Haughty women disguise their jealousy from pride. They will spend long and dreary evenings in silence with the man whom they adore, and whom they tremble to lose, making themselves consciously disagreeable in his eyes. This must be one of the greatest possible tortures, and is certainly one of the most fruitful sources of unhappiness in love. In order to cure these women, who merit so well all our respect, it needs on the man's side a strong and out-of-the-way line of action--but, mind, he must not seem to notice what is going on--for example, a long journey with them undertaken at a twenty-four hours' notice. [1] This contempt is one of the great causes of suicide: people kill themselves to give their sense of honour satisfaction. [2] _Pensée_ 495. The reader will have recognised, without my marking it each time, several other thoughts of celebrated writers. It is history which I am attempting to write, and such thoughts are the facts. [Pg 134] CHAPTER XXXVIII OF SELF-ESTEEM PIQUED[1] Pique is a manifestation of vanity; I do not want my antagonist to go higher than myself and _I take that antagonist himself as judge of my worth_. I want to produce an effect on his heart. It is this that carries us so far beyond all reasonable limits. Sometimes, to justify our own extravagance, we go so far as to tell ourselves that this rival has a mind to dupe us. Pique, being an infirmity of honour, is far more common in monarchies; it must, surely, be exceedingly rare in countries, where the habit is rampant of valuing things according to their utility--for example, in the United States. Every man, and a Frenchman sooner than any other, loathes being taken for a dupe; and yet the lightness of the French character under the old monarchic _régime_[2], prevented pique from working great havoc beyond the domains of gallantry and gallant-love. Pique has produced serious tragedies only in monarchies, where, through the climate, the shade of character is darker (Portugal, Piedmont). The provincial in France forms a ludicrous idea of what is considered a gentleman in good society--and then he takes cover behind his model, and waits there all his [Pg 135] life to see that no one trespasses. And so good-bye naturalness! He is always in a state of pique, a mania which gives a laughable character even to his love affairs. This enviousness is what makes it most unbearable to live in small towns, and one should remind oneself of this, when one admires the picturesque situation of any of them. The most generous and noble emotions are there paralysed by contact with all that is most low in the products of civilisation. In order to put the finishing touch to their awfulness, these bourgeois talk of nothing but the corruption of great cities.[3]