Paragraph 3 Silence Dogood No.6

[Kendall]

This Pride of Apparel will appear the more foolish, if we consider, that those airy Mortals, who have no other Way of making themselves considerable but by gorgeous Apparel, draw after them Crowds of Imitators, who hate each other while they endeavour after a Similitude of Manners. They destroy by Example, and envy one another's Destruction.


I do not understand the second part of the last sentence. I checked older dictionaries for obsolete meanings of envy, but that didn’t help. It doesn’t seem like you would envy one another's Destruction. Does it mean envy the apparel that caused the destruction? Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Kendall

[Lene Mahler Jaqua]

>> This Pride of Apparel will appear the more foolish, if we consider, that those airy Mortals, who have no other Way of making themselves considerable but by gorgeous Apparel, draw after them Crowds of Imitators, who hate each other while they endeavour after a Similitude of Manners. They destroy by Example, and envy one another's Destruction. >>>

The people that compete to be fashionable ENVY each others' destruction in that while all of them destroy themselves by spending money they don't have, they envy each other the apparel that brings about that destruction.

Does that make sense?

Lene