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 Confident, 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 [2]] love them, that insult over an aking Heart, and triumph in their Charms which are able to excite so much Uneasiness.

  ‘Ardeat ipsa licet tormentis gaudet amantis’.

  Juv.

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, 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 believ’d, and what is often practis’d 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 Counterfeited 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, [3]] and will [besides feel [4]] something like the Satisfaction of a Revenge, in seeing you undergo all his own Tortures.  But this, indeed, is an Artifice so difficult, and at the same time so dis-ingenuous, 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.