man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too
close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers
in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.

[Footnote 1: This restricted, or, as it were, entrenched kind of
sociability has been dramatically illustrated in a play--well worth
reading--of Moratin's, entitled _El Café o sea la Comedia Nuova_ (The
Cafe or the New Comedy), chiefly by one of the characters, Don Pedro
and especially in the second and third scenes of the first act.]

SECTION 10. _Envy_ is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice
and a source of misery.[1] We should treat it as the enemy of our
happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought. This is the advice
given by Seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we
have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with
some other and happier one--_nostra nos sine comparatione delectent;
nunquam erit felix quem torquebit felicior.[2]_ And again, _quum
adspexeris quot te antecedent, cogita quot sequantur_[3]--if a great
many people appear to be better off than yourself, think how many
there are in a worse position. It is a fact that if real calamity
comes upon us, the most effective consolation--though it springs from
the same source as envy--is just the thought of greater misfortunes
than ours; and the next best is the society of those who are in the
same luck as we--the partners of our sorrows.

[Footnote 1: Envy shows how unhappy people are; and their constant
attention to what others do and leave undone, how much they are
bored.]

[Footnote 2: _De Ira_: iii., 30.]