suit will have "news value" for many weeks. They constitute a story,
like a novel or play or moving picture. This is not an example of pure
curiosity, however, since we readily identify ourselves with others,
and their joys and despair then become our own.

We also take note of, or "observe", as Sherlock Holmes says, things
which have nothing to do with our personal interests and make no
personal appeal either direct or by way of sympathy. This is what
Veblen so well calls "idle curiosity". And it is usually idle enough.
Some of us when we face the line of people opposite us in a subway
train impulsively consider them in detail and engage in rapid
inferences and form theories in regard to them. On entering a room
there are those who will perceive at a glance the degree of
preciousness of the rugs, the character of the pictures, and the
personality revealed by the books. But there are many, it would seem,
who are so absorbed in their personal reverie or in some definite
purpose that they have no bright-eyed energy for idle curiosity. The
tendency to miscellaneous observation we come by honestly enough, for
we note it in many of our animal relatives.

Veblen, however, uses the term "idle curiosity" somewhat ironically,
as is his wont. It is idle only to those who fail to realize that it
may be a very rare and indispensable thing from which almost all
distinguished human achievement proceeds. Since it may lead to
systematic examination and seeking for things hitherto undiscovered.
For research is but diligent search which enjoys the high flavor of
primitive hunting. Occasionally and fitfully idle curiosity thus leads
to creative thought, which alters and broadens our own views and
aspirations and may in turn, under highly favorable circumstances,
affect the views and lives of others, even for generations to follow.