Defamation differs from contumely in that the one supposes the absence, the other, the presence, of the person vilified; and again, in that the former asperses the reputation of the victim while the latter attacks the honor due or paid to said reputation.  A good name is, after the grace of God, mans most precious possession; wealth is mere trash compared with it.  You may find people who think otherwise, but the universal sentiment of mankind stigmatizes such baseness and buries it under the weight of its opprobrium.  Nor is it impossible that honor be paid where a good character no longer exists; but this is accidental.  In the nature of things, reputation is the basis of all honor; if you destroy character, you destroy at the same time its fruit, which is honor.  Thus will be seen the double malice of defamation.

To defame therefore is to lessen or to annul the estimation in which a person is held by his fellow-men.  This crime may be perpetrated in two different manners:  by making known his secret faults, and this is simple detraction; and by ascribing to him faults of which he is innocent, and this is calumny or slander.  Thus it appears that a man’s character may suffer from truth as well as from falsehood.  Truth is an adorable thing, but it has its time and place; the fact of its being truth does not prevent it from being harmful.  On the other hand, a lie, which is evil in itself, becomes abominable when used to malign a fellow-man.

There is one mitigating and two aggravating forms of defamation.  Gossip is small talk, idle and sufficiently discolored to make its subject appear in an unfavorable light.  It takes a morbid pleasure in speaking of the known and public faults of another.  It picks at little things, and furnishes a steady occupation for people who have more time to mind other people’s business than their own.  It bespeaks small-ness in intellectual make-up and general pusillanimity.  That is about all the harm there is in it, and that is enough.

Libel supposes a wide diffusion of defamatory matter, written or spoken.  Its malice is great because of its power for evil and harm.  Tale-bearing or backbiting is what the name implies.  Its object is principally to spread discord, to cause enmity, to break up friendships; it may have an ulterior purpose, and these are the means it employs.  No limit can be set to its capacity for evil, its malice is especially infernal.

It is not necessary that what we do or say of a defamatory nature result, as a matter of fact, in bringing one’s name into disfavor or disrepute; it is sufficient that it be of such a nature and have such a tendency.  If by accident the venomous shaft spend itself before attaining the intended mark, no credit is due therefore to him who shot it; his guilt remains what it was when he sped it on its way.  Nor is there justification in the plea that no harm was meant, that the deed was done in a moment of anger, jealousy, etc., that it was the result of loquacity, indulged in for the simple pleasure of talking.  These are excuses that excuse not.