They will pardon a man's failures, but cannot forgive his doing a thing better than they can do.

And where they have themselves failed, they are found to be the most merciless of detractors.

The sour critic thinks of his rival: "When Heaven with such parts has blest him, Have I not reason to detest him ?" The mean mind occupies itself with sneering, carping, and fault-finding; and is ready to scoff at everything but impudent effrontery or successful vice.

The greatest consolation of such persons are the defects of men of character.

"If the wise erred not," says George Herbert, "it would go hard with fools." Yet, though wise men may learn of fools by avoiding their errors, fools rarely profit by the example which, wise men set them.