In the strictest, truest sense, indeed, although it is certainly a hard saying, there is no room in a clear mind for such a feeling of jealousy.

For the way in which every two hearts approach each other is necessarily a peculiar combination of individualities, never before and never after exactly duplicated in human experience.

So that, if we can conceive of a woman truly loving several lovers, whether successively or simultaneously, they would not be rivals, for the manner of her love for each, and the manner of each one's love for her, is peculiar and single, even as if they two were alone in the world.

The higher the mental grade of the persons concerned, the wider their sympathies, and the more delicate their perceptions, the more true is this.
Henry had been recently offered a very good position in an arms manufactory in Boston, and, having made up his mind to leave the village, he wrote to accept it, and promptly followed his letter, having first pledged his sole Newville correspondent, Laura, to make no references to Madeline in her letters.
"If they should be married," he was particular to say, "don't tell me about it till some time afterward." Perhaps he worked the better in his new place because he was unhappy.
The foe of good work is too easy self-complacency, too ready self-satisfaction, and the tendency to a pleased and relaxed contemplation of life and one's surroundings, growing out of a well-to-do state.

Such a smarting sense of defeat, of endless aching loss as filled his mind at this time, was a most exacting background for his daily achievements in business and money-making to show up against.
He had lost that power of enjoying rest which is at once the reward and limitation of human endeavour.