JEALOUSY.
O, my lord, beware of jealousy.
It is a green-eyed monster that doth mock
The food it eats on.
_Othello_.
A bright smile from Blanche welcomed Cecil, as he passed from the
dining-room to the drawing-room, and walked up to the piano at which
she was sitting. He thought he had never seen her look so lovely;
perhaps the remembrance of his having contemplated giving her up made
him more sensible of her charms.
He took up her portfolio of loose music, and began turning over the
sheets, as if seeking some particular song. She came to help him,
and as she bent over the portfolio he whispered gently,--
"Can you contrive to slip away unobserved, and meet me in the
shrubbery? I have something of the deepest importance to
communicate."
She trembled, but it was with delight, as she whispered, "Yes."
"Plead fatigue, and retire after tea."
He then moved away, and approaching Violet asked her if she
remembered the name of a certain Neapolitan canzonette, which her
sister Blanche had sung the other night; and on receiving a negative
sat down by her side, and entered into conversation with her.
All the rest of the evening he sat by Violet, only occasionally
addressing indifferent questions to Blanche. Captain Heath seeing
this, and noticing a strange agitation in Blanche's manner, which she
in vain endeavoured to disguise, interpreted it according to his
wishes, and sat down to a rubber at whist with great internal
satisfaction.
"I have been thinking, Mr. Chamberlayne," said Meredith Vyner,
shuffling the cards, "that even differences of pronunciation may
assist your theory. Thus we English--a modest race--express our
doubt by _scepticism_, deriving it from σκέψιϛ,
deliberation. But the Scotch--a hard dogmatic race--pronounce it
_skeepticism_, hereby deriving it from σκηψιϛ, intimating
that a man _leans upon_ his own opinion, and that his dissent from
others is not a deliberation, but a walking-stick, wherewith he
trudges onwards to the truth."
"Mr. Chamberlayne," said Mrs. Meredith Vyner, "are we not to have
some music from you this evening? Come, one of your charming Spanish
songs."
"By the way," said Vyner, while Cecil tuned his guitar, "talking of
Spanish songs reminds me of a passage I met in a Spanish play this
morning, in which the author says,
Sin zelos amor
Es estar sin alma el cuerpo.
What say you to that, ladies? It means that love without jealousy is
a body without soul. _Immane quantum discrepat_!"
"Love has nothing whatever to do with jealousy," said Violet; "and so
far from jealousy being the soul of love, I should say it was only
the contemptible part of our nature that feels jealousy, and only the
highest part of our nature that feels love."
"No one will agree with you, my dear Violet," said Mrs. Langley
Turner. "Sir Harry, it is your deal."
"Perhaps not," said Violet.
"I should vewy much like to hear Miss Violet's pwoof of her wemark.
I have always wead that jealousy is insepewable fwom love; though, I
confess, I never expewienced jealousy myself."
"Nor love either--eh?" said Rose.
"That is sevewe, Miss Wose! Do you pwetend that I never felt that
sensation which evewy man has felt?"
"If you mean love," replied Rose, "I say, that if you have felt it, I
imagine it has only been just the _beginning_."
"Twue, twue!"
"And like the charity of other people, your love has begun at home!"
"Miss Wose, Miss Wose!" said Tom Wincot, shaking his finger at the
laughing girl.
"So that, if you _have_ ever been jealous," she continued, "you must
have an exaggerated susceptibility."
"And why an exaggewated susceptibility?"
"Because jealous of a person no other earthly being would think of
disputing with you--your own!"
This sally produced a hearty laugh, and Tom Wincot, turning to
Violet, said,--
"I'm afwaid of your sister Wose's wepawtees, so shall not pwolong the
discussion; but pway explain your pwevious weflection on jealousy."
"I mean," said Violet, "that jealousy has its source in egotism;
love, on the contrary, has its source in sympathy: hence it is that
the manifestations of the one are always contemptible, of the other
always noble and beautiful."
"And I," said Maxwell, his dark face lighting up with a savage
expression, "think that jealousy is the most natural instinctive
feeling we possess. The man or woman who is not jealous, does not
know what it is to love."
"That is a mere assertion, Mr. Maxwell: can you prove it?'
"Prove it! easily. What is jealousy but a fear of losing what we
hold most dearly? Look at a dog over a bone; if you approach him he
will growl, though you may have no intention of taking away his bone:
your presence is enough to excite his fear and anger. If you attempt
to snatch it, though in play, then he will bite."
"You are speaking of _dogs_," said Violet, haughtily, "I spoke of
_men_."
"The feeling is the same in both," retorted Maxwell.
"Yes, when men resemble dogs.--I spoke of men who possessed the
higher qualities."
"Curiously enough," observed Vyner, "the Spaniards, whose jealousy is
proverbial, and whose great poet, Calderon, has expressed himself in
the almost diabolical manner just mentioned, these Spaniards have no
word which properly means jealousy. _Zelos_ is only the plural of
_zelo_--zeal."
"I do not think, papa, you are quite correct," said Violet, "when you
say the Spaniards are more jealous than other nations."
"They have the character, my dear."
"I am quite aware of it. But what one nation says of another is
seldom accurate. If I understand jealousy, it is the sort of passion
which would be _felt_ quite as readily by northerns as by southerns,
though it would not be expressed in so vehement a manner; but because
one man uses a knife, when another man uses a court of law, that does
not make a difference in the sentiments."
"I agree with Violet," said Captain Heath, "it seems to me that
jealousy is a mean and debasing passion, whatever may be the cause
which excites it. To suspect the woman whom you love and who loves
you, is so degrading both to her and to you, that a man who suspects,
without overwhelming evidence, must be strangely deficient in
nobility of soul; and suppose the evidence complete--suppose that she
loves another, even then a noble soul arms itself with fortitude, and
instead of wailing like a querulous child, accepts with courage the
fate which no peevishness can avert. The love that is gone cannot be
recalled by jealousy. A man should say with Othello,--
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the doubt there is no more but this--
Away at once with love and jealousy."
He looked for Blanche as he concluded this speech, but she had
already retired to her room.
Cecil sang, but soon left off; and pleading "heartburn," caught at
the advice of Tom Wincot, who assured him that a stwong cigar was the
best wemedy for it, and strolled out into the grounds to smoke.