There are such people in the world, and sometimes their
brilliancy tempts us to forget their malignancy. But to have much
converse with them is as if we should make playmates of rattlesnakes
for their grace of movement and swiftness of stroke.
I knew a man once (I will not name him even with an initial) who was
malignant to the core. Learned, industrious, accomplished, he kept
all his talents at the service of a perfect genius for hatred. If
you crossed his path but once, he would never cease to curse you.
The grave might close over you, but he would revile your epitaph and
mock at your memory. It was not even necessary that you should do
anything to incur his enmity. It was enough to be upright and
sincere and successful, to waken the wrath of this Shimei.
Integrity was an offence to him, and excellence of any kind filled
him with spleen. There was no good cause within his horizon that he
did not give a bad word to, and no decent man in the community whom
he did not try either to use or to abuse. To listen to him or to
read what he had written was to learn to think a little worse of
every one that he mentioned, and worst of all of him. He had the
air of a gentleman, the vocabulary of a scholar, the style of a
Junius, and the heart of a Thersites.
Talk, in such company, is impossible.
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