In Oriental moralists, in
Oriental tales, the envious man is remarkably prominent. In real life,
he is the terror of all who possess anything 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.* 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 individual energy which, though less persistent and
more intermittent than in the self-helping and struggling
Anglo-Saxons, has nevertheless manifested itself among the French in
nearly every direction in which the operation of their institutions
has been favourable to it.
* I limit the expression to past time, because I would say nothing
derogatory of a great, and now at last a free, people, who are
entering into the general movement of European progress with a
vigour which bids fair to make up rapidly the ground they have lost.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80