§ vi. But it seems curiosity does not rejoice in stale evils, but only in fresh and recent ones, gladly viewing the spectacle of tragedies of yesterday, but backward in taking part in comic and festive scenes. And so the curious person is a languid and listless hearer to the narrator of a marriage, or sacrifice, or solemn procession, he says he has heard most of all that before, bids the narrator cut it short and come to the point; but if his visitor tell him of the violation of some girl, or the adultery of some married woman, or the disputes and intended litigation of brothers, he doesn't go to sleep then, nor pretend want of leisure,
"But he pricks up his ears, and asks for more."
And indeed those lines,
"Alas! how quicker far to mortals' ears Do ill news travel than the news of good!"
are truly said of curious people. For as cupping-glasses take away the worst blood, so the ears of curious people attract only the worst reports; or rather, as cities have certain ominous and gloomy gates, through which they conduct only condemned criminals, or convey filth and night soil, for nothing pure or holy has either ingress into or egress from them, so into the ears of curious people goes nothing good or elegant, but tales of murders travel and lodge there, wafting a whiff of unholy and obscene narrations.
"And ever in my house is heard alone The sound of wailing;"
this is to the curious their one Muse and Siren, this the sweetest note they can hear. For curiosity desires to know what is hidden and secret; but no one conceals his good fortune, nay sometimes people even pretend to have such advantages as they do not really possess. So the curious man, eager to hear a history of what is bad, is possessed by the passion of malignity, which is brother to envy and jealousy. For envy is pain at another's blessings, and malignity is joy at another's misfortunes: and both proceed from the same savage and brutish vice, ill-nature.
§ vii. But so unpleasant is it to everybody to have his private ills brought to light, that many have died rather than acquaint the doctors with their secret ailments. For suppose Herophilus, or Erasistratus, or even Æsculapius himself during his sojourn on earth, had gone with their drugs and surgical instruments from house to house, to inquire what man had a fistula in ano, or what woman had a cancer in her womb;—and yet their curiosity would have been professional[618]—who would not have driven them away from their house, for not waiting till they were sent for, and for coming without being asked to spy out their neighbours' ailments? But curious people pry into these and even worse matters, not from a desire to heal them, but only to expose them to others, which makes them deservedly hated. For we are not vexed and mortified with custom-house officers when they levy toll on goods bona fide imported, but only when they seek for contraband articles, and rip up bags and packages: and yet the law allows them to do even this, and sometimes it is injurious to them not to do so. But curious people abandon and neglect their own affairs, and are busy about their neighbours' concerns. Seldom do they go into the country, for they do not care for its quiet and stillness and solitude, but if once in a way they do go there, they look more at their neighbours' vines than their own, and inquire how many cows of their neighbour have died, or how much of his wine has turned sour, and when they are satisfied on these points they soon return to town again. But the genuine countryman does not willingly listen to any rumour that chances to come from the town, for he quotes the following lines,
"Even with spade in hand he'll tell the terms On which peace was concluded: all these things The cursèd fellow walks about and pries into."
§ viii. But curious people shun the country as stale and dull and too quiet, and push into warehouses and markets and harbours, asking, "Any news? Were you not in the market in the forenoon?" and sometimes receiving for answer, "What then? Do you think things in the town change every three hours?" Notwithstanding if anyone brings any news, he'll get off his horse, and embrace him, and kiss him, and stand to listen. If however the person who meets him says he has no news, he will say somewhat peevishly, "No news, Sir? Have you not been in the market? Did you not pass by the officers' quarters? Did you exchange no words with those that have just arrived from Italy?" To stop such people the Locrian authorities had an excellent rule; they fined everyone coming from abroad who asked what the news was. For as cooks pray for plenty of meat, and fishmongers for shoals of fish, so curious people pray for shoals of trouble, and plenty of business, and innovations and changes, that they may have something to hunt after and tittle-tattle about. Well also was it in Charondas, the legislator of the people of Thurii,[619] to forbid any of the citizens but adulterers and curious persons to be ridiculed on the stage. Adultery itself indeed seems to be only the fruit of curiosity about another man's pleasures, and an inquiring and prying into things kept close and hidden from the world; while curiosity is a tampering with and seduction of and revealing the nakedness of secrets.[620]