The Slanderers by Warwick Deeping

WITH strange swiftness tidings of a fellow's misfortune are carried by the wind and wafted into every willing ear. People are the more quick to receive the news of another's failure in preference to some small glory that may have blessed some one among them. Save to the generous few, the follies of humanity fall like libations poured before the eternal ego. A man's so-called friends are his most subtle enemies, for they stand ever ready to stab him, claiming hypocritical candor in justification of the deed. The world loves disaster even that it may point the obvious moral, smite its self-righteous bosom and exclaim, "God, I thank thee that I am no fool."

Now in Saltire charity abounded and the milk of human kindness flowed like water. The good news had spread even as a fire spreads over a dry heath before a western wind. The ladies of Saltire were in their element. For when a fair sister errs, her fellow-women lift up their voices and rejoice in that unctuous patois that passes for sure piety.