Eloisa

I now leave you to think of my proposal: but give me leave to say again, beware of the consequences of prejudice, and those false scruples, which too often, under the pretext of honour, conduct us to vice. I foresee what will happen to you if you reject my offers. The tyranny of an obstinate father will plunge you into an abyss, you will not be aware of till after your fall. Your gentleness of disposition degenerates sometimes into timidity: you will fall a sacrifice to the chimerical distinction of rank; [15] you will be forced into an engagement which your heart will abhor. The world may approve your conduct, but your heart will daily give the lie to public opinion; you will be honoured and yet contemptible in your own opinion. How much better is it to pass your life in obscurity and virtue?

P. S. Being in doubt concerning your resolution, I write to you, unknown to your friend; lest a refusal on your part should ruin at once the expectations I have formed of the good effects my care and advice may have upon his mind.

Letter LXIX. Eloisa to Clara.

Oh, my dear! in what trouble did you leave me last night! and what a night did I pass in reflecting on the contents of that fatal letter! No, never did so powerful a temptation assail my heart; never did I experience the like agitation of mind; nor was ever more at a loss to compose it. Hitherto reason has darted some ray of light to direct my steps; on every embarrassing occasion I have been able to discern the most virtuous part, and immediately to embrace it. But now, debased and overcome, my resolution does nothing but fluctuate between contending passions: my weak heart has now no other choice than its foibles; and so deplorable is my blindness that, if I even chose for the best, my choice is not directed by virtue, and therefore I feel no less remorse than if I had done ill. You know who my father designs for my husband: you know, also, to whom the indissoluble bond of love has united me: would I be virtuous, filial obedience and plighted vows impose on me contradictory obligations. Shall I follow the inclinations of my heart?——Shall I pay a greater regard to a lover than to a parent? In listening to the voice of either love or nature, I cannot avoid driving the one or the other to despair. In sacrificing myself to my duty, I must either way be guilty of a crime, and which ever party I take, I must die criminal, and unhappy.

Ah, my dear friend! you, who have been my constant and only resource, who have saved me so often from death and despair, O, think of my present horrible state of mind; for never were your kind offices of consolation more necessary. You know I have listened to your advice, that I have followed your counsel: you have seen how far, at the expense of my happiness, I have paid a deference to the voice of friendship. Take pity on me, then, in the trouble you have brought upon me. As you have begun, continue to assist me; sustain my drooping spirits, and think for her who can no longer think for herself, but through you. You can read this heart that loves you, you know it better than I; learn then my difficulties, and chuse in my stead, since I have no longer the power to will, nor the reason to chuse for myself.

Read over the letter of that generous Englishman; read it, my dear, again, and again. Are you not affected by the charming picture he has drawn of that happiness which love, peace, and virtue have yet in store for your friend? How ravishing that union of souls! What inexpressible delight it affords, even in the midst of remorse. Heavens! how would my heart rejoice in conjugal felicity? And is innocence and happiness yet in my power? May I hope to expire with love and joy, in the embraces of a beloved husband amidst the dear pledges of his tenderness! Shall I hesitate then a moment, and not fly to repair my faults in the arms of him who seduced me to commit them? Why do I delay to become a virtuous and chaste mother of an endearing family?——Oh that my parents could but see me thus raised out of my degeneracy! That they might but see how well I would acquit myself, in my turn, of those sacred duties they have discharged towards me!——And yours! ungrateful, unnatural daughter, (might they not say) who shall discharge yours to them, when you are so ready to forget them? Is it, by plunging a dagger into the heart of your own mother, that you prepare to become a mother yourself? Can she, who dishonours her own family, teach her children to respect theirs? Go, unworthy object of the blind fondness of your doting parents! Abandon them to their grief for having ever given you birth; load their old age with infamy, and bring their grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.——Go, and enjoy, if thou canst, a happiness purchased at such a price.

Good God! what horrors surround me! shall I fly by stealth from my native country, dishonour my family, abandon at once father, mother, friends, relations, and even you, my dear Clara; you my gentle friend, so well beloved of my heart; you, who from our earliest infancy have hardly ever been absent from me a day; shall I leave you, lose you, never see you more?——Ah! no. May never——How wretched, how cruelly afflicted is your unhappy friend! She sees before her variety of evils; and nothing remains to yield her consolation. But my mind wanders——so many conflicts surpass my strength and perplex my reason: I lose at once my fortitude and understanding. I have no hope but in you alone. Advise me; chuse for me; or leave me to perish in perplexity and despair.

Letter LXX. Answer to the Preceding.

There is too just cause, my dear Eloisa, for your perplexity: I foresaw, but could not prevent it: I feel, but cannot remove it: nay, what is still worse in your unhappy situation, there is no one that can extricate you but yourself. Were prudence only required, friendship might possibly relieve your agitated mind; were it only necessary to chuse the good from the evil, mistaken passion might be over-ruled by disinterested advice. But in your case, whatever side you take, nature both authorizes and condemns you; reason, at the same time, commends and blames you; duty is silent or contradicts itself; the consequences are equally to be dreaded on one part or the other: in the mean while you can neither safely chuse nor remain undetermined; you have only evils to take your choice of, and your heart is the only proper judge which of them it can best support. I own, the importance of the deliberation frightens, and extremely afflicts me. Whatever destiny you prefer, it will be still unworthy of you; and, as I can neither point out your duty, nor conduct you in the road to happiness, I have not the courage to decide for you. This is the first refusal you ever met with from your friend; and I feel, by the pain it costs me, that it will be the last: but I should betray your confidence should I take upon me to direct you in an affair, about which prudence itself is silent; and in which your best and only guide is your own inclination.

Blame me not wrongfully, Eloisa, nor condemn me too soon. I know there are friends so circumspect that, not to expose themselves to consequences, they refuse to give their advice on difficult occasions, and by that reserve increase but the danger of those they should serve. Think me not one of those; you will see presently if this heart, sincerely yours, is capable of such timid precautions: permit me therefore, instead of advising you in your affairs, to mention a little of my own.

Have you never observed, my dear, how much every one who knows you is attached to your person?——That a father or mother should be fond of an only daughter, is not at all surprizing; that an amorous youth should be inflamed by a lovely object is also as little extraordinary; but that, at an age of sedateness and maturity, a man of so cold a disposition as Mr. Wolmar should be so taken with you at first sight; that a whole family should be unanimous to idolize you; that you should be as much the darling of a man so little affectionate as my father, and perhaps more so than any of his own children; that friends, acquaintance, domestics, neighbours, that the inhabitants of a whole town, should unanimously join in admiring and respecting you; this, my dear, is a concurrence of circumstances more extraordinary; and which could not have happened, did you not possess something peculiarly engaging. Do you know, Eloisa, what this something is? It is neither your beauty, your wit, your affability, nor any thing that is understood by the talent of pleasing: but it is that tenderness of heart, that sweetness of disposition, that has no equal; it is the talent of loving others, my dear, that makes you so universally beloved. Every other charm may be withstood, but benevolence is irresistible; and there is no method so sure to obtain the love of others as that of having an affection for them. There are a thousand women more beautiful; many are as agreeable; but you alone possess, with all that is agreeable, that seducing charm, which not only pleases, but affects, and ravishes every heart. It is easily perceived that yours requests only to be accepted, and the delightful sympathy it pants after flies to reward it in turn.

You see, for instance, with surprize, the incredible affection Lord B—— has for your friend; you see his zeal for your happiness; you receive with admiration his generous offers; you attribute them to his virtue only. My dear cousin, you are mistaken. God forbid I should extenuate his Lordship’s beneficence, or undervalue his greatness of soul. But, believe me, his zeal, disinterested as it is, would be less fervent if under the same circumstances he had to do with different people. It is the irresistible ascendant you and your friend have over him that, without his perceiving it, determines his resolution, and makes him do that out of affection, which he imagines proceeds only from motives of generosity. This is what always will be effected by minds of a certain temper. They transform, in a manner, every other into their own likeness; having a sphere of activity wherein nothing can resist their power. It is impossible to know without imitating them, while from their own sublime elevation they attract all that are about them. It is for this reason, my dear, that neither you nor your friend will perhaps ever know mankind; for you will rather see them such as you model them, than such as they are in themselves. You will lead the way for all those among whom you live; others will either imitate or leave you; and perhaps you will meet with nothing in the world similar to what you have hitherto seen.

Let us come now to myself; to me whom the tie of consanguinity, a similarity of age, and, above all, a perfect conformity of taste, and humour, with a very opposite temperament, have united to you from your infancy.

Congiunti eran gl’ alberghi,
Ma più congiunti i cori:
Conforme era l’ etate,
Ma l’ pensier più conforme.

What think you has been the effect of that captivating influence, which is felt by every one that approaches you, on her who has been intimate with you from her childhood? Can you think there subsists between us, but an ordinary connection? Do not my eyes communicate their sparkling joy in meeting yours? Do you not perceive in my heart the pleasure of partaking your pains, and lamenting with you? Can I forget that, in the first transports of a growing passion, my friendship was never disagreeable; and that the complaints of your lover could never prevail on you to send me from you, or prevent me from being a witness to your weakness? This, my Eloisa, was a critical juncture. I am sensible how great a sacrifice you made to modesty, in making me acquainted with an error I happily escaped. Never should I have been your confident had I been but half your friend: no, our souls felt themselves too intimately united for any thing ever to part them.

What is it that makes the friendships of women, I mean of those who are capable of love, so lukewarm and short lived? It is the interests of love; it is the empire of beauty; it is the jealousy of conquest. Now, if anything of that kind could have divided us, we should have been already divided. But, were my heart less insensible to love, were I even ignorant that your affections are so deeply rooted as to end but with life; your lover is my friend, my brother; whoever knew the ties of a sincere friendship broken by those of love? As for Mr. Orbe, he may be long enough proud of your good opinion, before it will give me the least uneasiness; nor have I any stronger inclination to keep him by violence, than you have to take him from me. Would to heaven I could cure you of your passion at the expense of his! Though I keep him with pleasure, I should with greater pleasure resign him.

With regard to my person, I may make what pretensions I please to beauty; you will not set yourself in competition with me; for I am sure it will never enter into your head to desire to know which of us is the handsomest. I must confess, I have not been altogether so indifferent on this head; but know how to give place to your superiority, without the least mortification. Methinks I am rather proud than jealous of it; for as the charms of your features are such as would not become mine, I think myself handsome in your beauty, amiable in your graces, and adorned with your talents; thus I pride myself in your perfections, and admire myself the most in you. I shall never chuse, however, to give pain on my own account being sufficiently handsome in myself, for any use I have for beauty. Any thing more is needless; and it requires not much humility to yield the superiority to you.

You are doubtless impatient to know, to what purpose is all this preamble. It is to this. I cannot give you the advice you request, I have given you my reasons for it, but, notwithstanding this, the choice you shall make for yourself will at the same time be that of your friend; for, whatever be your fortune, I am resolved to accompany you and partake of it. If you go, I follow you. If you say, so do I. I have formed a determined and unalterable resolution. It is my duty, nor shall any thing prevent me. My fatal indulgence to your passion has been your ruin: your destiny ought therefore to be mine; and, as we have been inseparable from our cradles, we ought to be so to the grave.——I foresee you will think this an absurd project; it is, however, at bottom, a more discreet one, perhaps, than you may imagine: I have not the same motives for doubt and irresolution as you have. In the first place, as to my family; if I leave an easy father, I leave an indifferent one, who permits his children to do just as they please, more through neglect than indulgence: for you know he interests himself much more in the affairs of Europe than in his own, and that his daughter is much less the object of his concern than the Pragmatic Sanction. I am besides not like you, an only child, and shall be hardly missed from among those that remain.

It is true, I leave a treaty of marriage just on the point of being brought to a conclusion. Manco-male, my dear, it is the affair of Mr. Orbe, if he loves me, to console himself for the disappointment. For my part, although I esteem his character, I am not without affection for his person, and regret in his loss a very honest man, he is nothing to me in comparison to Eloisa. Tell me, is the soul of any sex? I really cannot perceive in mine. I may have my fancies, but very little of love. A husband might be useful to me; but he would never be any thing to me but a husband; and that a girl who is not ugly, may find every where. But take care, my dear cousin, although I do not hesitate, I do not say that you ought not; nor would I insinuate that you should resolve to do what I am resolved to imitate. There is a wide difference between you and me; and your duty is much severer than mine. You know that an unparalleled affection for you possesses my heart, and almost stifles every other sentiment. From my infancy I have been attached to you by an habitual and irresistible impulse; so that I perfectly love no one else; and if I have some few ties of nature and gratitude to break through, I shall be encouraged to do it by your example. I shall say to myself, I have but imitated Eloisa, and shall think myself justified.

Billet. Eloisa to Clara.

I understand you, my dear Clara, and thank you. For once, at least, I will do my duty; and shall not be totally unworthy of your friendship.

Letter LXXI. Eloisa to Lord B——.

Your lordship’s last letter has affected me in the highest degree with admiration and gratitude; nor will my friend, who is honoured with your protection, be less so, when he knows the obligations you would have conferred on us. The unhappy, alas! only know the value of benevolent minds. We had before but too many reasons to acknowledge that of yours, whose heroic virtue will never be forgotten, tho’ after this it cannot again surprize us.

How fortunate should I think myself to live under the auspices of so generous a friend, and to reap from your benevolence that happiness which fortune has denied me. But I see, my Lord, I see, with despair, your good designs will be frustrated; my cruel destiny will counteract your friendship; and the delightful prospect of the blessings you offer to my acceptance, serves only to render their loss more sensible. You offer a secure and agreeable retreat to two persecuted lovers; you would render their passion legitimate, their union sacred; and I know that, under your protection, I could easily elude the pursuits of my irritated relations. This would compleat our love, but would it insure our felicity? Ah! no: if you would have Eloisa contented and happy, give her an asylum yet more secure, an asylum from shame and repentance. You anticipate our wants; and by an unparalleled generosity, deprive yourself of your own fortune to bestow it on us. More wealthy, more honoured by your benevolence than my own patrimony, I may recover every thing I have lost, and you will condescend to supply the place of a father. Ah, my Lord, shall I be worthy of another father when I abandon him whom nature gave me?

This is the source of the reproaches my wounded conscience makes me, and of those secret pangs that rend my heart.

I do not inquire whether I have a right to dispose of myself contrary to the will of those who gave me birth; but whether I can do it without involving them in a mortal affliction; whether I can abandon them without bringing them to despair; whether alas! I have a right to take away their life who gave me mine? How long has the virtuous mind taken upon itself thus to balance the rights of consanguinity and laws of nature? Since when has the feeling heart presumed thus nicely to distinguish the bounds of filial gratitude? Is it not a crime to proceed in questioning our duty to its very utmost limits? Will any one so scrupulously enquire into its extent, unless they are tempted to go beyond it? Shall I cruelly abandon those by whom I live and breathe, those who so tenderly preserve the life and being they gave me; those who have no hope, no pleasure, but in me? A father near sixty years of age! A mother weak and languishing? I their only child! Shall I leave them without help in the solitude and troubles of old age; at a time when I should exercise towards them that tender solicitude they have lavished on me? Shall I involve their latter days in shame and sorrow? Will not my troubled conscience incessantly upbraid me, and represent my despairing parents breathing out their last in curses on the ungrateful daughter that forsook and dishonoured them? No, my Lord, virtue, whose paths I have forsaken, may in turn abandon me, and no longer actuate my heart, but this horrible idea will supply its dictates; will follow, will torment me, every hour of my life, and make me miserable, in the midst of happiness. In a word, if I am doomed to be unhappy the rest of my days, I will run the risque of every other remorse; but this is too horrible for me to support. I confess, I cannot invalidate your arguments. I have but too great an inclination to think them just: but my Lord, you are unmarried, don’t you think a man ought to be a father himself to advise the children of others? As to me, I am determined what to do: my parents will make me unhappy, I know they will: but it will be less hard for me to support my own misery than the thought of having been the cause of theirs; for which reason I will never forsake my father’s house. Be gone then, ye sweet and flattering illusions! Ideas of so desirable a felicity! Go, vanish like a dream; for such I will ever think ye. And you, too generous friend, lay aside your agreeable designs, and let their remembrance only remain in the bottom of a heart, too grateful ever to forget them. If our misfortunes, however, are not too great to discourage your noble mind; if your generosity is not totally exhausted, there is yet a way to exercise it with reputation, and he whom you honour under the name of friend may under your care be deserving of it. Judge not of him by the situation in which you now see him; his extravagance is not the effect of pusillanimity, but of an ambitious and susceptible disposition, making head against adversity. There is often more insensibility than fortitude in apparent moderation: common men know nothing of violent sorrow, nor do great passions ever break out in weak minds. He possesses all that energy of sentiment which is the characteristic of a noble soul; and which is alas! the cause of my present despair. Your Lordship may indeed believe me, had he been only a common person, Eloisa, had not been undone.

No, my Lord, that secret prepossession in his favour, which was followed by your manifest esteem, did not deceive you. He is worthy of all you did for him before you were acquainted with his merit; and you will do more for him, if possible, as you know him better. Yes, be your Lordship his comforter, his patron, his friend, his father; it is both for your own sake and his I conjure you to this; he will justify your confidence, he will honour your benefactions, he will practise your precepts, he will imitate your virtues, and will learn your wisdom. Ah! my Lord! if he should become, in your hands, what he is capable of being, you will have reason to be proud of your charge.——

Letter LXXII. From Eloisa.

And do you too, my dear friend! my only hope! do you come to wound afresh my heart, oppressed already with a load of sorrow! I was prepared to bear the shocks of adversity; long has my foreboding heart announced their coming; and I should have supported them with patience: but you, for whom I suffer! insupportable! I am struck with horror to see my sorrows aggravated by one who ought to alleviate them. What tender consolations did not I promise myself to receive from you? But all are vanished with your fortitude! How often have I not flattered myself that your magnanimity would strengthen my weakness; that your deserts would efface my error; and your elevated virtues raise up my debased mind! How many times have I not dried up my tears, saying to myself, I suffer for him, it is true, but he is worthy; I am culpable, but he is virtuous; I have a thousand troubles, but his constancy supports me; in his love I find a recompense for all my cares. Vain imagination! on the first trial thou hast deceived me! Where is now that sublime passion which could elevate your sentiments, and display your virtues? What is become of these high-boasted maxims? Your imitation of great examples? Where is that philosopher whom adversity could not shake, yet falls before the first accident that parts him from his mistress? How shall I hereafter excuse my ill conduct to myself, when in him that reduced me, I see a man without courage, effeminate, one whose weak mind sinks under the first reverse of fortune, and absurdly renounces his reason the moment he has occasion to make use of it? Good God! that in my present state of humiliation I should be reduced to blush for my choice, as much as for my weakness.

Reflect a little——think how far you forget yourself; can your wandering and impatient mind stoop so low as to be guilty of cruelty? Do you presume to reproach me? Do you complain of me?——complain of Eloisa? Barbarous man!——How comes it that remorse did not hold your hand? Why did not the most endearing proofs of the tenderest passion that ever existed, deprive you of the power to insult me? How despicable must be your heart, if it can doubt of the fidelity of mine!——But no, you do not, you cannot doubt it, I defy your utmost impatience to do this; nay even at this instant, while I express my abhorrence of your injustice, you must see, too plainly, the cause of the first emotion of anger I ever felt in my life.

Was it you that asked me whether I had not ruined myself by my inconsiderate confidence, and if my designs had not succeeded? How would you not blush for such cruel insinuations, if you knew the fond hopes that reduced me, if you knew the projects I had formed for our mutual happiness, and how they are now vanished with all my comforts. I dare flatter myself still, you will one day know better, and your remorse amply revenge your reproaches. You know my father’s prohibition; you are not ignorant of the public talk; I foresaw the consequences, I had them represented to you by my cousin: you were as sensible of them as we, and for our mutual preservation it was necessary to submit to a separation.

I therefore drove you away, as you injuriously term it. But for whose sake was I induced to this? Have you no delicacy? Ungrateful man! It was for the sake of an heart insensible of its own worth, and that would rather die a thousand deaths than see me rendered infamous. Tell me, what would become of you if I were given up to shame? Do you think you could support my dishonour? Come, cruel as you are, if you think so; come, and receive the sacrifice of my reputation with the same fortitude as I will offer it up. Come back, nor fear to be disclaimed by her to whom you were always dear. I am ready to declare, in the face of heaven and earth, the engagements of our mutual passion; I am ready boldly to declare you my lover, and to expire in your arms with affection and shame. I had rather the whole world should know my tenderness than that you should one moment doubt it: the shafts of ignominy wound not so deep as your reproaches.

I conjure you, let us for ever put an end to these reciprocal complaints; they are to me intolerable. Good heavens! how can those who love each other, delight in quarreling; and lose, in tormenting each other, those moments in which they stand in need of mutual consolation? No, my friend, what end does it serve to effect a disagreement, which does not subsist? Let us complain of fortune, but not of love. Never did it form a more perfect, a more lasting, union; our souls are too intimately blended ever to be separated; nor can we live a-part from each other, but as two parts of one being. How is it then, that you only feel your own griefs? Why do you not sympathize with those of your friend? Why do you not perceive in your breast the heart-felt sighs of hers? Alas! they are more affecting than your impassioned ravings! If you partook of my sufferings, you would even more severely feel them than your own.

You say your situation is deplorable! Think of Eloisa’s, and lament only for her. Consider, in our common misfortune, the different state of your sex and mine, and judge which is most deplorable. Affected by violent passions, to pretend to be insensible; a prey to a thousand griefs, to be obliged to appear chearful and content; to have a serene countenance with an agitated mind; to speak always contrary to one’s thoughts; to disguise all we feel; to be deceitful through obligation, and to speak untruth through modesty; such is the habitual situation of every young woman of my age. Thus we pass the prime of our youth under the tyranny of decorum, which is at length aggravated by that of our parents, in forcing us into an unsuitable marriage. In vain, however, would men lay a restraint on the inclinations; the heart gives law to itself; it eludes the shackles of slavery, and bestows itself at its own pleasure.

Clogged with a yoke of iron, which heaven does not impose on us, they unite the body without the soul; the person and the inclinations are separately engaged, and an unhappy victim is forced into guilt, by obliging her to enter into a sacred engagement, which she wants, in one respect or other, an essential power to fulfill. Are there not some young women more discreet? Alas! I know there are. There are those that have never loved? Peace be with them! They have withstood that fatal passion! I would also have resisted it. They are more virtuous! Do they love virtue better than I? Had it not been for you, for you alone, I had ever loved it. Is it then true that I love virtue no longer?——Is it you that have ruined me, and is it I who must console you? But what will become of me? The consolation of friendship is weak where that of love is wanting! Who then can give me comfort in my affliction? With what a dreadful situation am I threatened? I who, for having committed a crime, see myself ready to be plunged into a new scene of guilt, by entering into an abhorred, and perhaps inevitable, marriage! Where shall I find tears sufficient to mourn my guilt and lament my lover, if I yield? On the other hand, how shall I find resolution, in my present depression of mind, to resist? Methinks, I see already the fury of an incensed father! I feel myself already moved by the cries of nature, I feel my heart-strings torn by the pangs of love. Deprived of thee, I am without resource, without support, without hope; the past is disgraceful, the present afflicting, and the future terrible. I thought I had done every thing for our happiness, but we are only made more miserable, by preparing the way for a more cruel separation. Our fleeting pleasure is past, while the remorse it occasioned remains, and the shame which overwhelms me is without alleviation.

It belongs to me, to me alone, to be weak and miserable. Let me then weep and suffer; my tears are as inexhaustible as my fault is irreparable, while time, that sovereign cure for almost every thing, brings to me only new motives for tears: but you, who have no violence to fear, who are unmortified by shame, whom nothing constrains to disguise your sentiments; you, who have only just tasted misfortune and possess at least your former virtues unblemished; how dare you demean yourself so far as to sigh and sob like a woman, or betray your impatience like a madman? Have not I merited contempt enough on your account, without your increasing it, by making yourself contemptible; without overwhelming me at once with my own infamy and yours? Recall then your resolution; learn to bear your misfortunes, and be like a man: be yet, if I dare to say so, the lover of Eloisa. If I am no longer worthy to animate your courage, remember at least, what I once was. Deserve then, what for your sake, I have ceased to be; and though you have dishonoured me once, do not dishonour me again. No, my best friend, it is not you that I discover in that effeminate letter, which I would forget for ever, and which I look upon already as disowned by you. I hope, debased and confused as I am, I dare hope, the remembrance of me does not inspire sentiments so base; but that I am more respected by a heart it was in my power to inflame, and that I shall not have additional cause to reproach myself in your weakness.

Happy in your misfortune, you have met with the most valuable recompense that was ever known to a susceptible mind. Heaven, in your adversity, has given you a friend; and has made it doubtful whether what it has bestowed is not a greater blessing than that which it has deprived you of. Love and respect that too generous man; who, at the expense of his own ease, condescends to interest himself in your peace and preservation. How would you be affected, if you knew every thing he would have done for you! But what signifies exciting your gratitude to aggravate your affliction? You have no need to be informed how much he loves you, to know his worth; and you cannot respect him as he deserves without loving him as you ought.

Letter LXXIII. From Clara.

Your passion prevails over your delicacy, and you know better how to suffer than to make a merit of your sufferings. You would otherwise never have written in a strain of reproach to Eloisa, in her present situation. Because you are uneasy, truly, you must aggravate her uneasiness, which is greater than yours. I have told you a thousand times that I never saw so grumbling a lover as you; always ready to dispute about nothing; love is to you a state of warfare: or, if sometimes you are a little tractable, it is only that you may have an opportunity to complain of having been so. How disagreeable must be such lovers, and how happy do I think myself in never having had any but such as I could dismiss when I pleased, without a tear being shed on either side!

You must change your tone, believe me, if you would have Eloisa survive her present distress: it is too much for her to support her own grief and your displeasure. Learn for once to sooth her too susceptible heart: you owe her the most tender consolation; and ought to be afraid lest you should aggravate your misfortune, by lamenting it. At least, if you must complain, vent your complaints against me; who am the only cause of your separation. Yes, my friend, you guessed right: I suggested to her the part her honour and security required her to take; or rather I obliged her to take it, by exaggerating her danger: I prevailed also on you to depart, and we all have but done our duty. I did more, however, than this. I prevented her from accepting the offers of Lord B——; I have prevented your being happy; but the happiness of Eloisa is dearer to me than yours; I knew she could not be happy after leaving her parents to shame and despair; and I can hardly comprehend, with regard to yourself, what kind of happiness you can taste at the expense of hers. Be that what it will, such has been my conduct and offence; and since you delight in quarrelling with those you love, you see the occasion you have to begin with me alone: if in this you do not cease to be ungrateful, you will at least cease to be unjust. For my part, in whatever manner you behave to me, I shall always behave the same towards you: so long as Eloisa loves you, you will be dear to me, and more I cannot say. I am not sorry that I never opposed or favoured your passion. The disinterested friendship which always actuated me in that affair, justifies me equally in what I have done for and against you; and if at any time I interested myself in your passion, more perhaps than became me, my heart sufficiently excused me. I shall never blush for the services I was able to do my friend, nor shall reproach myself because they were useless. I have not forgot what you formerly taught me, of the fortitude of the wise man under misfortunes; and fancy I could remind you of several maxims to that purpose: but I have learned, by the example of Eloisa, that a girl of my age is, to a philosopher, a bad preceptor, and a dangerous pupil.

London is the most extensive theatre in the world for the display of great talents. [16] Those of our friend are in many respects of the first rank; and I despair not of seeing him, with some little assistance, soon strike out something in his way to fortune, worthy of his merit. I will be more explicit as to my intentions when I see you; in the mean time, you will readily conceive the importance of his success may encourage him to surmount many difficulties, and that there are various modes of distinction which may compensate for inferiority of birth, even in the opinion of your father. This appears to me the only expedient that remains to be tried, in order to effect your mutual happiness, since prejudice and fortune have deprived you of all others.

I have written for Regianino to come post hither, and to remain with me during the eight or ten days I shall yet stay with our friend. He is too deeply afflicted to admit of much conversation: music will serve to fill up the vacant hours of silence, indulge his reveries, and sooth his grief by degrees into a peaceful melancholy. I wait only to see him in such a temper of mind to leave him to himself; and before that, I dare not trust him. As for Regianino, I will leave him with you as I pass by, and shall not take him from you again till I return from Italy; by which time, I imagine, from the progress you have both already made, his assistance will be unnecessary. Just at present he is certainly useless to Eloisa, and I deprive her of nothing by detaining him here for a few days.

Letter LXXV. To Clara.

Ah, why do I live to open my eyes on my own unworthiness! O that I had for ever closed them, rather than thus to look on the disgrace into which I am fallen; rather than to find myself the most abject, after having been the most fortunate of men! generous and amiable friend, to whose care I have been so often obliged, still let me pour my complaints into your compassionate heart; still let me implore your assistance, sensible and ashamed as I am of my own demerits: abandoned by myself, it is to you I fly for consolation. Heavens! how can it be that a man so contemptible should ever be beloved by her; or that a passion for so divine an object should not have refined my soul: let her now blush at her choice, she whose name I am no longer worthy to repeat. Let her sigh to see her image profan’d by dwelling in a heart so abject and mean. What hatred and disdain doth she not owe a wretch, that, inspired by love, could be yet servile and base! you shall know, my charming [17] cousin, the cause of my disgrace: you shall know my crime and penitence. Be you my judge, and let me perish by your sentence; or be my advocate, and let the adorable object on whom depended the past, conduct my future fortune.

I will say nothing of the effect which so unexpected a separation had on me: I will say nothing of the excess of my grief, or the extravagance of my despair; you will judge of them too well from the unaccountable behaviour into which they betrayed me. The more sensible I grew of the misery of my situation, the less I conceived it possible for me voluntarily to give up Eloisa; and the bitterness of this reflection, joined to the amazing generosity of Lord B——, awaked suspicions, on which I shall never reflect without horror, and which I can never forget without ingratitude to the friend whose generosity could forgive them.

Revolving in my phrenzy the several circumstances attending my departure, I imagined I discovered it to be a premeditated scheme, which I rashly attributed to the most virtuous of mortals. That dreadful suspicion no sooner suggested itself than every circumstance appeared to confirm it. My lord’s conversation with the Baron D’Etange, and his peremptory manner, which I took to be affected, the quarrel which ensued. Eloisa’s being forbid to see me, and their resolution to send me away, the diligence and secrecy of the preparations made for my departure, his lordship’s discourse with me the preceding evening; in short, the rapidity with which I was rather forced than conducted hither: all these circumstances seemed to prove that my lord had formed a scheme to separate me from Eloisa; and lastly, his intended return assured me that I had discovered his designs. I resolved, however, to get more particular information before I broke with him; and with this design set myself to examine the matter with attention. But every thing conspired to increase my ridiculous suspicions; all his generous and humane actions in my favour, were converted by my jealousy into so many instances of his perfidy. I knew that he wrote to Eloisa from Besançon, without communicating to me the contents of his letter, or giving me the least hint. I thought myself therefore sufficiently assured of the truth of what I suspected, and waited only for his receiving answer to his letter, which, I hoped, might be disagreeable, to come to the explanation I meditated.

Last night we returned home pretty late, and I knew he had received a packet from Switzerland, of which however he took no notice when we retired. I let him have time to open it, and heard him from my apartment reading in a low voice; I listened attentively and overheard him thus exclaim to himself, in broken sentences, Alas, Eloisa! I strove to render you happy——honoured your virtues,——but I grieve at your delusion.——At these and other similar exclamations, which I distinctly heard, I was no longer master of myself; I snatched up my sword, and taking it under my arm, forced open the door, and rushed like a madman into his chamber; but I will not soil my paper, nor offend your delicacy with the injurious expressions my rage dictated, to urge him to fight me on the spot.

Here, my dear cousin, I must confess to have seen the most extraordinary instance of the influence of true wisdom, even over the most susceptible mind, when we listen to her dictates. At first he could not comprehend whence arose my disorder, and took it for a real delirium. But the perfidy of which I accused him, the secret designs with which I reproached him, Eloisa’s letter which he held in his hand, and which I incessantly mentioned, at length discovered the cause of my anger. He smiled, and said to me coldly, you are certainly out of your senses; do you think me so void of discretion as to fight with a madman? open your eyes, inconsiderate man, he said, with a milder tone, is it me that you accuse of betraying you? Something, I know not what, in his voice and manner of speaking, struck me immediately with a sense of his innocence and my own folly. His reproof sunk into my heart, and I had no sooner met his looks than my suspicions vanished, and I began to think with horror on the extravagance I had committed. He perceived immediately this change of sentiment, and taking me by the hand, ’tis well, says he, but if you had not recollected yourself before my justification, I would never have seen you more. As it is, and you have recovered your reason, read that letter, and know for once your friends. I would now have been excused from reading it, but the ascendant, which so many advantages had given him over me, made him insist on it with an air of authority; and, though my suspicions were vanished, I secretly wished to see it.

Think what a situation I was in, on reading a letter that informed me of the unparalleled obligations I was under, to a man I had so unworthily treated. I threw myself immediately at his feet, struck with admiration, affliction and shame: I embraced his knees with the utmost humiliation and concern, but could not utter a word. He received my penitence in the same manner as he did the outrage I had committed; and exacted no other recompense for the pardon he granted, than my promise that I would never more oppose his designs to serve me. Yes, he shall act for the future as he pleases: his sublime generosity is more than human, and it is as impossible to refuse his favours as it is to withstand the benevolence of the deity.

He gave afterwards two letters out of the packet, addressed to me, and which he would not deliver before he had read his own, that he might be made acquainted with the resolution of your cousin. In perusing them I found what a mistress and friend heaven had bestowed on me: I saw how it had connected me with the most perfect patterns of generosity and virtue, to render my remorse the more keen, and meanness contemptible. Say, who is that matchless fair, whose beauty is her least perfection; who, like the divinity, makes herself equally adored for the dispensation of good and evil. It is Eloisa; she has undone me; yet cruel as she is, I love and admire her but the more. The more unhappy she makes me, the more perfect she appears; and every pain she gives, is a new instance of her perfection. The sacrifice she has made to nature both afflicts and charms me; it enhances even the value of that which she made to love. No, my Eloisa can make no refusal that is not of equal value to what she bestows. And you, my charming, my truly deserving cousin, the only perfect model of friendship your sex can boast, an instance which minds, not formed like yours, will never believe real: tell not me of philosophy, I despise its vain parade of idle terms; I despise that phantom of wisdom which teaches us to brave the passions at a distance, but flies, and leaves us a prey to them the moment they approach. Abandon me not, Clara, to a distracted mind; withdraw not your wonted kindness from a wretch, who, though he deserves it no longer, desires it more ardently, and stands more in need of it, than ever. Assist me to recover my former self, and let your gentle counsel supply the dictates of reason to my afflicted heart.

I will yet hope I am not fallen into irretrievable disgrace. I feel that pure and sacred flame I once cherished, rekindle within me. The sublime examples before me shall not be given in vain. The virtues which I love and admire I will imitate. Yes, divine Eloisa! I will yet do honour to thy choice; and, you, my friends, whose esteem I am determined to regain, my awakened soul shall gather new strength and life from yours. Chaste love and sacred friendship shall restore that constancy of mind, of which a cowardly despair had deprived me; the pure sensations of my heart shall supply the place of wisdom: you shall make me every thing I ought to be, and I will compel you to forget my fall, in consideration of my endeavours to rise. I know not, neither do I desire to know, the future lot which providence assigns me; be it what it will, I will render myself worthy of that which I have already enjoyed. The image of Eloisa, never to be erazed from my mind, shall be my shield, and render my soul invulnerable. I have lived long enough for my own happiness, I will now live to her honour. Oh, that I could but live so supremely virtuous, that the admiring world should say, how could he do less who was loved by Eloisa?

P. S. From ties abhorred and perhaps inevitable! what is the meaning of those words? they are in Eloisa’s letter. Clara, I am attentive to every, the minutest circumstance; I am resigned to fortune: but those words,——whatever may happen, I will never leave this place till I have an explanation of those words.

Letter LXXVI. From Eloisa.

Can it be that my soul has not excluded all delight, and that a sense of joy yet penetrates my heart? alas! I conceived it insensible to any thing but sorrow: I thought I should do nothing but suffer, when you left me, and that absence had no consolations; your letter to my cousin has undeceived me; I have read and bath’d it with tears of compassion. It has shed a sweet refreshing dew o’er a drooping heart, dried up with vexation and sorrow. The peaceful serenity it has caused in my soul convinces me of the ascendant you hold, whether present or absent, over the affections of Eloisa. Oh! my friend, how much it delights me to see you recover that strength of mind which becomes the resolution of a man. I esteem you for it the more, and despise myself the less, in that the dignity of a chaste affection is not totally debased between us, and that our hearts are not both at once corrupted. I will say more, as we can at present speak freely of our affairs. That which most aggravated my despair, was to see that yours deprived us of the only resource which was left us, the exertion of your abilities, to improve them. You now know the worth of the friendship with which heaven has blessed you, in that of my Lord B——, whose generosity merits the services of your whole life, nor can you ever sufficiently atone for the offence you have committed. I hope you will need no other warning to make you guard for the future against your impetuous passions. It is under the protection of this honourable friend that you are going to enter on the stage of the world; it is under the sanction of his credit, under the guidance of his experience, that you go to revenge the cause of injured merit, on the cruelty of fortune.

Do that for his sake which you did not for your own. Endeavour at least to respect his goodness, by not rendering it useless to yourself. Behold a pleasing prospect still before you: contemplate the success you have reason to hope for in entering the lists where every thing conspires to ensure the victory. Heaven has been lavish to you of its bounties; your natural genius, cultivated by taste, has endowed you with every necessary and agreeable qualification; at least, at four-and-twenty you possess all the charms of youth, matured by the reflections of age.

Frutto simile in su’l gioveriel fiore.

Study has not impaired your vivacity, nor injured your person; insipid gallantry has not contracted your genius, nor formality your understanding: but love inspiring those sublime sentiments which are its genuine offspring, has given you that elevation of mind and justness of conception from which it is inseparable. [18] I have seen thy mind expanded by its gentle warmth, display its brilliant faculties, as a flower that unfolds itself to the rays of the sun; you possess at once every talent that leads to fortune, and should set you above it: you need only aspire to be considerable, to become so; and I hope that object for whose take you should covet distinction, will excite in you a greater zeal for those marks of the world’s esteem, than of themselves they may deserve.

You are going, my friend, far from me——my best beloved is going to fly from his Eloisa.——It must be so,——it is necessary that we should part at present, if we ever mean to be happy; on the success of your undertakings also depends our last hope of such an event——Oh, may the anticipation of it animate and comfort you throughout our cruel, perhaps long separation! may it inspire you with that zeal, which surmounts every obstacle. The world and its affairs will indeed continually engage your attention, and relieve you from the pangs of absence. But I, alas! remain alone, abandoned to my own thoughts, or subject to the persecution of others, that will oblige me incessantly to lament thy absence. Happy, however, shall I be, in some measure, if groundless alarms do not aggravate my real afflictions, and if the evils I actually suffer be not augmented by those to which you may be exposed——I shudder at the thoughts of the various dangers to which your life and your innocence will be liable. I place in you all the confidence a man can expect; but, since it is our lot to live asunder, O, my friend, I could wish you were something more than man. Will you not stand in need of frequent advice to regulate your conduct in a world, to which you are so much a stranger? It does not belong to me, young and unexperienced, and even less qualified by reflection and study than yourself, to advise you here. That difficult task I leave to Lord B——. I will content myself to recommend to you two things, as these depend more on sentiment than experience; and, tho’ I know but little of the world, I flatter myself I am not to be instructed in the knowledge of your heart: Be virtuous, and remember Eloisa.

I will not make use of any of those subtle arguments you have taught me to despise; and which, though they fill so many volumes, never yet made one man virtuous. Peace to those gloomy reasoners! to what ravishing delights their hearts are strangers! leave, my friend, those idle moralists, and consult your own breast. It is there you will always find a spark of that sacred fire, which hath so often inflamed us with love for the sublimest virtue. It is there you will trace the lasting image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a sacred enthusiasm; an image which the passions may continually defile, but never can efface. [19] Remember those tears of pleasure, those palpitations of heart, those transports which raised us above ourselves at the recital of heroic examples, which have done honour to human nature. Would you know which is most truly desirable, riches or virtue? reflect on that which the heart prefers in its unprejudiced moments: think on that which interests us most in the perusal of history. Did you never covet the riches of Croesus, the honours of Caesar, nor the pleasures of Heliogabalus? If they were happy, why did you not wish to be placed in the same situation? But they were not, you were sensible they were not, happy; you were sensible they were vile and contemptible; and that bad men, however fortunate, are not objects of envy.

What characters did you then contemplate with the greatest pleasure? what examples did you most admire? which did you desire most to imitate? inexpressible are the charms of ever-blooming virtue: it was the condemn’d Athenian, drinking hemlock; it was Brutus, dying for his country: it was Regulus, in the midst of tortures: it was Cato, plunging his dagger in his breast. These were the unfortunate heroes, whose virtues excited your envy, while your own sensations bore witness of that real felicity they enjoyed, under their apparent misfortunes. Think not this sentiment peculiar to yourself; it is the sentiment of all mankind, and that frequently in spite of themselves. That divine image of virtue, imprinted universally on the mind, displays irresistible charms even to the least virtuous. No sooner doth passion permit us to contemplate its beauty, but we wish to resemble it; and, if the most wicked of mankind could but change his being, he would chuse to be virtuous.

Excuse this rhapsody, my dear friend, you know it is originally derived from you, and it is due to the passion that inspired it. I do not take upon me to instruct you, by repeating your own maxims, but endeavour to enforce their application to yourself. Now is the time to put in practice your own precepts, and to shew how well you can act what you so well know to teach. Though it is not expected you should be put to the trials of a Cato, or a Regulus, yet every man ought to cherish a love for his country, resolution and integrity, and to keep his promise inviolable, even at the expense of his life. Private virtues are often the more sublime as they less aspire to public approbation, but have their end in the testimony of a good conscience, which gives the virtuous a more solid satisfaction, than the loudest applauses of the multitude. Hence you may see true greatness is confirmed to no one station of life, and that no man can be happy who is not the object of his own esteem; for, if the height of self-enjoyment consists in the contemplation of the truly beautiful, how can the vicious man admire the beauty of virtue in others, and not be forced to despise himself. I am not apprehensive of your being corrupted by sensual pleasures; a heart so refined as yours will be in little danger from the gross seductions of appetite. But there are others more dangerous and sentimental. I dread the effects of the maxims and lessons of the world; I dread the force of vicious examples, so constantly present, and so generally extensive: I dread those subtle sophisms by which vice is excused and defended: I dread, in short, lest your heart should impose upon itself, and render you less difficult about the means of acquiring importance than you would be, if our union were not to be the consequence. I only caution you, my friend, against the danger; your own discretion must do the rest: a foresight of accidental evils, however, is no small step towards their prevention. I will add but one reflection more, which, in my opinion, disproves the false arguments of vice, exposes the mistaken conceits of folly, and ought alone to direct a wise man to pursue his sovereign good. This is, that the source of true happiness is not confined to the desired object, nor to the heart which possesses it, but consists in a certain relation between the one and the other: that every object of our desires will not produce the happiness sought in its possession, nor is the heart at all times in a disposition to receive it. If the utmost refinement of intellectual pleasure is not sufficient alone to constitute our felicity, surely all the voluptuous pleasures on earth cannot make the depraved man happy. There is on both sides a necessary preparative, a certain combination of causes, from which results that delightful sensation so earnestly sought after by every sensible being, and for ever unexperienced by the pretended philosopher, who coldly nips his pleasures in the bud, for want of knowing how to conduct them to lasting felicity. What helps it, then, to obtain one advantage at the expense of another? to gain without what we lose from within; to procure the means of happiness, and lose the art of employing them. Is it not better also, if we can but enjoy one of these advantages, to sacrifice what the power of fortune may restore, to that which once lost can never be recovered? none should know better than I, who have imbittered all the sweets of my life, by thinking to increase them. Let the vicious and profligate then, who display their good fortune but keep their hearts a secret, let them advance what they will; be assured that if there be one instance of happiness upon earth it must be found in the breast of the virtuous. Heaven hath bestowed on you an happy inclination for what is virtuous and good: listen then only to your own desires, follow only your own inclinations, and think above all on the growth of our infant affections. So long as the remembrance of those delightful moments of innocence shall remain, it will be impossible that you should cease to love that which rendered them so endearing; it will be impossible the charms of moral excellence should ever be effaced from your mind, or that you should wish to obtain Eloisa by means unworthy of yourself. Can anyone enjoy a pleasure for which he has lost the taste? no, to be able to possess that which one loves, it is necessary the heart that loved it should be still the same.

I come now to my second point: you see I have not forgot my logic; it is possible, my friend, without love to have the sublime sentiments of a great mind; but a love like ours supplies its flame, which being once extinguished, the soul becomes languid; and a heart once exhausted is good for nothing. Tell me, what should we be if we ceased to love? is it not better to lose our existence than our sensibility? or could you resolve to endure the life of an ordinary being, after having tasted every delight that can ravish the heart of man? you are going to visit populous cities, where your age and figure, rather than your merit, will lay a thousand snares for your fidelity. Insinuating coquetry will affect the language of tenderness, and please without deceiving you. You will not seek love, but enjoyment; you will taste it without love, and not know it for the same pleasure. I know not whether you will find in another the heart of Eloisa; but of this I am certain, you will never experience with another those ecstasies you have tasted with her. The vacancy of your exhausted mind will forebode the destiny I predict. Sadness and care will overwhelm you in the midst of frivolous amusements. The remembrance of our first transports will pursue you in spite of yourself; my image, an hundred times more beautiful than I ever was, will overtake you. In a moment the veil of disgust will be thrown over all your delights, and a thousand bitter reflections rush into your mind. My best beloved, my amiable friend, Oh, should you ever forget me——Alas! I can but die; but you, you, shall live base and unhappy, and my death will be but too severely revenged.

Forget not then that Eloisa, who lived for you, and whose heart can never be another’s. I can say nothing more regarding that dependence in which Providence hath placed me: but, after having recommended fidelity to you, it is but just to give you the only pledge of mine that is in my power. I have consulted, not my duty, my distracted mind knows that no longer, but I have examined my heart, the last guide of those who can follow no other; and behold the result of its examination: I am determined never to be your wife without the consent of my father, but I will never marry another without your consent; of this I give you my word, which, whatever happens, I will keep sacred, nor is there a power on earth can make me break my promise. Be not, therefore, disquieted at what may befall me in your absence. Go, my dear friend, pursue, under the auspices of the most tender love, a destiny worthy to crown your merit: mine is in your hands, as much as it is in my power to commit it, and never shall it be altered but with your consent.

Letter LXXVII. To Eloisa.

O qual fiamma di gloria d’onore,
Scorrer sento per tutte le sene,
Alma grande parlando conto!

O Eloisa, let me breathe a moment,——you make me shudder, my blood boils, my heart pants; your letter glows with that sacred love of virtue that fires your breast, and communicates its celestial flame to the inmost recesses of mine. But why so many exhortations, where you should have laid on me your commands? do you think I can so far forget myself as to want arguments to excite me to act justly? at least, can I want to have them urged by you, whose injunctions alone I should fly to obey. Can you be ignorant that I ever will be what you please to have me? and that I could even act unjustly before I could disobey you? yes, I could set another capitol in flames if you enjoined me, for nothing can be so dear to me as you are. But, do you know, my incomparable Eloisa, why you are thus dear? it is because you can desire nothing but what is virtuous, and that my admiration of your virtues exceeds even the love inspired by your charms. I go, encouraged by the engagement into which you have entered, the latter part of which, however, you might have omitted; for to promise not to be another’s without my consent, is it not to promise to be none but mine? for my own part, I speak more freely, and pledge with you the faith of a man of honour, ever to remain sacred and inviolable: I am ignorant to what destiny fortune will lead me in the career I am going, for your satisfaction, to enter upon; but never shall the ties of love or marriage unite me to any other than Eloisa D’Etange. I live, I exist, but for her, and shall either die married to her, or not married at all. Adieu! I am pressed for time, and am going to depart this instant.

Letter LXXVIII. To Eloisa.

I arrived last night at Paris, and he, who once could not live two streets length removed from you, is now at the distance of more than an hundred leagues. Pity, Eloisa, pity your unhappy friend: had the blood gushing from my veins, dy’d with its streams, my long, long route, my spirits could not have failed me more; I could not have found myself more languid than at present. O that I knew as well when we shall meet again, as I know the distance that divides us! the progress of time should then compensate for the length of space. I would count every day, every hour of my life, my steps, towards Eloisa. But that dismal career is hid in the gloom of futurity; its bounds are concealed from my feeble sight. How painful, how terrible is suspense! my restless heart is ever seeking, but finds you not. The sun rises, but gives me no hopes of seeing you; it sets without granting me that blessing. My days are void of pleasure, and pass away as one long continued night. In vain I endeavour to rekindle my extinguished hopes, they offer me nothing but uncertainty and groundless consolations. Alas, my gentle friend! what evils have I not to expect if they are to be a counterpoise to my past happiness!

But, I conjure you, let not my complaints alarm you; they are only the cursory effects of solitude, and the disagreeable reflections of my journey. Fear not the return of my former weakness; my heart is in your hands, Eloisa, and while you are its support it cannot debase itself. One of the comfortable fruits of your last letter is, that since I find myself sustained by a double share of spirits; and though love should annihilate what is properly mine, I should still be a gainer; the resolution with which you have inspired me being able to support me better than I could otherwise have supported myself. I am convinced it is not good for man to be alone. Human minds must be united to exert their greatest strength, and the united force of friendly souls, like that of the collateral bars of an artificial magnet, is incomparably greater than the sum of their separate forces. This is thy triumph, celestial friendship! but what is even friendship itself, compared to that perfect union of souls, which connects the most perfect, the most harmonious amity, with ties an hundred times more sacred? where are the men whose ideas, gross as their appetites, represent the passion of love only as a fever in the blood, the effect of brutal instinct? let them come to me, let them observe, let them feel, what passes in my breast; let them view an unhappy lover separated from his beloved object, doubtful whether ever he shall see her more, and hopeless of retrieving his lost happiness; animated, however, by the never dying flame, which, kindled by your beauties, has been nourished by your mental charms, they will see him ready to brave the rigours of adversity; to be deprived even of your lovely self, and to cherish all those virtues that you have inspired, and which embellish that adorable image that shall never be erazed from my soul. O, my Eloisa, what should I be without you? informed indeed by dispassionate reason, a cold admirer of virtue, I might have respected it in any one. I shall now do more, I shall now be enabled to put it zealously in practice, and, penetrated by your example, shall excite those who have known us to exclaim:——“what happy creatures should we be, if all the women in the world were Eloisa’s, and all the men had hearts susceptible of their charms!”

As I was meditating during my journey, on your last letter, I formed a resolution of collecting together all those you have written to me; as I no longer can attend to your delightful counsel from your own mouth. For, though there is not one which I have not learnt by heart, I love to read them continually, and to contemplate the characters of that lovely hand, which alone can make me happy: but the paper wears out by degrees, and therefore, before they fall quite in pieces, I design to copy each letter in a book, which I have already prepared for that purpose. It is pretty large, but I provide for the time to come, and even hope to live long enough to fill more than one volume. I set apart my evenings for the delightful employment, and proceed but slowly, in order to prolong so agreeable a task. This inestimable volume I will never part with; it shall be the manual of my devotions, my companion through the world which I am going to enter; it shall be my antidote against the pernicious maxims of society; it shall comfort me under my afflictions; it shall prevent or amend my errors; it shall afford me instruction in my youth, and yield me edification in age: the first love-letters, Eloisa, that perhaps ever were put to such an use! With respect to your last epistle, which I have before me, excellent as it appears to me, I find however one thing you should have omitted. You may think it strange; but it is much more so, that this very article should particularly regard yourself, and that I blame you even for writing it at all. Why do you talk to me of fidelity and constancy? you once were better acquainted both with my passion and your own power. Ah, Eloisa, do you entertain such changeable sentiments? what, though I had promised you nothing, should I the sooner cease to be yours? Oh, no, it was at the first glance you directed to me, at the first word you spoke, at the first motion of my heart, that a flame was kindled in my soul which can never be extinguished. Had I never seen you since that first moment, it had been enough, it had been afterwards too late to have ever forgotten you. And is it possible for me to forget you now? now, that, intoxicated with my past felicity, the very remembrance of it makes me still happy? now, that the soul, which once animated me, is fled, and I live only by that which Eloisa hath inspired? now, that I despise myself for expressing so coldly what I so sensibly feel? should all the beauties in the universe display their charms to seduce me, is there one amongst them could eclipse thine? let them all combine to captivate my heart; let them pierce, let them wound it, let them break to pieces, this faithful mirror of my Eloisa, her unsullied image will not cease to be reflected from its smallest fragments, for nothing is able to drive it thence. No, not omnipotence itself can go thus far; it may annihilate my soul, but it cannot leave its existence and make it cease to love Eloisa.

Lord B—— has undertaken to give you an account of my affairs, and what he has projected in my favour: but I am afraid he will not strictly fulfil his promise with respect to his present plan. For you are to know that he has abused the right his beneficence has given him over me, in extending it beyond the bounds of generosity. The pension he has settled on me, and which he has made independent, has put me in a condition to make an appearance here much above my rank, and perhaps even that which I shall have occasion to make in London. While I am here, as I have nothing to do, I live just as I please, and shall have no temptation to throw away the savings of my income in idle expenses. You, Eloisa, have taught me that our principal, at least our most pressing wants, are those of a benevolent mind; and, as long as one individual is deprived of the necessaries of life, what virtuous man will riot in its superfluities?

Letter LXXIX. To Eloisa. [20]

I enter with a secret horror on this vast desert, the world; whose confused prospect appears to me only as a frightful scene of solitude and silence. In vain my soul endeavours to shake off the universal restraint it lies under. It was the saying of a celebrated ancient, that he was never less alone than when he was by himself: for my part, I am never alone but when I mix with the crowd, and am neither with you nor with any body else. My heart would speak, but it feels there is none to hear: it is ready to answer, but no one speaks any thing that regards it. I understand not the language of the country, and no body here understands mine. Yet I own that I am greatly caressed, and that all the obliging offices of friendship and civility are readily offered to me: this is the very thing of which I complain. The officious zeal of thousands is ever on the wing to oblige me, but I know not how to entertain immediately a friendship for men I have never seen before. The honest feelings of humanity, the plain and affecting openness of a frank heart, are expressed in a different manner from those false appearances of politeness, and that external flattery, which the customs of the world require. I am not a little afraid that he, who treats me at first sight, as if I was a friend of twenty years standing, if at the end of twenty years I should want his assistance, will treat me as a stranger; and, when I see men, lost in dissipation, pretend to take so tender a part in the concerns of every one, I readily presume they are interested for no body but themselves.

There is, however, some truth in all this profession: the French are naturally good-natured, open, hospitable, and generous. But they have a thousand modes of expression, which are not to be too strictly understood. A thousand apparent offers of kindness which they make only to be refused; they are no more than the snares of politeness laid for rustic simplicity. I never before heard such profusion of promises: you may depend on my serving you, command my credit, my purse, my house, my equipage.——But, if all this were sincere, and literally taken, there would not be a people upon earth less attached to property. The community of possessions would be in a manner already established; the rich always making offers, and the poor accepting them, both would naturally soon come upon a level, and not the citizens of Sparta itself could ever have been more upon an equality than would be the people of Paris. On the contrary, there is not a place, perhaps, in the world, where the fortunes of men are so unequal, where are displayed at once the most sumptuous opulence and the most deplorable poverty. This is surely sufficient to prove the insignificance of that apparent commiseration, which every one here affects to have for the wants and sufferings of others, and that tenderness of heart, which in a moment contracts eternal friendship.

But if, instead of attending to professions so justly to be suspected, and assurances so liable to deceive, I desire information, and would see knowledge; here is its most agreeable source. One is immediately charmed with the good sense which is to be met with in company of the French, not only among the learned, but with men of all ranks, and even among the women: the turn of conversation is always easy and natural, it is neither dull nor frivolous, but learned without pedantry, gay without noise, polite without affectation, gallant without being fulsome, and jocose without immodesty. Their discourse is neither made up of dissertations nor epigrams; they reason without argumentation, and are witty without punning: they artfully unite reason and vivacity, maxims and rhapsodies; and mix the most pointed satire and refined flattery with strictness of morals. They talk about every thing, because every one has something to say; they examine nothing to the bottom, for fear of being tedious, but propose matters in a cursory manner, and treat them with rapidity: every one gives his opinion, and supports it in few words; no one attacks with virulence that of another, nor obstinately defends his own; they discuss the point only for the sake of improvement, and stop before it comes to a dispute: every one improves, every one amuses himself, and they part all satisfied with each other; even the philosopher himself carrying away something worthy his private meditation.

But, after all, what kind of knowledge do you think is to be gained from such agreeable conversation? to form a just judgment of life and manners; to make a right use of society; to know, at least, the people with whom we converse; there is nothing, Eloisa, of all this: all they teach is to plead artfully the cause of falsehood, to confound, by their philosophy, all the principles of virtue; to throw a false colour, by the help of sophistry, on the passions and prejudices of mankind; and to give a certain turn to error, agreeable to the fashionable mode of thinking. It is not necessary to know the characters of men, but their interests, to guess their sentiments on any occasion. When a man talks on any subject, he rather expresses the opinions of his garb or his fraternity, than his own, and will charge them as often as he changes his situation and circumstances.

Dress him up, for instance, by turns, in the robe of a judge, a peer, and a divine, and you shall hear him successively stand up, with the same zeal, for the rights of the people, the despotism of the prince, and the authority of the inquisition. There is one kind of reason for the lawyer, another for the officer of the revenue, and a third for the soldier. Each of them can demonstrate the other two to be knaves; a conclusion not very difficult to be drawn by all three. [21] Thus men do not speak their own sentiments but those they would instill into others, and the zeal which they affect is only the mask of interest. You may imagine, however, that such persons as are unconnected and independent, have at least a personal character and an opinion of their own. Not at all: they are only different machines, which never think for themselves, but are set a going by springs.