Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 204, 17 November 1927, Page 5

Mundane Musings

“No, I Never Gossip!”

“I think it’s hateful the way Mrs. So-and-So is for ever trotting out tit-bits about the people next door or across the road,” says Madge. “Who cares? I’m not a bit interested in what they’re doing or where they’ve been.” She says it with a virtuous air, because she looks upon gossiping as a disagreeable weakness. But is it? Malicious chit-chat is unforgivable, but young Mrs. So-and-So is far too sunny and contented a soul to indulge in that variety. She would certainly never be so popular if she did! “She’s a Dear”

“She’s a dear,” is the verdict of her friends. “She’s so entertaining! And you never find her in the blues or out of humour.” Which is more, it must be admitted, than they say about Madge. “Oh, yes! She’s all right ” but somehow not very interesting. Everybody yields to the "magentism* of a sunny disposition, and a happy outlook is most surely developed by cultivating a healthy interest in life. And if you’re interested in people and things you will certainly gossip! It isn’t simply because Mrs. So-and-So can tell of the doctor’s and nurse’s visit next door, or that the Smiths have just bought a new motor-car, that she is so popular. It’s because she is so vivid, so joyously alive and so sympathetic toward the fortunes of those who are living the same sort of life as her own. It’s so easy to get “shut up” and self-centred and unsympathetic—and then to feel a little superior because we take no interest in our neighbours—and never gossip! After all, it takes a generous nature to bo pleasantly interested and concerned in the lives and doings of those around us; to recognise that even our very limited stretch of beach does ifot consist of only one stone! If writers and dramatists never interested themselves in the sayings and doings of other people, there wouldn’t be anything worth reading or seeing in their novels or plays. And the artist in each of us finds an outlet in gossip for the impressions we have gathered of our own particular slice of life. It is difficult to be interested for long when our companion’s topics of conversation £,re restricted to discussions of her particular face cream or hairdresser or new frock—absorbing as these topics may occasionally be\ No, if we are really alive, and have the gifts of sympathy and a sense of humour, we shall certainly be exponents of the gentle, art of gossip.