It is only the spectators who see the folly of Othello.
Desdemonas usually are helpless as they are oblivious.
* * *
The illicitly favored lover is never jealous of the husband; but of
another illicitly favored lover, how jealous he is. But
Jealousy, like modesty, and like virtue, varies with every time and
clime: what is customary in Cairo would rouse consternation in Kent, and
what goes on in Vienna shocks New England. So,
How the husband favored lover differs also with every time and clime:
here he is mulcted in damages, there he is shot down, in a third place he
is tolerated.
How the woman thinks her husband should treat the illicitly favored lover
--that you shall never find out.
* * *
The edacity of jealousy is unappeasable:
A wronged lover, in his pain, looks for more pain to bear: like a martyr
in an ecstasy, he cries out for further tortures. In love one always
sees higher unreachable heights; in jealousy always deeper unreachable
depths. And
There is no wound but leaves its cicatrix.
* * *
Mistrust an unexpected change of front. So,
Does your erstwhile frowning lady smile? "cherchez l'homme", or la femme.
Since
To arouse jealousy in another feminine breast is sometimes the motive of
feminine complaisance. Indeed,
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.
* * *
The sheerest and most insensate folly a man can commit towards a woman is
to let her know that another woman is cognizant of her jealousy of her.
He may give the latter a very keen pleasure; but he gives the former a
very keen pang. For
The cause of jealousy a woman may condone; the divulgence of her jealousy
she will never forgive.
* * *
What irritates a jealous man is the actions that cause his jealousy;
What irritates a jealous woman is the person who is the cause of her
jealousy. In other words,
A jealous swain upbraids his mistress;
A jealous mistress objurgates her rival.
* * *