of the Pharisee that is in most of us. When we discuss the weaknesses and misfortunes of others, we are not solely prompted by that spirit of curiosity to which I have referred. Nor is it, as a rule, direct enmity or mere malice that prompts us, for the people we discuss may be almost unknown to us, or, on the other hand, they may be old, well-tried friends. But when we are indulging in this sort of talk, we suddenly feel a sense of our own superiority, we glow with added self-respect. Thus, there are four or five of us chattering, and someone mentions the absent Jones, who is a common acquaintance. ‘Ah! Poor old Jones!’ we exclaim; and are quickly in full cry after the quarry. ‘The trouble with old Jones, ...’ one begins. ‘You know, he ought not to have, ...’ opens the next critic. ‘As I’ve told Jones many a time, ...’ cries a third. So voice after voice swells the chorus of criticism. The superficial show of concern and sympathy is a mere formality and deceives nobody; everyone is eager to contribute his or her scrap of censure; eyes are brightening, tongues are loosened. That slight but distinctly uncomfortable sense of inferiority which we may possibly have felt in the actual presence of Jones is now compensated for by a marked sense of our own superiority and a glow of self-satisfaction.

Unless we are on our guard, we are ready to sacrifice victim after victim for the sake of this delectable but transitory feeling. Every night, in countless drawing-rooms, knives are reddened and altars smoke to propitiate this dark god of self-righteousness. And the victim of this dreadful worship is too often young and open-hearted and beautiful—and a woman.