As Robert Pollock wrote of one full of envy:
It was his earnest work and daily
With lying tongue, to make the noble seem
Mean as himself.
* * * * *
Whene’er he heard,
As oft he did, of joy and happiness,
And great prosperity, and rising worth,
’Twas like a wave of wormwood o’er his soul
Rolling its bitterness.
Aye! and he drank in great draughts of this bitter flood, holding it in his mouth, tasting its foul and biting qualities until his whole being seemed saturated with it, hating it, dreading it, suffering every moment while doing it, yet enduring it, because of his envy at the good of others.
Few there are, who, at some time or other in their lives, do not have a taste, at least, of the stinging bite of envy. Girls are envious of each other’s good looks, clothes, possessions, houses, friends; boys of the strength, skill, ability, popularity of others; women of other women, men of other men, just as when they were boys and girls.
One of the strongest words the great Socrates ever wrote was against envy. He said:
Envy is the daughter of pride, the author of murder and revenge, the beginner of secret sedition, the perpetual tormentor of virtue. Envy is the filthy slime of the soul; a venom, a poison, a quicksilver, which consumeth the flesh, and drieth up the marrow of the bones.
And history clearly shows that the wise philosopher stated facts. Caligula slew his brother because he possessed a beauty that led him to be more esteemed and favored than he. Dionysius, the tyrant, was vindictive and cruel to Philoxenius, the musician, because he could sing; and with Plato, the philosopher, because he could dispute, better than himself. Even the great Cambyses slew his brother, Smerdis, because he was a stronger and better bowman than himself or any of his party. It was envy that led the courtiers of Spain to crave and seek the destruction of Columbus, and envy that set a score of enemies at the heels of Cortes, the conqueror of Peru.
It is a fearful and vindictive devil, is this devil of envy, and he who yields to it, who once allows it admittance to the citadel of his heart, will soon learn that every subsequent waking and even sleeping moment is one of worry and distress.
DISCONTENT AND WORRY
Closely allied to envy is discontent. These are blood relations, and both are prolific sources of worry. And lest there are those who think because I have revealed, in the preceding chapter, the demon of worry—envy—as one that attacks the minds of the great and mighty, it does not enter the hearts of everyday people, let me quote, entire, an article and a poem recently written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in The Los Angeles Examiner. The discontent referred to clearly comes from envy. Some one has blond tresses, while she has black. This arouses her envy. She is envious because another’s eyes are blue, while hers are brown; another is tall, while she is small; etc., etc. There is nothing, indeed, that she cannot weep and worry over: