know what other people
feel about it all--what their points of view are, what their motives
are, what are the data on which they form their opinions--so that to
cut off the discussion of other personalities, on ethical grounds, is
like any other stiff and Puritanical attempt to limit interests, to
circumscribe experience, to maim life. The criticism, then, or the
discussion, of other people is not so much a CAUSE of interest in life,
as a SIGN of it; it is no more to be suppressed by codes or edicts than
any other form of temperamental activity. It is no more necessary to
justify the habit, than it is necessary to give good reasons for eating
or for breathing; the only thing that it is advisable to do, is to lay
down certain rules about it, and prescribe certain methods of
practising it. The people who do not desire to discuss others, or who
disapprove of doing it, may be pronounced to be, as a rule, either
stupid, or egotistical, or Pharisaical; and sometimes they are all
three. The only principle to bear in mind is the principle of justice.
If a man discusses others spitefully or malevolently, with the sole
intention of either extracting amusement out of their foibles, or with
the still more odious intention of emphasizing his own virtues by
discovering the weakness of others, or with the cynical desire--which
is perhaps the lowest of all--of proving the whole business of human
life to be a vile and sordid spectacle, then he may be frankly
disapproved of, and if possible avoided; but if a man takes a generous
view of humanity, if he admires what is large and noble, if he gives
full credit for kindliness, strength, usefulness, vigour, sympathy,
then his humorous perception of faults and deficiencies, of whims and
mannerisms, of prejudices and unreasonablenesses, will have nothing
that is hard or bitter about it. For the truth is that, if we are sure
that a man is generous and just, his little mannerisms, his fads, his
ways, are what mostly endear him to us. The man of lavish liberality is
all the more lovable if he has an intense dislike to cutting the string
of a parcel, and loves to fill his drawers with little hanks of twine,
the untying of which stands for many wasted hours. If we know a man to
be simple-minded, forbearing, and conscientious, we like him all the
better when he tells for the fiftieth time an ancient story, prefacing
it by anxious inquiries, which are smilingly rebutted, as to whether
any of his heare