do not wish to have themselves voted mentally defective to draw a
distinction between scandal and innocent gossip. As I have already said,
there is nothing so interesting as the dramatic incidents in the lives
of human beings. Despite the nature-study enthusiasts who seem to refuse
mankind a place in nature, "the proper study of mankind is man" and will
forever remain so. But this does not mean that mental weaklings should
be allowed to discover and talk about only salacious episodes in the
history of their acquaintances. The vicious scandal-monger who defames
another, or hears him defamed or scandalized, and then runs to him with
enlarged and considerably colored tales of what was said about him, is
the poison of the serpent and should not be tolerated in society. A
sanitarium for mental delinquents is the only proper place for such a
person.

And let me add that the apocryphal slanderer, the person who never says
but hints all sorts of malicious things, is the worst sort of
scandal-monger. The cultivated conversationalist who talks gossip in its
intellectual form does not indulge in oblique hints and insinuations. He
says what he has to say intrepidly because he says it discriminatingly.

Keen judgment which discovers the fundamental distinction between
scandal and suitable personality in talk raises gossip to the perfection
of an art and the dignity of a science. Undiscriminating people,
therefore, had better leave personalities alone and stick to the more
general and less resilient topics of conversation. Good gossip is
attainable only by minds that are capable of much higher talk than
gossip. Cultivated, well-poised, well-disposed persons need never be
afraid of indulging their conversation to a certain extent with gossip,
because they indulge it in the right way. And provided their personal
and familiar talk is listened to by equally cultivated, well-poised, and
well-disposed people, their gossip need not necessarily be limited to
the mention of only pleasant and complimentary history; no more, indeed,
than Plutarch found it necessary to tell of the glory of Demosthenes
without mention that there were those who whispered graft and bribery in
connection with his name. There are a few very good and very dull people
who try to stop all adverse criticism. All raillery strikes them as
cruel. They would like to see every parody murdered by the common
hangman. Even the best of comedy is constitutionally repellent to them