练习 5

练习5
Envy
What has the world designated as enviable? At a certain level of generality, wealth, beauty, power, talent and skill, knowledge and wisdom, and extraordinary good luck come close to completing the list. ( I’d add youth, more about which presently.) Some of these items are gifts received at birth; some are acquired at the expense of great effort. In the best of all worlds, one would be rich, beautiful, powerful, laden with talent, wise and learned, and (given the foregoing) obviously hugely fortunate. In the actual world, one is considered fairly lucky if in possession of any one of these items.
If one does have one or more than one of these eviable qualities, the chances are great that it is not that which one most wanted. I have never known a beautiful woman, for example, who didn’t feel her beauty decisively flawed by some minuscule portion of her physique that she can’t bear. ( “Look at my ankles, for God’s sake!”) Unless this is envy speaking, most immensely handsome men turn out to be rather lunkheaded; perhaps their handsomeness has made it easier for them not have to work overlong at cultivating their intelligence. The rich want to be beautiful or wish themselves wise; and the wise, if they really are wise, know that the wisdom begins with the acknowledgement that one knows nothing, so, really, what the hell good is that.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said: “ I didn't have the top two things, great animal magnetism or money. I had the second two things, though, good looks and intelligence.”I don't believe Fitzgerald was an envious man---his false friend Ernest Hemingway, for I believe, was deeply envious---but, as a fantast of sorts, Fitzgerald did know a vast deal about yearning, My guess is that, had he the money, he wouldn't have minded throwing those Long Island parties of Jay Gatsby’s; and there is no doubt he would have loved having those delightful shirts. He may even have wanted to marry a woman like Daisy in a more kind-hearted version, of course. But as an artist, F. Scott Fitzgerald could, through the alchemy of art, transform his envy into yearning and then into art.
The rest of us are left to deal with our envy in less magical ways. Fortunately, for most of us our envy is of small things and of brief duration. I see the grace and strength of a male ballet dancer and wish I could command something similar on my own. I read a book studded with brilliant insights set out in unblemished prose and wish I had had the thoughtfulness and craft to have written it myself. I go to lunch with three friends and when the main course arrive, I see that I have ordered quite the poorest dish of the four of us at the table and looking at theirs, I feel a stab of disappointment accompanied by what I call “entree envy.”But these are all fleeting feelings, as close to wistfulness as they are to ture envy.。