Few women can forgo an opportunity of arousing jealousy, whether in a feminine or in a masculine breast.—Bethink thee of this little fact, O man, when next thy lady comports herself thee wards ultra-graciously.
To see the girl of thy heart—even if so be she not thine, nor not nearly thine—comport herself with another as she does with thee—ah! that gives a twinge to the masculine heart. Nay, lesser things than this will perturb this irascible organ: that the other should admire her charms—that she should accept such admiration. . . .. yet what cares she that these discomfort a man? For
A man's discomfiture is naught to a woman. In sooth,
Take a woman to task for her conduct, and with how soft an answer she will turn away your wrath, how deftly make light of your rival's advances!
* * *
Man, when he has won him a woman, is, in his great greed of possession, infinitely chagrined that he was not master of her past as of her present and future.—This goes by the name of "la jalousie retrospective".
* * *
Women never know quite how to regard a man's jealousy. It flatters her, yet it pains her. She is the cause of it, yet she would believe it causeless. She deplores it, yet she would not have it quite away. It is proof of love, yet it is fatal to love. How to treat it, puzzles her. Implicit obedience to the man's wishes lowers her in her own eyes, and, consequently, so she thinks, in his. Yet so rabid is the emotion, she fears to provoke it too far. It places her in a quandary. She never knows what will evoke it; she never knows what course it will run: whether it will cement her lover's affections, or whether it will dissipate them forever.
It is love's most dangerous foe, and it is dangerous because it is insidious. If there is any one thing that puts a woman's wits to the test, it is a man's jealousy.
* * *