THE WORRIES OF JEALOUSY
A prolific source of worry is jealousy; not only the jealousy that
exists between men and women, but that exists between women and women,
and between men and men. There are a thousand forms that this hideous
monster of evil assumes, and when they have been catalogued and
classified, another thousand will be found awaiting, around the
corner, of entirely different categories. But all alike they have
one definite origin, one source, one cause. And that cause, I am
convinced, is selfishness. We wish to own, to dominate, to control,
absolutely, entirely, for our own pleasure, and satisfaction, that of
which we are jealous. In Chapter One I tell the incident of the young
man on the street car whose jealous worry was so manifest when he
saw his "girl" smiling upon another man. I suppose most men and women
feel, or have felt, at some time or other, this sex jealousy. That
woman belongs to _me_, her smiles are _mine_, her pleasant words
should fall on _my_ ear alone; _I_ am her lover, she, the mistress of
_my_ heart; and that should content her.
Every writer of the human heart has expatiated upon this great source
of worry--jealousy. Shakspere refers to it again and again. The whole
play of _Othello_ rests upon the Moor's jealousy of his fair, sweet,
and loyally faithful Desdemona. How the fiendish Iago plays upon
Othello's jealous heart until one sees that:
Trifles, light as air,
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
Iago bitterly resents a slight he feels Othello has put upon him. With
his large, generous, unsuspicious nature, Othello never dreams of such
a thing; he trusts Iago as his intimate friend, and thus gives the
crafty fiend the oportunity he desires to
put the Moor
Into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure ...
Make the Moor thank me, love me, reward me,
For making him egregiously an ass
And practicing upon his peace and quiet
Even to madness.
Othello gives his wife, Desdemona, a rare handkerchief. Iago urges his
own wife, who is Desdemona's maid, to pilfer this and bring it to him.
When he gets it, he leaves it in Cassio's room. Cassio was an intimate
friend of Othello's, one, indeed, who had gone with him when he went
to woo Desdemona, and who, by Iago's machinations, had been suspended
from his office of Othello's chief lieutenant. To provoke Othello's
jealousy Iago now urges Desdemona to plead Cassio's cause with her
husband, and at the came time eggs on Othello to watch Cassio:
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.
I would not have your free and noble nature
Out of self-bounty be abus'd; look to 't.
Thus he works Othello up to a rage, and yet all the time pretends to
be holding him back:
I do see you're mov'd;
I pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues nor to larger reach
Than to suspicion.
Iago leaves the handkerchief in Cassio's room, at the same time
saying:
The Moor already changes with my poison;
Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood,
Burn like the mines of sulphur.
And as he sees the tortures the jealous worries of the Moor have
already produced in him, he exultingly yet stealthily rejoices:
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou hadst yesterday.
Well might Othello exclaim that he is "Set on the rack." Each new
suspicion is a fresh pull of the lever, a tightening of the strain
to breaking point, and soon his jealousy turns to the fierce and
murderous anger Iago hoped it would:
Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
Thus was he urged on, worried by his jealousy, until, in his bloody
rage, he slew his faithful wife. Poor Desdemona, we weep her fate, yet
at the same time we should deeply lament that Othello was so beguiled
and seduced by his jealousy to so horrible a deed. And few men or
women there are, unless their souls are purified by the wisdom of God,
that are not liable to jealous influences. Our human nature is weak
and full of subtle treacheries, that, like Iago, seduce us to our own
undoing. He who yields for one moment to the worries of jealousy
is already on the downward path that leads to misery, woe and deep
undoing, Iago is made to declare the philosophy of this fact, when, in
the early portion of the play he says to Roderigo:
'Tis in ourselves we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our
gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if
we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with
many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with
industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies
in our wills.
Therein, surely, is great truth. We can plant or weed up, in the
garden of our minds, whatever we will; we can "have it sterile
with idleness," or fertilize it with industry, and it must ever be
remembered that the more fertile the soil the more evil weeds will
grow apace if we water and tend them. Our jealous worries are the
poisonous weeds of life's garden and should be rooted out instanter,
and kept out, until not a sign of them can again be found.
Solomon sang that "jealousy is as cruel as the grave; the coals
thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame."
What a graphic picture of worry--a fire of vehement flame, burning,
scorching, destroying peace, happiness, content, joy and reducing them
to ashes.
In my travel and observation I have found a vast amount of jealous
worry in institutions of one kind and another--such as the Indian
Service, in reform schools, in humane societies, in hospitals, among
the nurses, etc. It seems to be one of the misfortunes of weak human
nature when men and women associate themselves together to do some
work which ought to call out all the nobleness, the magnanimity, the
godlike qualities of their souls, they become maggoty with jealous
worries--worry that they are not accorded the honor that is their
due; worry that _their_ work is not properly appreciated; worry lest
someone else becomes a favorite of the Superintendent, etc., etc.,
etc., _ad libitum_. Worries of this nature in every case, are a proof
of small, or undeveloped, natures. No truly great man or woman can
be jealous. Jealousy implies that you are not sure of your own worth,
ability, power. You find someone else is being appreciated, you
_covet_ that appreciation for yourself, whether you deserve it or not.
In other words you yield to accursed selfishness, utterly forgetful of
the apostolic injunction: "In honor preferring one another."
And the same jealousies are found among men and women in every walk of
life, in trade, in the office, among professors in schools, colleges,
universities; in the learned professions, among lawyers, physicians
and even among the ministers of the gospel, and judges upon the bench.
Oh! shame! shame! upon the littleness, the meanness, the paltriness
of such jealousies; of the worries that come from them. How any human
being is to be pitied whose mortal mind is corroded with the biting
acid of jealous worry. When I see those who are full of worry because
yielding to this demon of jealousy I am almost inclined to believe
in the old-time Presbyterian doctrine of "total depravity." Whenever,
where-ever, you find yourself feeling jealous, take yourself by the
throat (figuratively), and strangle the feeling, then go and frankly
congratulate the person of whom you are jealous upon some good you can
truthfully say you see in him; spread his praises abroad; seek to do
him honor. Thus by active work against your own paltry emotion you
will soon overcome it and be free from its damning and damnable
worries.
Akin to the worries of jealousy are the worries of hate. How much
worry hate causes the hater, he alone can tell. He spends hours in
conjuring up more reasons for his hate than he would care to write
down. Every success of the hated is another stimulant to worry, and
each step forward is a sting full of pain and bitterness.
He who hates walks along the path of worry, and so long as he hates he
must worry. Hence, there is but one practical way of escape from the
worries of hatred, viz., by ceasing to hate, by overcoming evil with
good.