Alert Janeites Bobbie and Caroline wrote to tell us about the latest column from Dear Margo, in which a lovelorn swain asks for advice because he has a crush on another woman and his wife is jealous. The other woman is…Jane Austen.

DEAR MARGO: My dilemma is really simple. I happen to love a certain 19th-century authoress and have read every biography I can find about her.

Ever since I was 14 years old and read her classic novel “Pride and Prejudice,” I have been bewitched. She is a lady and a half, the gilder of my heart, the best woman I am sorry I never met.

I was recently at a party with my wife and was asked why I like Jane Austen so much. (The question actually was why I am so “obsessed.”) I responded to the question with vigor and as eloquently as a man “in love” can be allowed.

The problem is my wife. She is crazy jealous and has suggested that I should be married to Lady J.A. instead of her; that I never seem to have that glow in my eyes when speaking of her as I do when speaking of the great Miss Austen of Steventon, 1775-1817.

I am sure, Margo, you would join me in declaring my wife a little over the top and unreasonable about this. Is there a way you could articulate why this jealousy is irrational?

— DEVOTEE OF JANE AUSTEN

DEAR DEV: I think the only time a woman can legitimately be jealous of another female, no longer alive, is when the deceased had been her husband’s great love and left said man a widower. (My own husband gets moony over Dawn Upshaw and Mme. Curie, but since I can neither sing nor understand nuclear physics, I harbor no competitive urges.)

To quote another author, Dickens, Ms. Austen is “dead as a doornail,” so perhaps you could follow that avenue to talk a little “Sense and Sensibility” into your green-eyed wife.

Were I she, I should feel lucky that your most beloved author is a woman who understands women so well. Maybe try reading “Persuasion” out loud to each other, and she might come to share your passion.

— MARGO, AUTHORITATIVELY

Or it might get worse, from passages like this:

“Oh!” cried Anne eagerly, “I hope I do justice to all that is felt by you, and by those who resemble you. God forbid that I should undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my fellow-creatures! I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman. No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married lives. I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every domestic forbearance, so long as–if I may be allowed the expression–so long as you have an object. I mean while the woman you love lives, and lives for you. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.”

She could not immediately have uttered another sentence; her heart was too full, her breath too much oppressed.

Or this:

Jealousy of Mr. Elliot! It was the only intelligible motive. Captain Wentworth jealous of her affection! Could she have believed it a week ago; three hours ago! For a moment the gratification was exquisite. But, alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed. How was such jealousy to be quieted? How was the truth to reach him? How, in all the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he ever learn of her real sentiments? It was misery to think of Mr. Elliot’s attentions. Their evil was incalculable.

We wonder if our readers have any advice for this poor fellow?