Letters of Abelard and Heloise
to fall into my hands. My knowledge of the character, and my love of
the hand, soon gave me the curiosity to open it. In justification of
the liberty I took, I flattered myself I might claim a sovereign
privilege over every thing which came from you nor was I scrupulous
to break thro' the rules of good breeding, when it was to hear news
of _Abelard_. But how much did my curiosity cost me? what
disturbance did it occasion? and how was I surprised to find the
whole letter filled with a particular and melancholy account of our
misfortunes? I met with my name a hundred times; I never saw it
without fear: some heavy calamity always, followed it, I saw yours
too, equally unhappy. These mournful but dear remembrances, puts my
spirits into such a violent motion, that I thought it was too much to
offer comfort to a friend for a few slight disgraces by such
extraordinary means, as the representation of our sufferings and
revolutions. What reflections did I not make, I began to consider the
whole afresh, and perceived myself pressed with the same weight of
grief as when we first began to be miserable. Tho' length of time
ought to have closed up my wounds, yet the seeing them described by
your hand was sufficient to make them all open and bleed afresh.
Nothing can ever blot from my memory what you have suffered in
defence of your writings. I cannot help thinking of the rancorous
malice of Alberic and Lotulf. A cruel uncle and an injured lover,
will be always present to my aking sight. I shall never forget what
enemies your learning, and what envy your glory, raised against you.
I shall never forget your reputation, so justly acquired, torn to
pieces, and blasted by the inexorable cruelty of half-learned
pretenders to science. Was not your Treatise of Divinity condemned to
be burnt? Were you not threatened with perpetual imprisonment? In
vain you urged in your defence, that your enemies imposed on you
opinions quite different from your meaning; in vain you condemned
those opinions; all was of no effect towards your justification; it
was resolved you should be a heretic. What did not those two false
prophets** accuse you of, who declaimed so severely against you
before the Council of Sens? What scandals were vented on occasion of
the name Paraclete given to your chapel? What a storm was raised
against you by the treacherous monks, when you did them the honour to
be called their Brother? This history of our numerous misfortunes,
related in so true and moving a manner, made my heart bleed within
me. My tears, which I could not restrain, have blotted half your
letter: I wish they had effaced the whole and that I had returned it
to you in that condition. I should then have been satisfied with the
little time; kept it, but it was demanded of me too soon.
** St. Bernard and St. Norbet.
I must confess I was much easier in my mind before I read your
letter. Sure all the misfortunes of lovers are conveyed to them thro'
their eyes. Upon reading your letter I felt all mine renewed, I
reproached myself for having been so long without venting my sorrows,
when the rage of our unrelenting enemies still burns with the same
fury. Since length of time, which disarms the strongest hatred, seems
but to aggravate theirs; since it is decreed that your virtue shall
be persecuted till it takes refuge in the grave, and even beyond
that, your ashes perhaps, will not be suffered to rest in peace,--let
me always meditate on your calamities, let me publish them thro' all
the world, if possible, to shame an age that has not known how to
value you. I will spare no one, since no one would interest himself
to protect you, and your enemies are never weary of oppressing your
innocence, Alas! my memory is perpetually filled with bitter
remembrances of past evils, and are there more to be feared still?
shall my _Abelard_ be never mentioned without tears? shall thy
dear name be never spoken but with sighs? Observe, I beseech you, to
what a wretched condition you have reduced me: sad, afflicted,
without any possible comfort, unless it proceed from you. Be not then
unkind, nor deny, I beg you that little relief which you can only
give. Let me have a faithful account of all that concerns you. I
would know every thing, be it ever so unfortunate. Perhaps, by
mingling my sighs with yours, I may make your sufferings less, if
that observation be true, that all sorrows divided are made lighter.
Tell me not, by way of excuse, you will spare our tears; the tears
of women, shut up in a melancholy place, and devoted to penitence,
are not to be spared. And if you wait for an opportunity to write
pleasant and agreeable things to us, you will delay writing too long.
Prosperity seldom chuses the side of the virtuous; and Fortune is so
blind, that in a crowd in which there is perhaps but one wife and
brave man, it is not to be expected she should single him out. Write
to me then immediately, and wait not for miracles; they are too
scarce, and we too much accustomed to misfortunes to expect any happy
turn. I shall always have this, if you please, and this will be
always agreeable to me, that when I receive any letters from you, I
shall know you still remember me. Seneca, (with whose writings you
made me acquainted,) as much a Stoic as he was, seemed to be so very
sensible of this kind of pleasure, that upon opening any letters from
Lucilius, he imagined he felt the same delight as when they conversed
together.
I have made it an observation, since our absence, that we are much
fonder of the pictures of those we love, when they are at a great
distance, than when they are near to us. It seems to me, as if the
farther they are removed their pictures grow the more finished, and
acquire a greater resemblance; at least, our imagination, which
perpetually figures them to us by the desire we have of seeing them
again, makes us think so. By a peculiar power, Love can make that
seem life itself, which, as soon as the loved object returns, is
nothing but a little canvas and dead colours. I have your picture in
my room; I never pass by it without stopping to look at it; and yet
when you were present with me, I scarce ever cast my eyes upon it. If
a picture, which is but a mute representation of an object, can give
such pleasure, what cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can
speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the
transports of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions; they
can raise them as much as if the persons themselves were present;
they have all the softness and delicacy of speech, and sometimes a
boldness of expression even beyond it.
We may write to each other; so innocent a pleasure is not
forbidden us. Let us not lose, through negligence, the only happiness
which is left us, and the only one, perhaps, which the malice of our
enemies can never ravish from us. I shall read that you are my
husband, and you shall see me address you as a wife. In spite of all
your misfortunes, you may be what you please in your letter. Letters
were first invented for comforting such solitary wretches as myself.
Having lost the substantial pleasures of seeing and possessing you, I
shall in some measure compensate this loss by the satisfaction I
shall find in your writing. There I shall read your most secret
thoughts; I shall carry them always about me; I shall kiss them every
moment: if you can be capable of any jealousy, let it be for the fond
caresses I shall bestow on your letters, and envy only the happiness
of those rivals. That writing may be no trouble to you, write always
to me carelessly, and without study: I had rather read the dictates
of the heart than of the brain. I cannot live if you do not tell me
you always love me; but that language ought to be so natural to you,
that I believe you cannot speak otherwise to me without great
violence to yourself. And since, by that melancholy relation to your
friend, you have awakened all my sorrows, it is but reasonable you
should allay them by some marks of an inviolable love.
I do not, however, reproach you for the innocent artifice you made
use of to comfort a person in affliction, by comparing his misfortune
to another much greater. Charity is ingenious in finding out such
pious artifices, and to be commended for using them. But do you owe
nothing more to us than to that friend, be the friendship between you
ever so intimate? We are called your sisters; we call ourselves your
Children; and if it were possible to think of any expression which
could signify a dearer relation, or a more affectionate regard and
mutual obligation between us, we would use them: if we could be so
ungrateful as not to speak our just acknowledgments to you, this
church, these altars, these Walls, would reproach our silence, and
speak for us, But without leaving it to that, it will be always a
pleasure to me to say, that you only are the founder of this house;
it is wholly your work. You, by inhabiting here, have given fame and
function to a place known before only for robberies and murders. You
have, in the literal sense, made the den of thieves a house of
prayer. These cloisters owe nothing to public charities; our walls
were not raised by the usury of publicans, nor their foundations laid
in base extortion. The God whom we serve sees nothing but innocent
riches and harmless votaries, whom you have placed here. Whatever
this young vineyard is, is owing all to you; and it is your part to
employ your whole care to cultivate and improve it; this ought to be
one of the principal affairs of your life. Though our holy
renunciation, our vows, and our manner of life, seem to secure us
from all temptations; though our walls and grates prohibit all
approaches, yet it is the outside only, the bark of the tree is
covered from injuries; while the sap of original corruption may
imperceptibly spread within, even to the heart, and prove fatal to
the most promising plantation, unless continual care be taken to
cultivate and secure it. Virtue in us is grafted upon Nature and the
Woman; the one is weak, and the other is always changeable. To plant
the Lord's vine is a work of no little labour; and after it is
planted it will require great application and diligence to manure it.
The Apostle of the Gentiles; as great a labourer as he was, says, _He
hath planted, and Apollo hath watered; but it is God that giveth the
increase._ Paul had planted the Gospel among the Corinthians, by
his holy and earnest preaching; _Apollos_, a zealous disciple of
that great master, continued to cultivate it by frequent
exhortations; and the grace of God, which their constant prayers,
implored for that church, made the endeavours of both successful.
This ought to be an example for your conduct towards us. I know
you are not slothful; yet your labours are not directed to us; your
cares are wasted upon a set of men whose thoughts are only earthly,
and you refuse to reach out your hand to support those who are weak
and staggering in their way to heaven, and who, with all their
endeavours, can scarcely preserve themselves from falling. You fling
the pearls of the gospel before swine, when you speak to those who
are filled with the good things of this world, and nourished with the
fatness of the earth; and you neglect the innocent sheep, who, tender
as they are, would yet follow you thro' deserts and mountains. Why
are such pains thrown away upon the ungrateful, while not a thought
is bestowed upon your children, whose souls would be filled with a
sense of your goodness? But why should I intreat you in the name of
your children? Is it possible I should fear obtaining any thing of
you, when I ask it in my own name? And must I use any other prayers
than my own to prevail upon you? The St. Austins, Tertullians, and