Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Jeromes, have wrote to the Eudoxas, Paulas, and Melanias; and can you
read those names, though of saints, and not remember mine? Can it be
criminal for you to imitate St. Jerome, and discourse with me
concerning the Scripture? or Tertullian, and preach mortification? or
St. Austin, and explain to me the nature of grace? Why should I only
reap no advantage from your learning? When you write to me, you will
write to your wife. Marriage has made such a correspondence lawful;
and since you can, without giving the least scandal, satisfy me, why
will you not? I have a barbarous uncle, whose inhumanity is a
security against any criminal desire which tenderness and the
remembrance of our past enjoyments might inspire. There is nothing
that can cause you any fear; you need not fly to conquer. You may see
me, hear my sighs, and be a witness of all my sorrows, without
incurring any danger, since you can only relieve me with tears and
words. If I have put myself into a cloister with reason, persuade me
to continue in it with devotion: you have been the occasion of all my
misfortunes, you therefore must be the instrument of all my comforts.
You cannot but remember, (for what do not lovers remember?) with
what pleasure I have past whole days in hearing your discourse. How,
when you were absent, I shut myself from everyone to write to you;
how uneasy I was till my letter had come to your hands; what artful
management it required to engage confidents. This detail, perhaps,
surprises you, and you are in pain for what will fellow. But I am no
longer ashamed that my passion has had no bounds for you; for I have
done more than all this: I have hated myself that I might love you; I
came hither to ruin myself in a perpetual imprisonment, that I might
make you live quiet and easy. Nothing but virtue, joined to a love
perfectly disengaged from the commerce of the senses, could have
produced such effect. Vice never inspires any thing like this; it is
too much enslaved to the body. When we love pleasures, we love the
living, and not the dead; we leave off burning with desire for those
who can no longer burn for us. This was my cruel uncle's notions; he
measured my virtue by the frailty of my sex, and thought it was the
man, and not the person, I loved. But he has been guilty to no
purpose. I love you more than ever; and to revenge myself of him, I
will still love you with all the tenderness of my soul till the last
moment of my life. If formerly my affection for you was not so pure,
if in those days the mind and the body shared in the pleasure of
loving you, I often told you, even then, that I was more pleased with
possessing your heart than with any other happiness, and the man was
the thing I least valued in you.
You cannot but be entirely persuaded of this by the extreme
unwillingness I showed to marry you: tho' I knew that the name of
Wife was honourable in the world, and holy in religion, yet the name
of your mistress had greater charms, because it was more free. The
bonds of matrimony, however honourable, still bear with them a
necessary engagement; and I was very unwilling to be necessitated to
love always a man who, perhaps, would not always love me. I despised
the name of Wife, that I might live happy with that of Mistress; and
I find, by your letter to your friend, you have not forgot that
delicacy of passion in a woman who loved you always with the utmost
tenderness, and yet wished to love you more, you have very justly
observed in your letter, that I esteemed those public engagements
insipid which form alliances only to be dissolved by death, and which
put life and love under the same unhappy necessity. But you have not
added how often I have made protestations that it was infinitely
preferable to me to live with _Abelard_ as his mistress than
with any other as empress of the world, and that I was more happy in
obeying you, than I should have been in lawfully captivating the lord
of the universe. Riches and pomp are not the charms of love. True
tenderness make us to separate the lover from all that is external to
him, and setting aside his quality, fortune, and employments,
consider him singly by himself.
'Tis not love, but the desire of riches and honour, which makes
women run into the embraces of an indolent husband. Ambition, not
affection, forms such marriages. I believe indeed they may be
followed with some honours and advantages, but I can never think that
this is the way to enjoy the pleasures of an affectionate union, nor
to feel those secret and charming emotions of hearts that have long
strove to be united. These martyrs of marriage pine always for large
fortunes, which they think they have lost. The wife sees husbands
richer that her own, and the husband wives better portioned than his.
Their interested vows occasion regret, and regret produces hatred.
They soon part, or always desire it. This restless and tormenting
passion punishes them for aiming at other advantages of love than
love itself.
If there is any thing which may properly be called happiness here
below, I am persuaded it is in the union of two persons who love each
other with perfect liberty, who are united by a secret inclination,
and satisfied with each other's merit; their hearts are full and
leave no vacancy for any other passion; they enjoy perpetual
tranquillity, because they enjoy content.
If I could believe you as truly persuaded of my merit as I am of
yours, I might say there has been such a time when we were such a
pair. Alas! how was it possible I should not be certain of your
merit? If I could ever have doubted it, the universal esteem would
have made me determine in your favour. What country, what city, has
not desired your presence? Could you ever retire but you drew the
eyes and hearts of all after you? Did not every one rejoice in having
seen you? Even women, breaking through the laws of decorum, which
custom had imposed upon them, showed manifestly they felt something
more for you than esteem. I have known some who have been profuse in
their husband's praises, who have yet envied my happiness, and given
strong intimations they could have refused you nothing. But what
could resist you? Your reputation, which so much soothed the vanity
of our sex; your air, your manner; that life in your eyes, which so
admirably expressed the vivacity of your mind; your conversation with
that ease and elegance which gave every thing you spoke such an
agreeable and insinuating turn; in short, every thing spoke for you;
very different from some mere scholars, who, with all their learning,
have not the capacity to keep up an ordinary conversation, and with
all their wit cannot win the affection of women who have a much less
share than themselves.
With what ease did you compose verses? and yet those ingenious
trifles, which were but a recreation after your more serious studies,
are still the entertainment and delight of persons of the best taste.
The smallest song, nay, the least sketch of any thing you made for
me, had a thousand beauties capable of making it last as long as
there are love or lovers in the world. Thus those songs will be sung
in honour of other women which you designed only for me? and those
tender and natural expressions which spoke your love will help others
to explain their passion, with much more advantage than what they
themselves are capable of.
What rivals did your gallantries of this kind occasion me? How
many ladies laid claim to them? 'Twas a tribute their self-love paid
to their beauty. How many have I seen with sighs declare their
passion for you, when, after some common visit you had made them,
they chanced to be complimented for the Sylvia of your poems? others,
in despair and envy, have reproached me, that I had no charms but
what your wit bestowed on me, nor in any thing the advantage over
them but in being beloved by you. Can you believe if I tell you,
that, notwithstanding the vanity of my sex, I thought myself
peculiarly happy in having a lover to whom I was obliged for my
charms, and took a secret pleasure in being admired by a man who,
when he pleased, could raise his mistress to the character of a
goddess? Pleased with your glory only, I read with delight all those
praises you offered me, and without reflecting how little I deserved,
I believed myself such as you described me, that I might be more
certain I pleased you.
But oh! where is that happy time fled? I now lament my lover, and
of all my joys there remains nothing but the painful remembrance that
_they are past_. Now learn, all you my rivals who once viewed my
happiness with such jealous eyes, that he you once envied me can
never more be yours or mine. I loved him, my love was his crime, and
the cause of his punishment. My beauty once charmed him: pleased with
each other, we passed our brightest days in tranquillity and
happiness. If that was a crime, 'tis a crime I am yet fond of, and I
have no other regret, than that against my will I must necessarily be
innocent. But what do I say? My misfortune was to have cruel
relations, whose malice disturbed the calm we enjoyed. Had they been
capable of the returns of reason, I had now been happy in the
enjoyment of my dear husband. Oh! how cruel were they when their
blind fury urged a villain to surprise you in your sleep! Where was
I? Where was your _Heloise_ then? What joy should I have had in
defending my lover! I would have guarded you from violence, though at
the expence of my life; my cries and the shrieks alone would have
stopped the hand.--! Oh! whither does the excess of passion
hurry me? Here love is shocked, and modesty, joined with despair,
deprive me of words. 'Tis eloquence to be silent, where no expression
can reach the greatness of the misfortune.
But, tell me, whence proceeds your neglect of me since my being
professed? You know nothing moved me to it but your disgrace, nor did
I give any consent but yours. Let me hear what is the occasion of
your coldness, or give me leave to tell you now my opinion. Was it
not the sole view of pleasure which engaged you to me? and has not my
tenderness, by leaving you nothing to wish for, extinguished your
desires? Wretched _Heloise_! You could please when you wished to
avoid it; you merited incense, when you could remove to a distance
the hand that offered it; but since your heart has been softened, and
has yielded; since you have devoted and sacrificed yourself, you are
deserted and forgotten. I am convinced, by sad experience, that
it is natural to avoid those to whom we have been too much obliged;
and that uncommon generosity produces neglect rather than
acknowledgement. My heart surrendered too soon to gain the esteem of
the conqueror; you took it without difficulty, and give it up easily.
But, ungrateful as you are, I will never content to it. And though in
this place I ought not to retain a wish of my own, yet I have ever
secretly preserved the desire of being beloved by you. When I
pronounced my sad vow, I then had about me your last letter, in which
you protested you would be wholly mine, and would never live but to
love me. 'Tis to you, therefore, I have offered myself; you had my
heart, and I had yours; do not demand any thing back; you must bear
with my passion as a thing which of right belongs to you, and from
which you can no ways be disengaged.
Alas! what folly is it to talk at this rate? I see nothing here
but marks of the Deity, and I speak of nothing but man! You have been
the cruel occasion of this by your conduct. Unfaithful man! ought you
at once to break off loving me. Why did you not deceive me for a
while, rather than immediately abandon me? If you had given me at
least but some faint signs even of a dying passion, I myself had
favoured the deception. But in vain would I flatter myself that you