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evil-doing, he wanted nothing.
He was happy, shivering in the cold which his neighbour was suffering.
To be malignant is an opulence. Such a man is believed to be poor, and,
in truth, is so; but he has all his riches in malice, and prefers having
them so. Everything is in what contents one. To do a bad turn, which is
the same as a good turn, is better than money. Bad for him who endures,
good for him who does it. Catesby, the colleague of Guy Fawkes, in the
Popish powder plot, said: "To see Parliament blown upside down, I
wouldn't miss it for a million sterling."
What was Barkilphedro? That meanest and most terrible of things--an
envious man.
Envy is a thing ever easily placed at court.
Courts abound in impertinent people, in idlers, in rich loungers
hungering for gossip, in those who seek for needles in trusses of hay,
in triflers, in banterers bantered, in witty ninnies, who cannot do
without converse with an envious man.
What a refreshing thing is the evil spoken to you of others.
Envy is good stuff to make a spy. There is a profound analogy between
that natural passion, envy, and that social function, espionage. The spy
hunts on others' account, like the dog. The envious man hunts on his
own, like the cat.
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