'Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she, 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions, when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - Or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?'

'Very likely they do,' said I: 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight.'

--Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall