Eloisa

Volume III

Letter CXX. From Mrs. Wolmar to Mrs. Orbe.

How tedious is your stay! This going backward and forward is very disagreeable. How many hours are lost before you return to the place where you ought to remain for ever, and therefore, how much worse is it in you ever to go away! The idea of seeing you for so short a time, takes from the pleasure of your company. Do not you perceive that by residing at your own house and mine alternately, you are in fact at home in neither, and cannot you contrive some means by which you may make your abode in both at once?

What are we doing, my dear cousin? How many precious moments we lose, when we have none to waste! Years steal upon us; youth begins to vanish; life slides away imperceptibly; its momentary bliss is in our possession, and we refuse to enjoy it! Do you recollect the time when we were yet girls, those early days so agreeable and delightful, which no other time of life affords, and which the mind with so much difficulty forgets? How often, when we were obliged to part for a few days, or even for a few hours, have we sadly embraced each other, and vowed that when we were our own mistresses, we would never be asunder? We are now our own mistresses, and yet we pass one half of the year at a distance from each other. Is then our affection weaker? My dear and tender friend, we are both sensible how much time, habit, and your kindness have rendered our attachment more strong and indissoluble. As to myself, your absence daily becomes more insupportable, and I can no longer live a minute without you. The progress of our friendship is more natural than it appears to be; it is founded not only on a similarity of character, but of condition. As we advance in years, our affections begin to centre in one point. We every day lose something that was dear to us, which we can never replace. Thus we perish by degrees, till at length, being wholly devoted to self-love, we lose life and sensibility, even before our existence ceases. But a susceptible mind arms itself with all its force against this anticipated death; when a chillness begins to seize the extremities, it collects all the genial warmth of nature round its own centre; the more connections it loses, the closer it cleaves to those which remain, and all its former ties are combined to attach it to the last object.

This is what I seem to experience, young as I am. Ah! my dear, my poor heart has been too susceptible of tender impressions! It was so early exhausted, that it grew old before its time, and so many different affections have absorbed it to that degree, that it has no room for any new attachments. You have known me in the successive capacities of a daughter, a friend, a mistress, a wife, and a mother. You know how every character has been dear to me! Some of these connections are utterly destroyed, others are weakened. My mother, my affectionate mother is no more; tears are the only tribute I can pay to her memory, and I do but half enjoy the most agreeable sensations of nature. As to love, it is wholly extinguished, it is dead for ever, and has left a vacancy in my heart, which will never be filled up again. We have lost your good and worthy husband, whom I loved as the dear part of yourself, and who was so well deserving of your friendship and tenderness. If my boys were grown up, maternal affection might supply these vacancies; but that affection, like all others, has need of participation, and what return can a mother expect from a child, only four or five years old? Our children are dear to us, long before they are sensible of our love, or capable of returning it; and yet, how much we want to express the extravagance of our fondness, to some one who can enter into our affection. My husband loves them; but not with that degree of sensibility I could wish; he is not intoxicated with fondness as I am; his tenderness for them is too rational; I would have it to be more lively, and more like my own. In short, I want a friend, a mother, who can be as extravagantly fond of my children, and her own, as myself. In a word, the fondness of a mother makes the company of a friend more necessary to me, that I may enjoy the pleasure of talking continually about my children, without being troublesome. I feel double the pleasure in the caress of my little Marcellinus, when I see that you share it with me. When I embrace your daughter, I fancy that I press you to my bosom. We have observed a hundred times, on seeing our little cherubs at play together, that the union of our affections has so united them, that we have not been able to distinguish to which of us they severally belonged.

This is not all: I have powerful reasons for desiring to have you always near me, and your absence is painful to me in more respects than one. Think on my aversion to all hypocrisy, and reflect on the continual reserve in which I have lived upwards of six years with the man whom I love above all others in the world. My odious secret oppresses me more and more, and my duty to reveal it seems every day more indispensable. The more I am prompted by honour to disclose it, the more I am obliged by prudence to conceal it. Consider what a horrid state it is for a wife to carry mistrust, falsehood and fear, even to her husband’s arms; to be afraid of opening her heart to him who is master of it, and to conceal one half of my life to ensure the peace of the other? Good God! from whom do I conceal my secret thoughts, and hide the recesses of a soul with which he has so much reason to be satisfied? From my Wolmar, my husband, and the most worthy husband with which heaven ever rewarded the virtue of unsullied chastity. Having deceived him once, I am obliged to continue the deceit, and bear the mortification of finding myself unworthy of all the kindness he expresses. My heart is afraid to receive any testimony of his esteem, his most tender caresses make me blush, and my conscience interprets all his marks of respect and attention, into symptoms of reproach and disdain. It is a cruel pain constantly to harbour this remorse, which tells me, that he mistakes the object of his esteem. Ah! if he but knew me, he would not use me thus tenderly! No, I cannot endure this horrid state; I am never alone with that worthy man, but I am ready to fall on my knees before him, to confess my fault, and to expire at his feet with grief and shame.

Nevertheless, the reasons which at first restrained me, acquire fresh strength every day, and every motive which might induce me to make the declaration, conspires to enjoin me silence. When I consider the peaceable and tranquil state of the family, I cannot reflect without horror, what an irreparable disturbance might be occasioned by a single word. After six years passed in perfect union, shall I venture to disturb the peace of so good and discreet a husband, who has no other will than that of his happy wife, no other pleasure than to see order and tranquility throughout his family? Shall I afflict with domestic broils, an aged father who appears to be so contented, and so delighted with the happiness of his daughter and his friend? Shall I expose my dear children, those lovely and promising infants, to have their education neglected and shamefully slighted, to become the melancholy victims of family discord, between a father inflamed with just indignation, tortured with jealousy, and an unfortunate and guilty mother, always bathed in tears? I know what Mr. Wolmar is, how he esteems his wife; but how do I know what he will be when he no longer regards her? Perhaps he seems calm and moderate, because his predominant passion has had no room to display itself. Perhaps he would be as violent in the impetuosity of his anger, as he is gentle and composed now he has nothing to provoke him.

If I owe such regard to every one about me, is not something likewise due to myself? Does not a virtuous and regular course of life for six years obliterate, in some measure, the errors of youth, and am I still obliged to undergo the punishment of a failing which I have so long lamented? I confess, my dear cousin, that I look backwards with reluctance; the reflection humbles me to that degree that it dispirits me, and I am too susceptible of shame, to endure the idea, without falling into a kind of despair. I must reflect on the time which has passed since my marriage, in order to recover myself. My present situation inspires me with a confidence of which those disagreeable reflections would deprive me. I love to nourish in my breast these returning sentiments of honour. The rank of a wife and mother exalts my soul, and supports me against the remorse of my former condition. When I view my children and their father about me, I fancy that every thing breathes an air of virtue, and they banish from my mind the disagreeable remembrance of my former frailties. Their innocence is the security of mine; they become dearer to me, by being the instruments of my reformation; and I think on the violation of honour with such horror, that I can scarce believe myself the same perfect who formerly was capable of forgetting its precepts. I perceive myself so different from what I was, so confirmed in my present state, that I am almost induced to consider what I have to declare, as a confession which does not concern me, and which I am not obliged to make.

Such is the state of anxiety and uncertainty in which I am continually fluctuating in your absence. Do you know what may be the consequence of this one day or other? My father is soon to set out for Bern, and is determined not to return till he has put an end to a tedious lawsuit, not being willing to leave us the trouble of concluding it, and perhaps doubting our zeal in the prosecution of it. In the interim, between his departure and his return, I shall be alone with my husband, and I perceive that it will then be impossible for me to keep the fatal secret any longer. When we have company, you know Mr. Wolmar often chuses to retire and take a solitary walk; he chats with the peasants; he enquires into their situation; he examines the condition of their grounds; and assists them, if they require it, both with his purse and his advice. But when we are alone, he never walks without me; he seldom leaves his wife and children, and he enters into their little amusements with such an amiable simplicity, that on these occasions I always feel a more than common tenderness for him. In these tender moments, my reserve is in so much more danger, as he himself frequently gives me opportunities of throwing it aside, and has a hundred times held conversation with me which seemed to excite me to confidence. I perceive, that sooner or later, I must disclose my mind to him; but since you would have the confession concerted between us, and made with all the precaution which discretion requires, return to me immediately, or I can answer for nothing.

My dear friend, I must conclude, and yet what I have to add, is of such importance, that you must allow me a few words more. You are not only of service to me when I am with my children and my husband, but above all when I am alone with poor Eloisa: solitude is more dangerous, because it grows agreeable to me, and I court it without intending it. It is not, as you are sensible, that my heart still smarts with the pain of its former wounds; no, they are cured, I perceive that they are, I am very certain, I dare believe myself virtuous. I am under no apprehensions about the present, it is the time past which torments me. There are some reflections as dreadful, as the original sensation; the recollection moves us; we are ashamed to find that we shed tears, and we do but weep the more. They are tears of compassion, regret, and repentance; love has no share in them; I no longer harbour the least spark of love; but I lament the mischiefs it has occasioned; I bewail the fate of a worthy man who has been bereft of peace and perhaps of life, by gratifying an indiscreet passion. Alas! he has undoubtedly perished in this long and dangerous voyage which he undertook out of despair. If he was living, he would send us tidings from the farthest part of the world; near four years have elapsed since his departure. They say the squadron on which he is aboard, has suffered a thousand disasters, that they have lost three fourths of their crew, that several ships have gone to the bottom, and that no one can tell what is become of the rest. He is no more, he is no more! A secret foreboding tells me so. The unfortunate wretch has not been spared, any more than so many others. The distresses of his voyage, and melancholy, still more fatal than all, have shortened his days. Thus vanishes every thing which glitters for a while on earth. The reproach of having occasioned the death of a worthy man, was all that was wanting to compleat the torments of my conscience. With what a soul was he endued! how susceptible of the tenderest love! He deserved to live!

I try in vain to dissipate these melancholy ideas; but they return every minute in spite of me. Your friend requires your assistance, to enable her to banish them, or to moderate them; and since I cannot forget this unfortunate man, I had rather talk of him with you, than think of him by myself.

You see how many reasons concur to make your company continually necessary to me. If you, who have been more discreet and fortunate, are not moved by the same reasons, yet does not your inclination persuade you of the same necessity? If it is true that you will never marry again, having so little satisfaction in your family, what house can be more convenient for you than mine? For my part, I am in pain, as I know what you endure in your own; for notwithstanding your dissimulation, I am no stranger to your manner of living, and I am not to be duped by those gay airs which you affected to display at Clarens. You have often reproached me with my failings; and I have a very great one to reproach you with in your turn; which is, that your grief is too solitary and confined. You get into a corner to indulge your affliction, as if you were ashamed to weep before your friend. Clara, I do not like this. I am not ungenerous like you; I do not condemn your tears, I would not have you cease at the end of two or ten years, or while you live, to honour the memory of so tender a husband; but I blame you that after having passed the best of your days in weeping with your Eloisa, you rob her of the pleasure of weeping in her turn with you, and of washing away, by more honourable tears, the scandal of those which she shed in your bosom. If you are ashamed of your grief, you are a stranger to real affliction! If you find a kind of pleasure in it, why will you not let me partake of it? Are you ignorant that a participation of affections communicates a soft and affecting quality to melancholy, which content never feels? And was not friendship particularly designed to alleviate the evils of the wretched, and lessen their pains?

Such, my dear, are the reflections you ought to indulge; to which I must add, that when I propose your coming to live with me, I make the proposal no less in my husband’s name than in my own. He has often expressed his surprize, and even been offended, that two such intimates as we, should live asunder: he assures me that he has told you so, and he is not a man who talks inadvertently. I do not know what solution you will take with respect to these proposals; I have reason to hope, that it will be such as I could wish. However it be, mine is fixed and unalterable. I have not forgotten the time when you would have followed me to England. My incomparable friend! it is now my turn. You know my dislike of the town, my taste for the country, for rural occupations, and how strongly a residence of three years has attached me to my house at Clarens. You are no stranger likewise to the trouble of removing a whole family, and you are sensible that it would be abusing my father’s good nature to oblige him to move so often. Therefore if you will not leave your family and come to govern mine, I am determined to take a house at Lausanne, where we will all live with you. Prepare yourself therefore; every thing requires it; my inclination, my duty, my happiness. The security of my honour, the recovery of my reason, my condition, my husband, my children, myself, I owe all to you; I am indebted to you for all the blessings I enjoy, I see nothing but what reminds me of your goodness, and without you I am nothing. Come then, my much loved friend, my guardian angel; come and enjoy the work of your own hands; come and gather the fruits of your benevolence. Let us have but one family, as we have but one soul to cherish it; you shall superintend the education of my sons, and I will take care of your daughters; we will share the maternal duties between us, and make our pleasure double. We will raise our minds together to the contemplation of that Being, who purified mine by means of your endeavours and having nothing more to hope for in this life, we will quietly wait for the next, in the bosom of innocence and friendship.

Letter CXXI. Answer.

Good heaven! my dear cousin, how I am delighted with your letter! Thou lovely preacher! ... Lovely indeed: but in the preaching strain nevertheless. What a charming peroration! A perfect model of ancient oratory. The Athenian architect! ... That florid speaker! ... You remember him... In your old Plutarch... Pompous descriptions, superb temple! ... When he had finished his harangue, comes another; a plain man; with a grave, sober, and unaffected air...who answered, as your cousin Clara might do...with a low, hollow, and deep tone...All that, he has said, I will do. Here he ended, and the assembly rang with applause! Peace to the man of words. My dear, we may be considered in the light of these two architects; and the temple in question, is that of friendship.

But let us recapitulate all the fine things you have said to me. First, that we loved each other; secondly, that my company was necessary to you; thirdly, that yours was necessary to me likewise; and lastly, that as it was in our power to live together the rest of our days, we ought to do it. And you have really discovered all this without a guide! In truth, thou art a woman of vast eloquence! Well, but let me tell how I was employed on my part, while you was composing this sublime epistle. After that, I will leave you to judge, whether what you say, or what I do, is most to the purpose.

I had no sooner lost my husband, than you supplied the vacancy he had left in my heart. While he was living, he shared my affections with you; when he was gone, I was yours entirely, and as you observe with respect to the conformity of friendship and maternal affection, my daughter was an additional tie to unite us. I not only determined, from that time, to pass my days with you, but I formed a more enlarged plan. The more effectually to blend our two families into one, I proposed, on a supposition that all circumstances prove agreeable, to marry my daughter some day or other to your eldest son, and the name of husband assumed in jest, seemed to be a lucky omen of his taking it one day in earnest.

With this view, I endeavoured immediately to put an end to the trouble of a contested inheritance, and finding that my circumstances enabled me to sacrifice some part of my claim in order to settle the rest, I thought of nothing but placing my daughter’s fortune in some sure funds, where it might be secure from any apprehensions of a law suit. You know that I am whimsical in most things; my whim in this was to surprize you. I intended to come into your room one morning early, with my child in one hand, and the parchment in the other; and to have presented them both to you, with a fine compliment on committing to your care the mother, the daughter, and their effects, that is to say, my child’s fortune. Govern her, I proposed to have said, as best suits the interest of your son; for from henceforwards it is your concern and his; for my own part, I shall trouble myself about her no longer.

Full of this pleasing idea, it was necessary for me to open my mind to somebody who might assist me to execute my project. Guess now whom I chose for a confident? One Mr. Wolmar: Should not you know him? “My husband, cousin?” Yes, your husband, cousin. The very man from whom you make such a difficulty of concealing a secret, which it is of consequence to him never to know, is he who has kept a secret from you, the discovery of which would have given you so much pleasure. This was the true subject of all that mysterious conversation between us, about which you used to banter us with so much humour. You see what hypocrites these husbands are. Is it not very droll in them to accuse us of dissimulation? But I required much more of your husband. I perceived that you had the same plan which I had in view, but you kept it more to yourself, as one who did not care to communicate her thoughts, till she was led to the discovery. With an intent therefore to make your surprize more agreeable, I would have had him, when you proposed our living together, to have seemed as if he disapproved of your eagerness, and to have given his consent with reluctance. To this he made me an answer, which I well remember, and which you ought never to forget; for since the first existence of husbands, I doubt whether any one of them ever made such an answer before. It was as follows. “My dear little cousin, I know Eloisa... I know her well... better than she imagines perhaps...her generosity of heart is so great, that what she desires ought not to be refused, and her sensibility is too strong to bear a denial, without being afflicted. During these five years that we have married, I do not know that I have given her the least uneasiness; and I hope to die without ever being the cause of her feeling a moment’s inquietude.” Cousin, reflect on this: This is the husband whose peace of mind you are incessantly meditating to disturb.

For my part I had less delicacy, or more gentleness of disposition, and I so naturally diverted the conversation to which your affection so frequently led you, that as you could not tax me with coldness or indifference towards you, you took it into your head that I had a second marriage in view, and that I loved you better than any thing, except a husband. You see, my dear child, your most inmost thoughts do not escape me. I guess your meaning, I penetrate your designs; I enter into the bottom of your soul, and for that reason I have always adored you. This suspicion, which so opportunely led you into a mistake, appeared to me well worth encouraging. I took upon me to play the part of the coquettish widow, which I acted so well as to deceive even you. It is a part for which I have more talents than inclination. I skilfully employed that piquant air which I know how to put on, and with which I have entertained myself in making a jest of more than one young coxcomb. You have been absolutely the dupe of my affectation, and you thought me in haste to supply the place of a man, to whom of all others it would be most difficult to a fit successor. But I am too ingenuous to play the counterfeit long, and your apprehensions were soon removed. But to confirm you the more, I will explain to you my real sentiments on that head.

I have told you an hundred times when I was a maid, that I was never designed for a wife. Had my determination depended on myself alone, I should never have married. But our sex cannot purchase liberty but by slavery; and before we can become our own mistresses, we must begin by being servants. Though my father did not confine me, I was not without uneasiness in my family. To free myself from that vexation, therefore, I married Mr. Orbe. He was such a worthy man, and loved me with such tenderness, that I most sincerely loved him in my turn. Experience gave me a more advantageous opinion of marriage than I had conceived of it, and effaced those impressions I had received from Chaillot. Mr. Orbe made me happy, and did not repent his endeavours. I should have discharged my duty with any other, but I should have vexed him, and I am sensible that nothing but so good a husband could have made me a tolerable wife. Would you think that even this afforded me matter of complaint? My dear, we loved each other too affectionately; we were never gay. A slighter friendship would have been more sprightly; I should even have preferred it, and I think I should have chosen to have lived with less content, if I could have laughed oftener.

Add to this, that the particular circumstances of your situation, gave me uneasiness. I need not remind you of the dangers to which an unruly passion exposed you. I reflect on them with horror. If you had only hazarded your life, perhaps I might have retained some remains of gaiety: but terror and grief pierced my soul, and till I saw you married, I did not enjoy one moment of real pleasure. You are no stranger to my affliction at that time, you felt it. It had great influence over your good disposition, and I shall always bless those fortunate tears, which were probably the occasion of your return to virtue.

In this manner I passed all the time that I lived with my husband. Since it has pleased the Almighty to take him from me, judge whether I can hope to find another so much to my mind, and whether I have any temptation to make the experiment? No, cousin, matrimony is too serious a state for me; its gravity does not suit with my humour; it makes me dull, and sits awkwardly upon me; not to mention that all constraint whatever is intolerable to me. Consider, you who know me, what charms can an attachment have in my eyes, during which, for seven years together, I have not laughed seven times heartily! I do not propose, like you, to turn matron at eight and twenty. I find myself a smart little widow, likely to get a husband still, and I think that if I was a man, I should have no objection to such a one as myself. But to marry again, cousin! hear me; I sincerely lament my poor husband, I would have given up one half of my days, to have passed the other half with him; and nevertheless, could he return to life, I should take him again for no other reason, than because I had taken him before.

I have declared to you my real intentions. If I have not been able to put them in execution, notwithstanding Mr. Wolmar’s kind endeavours, it is because difficulties seem to increase, as my zeal to surmount them strengthens. But my zeal will always gain the ascendency, and before the summer is over, I hope to return to you for the remainder of my days.

I must now vindicate myself from the reproach of concealing my uneasiness, and choosing to weep alone; I do not deny it, and this is the way I spend the most agreeable time I pass here. I never enter my house, but I perceive some traces which remind me of him, who made it agreeable to me. I cannot take a step, I cannot view a single object, without perceiving some signs of his tenderness and goodness of heart; and would you have my mind to be unaffected? When I am here, I am sensible of nothing but the loss I have sustained. When I am near you, I view all the comfort I have left. Can you make your influence over my disposition, a crime in me? If I weep in your absence, and laugh in your company, whence proceeds the difference? Ungrateful woman! it is because you alleviate all my afflictions, and I cannot grieve while I enjoy your society.

You have said a great deal in favour of our long friendship; but I cannot pardon you for omitting a circumstance that does me most honour; which is, that I love you, though you eclipse me! Eloisa, you were born to rule. Your empire is more despotic than any in the world. It extends even over the will, and I am sensible of it more than any one. How happens it, my Eloisa? We are both in love with virtue; honour is equally dear to us; our talents are the same; I have very near as much spirit as you; and am not a bit less handsome. I am sensible of all this, and yet notwithstanding all, you prescribe to me, you overcome me, you cast me down, your genius crushes mine, and I am nothing before you. Even while you were engaged in an attachment with which you reproached yourself, and that I, who had not copied your failing, might have taken the lead in my turn, yet the ascendency still remained in you. The frailty I condemned in you, appeared to me almost in the light of a virtue; I could scarce forbear admiring in you, what I should have censured in another. In short, even at that time, I never accosted you without a sensible emotion of involuntary respect; and it is certain that nothing but your gentleness and affability of manners could entitle me to the rank of your friend: by nature, I ought to be your servant. Explain this mystery if you can; for my part, I am at a loss how to solve it.

But after all, I do in some measure conceive the reason, and I believe that I have explained it before now. The reason is, that your disposition enlivens every one round you, and gives them a kind of new existence, for which they are bound to adore you, since they derive it entirely from you. It is true, I have done you some signal services; you have so often acknowledged them, that it is impossible for me to forget them. I cannot deny but that, without my assistance, you had been utterly undone. But what did I do, more than return the obligation I owed you? Is it possible to have a long acquaintance with you without finding one’s mind impressed with the charms of virtue, and the delights of friendship? Do not you know that you have power to arm in your defence everyone who approaches you, and that I have no advantage whatever over others, but that of being, like the guards of Serositis, of the same age and sex, and of having been brought up with you. However it be, it is some comfort to Clara, that, though she is of less estimation than Eloisa, yet without Eloisa she would be of less value still; and in short, to tell you the truth, I think that we stood in great need of each other, and that we should both have been losers if fate had parted us.

I am chiefly concerned lest, while my affairs detain me here, you should discover your secret, which you are every minute ready to disclose. Consider, I intreat you, that there are solid and powerful reasons for concealing it, and that nothing but a mistaken principle can tempt you to reveal it. Besides, our suspicion that it is no longer a secret to him who is most interested in the discovery, is an additional argument against making any declaration without the greatest circumspection. Perhaps your husband’s reserve may serve as an example and a lesson to us: for in such cases there is very often a great difference between pretending to be ignorant of a thing, and being obliged to know it. Stay therefore, I beseech you, till we consult once more on this affair. If your apprehensions were well grounded, and your lamented friend was no more, the best resolution you could take, would be to let your history and his misfortunes be buried together. If he is alive, as I hope he is, the case may be different; but let us wait till we are sure of the event. In every state of the case, do not you think that you ought to pay some regard to the last advice of an unfortunate wretch, whose evils all spring from you?

With respect to the danger of solitude, I conceive and cannot condemn your fears, though I am persuaded that they are ill founded. Your past terrors have made you fearful; but I presage better of the time present, and you would be less apprehensive, if you had more reason to be so. But I cannot approve of your anxiety with regard to the fate of our poor friend. Now your affections have taken a different turn, believe me he is as dear to me as to yourself. Nevertheless I have forebodings quite contrary to yours, and more agreeable to reason. Lord B—— has heard from him twice, and wrote to me on the receipt of the last letter, to acquaint me that he was in the South seas, and had already escaped all the dangers you apprehend. You know all this as well as I, and yet you are as uneasy as if you were a stranger to these particulars. But there is a circumstance you are ignorant of, and of which I must inform you; it is, that the ship on which he is on board, was seen two months ago off the Canaries, making sail for Europe. This is the account my father received from Holland, which he did not fail to transmit to me; for it is his custom to be more punctual in informing me concerning public affairs, than in acquainting me with his own private concerns. My heart tells me that it will not be long before we hear news of our philosopher, and that your tears will be dried up, unless after having lamented him as dead, you weep to find him alive, But, thank God, you are no longer in danger from your weakness.

Deh! fosse or qui quel miser puer un poco,
Ch’ e giá di piangere e di viver lasso!

This is the sum of my answer. Your affectionate friend proposes, and shares with you the agreeable expectation of a lasting re-union. You find that you are neither the first, nor the only author of this project; and that the execution of it is more forward than you imagined. Have patience therefore, my dear friend, for this summer: It is better to delay our meeting for same time, than to be under the necessity of parting again.

Well, good Madam, have not I been as good as my word, and is not my triumph compleat? Come, fall on your knees, kiss this letter with respect, and humbly acknowledge that, once in her life at least, Eloisa Wolmar has been outdone in friendship.

Letter CXXII. To Mrs. Orbe.

My dear cousin, my benefactress, my friend! I come from the extremities of the earth, and bring a heart full of affection for you. I have crossed the line four times; I have traversed the two hemispheres; I have seen the four quarters of the globe; its diameter has been between us; I have been quite round it, and yet could not escape from you one moment. It is in vain to fly from the object of our adoration: the image, more fleet than the winds, pursues us from the end of the world, and wherever we transport ourselves, we bear with us the idea by which we are animated. I have endured a great deal; I have seen others suffer more. How many unhappy wretches have I seen perish! Alas! They rated life at a high price! And yet I survived them... Perhaps my condition was less to be pitied; the miseries of my companions affected me more than my own. I am wretched here, said I to myself, but there is a corner of the globe where I am happy and tranquil; and the prospect of felicity on the side of the lake at Geneva, made me amends for what I suffered on the ocean. I have the pleasure on my return to find my hopes confirmed: Lord B——informs me that you both enjoy health and peace; and that if you, in particular, have lost the agreeable distinction of a wife, you nevertheless retain the title of a friend and mother, which may contribute to your happiness.

I am at present too much in haste to send you a detail of my voyage in this letter. I dare hope that I shall soon have a more convenient opportunity; meantime I must be content to give you a slight sketch, rather to excite than gratify your curiosity. I have been near four years in making this immense tour, and I returned in the same ship in which I set sail, the only one of the whole squadron which we have brought back to England.

I have seen South-America, that vast continent which for want of arms has been obliged to submit to the Europeans, who have made it a desert, in order to secure their dominion. I have seen the coasts of Brazil, from whence Lisbon and London draw their treasures, and where the miserable natives tread upon gold and diamonds, without daring to lay hands on them for their own life. I crossed, in mild weather, those stormy seas under the Antarctic circle, and I met with the most horrible tempests in the Pacific ocean.

E in mar dubbioso sotto ignoto polo
Provai l’onde fallaci, e’l vento in fido.

I have seen, at a distance, the abode of those supposed giants, who are no otherwise greater than the rest of their species, than as they are more courageous, and who maintain their dependence more by a life of simplicity and frugality, than by their extraordinary stature. I made a residence of three months in a desert and delightful island, which afforded an agreeable and lively representation of the primitive beauty of nature, and which seems to be fixed at the extremity of the world to serve as an asylum to innocence and persecuted love; but the greedy European indulges his brutal disposition in preventing the peaceful Indian from residing there, and does justice on himself, by not making it his own abode.

I have seen, in the rivers of Mexico and Peru, the same scenes as at Brazil; I have seen the few wretched inhabitants, the sad remains of two powerful nations, loaded with irons, ignominy and misery, weeping in the midst of their precious metals, and reproaching heaven for having lavished such treasures among them. I have seen the dreadful conflagration of a whole city, which perished in the flames without having made any resistance or defence. Such is the right of war among the intelligent, humane, and refined Europeans! They are not satisfied with doing the enemy all the mischief from whence they can reap any advantage, but they reckon as clear gain, all the destruction they can make among his possessions. I have coasted along almost the whole western part of America, not without being struck with admiration on beholding fifteen hundred leagues of coast, and the greatest sea in the world, under the dominion of a single potentate, who may be said to keep the keys of one hemisphere.

After having crossed this vast sea, I beheld a new scene on the other continent, I have seen the most numerous and most illustrious nation in the world, in subjection to a handful of Banditti; I have had close intercourse with this famous people, and I do not wonder that they are slaves. As often conquered as attacked, they have always been a prey to the first invader, and will be so to the end of the world. They are well suited to their servile state, since they have not the courage even to complain. They are learned, lazy, hypocritical, and deceitful: they talk a great deal without saying anything; they are full of spirit, without any genius; they abound in signs, but are barren in ideas; they are polite, full of compliments, dextrous, crafty, and knavish; they comprise all the duties of life in trifles, all morality in grimace, and have no other idea of humanity, than what consists in bows and salutations. I landed upon a second desert island, more unknown, more delightful still than the first, and where the most cruel accident had like to have confined us for ever. I was the only one perhaps, whom so agreeable an exile did not terrify; am I not doomed to be an exile every where? In this place of terror and delight, I saw the attempts of human industry to disengage a civilized being from a solitude where he wants nothing; and plunge him into an abyss of new necessities.

On the vast ocean, where one would imagine men would be glad to meet with their own species, I have seen two great ships sail up to each other, join, attack, and fight together with fury, as if that immense space was too little for either of them. I have seen them discharge flames and bullets against each other. In a sight which was not of long duration, I have seen the picture of hell. I have heard the triumphant shouts of the conquerors, drown the cries of the wounded, and the groans of the dying. I blushed to receive my share of an immense plunder; but I received it in the nature of a trust, and as it was taken from the wretched, to the wretched it shall be restored.

I have seen Europe transported to the extremities of Africa, by the labours of that avaricious, patient, and industrious people, who by time and perseverance have surmounted difficulties which all the heroism of other nations could never overcome. I have seen those immense and miserable countries, which seem destined to no other purpose than to cover the earth with herds of slaves. At their vile appearance, I turned away my eyes, out of disdain, horror and pity; and on beholding one fourth part of my fellow creatures transformed into beast for the service of the rest, I could not forbear lamenting that I was a man.

Lastly, I beheld, in my fellow travellers, a bold and intrepid people, whose freedom and example retrieved, in my opinion, the honour of the species; a people, who despised pain and death, and who dreaded nothing but hunger and disquiet. In their commander, I beheld a captain, a soldier, a pilot, a prudent and great man, and to say still more perhaps, a friend worthy of Lord B——. But throughout the whole world, I have never met with any resemblance of Clara Orbe, or Eloisa Etange, or found one who could recompense a heart truly sensible of their worth, for the loss of their society.

How shall I speak of my cure? It is from you that I must learn how far it is perfect. Do I return more free, and more discreet than I departed? I dare believe that I do, and yet I cannot affirm it. The same image has constant possession of my heart; you know how impossible it is for me ever to efface it; but her dominion over me is more worthy of her, and if I do not deceive myself, she holds the same empire in my heart, as in your own. Yes, my dear cousin, her virtue has subdued me; I am now, with regard to her, nothing more than a most sincere and tender friend, my adoration of her is of the same nature with yours; or rather, my affections do not seem to be weakened, but rectified, and however nicely I examine, I find them to be as pure as the object which inspires them. What can I say more, till I am put to the proof, by which I may be able to form a right judgment of myself? I am honest and sincere; I will be what I ought to be; but how shall I answer for my affections, when I have so much reason to mistrust them? Have I power over the past? How can I avoid recollecting a thousand passions which have formerly distracted me? How shall my imagination distinguish what is, from what has been? And how shall I consider her as a friend, whom I never yet saw but as a mistress? Whatever you may think of the secret motive of my eagerness, it is honest and rational, and merits your approbation. I will answer beforehand, at least for my intentions. Permit me to see you, and examine me yourself, or allow me to see Eloisa, and I shall then know my own heart.