PROSE VII.

Ecce habes quomodo tenacis avaritiae viscus.

There thou hast in what manner the tenacious lime of avarice deprives the wings of the human mind of liberty. Now is to be examined how the bombastic flatulence of insolent pride lifts the minds of men into arrogance. Tainted by the fatal contagion of this infirmity, a multitude of men, while they insolently exalt themselves above themselves, descend in ruin beneath, detract from themselves in their very arrogance, sink while they bear themselves aloft, destroy themselves in their self-elevation. Either the solemn pompousness of these men's words, or silence, the mother of suspicion, or some peculiarity of act, or rude idiosyncrasy of gesture, or excessive bedizening of the body, throws light upon the inner haughtiness of mind. For some, whom lowliness of servile .condition debases, boast of majestic liberty. Others, while they are of common stock and plebeian race, in word at least make themselves of distinction in excellence of blood. Others,while they cry in the cradles of the grammatic art and are suckled at its breasts, profess the height of Aristotelian subtlety. Others, though numb with the ague-fits of a frightened hare, by the single remedy of verbosity present the courageous front of a lion. There are others who plainly reveal, by a silence merely external, what the pride of inner indignation shuts close. For they disdain to grant a share of mutual conversation to

others, whether these lie in the lower walk of life, or resemble themselves in equality of worth, or sway in more exalted eminence and dignity. If one request a word from them, the reply is separated from the question by such a great interval of silence that it seem s unrelated to it by any tie. Others, who take pleasure in individualizing their acts, try everywhere to be lonely in a crowd, peculiar among the general, opposed to the universal, diverse in the midst of unity. For while others engage in conversation, they give themselves up to silence; while others relax in pleasures, they are seen to be involved with serious matters; while others are taken up with religious celebrations, they enjoy their ease in wanton pleasures; while others are bright of face with joyous humor, their countenances present a very tempest of malevolent severity. Others with external peculiarity of deportment betoken an inner demeanor of pride. These, as if they despised everything earthy, with heads thrown back look up to the things of heaven, indignantly turn aside their eyes, lift their eyebrows markedly, turn up their chins superciliously, and holds their arms as stiff as a bow; their feet graze the ground on tiptoe only. Others make their bodies too effeminate by means of woman's attire. They quiet, by the aid of a comb, the assembly of their hairs in such peace that no breeze can raise a stir in them; by the help of scissors they clip the fringes of the dense eyebrow, or pluck them up and root them out from the over -full wood; they bring to bear on the stripling beard the frequent treachery of the razor, that it may not dare to sprout ever so little; their arms cry out against the tightness of gloves, and their feet are imprisoned in narrow shoes. Alas, whence this arrogance, this pride in men? Their

birth is fraught with sorrow, trouble and pain consume their life, and the still more painful necessity of death ends even that pain. With them being is a moment, life a shipwreck, the world a banishment. Their life is either gone, or pledges itself to go; moreover death is upon them, or threatens momently to arrive.

Now from Pride is born a daughter, who possesses by inheritance the malevolence of her mother. She is Envy, and by the gnawing rust of continual detraction she destroys the minds of men. She is the worm because of whose bite health of mind sickens and falls into disease, soundness of mind rots into decay, rest of mind is abandoned for trouble. She is the guest who, after being lodged in her host's guest-chamber, pulls down the hospitable shelter. She is a possession which most evilly, nay dominatingly, possesses its possessor; for while she troubles others with blatant obloquy, she disturbs more deeply with intestine fang the spirit of her possessor. She is Envy, who keeps the stings of her angry aspersions at rest as against those whom a hell of faults devours, those to whom the plan of nature denies the gifts of the body, those whom mad fortune vomits into poverty. But if any one swims with Croesus in the flood of riches, scatters wealth with Titus, disputes over his image with Narcissus thunders with Turnus in courage, rejoices with Hercules in strength, is drunken with the poetic nectar go of Homer, with Plato examines philosophy face to face, with Hippolytus is distinguished as the mirror of chastity -against such a one she discharges all the stings [1] of her detractions. For she attributes bravery to the wildness of fear, distorts prudence into guile and fraud, or into bombastic flatulence. Under her

1. Reading aculeos, with Migne.

defamation also decency sinks into a gilded varnish of hypocrisy. This disease of enviousness corrupts very many, who, while they endeavor to mar the brightness of another's reputation, feel the first disparagement of their own good character. Another's prosperity is judged by them unfavorable, another's adversity favorable. They are sad at another's joy, are joyous at another's sadness. They measure their riches in another's poverty, and their own poverty in another's riches. They try to darken another's shining renown with a cloud of traducement, or to steal his glory by mere silence. They spoil the pure [1] brightness of another's virtue, or mix the ferment of falsehood with the true. O grief! What monster more monstrous than envy? What evil more destructive? What fault more to be condemned? What torment more full of punishment? It is the gulf for erring blindness, the hell of the human mind, the spur of contention, the sting of unrest. What are the emotions of envy but the enemies of human peace, the attendants of mental depredation, the hostile guard of a troubled spirit, the watch over another's felicity? What does it profit any one if fortune bright and favorable cheers him on, and his body rejoices in the glow of beauty, and his mind is luminous with the splendor of wisdom, when the robbery of livid envy plunders the riches of the mind, turns the brightness of prosperous fortune into the darkness of adversity, and debases the gold of beauty into foul dross, and when ignoble spite makes the glory of wisdom inglorious?

Yet if one wishes to banish the rust of malice, the moth of envy from the mind's treasure-house, let him find his grief in condoling with another's woe, let him rejoice in another's joy as his own, let him con

1. Reading puram, with B.

sider his riches in the riches of another, let him mourn his poverty in the poverty of another. If thou shouldst see another's good name honored and celebrated, do thou by no disparagement make this festival of praise a common day, but let the lamp of the other's virtue be brought before the whole company, and shine forth the more fairly in the noonday of thy speech. If thou observest any that are giving way to sharp depreciation of another's honors and good fame, either withdraw thyself from the blatant herd, or dull the slanderous tongues by reproof and correction. Bring the brawling to naught, wear away the teeth of corrosion, consume the biting scandal.

To this list of vices Flattery joins her share of evil. By this pest and plague are smitten the adherents of chief men, palace dogs, artisans of flattery, manufacturers of praise, molders of falsehood. These are they who sound the grandiloquent trump of commendation in the ears of the rich; who throw out the honey of sweetest flattery; who, that they may cozen him out of gifts, anoint the head of the rich man with the oil of adulation; who offer lulling praises to the hearing of prelates; who either shake from the coats of such men a fictitious dust, or pretend to pick a feather off a featherless garment. By the beggarly means of praise they buy employment from the rich, on which the favor of fame spits indignantly. On gaining presents they laud, on acquiring gifts they flatter, on the possession of reward they publish fairspoken report. For if a torrent of generosity flashes in the gift of a rich man, the flatterer is all poured out in the lavishness of his encomiums. But if the gift savors of sluggish and wintry avarice, the greedy sycophant grows cold in his praise and commendation of it. If expression for the gift seems to require ap-

plauding drums, the poet of blandishment swells up in a grandiose style of eulogy. But if the poverty of the gift begs plaudits from fame, he lessens the report of its worth by a more humble style; for it is when the size of the gift is eloquent that the flatterer vomits from the treasury of his heart hypocritical praises, insincere applause, easy perjuries. For though he whom the gift represents have been whelmed by such a tempest of ugliness that hardly the fragments of natural gifts are evident in him, yet the poems of flattery will talk vainly to him of the prerogative of beauty, will falsely say that the pygmean cells of his pusillanimous heart are palaces, will exalt the base shadows of dull avarice to the mountain-top of generosity, will feign that his low and plebeian stock has the majestic distinction of Caesarean nobility. What further? Though a plenitude of vices should take up their abode in a man, and he be not redeemed from his faults by any virtue, yet the mercenary dealer in flatteries, so long as the mediating gift comes to meet him, thinly colors the sight of the vices with the light tunic of commendation. On the other hand, though the noon-blaze of all beauty should brighten in another's countenance, though his tongue should be resplendent with the silvery pearls of eloquence, though the chamber of his mind should shine with the jewels of the virtues, yet if the artisan of blandishment does not expect the favor of a gift, he labors to mingle with the light of this great glory the darkness of deadly vices. What is the ointment of flattery, then, but a cozening for gifts? What is light commendation but the deception of prelates? What the approval of praise but the deriding of its very subjects? For though speech is usually the faithful interpreter of the thought, words accurate pictures of

the soul, the countenance the sign of the will, the tongue the prophet of the mind, yet flatterers divorce the countenance from the will, the word from the soul the tongue from the mind, the speech from the thought, by a wide interval of separation. For many applaud with outward, shining praise those whom they with internal mockery deride. And in the open they extol and commend many cordially, whom they in secret cheat with hostility and scorn. Externally they compliment with an innocent countenance; internally they pierce with scorpion's sting. Outwardly they rain down the honeyed showers of flattery ; inwardly they belch the sharp storms of detraction.'

Then I, restraining the swift course of her unpausing speech, said:

'I could wish that thou wouldst strengthen the fort of my mind against the furious armies of these vices by the bulwarks of thy teaching, which are founded on reason.'