The Washington herald., 1914-10-22
Dr.. Marden's Uplift Talks.
By ORISON SWEET MARDEN.
CAuthor of Pushing to the Front" etc.
JEALOUSY.
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/ ~,
what jealous people suffer makes the
rack and thumbscrew seem like a pleas
ant evenings diversion"
! Think OF the torture which a Jealous
woman endures through half lifetime
or more who lives in an inferno of sus-
picion, with her ears to cracks and her
| eyes to keyholes, spying, listening, try
ing to find out what her husband said
and did in his office, trying to discover
where he went when away from home,
possessed with a jealousy that tortured
her night and day and that was never
appeasedr'
Whatever punishment, whether impris-
onment or death. might await a victim
Of such jealous torment who, in a mo-
ment of frenzy, commits terrible crime,
it could not bring greater suffering than
she has already endured.
What frightful havoc has already been
wrought in half a dozen lives in the no.
torious Mrs. DR.. Carman case of Long
Island, n. Y. No matter what the out
come of the case may be, these dismem-
| bered lives can never again be quite the
/ same. No one concerned can ever for
get the frightful ordeal he or she has
been through.
Suspicion plays a tremendous part in
Jealousy, and the habit of suspicion is
fatal TO ones peace of mind. have
known woman TO work herself up into a
nervous spasm and collapse merely be-
cause a little thing happened which was
not the least wrong in itself, yet which
set her imagination working until she
! became Historically. insanely suspicious
and jealous. Ultimately she found that
there had not been the slightest cause
for such feeling and that her husband
had never given her the slightest occa-
sion for any jealousy. 1t was purely the
work of her imagination. Her suspicion
and imagination did the rest. But though
the incident could be easily explained
and passed over and forgotten. the in
jury done to the woman herself by her
self was not so easily forgotten.
II the people who find it difficult to be-
lieve that thoughts are real forces could
only observe the terrible havoc that jeal-
Gus thoughts and emotions produce in a
human being, they would speedily be
convinced. Such emotions change even
the physical structure of the brain,
poison the blood. the brain cells, all the
tissues of the body, and gradually so
transform the features, giving such a
brutal expression to the face as some
times to almost change the victims
identity.
Now. why is 1t that people will give
way TO such thoughts and emotions
which cost them such agony and often
entirely spoil their lives? Jealousy is in
reality a disease of the imagination. Null
titudes Of people have committed suicide
on many years of their lives and have
gone to premature graves because of the
ravages of Jealousy. suffering tortures,
when, as a matter of fact, there was not
the slightest foundation for such emo
tlons.
No one but a victim can ever know
what such people suffer simply from
their imaginative exaggeration of a sit
uation.
A prominent physician in New York
tells me that he had a very serious ex- /
perience with a young woman whose |
husband was insanely jealous because of |
what the woman's little son said as to |
what had taken, place in the doctors Of |
fee. The physician was percussing her
chest and listening to her hearts action, !
and the little boy told his father that /
the doctor put his head in his mothers |
lap.
The doctor said that the husband re-
fused to believe his statement of the !
facts, and the perfectly harmless little |
incident came very near leading to a |
divorce. The man worked himself up |
into a perfect frenzy of suspicion and
apprehension, his thoughts wearing such |
burrows in his brain that gradually he 1
became incapable of seeing the simple |
facts uncolored by his suspicious.
Jealousy defeats its own ends. 1t Is 4
wholly a destructive force. 1t is born |
of hunger for love and appreciation, and
il strips its victim of all claim, physical |
or mental to the love and appreciation
of others. 1t despoils those who submit
to its sway of both physical and spiritual
beauty. 1t is not born Of love and has no
part nor lot in any real and lasting love.