The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-14
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

1T is more important that person
IShould be good gossip and talk pleas
antly and smartly of common friends
and the thousand and one nothings
of the day and hour, than that she
should speak with the tongues of men
and of angels, for awhile together by
the fire happens more frequently in
marriage than the presence of a dis
tinguished foreigner to dinner. -
Robert Louis Stevenson.
What a gossip she is" commented
the author mans wife tartly.
The lady who received this cen
conveying to US a grist of news. She
had told us that the BurgesseS were
going south for the winter; that the
LothropS were building a garage; that
Mrs. Miller might have to have her
arm amputated and that the Quincy's
Oldest son was going to marry a girl
he had met on his trip abroad.
Not one ill-natured word had she
had she conveyed. She had simply
passed along all the bits of news she
had been gathering
The author mans wife called her
gossip.
call her public benefactor.
She left me more to think about
than I had had when she came. She
brought me into closer touch with the
lives of my friends and neighbors. She
did no harm in any way
1t seems to me that many people
have this strange notion that to talk
about ones friends and neighbors and
what they are doing, no matter how
charitably, is gossip and to be avoided.
Myself 1 can't see it that way.
People are much the most inter
esting things on earth, and the people
you know the most interesting of the
most interesting. If you do not speak
i'll naturedly why should it be thought
undesirable to talk about them?
One of the most pleasing persons to
talk to whom / have ever known is
a woman who taught herself to OBJ
serve everything new and pick UP ev-
cry possible bit of information to in
terest her bedridden mother The lit
tie mother died years ago, but the
daughter has never lost the habit, and
to talk with her is to hear a witty but
always kindly chronicle of the news of
the neighborhood.
Everyone knows folks like her who
are always trimming with news, and
everyone knows other people who new
er have anything interesting to re-
late, who never even notice that a
new house is going up in their neigh
borhood or that a new family have
moved onto their street until some
more observing person tells them
And whatever anyone else may
think I, for my part, prefer the "gos-
sop I quote the word because I
sip I quote the word because I
gatherer, and not the harsh sense in
which the author mans wife used it
and which it usually carries.
I believe it is everyone's duty to be
as interesting as he can, and that
those who keep their eyes and ears
open and are generous with the fruits
of their observation fulfill that duty
Jane Austen has a splendid des-
cription of the right kind of gossip
May I add my feeble note of common
dation to hers
.sShe (Nurse Rourke in Persuasion)
is a shrewd, intelligent, sensible wo-
man. Hers is a line for seeing human
nature and she has q fund of good
sense and observation, which as a COM
panion, make her infinitely superior
to thousands who, having only receiv-
ed the best education in the world.
know nothing worth alluding to- Call
it gossip if you will, but when Nurse
Rourke has half an hours leisure to
bestow on me, she is sure to have
something interesting to relate, some
thing that is entertaining and profit
able; something that makes one know
ones species better. One likes to know
what is going on, to be tau fat to
the newest modes of living. To me.
who lives SO much alone, her. CONVEX
sation is a treat"