50/100 Envy

50. Envy

Envy is the daughter of Pride, the author of murder and revenge, the beginner of secret sedition, and the perpetual tormentor of virtue. Envy is the slime of the soul, a venom, a poison or quicksilver, which consumeth the flesh and dryeth up the marrow of the bones. It is composed of odious ingredients, in which are found meanness, vice, and malice, in about equal proportions. It wishes the force of goodness to be strained, and that the measure of happiness be abated. It laments over prosperity, pines at the visit of success, is sick at the sight of health. Like death, it loves a shining mark; like the worm, it never runs but to the fairest fruits; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock.

Envy is no less foolish than it is detestable. It is a vice which keeps no holiday, but is always in the wheel and working out its own disquiet. It loves darkness rather than light, because its deeds are evil. Scorpions can be made to sting themselves to death when confined within a circle of fire. Even such is envy; for when surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another's prosperity it speedily destroys itself. He whose heart is imbued with the spirit of envy loseth much of the pleasures of life. The envious man is in pain upon all occasions which ought to give him pleasure.

It were not possible for one to adopt a more suicidal course as far as his own happiness is concerned. The relish of his life is inverted, and the objects which administer the highest satisfaction to those who are exempt from this passion give the quickest pangs to those subject to it. As when we look through glasses colored all objects partake of the glasses' color, so one moved and influenced by envy sees not the perfection of his fellow-creatures, but that they are to him odious. Youth, beauty, valor, and wisdom are, to their perverted view, but objects calculated to provoke their displeasure. What a wretched and apostate state is this—to be offended with excellence, and to hate a man because we approve him! Were not its effects so disastrous to personal character, the fit weapon wherewith to meet it were the ridicule of all sensible people. But the evil is too deeply seated to be spoken of lightly. As its cause is situated deep in the character of the individual, so its effects are far-reaching in his life.

He that is under the dominion of envy can not see perfections. He is so blinded that he is always degrading or misrepresenting things which are excellent. This brings out strongly the difference between the envious man and him who is moved by the spirit of benevolence. The envious man is tormented, not only by all the ills that befall himself, but by all the good that happens to another; whereas the benevolent man is better prepared to bear his own calamities unruffled, from the complacency and serenity he has secured from contemplating the prosperity of all around him. For the man of true benevolence the sun of happiness must be totally eclipsed before it can be darkness around him. But the envious man is made gloomy, not only by his own cloud of sorrow, but by the sunshine around the heart of another.

Other passions have objects to flatter them, and seem to content and satisfy them for a while. There is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can give nothing but vexation. Envy is so base and detestable, so vile in its origin, and so pernicious in its effects, that the predominance of almost any other quality is to be preferred. It is a passion so full of cowardice and shame that nobody ever had the confidence to own it. He that envieth maketh another man's virtue his vice, and another man's happiness his torment; whereas he that rejoiceth at the prosperity of another is partaker of the same.

Envy is a sentiment that desires to equal, or excel, the efforts of its compeers, not so much by increasing our own toil and ingenuity as by diminishing the merits due to the efforts of others. It seeks to elevate itself by the degradation of others; it detests the sound of another's praise, and deems no renown acceptable that must be shared. Hence, when disappointments occur, they fall with unrelieved violence, and the consciousness of discomfited rivalry gives poignancy to the blow. Whoever feels pain in learning the good character of his neighbors will feel a pleasure in the reverse; and those who despair to rise to distinction by their virtues are happy if others can be depressed to a level with themselves.

Envy is so cruel in its pursuit that, when once hounded on, it rests not till the grave closes over its victim. There is a secure refuge against defamation, and one redeeming trait of human nature is that there every man's well-earned honors defend him against calumny. Honors bestowed upon the illustrious dead have in them no admixture of envy; but these are about the only kind of honors administered free from envy. Though the fact is to be deeply lamented, it is unfortunately true, that such is the perversion of the human heart that ofttimes the only reward of those whose merits have raised them above the common level is to acquire the hatred and aversion of their compeers. He who would acquire lasting fame, and would be remembered as one who did his duty well, must resolve to submit to the shafts of envy for the sake of noble objects.

Envy is a weed that grows in all soils and climates, and is no less luxuriant in the country than in the court. It is not confined to any rank of men or extent of fortune, but rages in the breast of those of every degree. We are as apt to find it in the humble walks of life as in the proud; as much in the sordid, affected dress as in all the silks and embroideries which the excess of age and folly of youth delight to be adorned with. Since, then, it keeps all sorts of company, and infuses itself into the most contrary natures and dispositions, and yet carries so much poison and venom with it that it ruins any life in which it finds lodgment—alienating the affections from heaven, and raising rebellion against God himself—it is worth our utmost care to watch it in all its disguises and approaches, that we may discover it at its first entrance, and dislodge it before it procures a shelter to conceal itself, and work to our confusion and shame.