It is love’s most dangerous foe, and it is dangerous because it is insidious.  If there is any one thing that puts a woman’s wits to the test, it is a man’s jealousy.

* * *

The sheerest and most insensate folly a man can commit towards a woman is to let her know that another woman is cognizant of her jealousy of her.  He may give the latter a very keen pleasure; but he gives the former a very keen pang.  For

The cause of jealousy a woman may condone; the divulgence of her jealousy she will never forgive.

* * *

What irritates a jealous man is the actions that cause his jealousy;

What irritates a jealous woman is the person who is the cause of her jealousy.  In other words,

A jealous swain upbraids his mistress;

A jealous mistress objurgates her rival.

* * *

XI.  On Kisses and Kissing

“Sag mir, wer einst das Kussen efrund? 
Das war ein gluhend glucklicher Mund;
Er kusste und dachte Nichts daberi.” 
—­Heine

Many are the varieties of kisses; as many, probably, as the varieties of kisses; as many, probably, as the variety of lips—­and of the owners thereof.  And

A kiss may mean so very much—­or so very little.  Wherefore

Look not upon the lips when they are red;—­for although
A kiss is a small thing, so is a spark.  And always, though

A smile is an open window, a kiss is an open door.

Strange—­strange—­that from the momentary contact of lip with lip, an infinitesimal surface of epithelial tissue, there an be called up from the deeps of the soul emotions strange as deep; emotions vague and thrilling; emotions to the which to give utterance those lips are themselves all powerless.  And

When to the conjoined lips there is added the bliss of an up-turned eye
and embracing arms . . . . .  Ah! well-a-day,

There are Edens for us still, if only we will eat not of the forbidden fruit.

* * *

The value of a kiss is determined by the personage on whom it is bestowed, not by the from whom it is besought:  which, if it needs any explanation, means this, that

It is the man who ardently desires the kiss that puts the value upon that kiss, not the woman of whom it is desired.  Yet women know that,

As with commodities, so with kissings, the greater the rarity, the greater the vale.

Osculatory transactions there be as lasting in their results as transient in their causes.

* * *

A cheek surreptitiously brushed in the dark is preferable to lips premittedly pressed by day.

* * *

What an extraordinary multiplicity of maneuvers a man will perform for “Just one kiss!” But

With the precise numerical equivalent of the expression “Just one kiss” algebra has not yet been found quite able to grapple.  It is believed, however, to belong to Permutations and Combinations.