GOSSIP

Evening Star, Issue 21316, 21 January 1933, Page 2

GOSSIP

The thing called gossip has acquired a bad reputation. , Its condemnation is as common as it is itself. For it is common —one may say indeed universal. It is only here and there we get a man like Thoreau who finds himself selfsufficient and can do without society. But the great mass is built or not built that way. The normal men and women are gregarious. They need society. They grow sour and cynical if they cut themselves off from it. They commit a sin against their own nature and the body politic. And to live in society ■ we must, accept the conditions that inake us members of it. And one of the greatest of these is conversation. Gossip is a species of this., It often forgets its origin and end, and so acquires a bad name. We may be disgusted by it, but, as Emerson says, it is of importance to keep , the angels in their proprieties. It is impossible to exclude it from the pfivatest, highest, selectest society. And why shoixld we? If we did we would live like Egyptian hermits in crowded solitudes. Says Stevenson: “It is more important that a person should be a good gossip and talk pleasantly and smartly of common friends and the thousand and one nothings of the day and hour than that she should speak with the tongues of men and angels; for a while together by the fire happens more frequently than the presence of a distinguished l foreigner to dinner.”. That is good, sound sense. But before we go further ■w© must try to define what we mean .by gossip. * * • • : Digging down into the etymology of the world we find it to be compounded ’of God-sib. That gives two ideas, God and sib. The latter is an old AngloSaxon word which means relation or affinity. The word was originally applied to a sponsor in baptism—a godfather or godmother—so it came to mean an intimate friend. The word ■sib in Anglo-Saxon means originally peace. And so' we get on the track of what would constitute true gossip, •it must have in it friendliness, a certain serious outlook upon thought and jpersons, but not such aa to preclude the lighter side of things, only to secure' 'that these shall not be malicious or 'venomous or ill-natured talk, not such ■ns would produce disharmony or destroy .the peace of others. That rules out certain kinds of gossip that are common enough. It rules out talkers 'who seek to pick holes in the character •of others, who, as Pope says, just hint W fault and hesitate, dislike; who suggest rather than directly assert; who make innendoea of a nasty and disquieting kind about others. This overspreads .the company with a cloud of fear, and so puts restraint upon talk that should be easy and free to make it .gossip of ’•the best sort. Gossipers must have -confidence in each other, and not be afraid to rattle out just what they feel .'Ad think at tho moment/" I 'lf there be not such honesty; and. frankness, gossip .sia deprived of] 'thpare '’ ‘'elements 1 , which ■'make it-a ffaitful ,, interfude.' in ;the "•tress and struggle, of'existende'. , / ~ .’ •v. •' t * r ■. There ara'Warraajp ' subjects round which gossip, gathers: thoughts or -books • and persons, ijt is the.latter that communicate spice tb it/’ 1 The'fewer number care to talk about ideas'br jknowledge. - No doubt it would be’ interesting to ■ hear the well instructed talk at largo on intellectual. themes. But it is the

fewer number who either care for this or are competent to do it. Of Mr Gladstone an ardent admirer says he had manners, but no small talk. Lord Morley used to dress elaborately before ho sat down to write, and this fastidiousness is reflected in his books. There are many talkers like that. They are always in full dress uniform. Macaulay says Mr Gardiner talked as though he were addressing a public meeting, and Coleridge as though he were engaged in an argument, with space and time. Yet a competent judge of such matters said that he should enjoy listening to Coleridge even if he only read out a page of Bradshaw. And we remember what Lamb replied to him when Coleridge asked if ho had ever heard him preach: “ I never heard you do anything else.” As we descend from these heights of great men wo meet their like ,in a more or less degree all the way down to the level of the plain you and me.

But it is objected that gossip should not centre round personalities. ~,That would restrict it to a very narrow sphere. ■ It is personal gossip that interests the great mass of people. It is personalities that create literature and draw us to it sympathetically. And it is the same in life. There can be no harm in discussing people, describing what they said or did and how, provided always that it is done without malice. Mr Benson said truly enough that to lay down a general rule that one ought not to discuss other people is to be a preposterous prig. That seems true enough. But such discussion ought always to be tempered by the thought that we are very ignorant of their real self, even as we are of our own, and therefore we must be very cautious in passing judgment on them. That does not necessarily mean that we are to see nothing but good in them, any more than that wo are to see nothing but the bad. It means that we will do well to suspend judgment even when the facts seem to point to a certain conclusion. Wo may calculate a machine from its works. But when the machine is life, and life of the most complicated structure, such as human life, actions are an exceedingly unsafe basis on which to form a definite judgment regarding the doer of them.

It is well, therefore, in gossip to touch lightly, sympathetically, humorously the person of others. “ Biddy, dear, I hear your husband is dead,” said a gossip to her neighbour on the other side of the fence. “ Yes, he is.” “ And what did ho die of?” ”, Oh, I think it was the influenza.” “ Ah, glory be to goodness. Sure, it might have been the grey glanders ho would have died of.” That’s a happy illustration of saving the situation by seeing it sympathetically, optimistically, and drawing towards a needy, one the faroff interest of tears, Sydney Smith says that reasonable gossip should combine these four elements; (1) The conveyance of pleasing 'information from the standpoint of the cosmopolitan to that of the provincial life; (2) the escape in social life from the conventionalities ,of .society; (3) the doliver-l ance, in our entrance into the social world, from our own temperamental peculiarities; and (4) the redemption of the social circle from the curse of its aggregated deposit of ennui. Smith is an excellent illustration of his theories. It must have been delightful to have had him brighten up a dull gossiping company. Here is an example of his happy wit that is neAV to us and which is worth passing on. It was a dull and dignified gathering, including a dean and two or three canons. Smith, on entering the room, told that ho had just been watching a little girl tickling the back of a turtle with a straw. "What are you doing that for?” he asked. " Oh, it pleases the turtle. It tickles it bn the inside of its shell.” " Bless my soul,” was Smith’s comment, " you might as well try to please the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s by tickling the dome of the cathedral with a walking stick.” It is wit like that which gives zest to gossip. One who knew him well wrote of Matthew Arnold that " he combined in singular harmony the elements which go to make good conversation—urbanity, liveliness, quick sympathy, keen interest in the world’s works and ways, the happiest choice of words, and a natural and never-failing humour, as genial as it, was pungent. It was his characteristic glory that he knew how to be a man of the world without being frivolous, and a man of letters without being pedantic.” That is a fine characterisation, though we should hardly have thought Arnold possessed such a happy combination of desirable qualities.

But it suggests the clanger of gossip. As a writer in the 1 Spectator ’ puts it: “Its clanger lies mainly in its charm. It tends to satisfy the mind instead of giving it a fillip. If the gossiping circle is good and clever, we aro tempted to indulge the practice of it as much as possible. What should be an exceptionable entertainment becomes a habit, as novel reading or

attending picture shows. And in proportion ns it becomes so it hebitates the mind and tends to render it incapable of other higher interests.” So emerges at last the gossiper who is dreaded and avoided as either a peril or a bore or both. It is said that President Garfield had such a horror of it, especially when persons were involved, that he insisted at dinner that some instructive subject should be discussed rather than personalities. That may prove edifying if you always had the people competent to do it. Eat that is rarely the ease. To so limit it wmdd commonly tend to dullness and the emitting of platitudes of which we have already enough and to spare. And the degeneracy of mind characteristic of the habitual gossiper “ arises only from the abuse of a faculty which, wisely used, is a current of society, and makes intercourse easy and instructive which in its absence would bo wearisome and intolerable.”.