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Surely all of us ought to accept the fact that everyone of us has such a fair share of foibles and peculiarities, and makes so many blunders and miscalculations, that all his friends should be privileged genially to talk a little about them. Jane Austen, one of the finest people in the world, said that if she could "never relax into laughing at myself or at any other, I am sure I should be hung." But she also said, "I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good." It seems to me that there lies the secret and the norm of happy and wholesome gossip. After all, life is bad enough without making it still worse by being stuffy. I would not trust conversational rules which tended to make one stuffy either about one's self or about one's friends. If a fellow is trying to cover his galloping baldness by pulling elongated wisps of hair all the way across his head, I cannot believe that it is wrong for me and my friend to have a little fun over his foible and smile a bit at his harmless vanity. But let it be good-natured. If a person is honest with himself, he knows very well whether what he is about to gossip comes from a kind and loving heart or not. If it does not, then he ought not to say it. But if it does, then I don't think it will hurt one's absent "victim." |
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