7. But what a gnawing worm of the soul is it, what a plague-spot of our thoughts, what a rust of the heart, to be jealous of another, either in respect of his virtue or of his happiness; that is, to hate in him either his own deservings or the divine benefits—to turn the advantages of others into one’s own mischief—to be tormented by the prosperity of illustrious men—to make other people’s glory one’s own penalty, and, as it were, to apply a sort of executioner to one’s own breast, to bring the tormentors to one’s own thoughts and feelings, that they may tear us with intestine pangs, and may smite the secret recesses of the heart with the hoof of malevolence. To such, no food is joyous, no drink can be cheerful. They are ever sighing, and groaning, and grieving; and since envy is never put off by the envious, the possessed heart is rent without intermission day and night. Other ills have their limit; and whatever wrong is done, is bounded by the completion of the crime. In the adulterer the offence ceases when the violation is perpetrated; in the case of the robber, the crime is at rest when the homicide is committed; and the possession of the booty puts an end to the rapacity of the thief; and the completed deception places a limit to the wrong of the cheat.  Jealousy has no limit; it is an evil continually enduring, and a sin without end. In proportion as he who is envied has the advantage of a greater success, in that proportion the envious man burns with the fires of jealousy to an increased heat.13    [Another specimen of our author’s pithy condensations of thought and extraordinary eloquence.]

VII. Qualis vero est animae tinea, quae cogitationum tabes, pectoris quanta rubigo, zelare in altero vel virtutem ejus vel felicitatem, id est odisse in eo vel merita propria vel beneficia divina, in malum proprium bona aliena convertere, illustrium prosperitate torqueri, aliorum gloriam facere suam poenam, et velut quosdam pectori suo admovere carnifices, cogitationibus et sensibus suis adhibere tortores, qui se intestinis cruciatibus lacerent, qui cordis secreta malivolentiae ungulis pulsent! Non cibus talibus laetus, non potus potest esse jucundus. Suspiratur semper et ingemiscitur et doletur; dumque ab invidis numquam livor exponitur, diebus ac noctibus pectus obsessum 0643B sine intermissione laniatur. Mala caetera habent terminum , et quodcumque delinquitur, delicti consummatione finitur. In adultero cessat facinus perpetrato stupro, in latrone conquiescit scelus homicidio admisso, et praedoni rapacitatem statuit praeda possessa, et falsario modum ponit impleta fallacia. Zelus terminum non habet, permanens jugiter malum et sine fine peccatum; quantoque ille cui invidetur 0644A successu meliore profecerit, tanto invidus in majus incendium livoris ignibus inardescit.