But if the envious man is a wretch without talent, jealous of merit as
beggars are of the rich; if, pressed by the indigence as by the
turpitude of his character he writes you some "News from Parnassus,"
some "Letters of Madame la Comtesse," some "Années Littéraires," this
animal displays an envy that is good for nothing, and for which
Mandeville could never make an apology.

One asks why the ancients thought that the eye of the envious man
bewitched those who looked at it. It is the envious, rather, who are
bewitched.

Descartes says: "That envy impels the yellow bile which comes from the
lower part of the liver, and the black bile which comes from the spleen,
which is diffused from the heart through the arteries, etc." But as no
kind of bile is formed in the spleen, Descartes, by speaking thus, does
not seem to merit too much that his natural philosophy should be envied.

A certain Voët or Voëtius, a theological scamp, who accused Descartes of
atheism, was very ill with the black bile; but he knew still less than
Descartes how his detestable bile was diffused in his blood.

Madame Pernelle is right: "The envious will die, but envy never."
(Tartufe, Act v, Scene iii.)

But it is good proverb which says that "it is better to be envious than
to have pity." Let us be envious, therefore, as hard as we can.