, and scandal comes from people incapable
of anything better either in mind or conversation. Among those who
understand the art of conversation, libelous talk is rarely heard; with
those who cultivate it to perfection, never. It is the first commandment
of the slanderer to repeat promptly all the vitriolic talk he hears, but
to keep strictly to himself all pleasant words or kindly gossip. Those
who draw no distinction between scandal and gossip should reflect that
gossip may be good-natured and commendatory as well as hostile and
adverse. In the published letters of the late James Russell Lowell is an
account of his meeting Professor Mahaffy of Trinity College, Dublin, who
is known to be one of the most agreeable of men. They met at the house
of a friend in Birmingham, England, and when Lowell took leave of Mr.
Mahaffy he said to his host: "Well, that's one of the most delightful
fellows I ever met, and I don't mind if you tell him so!" When Lowell's
remark was repeated to Mr. Mahaffy, he exclaimed, "Poor Lowell! to think
that he can never have met an Irishman before!" And this was gossip as
surely as the inimical prattle about Lord and Lady Byron was gossip. No,
indeed, slander and libelous talk are not necessary ingredients of
gossip. People who take malicious pleasure in using speech for malign
purposes suffer from a mental disorder which does not come under the
scope of conversation.

Regarding the mental deficiencies of those who love to wallow in the
mire of salacious news about others, the psychologists have come to some
interesting conclusions. To them it seems that there is an essential
identity between the gossip and the genius. In both, the mental
processes work with the same tendency to reproduce every fragment of
past experience, because both think by what is known as "total recall."
From the thought of one thing their minds pass to all sorts of remote
connections, sane and silly, rational and grotesque, relevant and
irrelevant. The essential difference between the gossip mind and the
genius mind is the power of genius to distinguish between the worthy and
the unworthy, the trivial and the relevant, the true and the false. The
thoughts of the gossip, so the psychologists tell us, have connection
but not coherence; the thoughts of the genius have coherence and
likewise connection and unity. Thus we discover that scandal-mongers are
at fault in the mind more than in the heart; and that it behooves people
who