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( Originally Published 1908 ) The Gossip Microbe THE person who plays pitch-and-toss with your good name is not necessarily your enemy. Probably if you go to him quietly and ask a favor, he will be glad to grant it, and will consider it an honor to exert himself in your behalf. His unkind remarks are the result of the Gossip-Habit. He talks to hear himself talk nothing is quite so pleasing to his ears as the sound of his own bazoo. To have others listen to his vaporings is gratifying to his vanity. He dissects the life and belittles the motives of anybody and everybody who are not present. Should the person reviled suddenly appear upon the scene, the theme quickly changes, and the newcomer is treated with kindly deference, and is regaled by hearing the character of some one else ripped up into carpet-rags. The Gossip Microbe is born of vacuity, and breeds best in idle minds. If you do not hear what the scandalmonger says, you are not harmed. As for those who hear him, they are not influenced against you by what he says, and for the most part his words die on the empty air. He injures no one but himself. However, the person who comes and tells you what the loquacious one says about you, is a positive pest. His action is unforgivable and unpardonable. He robs you of your peace of mind. The idle charges when told over again take on a different color and become realities. So to repeat : The individual who rails on me behind my back is very seldom my enemy; the person who comes to me and tells me what he says, is. The first I 'll pardon, the latter forever is tabu let his name be anathema. He is one who magnifies idle nothings and vacuous vaporings until they become noxious gases.
The man who talks gossip is a fool; but the one who repeats it is a rogue. Your friends are those who tell you the kind things that are said of you; your enemies are those who, in the holy name of friendship, come to you and poison |