When he that has given no provocation to malice,
but by attempting to excel in some useful art, finds himself pursued by
multitudes whom he never saw with implacability of personal resentment;
when he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him as a public
enemy, and incited by every stratagem of defamation; when he hears the
misfortunes of his family or the follies of his youth exposed to the
world; and every failure of conduct, or defect of nature, aggravated and
ridiculed; he then learns to abhor those artifices at which he only
laughed before, and discovers how much the happiness of life would be
advanced by the eradication of envy from the human heart.
Envy is, indeed, a stubborn weed of the mind, and seldom yields to the
culture of philosophy. There are, however, considerations which, if
carefully implanted, and diligently propagated, might in time overpower
and repress it, since no one can nurse it for the sake of pleasure, as
its effects are only shame, anguish, and perturbation. It is, above all
other vices, inconsistent with the character of a social being, because
it sacrifices truth and kindness to very weak temptations. He that
plunders a wealthy neighbour, gains as much as he takes away, and
improves his own condition in the same proportion as he impairs
another's; but he that blasts a flourishing reputation, must be content
with a small dividend of additional fame, so small as can afford very
little consolation to balance the guilt by which it is obtained.
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