XI. JEALOUSY. Credula res amor est. Love is a credulous passion. Ovid, Met. vii. 826. HAVING in my former paper discovered the nature of jealousy, and pointed out the persons who are most subject to it, I must here apply myself to my fair correspondents, who desire to live well with a jealous husband, and to ease his mind of its unjust suspicions. The first rule I shall propose to be observed is, that you never seem to dislike in another what the jealous man is himself guilty of, or to admire any thing in which he himself does not excel. A jealous man is very quick in his applications; he knows how to find a double edge in an invective, and to draw a satire on himself out of a panegyric on another. He does not trouble himself to consider the person, but to direct the character; and is secretly pleased or confounded, as he finds more or less of himself in it. The commendation of any thing in another stirs up his jealousy, as it shows you have a value for others besides himself; but the commendation of that, which he himself wants, inflames him more, as it shows that in some respects you prefer others before him. Jealousy is admirably described in this view by Horace in his ode to Lydia: Quum tu, Lydia, Telephi Cervicem roseam, et cerea Telephi Laudas brachia, væ meum Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur; Tunc nec mens mihi, nec color Certâ sede manet; humor et in genas Quàm lentis penitùs macerer ignibus. When Telephus his youthful charms, Lib. I. Od. xiii. 1. The jealous man is not indeed angry if you dislike another; but if you find those faults which are to be found in his own character, you discover not only your dislike of another, but of himself. In short, he is so desirous of ingrossing all your love, that he is grieved at the want of any charm, which he believes has power to raise it: and if he finds by your censures on others, that he is not so agreeable in your opinion as he might be, he naturally concludes you could love him better if he had other qualifications, and that by consequence your affection does not rise so high as he thinks it ought. If therefore his temper be grave or sullen, you must not be too much pleased with a jest, or transported with any thing that is gay or diverting. If his beauty be none of the best, you must be a professed admirer of prudence, or any other quality he is master of, or at least vain enough to think he is. In the next place, you must be sure to be free and open in your conversation with him, and to let in light upon your actions, to unravel all your designs, and discover every secret, however trifling or indifferent. A jealous husband has a particular aversion to winks and whispers, and if he does not see to the bottom of every thing, will be sure to go beyond it in his fears and suspicions. He will always expect to be your chief confidant, and where he finds himself kept out of a secret, will believe there is more in it than there should be. And here it is of great concern, that you preserve the character of your sincerity uniform and of a piece; for if he once finds a false gloss put upon any single action, he quickly suspects all the rest: his working imagination immediately takes a false hint, and runs off with it into several remote consequences, till he has proved very ingenious in working out his own misery. If both these methods fail, the best way will be to let him see you are much cast down and afflicted for the ill opinion he entertains of you, and the disquietudes he himself suffers for your sake. There are many who take a kind of barbarous pleasure in the jealousy of those who love them, that insult over an aching heart, and triumph in their charms which are able to excite so much uneasiness: Ardeat ipsa licet, tormentis gaudet amantis. Juv. Sat. vi. 208. Though equal pains her peace of mind destroy, But these often carry the humour so far, till their affected coldness and indifference quite kills all the fondness of a lover, and are then sure to meet in their turn with all the contempt and scorn that is due to so insolent a behaviour. On the contrary, it is very probable a melancholy, a dejected carriage, the usual effects of injured innocence, may soften the jealous husband into pity, make him sensible of the wrong he does you, and work out of his mind all those fears and suspicions that make you both unhappy. At least it will have this good effect, that he will keep his jealousy to himself, and repine in private, either because he is sensible it is a weakness, and will therefore hide it from your knowledge, or because he will be apt to fear some ill effect it may produce in cooling your love towards him, or diverting it to another. There is still another secret that can never fail, if you can once get it believed, and which is often practised by women of greater cunning than virtue. This is to change sides for a while with the jealous man, and to turn his own passion upon himself; to take some occasion of growing jealous of him, and to follow the example he himself hath set you. This counterfeit jealousy will bring him a great deal of pleasure, if he thinks it real; for he knows experimentally how much love goes along with this passion, and will besides feel something like the satisfaction of revenge, in seeing you undergo all his own tortures. But this, indeed, is an artifice so difficult, and at the same time so disingenuous, that it ought never to be put in practice but by such as have skill enough to cover the deceit, and innocence to render it excusable. I shall conclude this essay with the story of Herod and Mariamne, as I have collected it out of Josephus *; which may serve almost as an example to whatever can be said on this subject. Mariamne had all the charms that beauty, birth, wit, and youth could give a woman, and Herod all the love that such charms are able to raise in a warm and amorous disposition. In the * Antiquities of the Jews, book xv. chap. 3. sect. 5, 6, 9; chap. 7. sect. 1, 2, &c. |