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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 2, No. 10. June 14, 1939

Is Gossip a Vice?

Is Gossip a Vice?

Well, is it really a vice? Never, we are told, say anything about other people that you wouldn't like to hear said about yourself. This is ridiculous and Impossible. If we were really to act on this, we should never say anything about anybody except that he or she was the nicest, most beautiful and intelligent person in the whole world, because nobody is satisfied with less praise. We all really think that we are the nicest person in the world: if we didn't we should commit suicide. Perhaps at the bottom of our hearts we suspect that this isn't true, but we quite rightly expect our friends to behave in our company as If It were. We are not so foolish as to expect them to believe It. though. We all know that they'll say something very different, and perhaps nearer the truth, the moment our back is turned. Just as we shall about them, but who cares? As long as we don't actually hear the catty remark, we are happy. It's this that stops most of us from reading other people's letters and listening at keyholes. We are terrified of coming across some unfiattering reference to ourselves as in those horrifying advertisement strips. "James asks me how I liked his book: I had to pretend I'd read it." or "Poor Jean is under the illusion that she still looks twenty-three." You know the kind of thing.

Gossip has fallen under a cloud because of the people who abuse it. I remember once as a small boy when my elder brother repeated at a tea-party, where a certain lady was present, a remark of my aunt's to the effect that the lady smelt. For the next few days, to all his toys, to his sponge and toothbrush and all his belongings, he found a paper pinned on which were written the words. 'Never Repeat.'