I had the curiosity, as a neighbouring gossip was one day at my house, and while she happened to be napping on the sofa, to try if I could obtain a view of her ear, the structure of which I had often speculated about. With the aid of a good eye-glass I succeeded. It was a curious piece of mechanism: the outside folding was of the usual size, but by long habit of eager listening, had acquired a kind of gaping shape, which seemed to bid an indiscriminate welcome to every sound. Next to this was a kind of whispering gallery, so extremely susceptible of noise, that one of my most careful breathings was immediately reverberated to the tympanum, and though not loud enough to awake the sleeper, it was evident that it made her dream of scandal. I was curious to know the construction of the tympanum, which vibrated so easily to an empty breath. I could see it plainly: for the long habit of extreme anxiety to receive every breath that stirred, had pushed it forward to the very orifice of the ear, where it seemed waiting in an agony of impatience for something new, and complaining grievously that all the tit-bits of intelligence had to pass such a distance before they could come to its hearing. Its make was curious: it was an extremely fine sieve of the most elastic materials. It was evidently constructed so that every thing of the least weight should rebound as soon as it touched, and only those articles which were as light as air, should enter. It was too fine to admit any thing larger than a bit of scandal. The whole external ear was designed to catch and communicate every thing audible, for it is a maxim with gossips as well as others, that nothing is too poor for a nice hand to sift some good from it. This sifting was the office of the tympanum: it was in a perpetual quiver. Its nice threads were constantly shaking to pieces what was too light to rebound, and too large to enter whole, and then dropping them to the receiver below. There were a great many curious articles sticking in this sieve, which had got half through but could go no further. There were little pieces of serious and affecting family secrets, tales of distress, cullings from the little failings of good men, morsels of sermons, drippings of church business, ends, middles and halves of people's sayings, anecdotes of funerals, with numerous suspicions, half heard hear-says, and suspicions of near-says.--All these had evidently been operated upon. A kind of scandalic acid had been at work on those parts which had got within. They were partly decomposed; their seriousness had assumed a ridiculous aspect, their solidity had become gaseous: what had been affecting, seemed now to be laughable; what had appeared commendable, seemed now composed of so many disgusting materials as to be odious. Here I learned the reason which I never knew before, why it is that gossips hear so many lectures upon the degrading, injurious, disreputable character of their pursuits, and so entirely without effect.