Precept and Practice – AUGUST 6 – Jealousy 

Jealousy is said to prove love – it may do so;  certainly weakens it, and as certainly shows its wantingness in love’s strongest pillow-trust.   If we loved a little more, we should not be jealous.   Indeed, jealousy is only a polite word for the most subtle selfishness.   If we believe our friends are as good as we say, how dare we wish to keep all their love for ourselves?   Is it that we fear they are, after all, not loving enough to love many people?   And if love is the virtue of virtues, how can true love show itself by seeking to circumscribe our friends’ exercise of it?   Do we grudge them their lovingness?   Or can we venture to deprive others of some share of the love which blesses us?   One ought never to speak of the faults of one’s friends;  it mutilates them:  they can never be the same afterwards. 

(W. D. Howells)

Jealousy is impossible to love, for ‘love seeketh not its own’;  and jealousy is always selfishness.

(Charles B. Newcomb)

oooOOOooo

From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW