I have personally been struck this week at the power of gossip:

A Chasidic tale vividly illustrates the danger of improper speech: A man went about the community telling malicious lies about the rabbi. Later, he realized the wrong he had done, and began to feel remorse. He went to the rabbi and begged his forgiveness, saying he would do anything he could to make amends. The rabbi told the man, "Take a feather pillow, cut it open, and scatter the feathers to the winds." The man thought this was a strange request, but it was a simple enough task, and he did it gladly. When he returned to tell the rabbi that he had done it, the rabbi said, "Now, go and gather the feathers. Because you can no more make amends for the damage your words have done than you can recollect the feathers."

At the same time, I have been reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard - 11th and 12th century monk/nun and philosophers - and an entire section of a Letter of Direction from Abelard speaks to this:

Proverbs 10:19 - in the words of Solomon: Where men talk too much sin is not far away; the man who holds his tongue is wise.

In the book of James: The tongue is a small member of the body, but how great a fire! How vast a forest it can set alight! It is a world of wickedness, an intractable evil, charged with deadly venom.

Proverbs 25:28: Like a city that is breached and left unwalled is a man who cannot control his temper in speech.

St. Gregory, in the 7th book of his Morals: When we are careless about guarding against idle words, we come on to harmful ones. By these provocation is sown, quarrels arise, the torches of hatred are set alight and the whole peace of the heart is destroyed.

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All very dramatic, I know. But it did bring home to me that this is an age old problem and that much damage has always been possible through gossip, slander. One thing I have definitely taken away from this is that I'm determined, in the future, to go to the source. If someone brings gossip to me, I will endeavor to address the person directly, if it is even my business to do so, and not simply be another link in the gossip chain.