Rumour's workers

I've just read this scathing attack on Rumour by George Eliot, which is somewhat amusing:

That talkative maiden, Rumour, though in the interest of art she is figured as a youthful winged beauty with flowing garments, soaring above the heads of men, and breathing world-thrilling news through a gracefully-curved trumpet, is in fact a very old maid, who puckers her silly face by the fireside, and really does no more than chirp a wrong guess or a lame story into the ear of a fellow-gossip; all the rest of the work attributed to her is done by the ordinary working of those passions against which men pray in the Litany, with the help of a plentiful stupidity against which we have never yet had any authorized form of prayer.

Felix Holt: The Radical, Chapter VIII

It's helpful though that she points out the fact that Rumour gains ground by the agenda of another particular sin (or the combination of a few). I have been waiting for Ainsley Poulos's talk on Envy from the EQUIP conference to come up online, because it was probing and challenging. I suspect Envy is a passion that has fuelled the conflagration of a good many rumours. So 'why' is a question worth asking next time I find myself tempted to pass on some questionable morsel of 'information' - and then of course I can deal with it with the weapons used in the fight for godliness (and say an unauthorised prayer against stupidity!).