feels good-will towards others engaged in, or who have succeeded in
the same pursuit. And where the majority are so engaged, those who do
not attain the object have had the tone given to their feelings by the
general habit of the country, and ascribe their failure to want of
effort or opportunity, or to their personal ill luck. But those who,
while desiring what others possess, put no energy into striving for
it, are either incessantly grumbling that fortune does not do for them
what they do not attempt to do for themselves, or overflowing with
envy and ill-will towards those who possess what they would like to
have.

In proportion as success in life is seen or believed to be the fruit
of fatality or accident and not of exertion in that same ratio does
envy develop itself as a point of national character. The most envious
of all mankind are the Orientals. In Oriental moralists, in Oriental
tales, the envious man is remarkably prominent. In real life, he is
the terror of all who possess any thing desirable, be it a palace, a
handsome child, or even good health and spirits: the supposed effect
of his mere look constitutes the all-pervading superstition of the
evil eye. Next to Orientals in envy, as in activity, are some of the
Southern Europeans. The Spaniards pursued all their great men with it,
embittered their lives, and generally succeeded in putting an early
stop to their successes. [1] With the French, who are essentially
a Southern people, the double education of despotism and Catholicism
has, in spite of their impulsive temperament, made submission and
endurance the common character of the people, and their most received
notion of wisdom and excellence; and if envy of one another, and of
all superiority, is not more rife among them than it is, the
circumstance must be ascribed to the many valuable counteracting
elements in the French character, and most of all to the great