ly
be taken, there is no sin at all. There may be people very low on the
scale of respectability as the world judges respectability; but it can
never be said of a man or woman that he or she cannot be dishonored,
that he or she is beneath contempt. Human nature never forfeits all
respect; it always has some redeeming feature to commend it.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
DEFAMATION.

DEFAMATION differs from contumely in that the one supposes the absence,
the other, the presence, of the person vilified; and again, in that the
former asperses the reputation of the victim while the latter attacks
the honor due or paid to said reputation. A good name is, after the
grace of God, mans most precious possession; wealth is mere trash
compared with it. You may find people who think otherwise, but the
universal sentiment of mankind stigmatizes such baseness and buries it
under the weight of its opprobrium. Nor is it impossible that honor be
paid where a good character no longer exists; but this is accidental.
In the nature of things, reputation is the basis of all honor; if you
destroy character, you destroy at the same time its fruit, which is
honor. Thus will be seen the double malice of defamation.

To defame therefore is to lessen or to annul the estimation in which a
person is held by his fellow-men. This crime may be perpetrated in two
different manners: by making known his secret faults, and this is
simple detraction; and by ascribing to him faults of which he is
innocent, and this is calumny or slander. Thus it appears that a man's
character may suffer from truth as well as from falsehood. Truth is an
adorable thing, but it has its time and place; the fact of its being
truth does not prevent it from being harmful. On the other hand, a lie,
which is evil in itself, becomes abominable when used to malign a
fellow-man.

There is one mitigating and two aggravating forms of defamation. Gossip
is small talk, idle and sufficiently discolored to make its subject
appear in an unfavorable light. It takes a morbid pleasure in speaking
of the known and public faults of another. It picks at little things,
and furnishes a steady occupation for people who have more time to mind
other people's business than their own. It bespeaks small-ness in
intellectual make-up and general pusillanimity. That is about all the
harm there is in it, and that is enough.

Libel supposes a wide diffusion of defamatory matter, written or
spoken. Its malice is g