the most disagreeable offices of friendship? Must I always, in the
bitterness of my own heart, be giving affliction to yours, by cruel
intelligence? Our sentiments, alas! are the same, and you are sensible
I can give no new uneasiness to you which I have not first experienced
myself. O that I could but conceal your misfortune without increasing
it! or that a friendship like ours were not as binding as love! How
readily might I throw off that chagrin I am now obliged to
communicate. Last night, when the concert was over, and your mother
and you were gone home, in company with your friend and Mr. Orbe, our
two fathers and my Lord B---- were left to talk politics together; the
disagreeableness of the subject, of which indeed I am quite surfeited,
soon made me retire to my own chamber. In about half an hour, I heard
the name of your friend repeated with some vehemence; on which I found
the conversation had changed its subject, and therefore listened to it
with some attention; when I gathered, by what followed, that his
lordship had ventured to propose a match between you and your friend,
whom he frankly called his, and on whom, as such, he offered to make a
suitable settlement. Your father rejected the proposal with disdain,
and upon that the conversation began to grow warm. “I must tell you
sir, said my lord, that, notwithstanding your prejudices, he is of all
men the most worthy of her, and perhaps the most likely to make her
happy. He has received from nature every gift that is independent of
the world; and has embellished them by all those talents, which
depended on himself. He is young, tall, well-made, and ingenious: he
has the advantages of education, sense, manners, and courage; he has a
fine genius and a sound mind; what then does he require to make him
worthy of your daughter? Is it a fortune? He shall have one. A third
part of my own will make him the richest man of this country; nay, I
will give him, if it be necessary, the half. Does he want a title?
Ridiculous prerogative, in a country where nobility is more
troublesome than useful! But, doubt it not, he is noble: not that his
nobility is made out in writing upon an old parchment, but it is
engraven in indelible characters on his heart. In a word if you prefer
the dictates of reason and sense to groundless prejudices, and if you
love your daughter better than empty titles, you will give her to
him.”
On this your father expressed himself in a violent passion: he treated
the proposal as absurd and ridiculous. How! my lord! said he, is it
possible a man of honour, as you are, can entertain such a thought,
that the last surviving branch of an illustrious family should go to
lose and degrade its name, in that of nobody knows who; a fellow
without home, and reduced to subsist upon charity. Hold, sir,
interrupted my lord, you are speaking of my friend; consider that I
must take upon myself every injury done him in my company, and that
such language as is injurious to a man of honour, is more so to him
who makes use of it. Such _fellows_ are more respectable than all the
country squires in Europe; and I defy you to point out a more
honourable way to fortune, than by excepting the debts of esteem, and
the gifts of friendship. If my friend does not trace his descent, as
you do, from a long and doubtful succession of ancestors, he will lay
the foundation, and be the honour of his own house, as the first of
your ancestors did that of yours. Can you think yourself dishonoured
by your alliance to the head of your family, without falling under the
contempt you have for him? How many great families would sink again
into oblivion, if we respected only those which descended from truly
respectable originals? Judge of the past by the present; for two or
three honest citizens ennobled by virtuous means, a thousand knaves
find every day the way to aggrandize themselves and families. But to
what end serves that nobility, of which their descendants are so
proud, unless it be to prove the injustice and infamy of their
ancestors? [12] There are, I must confess, a great number of bad men
among the common people; but the odds are always twenty to one against
a gentleman, that he is descended from a rascal. Let us, if you will,
set aside descent, and compare only merit and utility. You have borne
arms in the service and pay of a foreign prince; his father fought
without pay in the service of his country. If you have well served,
you have been well paid; and, whatever honour you may have acquired by
arms, a hundred plebeians may have acquired still more.
In what consists the honour then, continued my lord, of that nobility
of which you are so tenacious? How does it affect the glory of one’s
country or the good of mankind? A mortal enemy to liberty and the
laws, what did it ever produce in most of those countries where it has
flourished, but the rod of tyranny and the oppression of the people?
Will you presume to boast, in a republic, of a rank that is
destructive to virtue and humanity? Of a rank that makes its boast of
slavery, and wherein men blush to be men? Read the annals of your own
country; what have any of the nobility merited of her? Were any of her
deliverers nobles? The _Fursts_, the _Tills_, the _Stauffachers_, were
they gentlemen? What then is that absurd honour, about which you make
so much noise?
Think, my dear, what I suffered to hear this respectable man thus
injure, by an ill-concerted application, the cause of that friend whom
he endeavoured to serve. Your father, being irritated by so many
galling, though general invectives, strove to retort them by personal
ones. He told his lordship plainly, that never any man of his
condition talked in the manner he had done. Trouble not yourself to
plead another’s cause, added he roughly, honourable as you are, I
doubt much if you could make your own good, on the subject in
question. You demand my daughter for your pretended friend, without
knowing whether you are yourself an equal match for her; and I know
enough of the English nobility to entertain, from your discourse, a
very indifferent opinion of yours.
To this his lordship answered; whatever you may think of me, sir, I
should be very sorry to be able to give no other proof of my merit
than the name of a man who died five hundred years ago. If you know
the nobility of England, you know that it is the least prejudiced,
best informed, most sensible, and bravest of all Europe; after which
it is needless to ask whether it be the most ancient; for, when we
talk of what is, we never mind what was. We are not, it is true, the
slaves, but the friends of a prince; not the oppressors of a people,
but their leaders. The guardians of liberty, the pillars of our
country, and the support of the throne, we maintain an equilibrium
between the people and the king. Our first regards are due to the
nation, our second to him that governs: we consult not his will, but
his just prerogative. Supreme judges in the house of peers, and
sometimes legislators, we render equal justice to the king and people,
and suffer no one to say _God and my sword, but only God and my
right._
Such, sir, continued he, is that respectable nobility with which you
are unacquainted; as ancient as any other, but more proud of its merit
than of its ancestors. I am one, not the lowest in rank of that
illustrious order, and believe, whatever be your pretensions, that I
am your equal in every respect. I have a sister unmarried; she is
young, amiable, rich and in no wise inferior to Eloisa, except in
those qualities which with you pass for nothing. Now, sir, if after
being enamoured with your daughter, it were possible for any one to
change the object of his affections and admire another, I should think
it an honour to accept the man for my brother, though he had nothing,
whom I propose to you for a son with half my estate.
I knew matters would be only aggravated by your father’s reply; and,
though I was struck with admiration at my Lord B----’s generosity,
I saw plainly that he would totally ruin the negotiation he had
undertaken. I went in, therefore, to prevent things from going farther.
My entrance broke up the conversation, and immediately after they
coldly took leave of each other, and parted. As to my father, he
behaved very well in the dispute. At first he seconded the proposal;
but, finding that yours would hear nothing of it, he took the side of
his brother-in-law, and, by taking proper opportunities to moderate
the contest, prevented them from going beyond those bounds they would
certainly have trespassed, had they been alone. After their departure,
he related to me what had happened; and, as I foresaw where his
discourse would end, I readily told him, that things being in such a
situation, it would be improper the person in question should see you
so often here; and that it would be better for him not to come hither
at all, if such an intimation would not be putting a kind of affront on
Mr. Orbe, his friend; but that I should desire him to bring Lord B----
less frequently for the future. This, my dear, was the best I could do
to prevent our door being entirely shut against him.
But this is not all. The crisis in which you stand at present obliges
me to return to my former advice. The affair between my Lord B----
and your friend has made all the noise in town, which was natural to
expect. For, though Mr. Orbe has kept the original cause of their
quarrel a secret, the circumstances are too public, to suffer it to lie
concealed. Every one has suspicions, makes conjectures, and some go
so far as to name Eloisa. The report of the watch was not so totally
suppressed but it is remembered; and you are not ignorant that, in
the eye of the world, a bare suspicion of the truth is looked upon as
evidence. All that I can say for your consolation is, that in general
your choice is approved, and every body thinks with pleasure on the
union of so charming a couple. This confirms me in the opinion that
your friend has behaved himself well in this country, and is not less
beloved than yourself. But what is the public voice to your inflexible
father? All this talk has already reached, or will come to his ear; and
I tremble to think of the effect it may produce, if you do not speedily
take some measures to prevent his anger. You must expect from him an
explanation terrible to yourself, and perhaps still worse for your
friend. Not that I think, at his age, he will condescend to challenge a
young man he thinks unworthy his sword: but the influence he has in the
town will furnish him, if he has a mind to it, with a thousand means to
stir up a party against him; and it is to be feared that his passion
will be too ready to excite him to do it.
On my knees, therefore, I conjure you, my dear friend, to think on the
dangers that surround you, and the terrible risk you run; which
increases every moment. You have been extremely fortunate to escape
hitherto, in the midst of such hazards; but, while it is yet time, I
beg of you to let the veil of prudence be thrown over the secret of
your amours; and not to push your fortune farther; lest it should
involve in your misfortunes the man who has been the cause of them.
Believe me, my dear, the future is uncertain, a thousand accidents may
happen unexpectedly, in your favour; but, for the present, I have said
and repeat it more earnestly, send away your friend, or you are
undone.
Letter LXIII. From Eloisa to Clara.
All that you foresaw, my dear, is come to pass. Last night, about an
hour after we got home, my father entered my mother’s apartment, his
eyes sparkling and his countenance inflamed with anger; in a word, so
irritated as I never saw him before. I found immediately that he had
either just left a quarrel, or was seeking occasion to begin one; and
my guilty conscience made me tremble for the consequence.
He began by exclaiming violently, but in general terms, against such
mothers as indiscreetly invite to their houses young fellows without
family or fortune, whose acquaintance only brings shame and scandal on
those who cultivate it. Finding this not sufficient to draw an answer
from an intimidated woman, he brought up particularly, as an example,
what had passed in our own house, since she had introduced a pretended
wit, an empty chatterer, more fit to debauch the mind of a modest
young woman than to instruct her in any thing that is good.
My mother, who now saw she should get little by holding her tongue,
took him up at the word debauch, and asked what he had ever seen in
the conduct, or knew of the character of the person he spoke of, to
authorize such base suspicions. I did not conceive, she added, that
genius and merit were to be excluded from society. To whom, pray,
would you have your house open, if fine talents and good behaviour
have no pretensions to admittance? To our equals, Madam, he replied in
a fury; to such as might repair the honour of a daughter if they
should injure it. No, sir, said she, but rather to people of virtue
who cannot injure it. Know, Madam, that the presumption of soliciting
an alliance with my family, without a title to that honour, is highly
injurious. So far from thinking it injurious, returned my mother, I
think it, on the contrary, the highest mark of esteem: but, I know not
that the person you exclaim against has made any such pretensions. He
has done it, Madam, and will do worse, if I do not take proper care to
prevent him; but, for the future, I shall take upon myself the charge
you have executed so ill.
On this began a dangerous altercation between them; by which I found
they were both ignorant of those reports, which you say have been
spread about the town. During this time your unworthy cousin could,
nevertheless, have wished herself buried a hundred feet in the earth.
Think of the best and most abused of mothers lavishing encomiums on
her guilty daughter, and praising her for all those virtues she has
lost, in the most respectful, or rather to me the most mortifying
terms. Think of an angry father, profuse of injurious expressions; and
yet in the height of his indignation, not letting one escape him in
the least reflecting on the prudence of her, who, torn by remorse and
humbled with shame, could hardly support his presence.
O the inconceivable torture of a bleeding heart, reproaching itself
with unsuspected crimes! How depressing and insupportable is the
burthen of unmerited praise, and of an esteem of which the heart is
conscious it is unworthy! I was indeed so terribly oppressed, that, in
order to free myself from so cruel a situation, I was just going, if
the impetuosity of his temper would have given me time, to confess
all. But he was so enraged as to repeat over and over a hundred times
the same things, and to change the subject every moment. He took
notice of my looks, cast down, and affrighted, in consequence of my
remorse; and if he did not construe them into those of my guilt he did
into looks of my love; but, to shame me the more, he abused the object
of it in terms so odious and contemptible that, in spite of all my
endeavours, I could not let him proceed without interruption. I know
not whence my dear, I had so much courage, or how I came so far to
trespass the bounds of modesty and duty: but, if I ventured to break
for a moment that respectful silence they dictate, I suffered for it,
as you will see, very severely. For Heaven’s sake, my dear father,
said I, be pacified: never could your daughter be in danger from a man
deserving such abuse. I had scarce spoken, when, as if he had felt
himself reproved by what I said, or that his passion wanted only a
pretext for extremities, he flew upon your poor friend, and for the
first time in my life I received from him a box on the ear: nor was
this all but, giving himself up entirely to his passion, he proceeded
to beat me without mercy, notwithstanding my mother threw herself in
between us, to screen me from his blows, and, received many of those
which were intended for me. At length, in running back to avoid them,
my foot slipt, and I fell down with my face against the foot of a
table.
Here ended the triumph of passion, and begun that of nature. My fall,
the sight of my blood, my tears, and those of my mother greatly
affected him. He raised me up with an air of affliction and
solicitude; and, having placed me in a chair, they both eagerly
enquired where I was hurt. I had received only a slight bruise on my
forehead, and bled only at the nose. I saw nevertheless, by the
alteration in the air and voice of my father, that he was displeased
at what he had done. He was not, however, immediately reconciled to
me; paternal authority did not permit so abrupt a change; but he
apologized with many tender excuses to my mother; and I saw plainly,
by the looks he cast on me, to whom half of his apologies were
indirectly addressed. Surely, my dear, these is no confusion so
affecting as that of a tender father, who thinks himself to blame in
his treatment of a child.
Supper being ready, it was ordered to be put back that I might have
time to compose myself; and my father, unwilling the servants should
see any thing of my disorder, went himself for a glass of water; while
my mother was bathing the contusion on my forehead. Ah, my dear how I
pitied her! already in a very ill and languishing state of health, how
gladly would she have been excused from being witness to such a scene!
How little less did she stand in need of assistance than I!
At supper my father did not speak to me, but I could see his silence
was the effect of shame, and not of disdain: he pretended to find
every thing extremely good, in order to bid my mother help me to it;
and, what touched me the most sensibly was, that he took all occasions
to call me his daughter, and not Eloisa, as is customary with him.
After supper the evening was so cold that my mother ordered a fire in
her chamber; she placing herself on one fire and my father on the
other. I went to take a chair, to sit down in the middle; when, laying
hold of my gown and drawing me gently to him, he placed me on his
knee, without speaking a word. This was done so immediately, and by a
sort of involuntarily impulse, that he seemed to be almost sorry for
it a moment afterwards. But I was on his knee, and he could not well
push me from him again, and, what added to his apparent condescension,
he was obliged to support me with his arms in that attitude. All this
passion in a kind of reluctant silence; but I perceived him, every now
and then, ready to give me an involuntary embrace, which however he
resisted, at the same time endeavouring to stifle a sigh, which came
from the bottom of his heart. A certain false shame prevented his
paternal arms from clasping me with that tenderness he too, plainly
felt; a certain gravity, he was ashamed to depart from, a confusion he
durst not overcome, occasioned between a father and his daughter the
same charming embarrassment, as love and modesty cause between lovers;
in the mean while a most affectionate mother, transported with
pleasure, secretly enjoyed the delightful sight. I saw, I felt it all,
and could no longer support a scene of such melting tenderness. I
pretended to slip down; and, to save myself, threw my arm round my
father’s neck, laying my face close to his venerable cheek, which I
pressed with repeated kisses and bathed with my tears. At the same
time, by those which flowed plentifully from his eyes, I could
perceive him greatly relieved; while my mother, embraced us both and
partook of our transports. How sweet; how peaceful is innocence! which
alone was wanting to make this the most delightful moment of my life.
This morning, lassitude and the pain I felt from my fall having kept
me in bed later than usual, my father came into my chamber before I
was up; when, asking kindly after my health, he sat down by the side
of my bed; and, taking one of my hands into his, he condescended so
far as to kiss it several times, calling me at the same time his dear
daughter, and expressing his sorrow for his resentment. I told him I
should think myself but too happy to suffer as much every day to have
the pleasure he then gave me in return; and that the severest
treatment I could receive from him would be fully recompensed, by the
smallest instance of his kindness.
Then putting on a more serious air, he resumed the subject of
yesterday, and signified his pleasure in civil but positive terms. You
know, says he, the husband I designed for you: I intimated to you my
intentions concerning him on my arrival, and shall never change them,
on that head. As to the man whom Lord B---- spoke of, though I shall
not dispute the merit every body allows him, I know not whether he has
of himself conceived the ridiculous hopes of being allied to me, or if
it has been instilled into him by others; but, be assured, that, had I
even no other person in view, and he was in possession of all the
guineas in England, I would never accept him for my son-in-law. I
forbid you, therefore, either to see or speak to him as long as you
live, and that as well for the sake of his honour as your own. I never
indeed felt any great regard for him: but I now mortally hate him for
the outrages he has been the occasion of my committing, and shall
never forgive him the violence I have been guilty of.
Having said this, he rose and left me, without waiting for my answer,
and with the same air of severity, which he had just reproached
himself for assuming before. Ah, my dear cousin, what an infernal
monster is prejudice, that depraves the best hearts, and puts the
voice of nature every moment to silence!
Thus ended the explanation you predicted, and of which I could not
comprehend the reason till your letter informed me. I cannot well tell
what revolution it has occasioned in my mind; but I find myself ever
since greatly altered. I seem to look back with more regret to that
happy time, when I lived content and tranquil with my family friends
around me; and that the sense of my error increases with that of the
blessings of which it has deprived me. Tell me, my severe monitor,
tell me if you dare be so cruel, are the joyful hours of love all gone
and fled? And will they never more return? Do you perceive, alas, how
gloomy and horrible is that sad apprehension? And yet my father’s
commands are positive; the danger of my lover is certain. Think, my
dear Clara, on the result of such opposite emotions, destroying the
effects of each other in my heart. A kind of stupidity has taken
possession of me, which makes me almost insensible, and leaves me
neither the use of my passions nor my reason. The present moment, you
tell me, is critical; I know, I feel it is: and yet I was never more
incapable to conduct myself than now. I have sat down more than twenty
times to write to my lover: but I am ready to sink at every line. I
have no resource, my dear friend, but in you. Let me prevail on you
then to think, to speak, to act, for me. I put myself into your hands:
whatever step you think proper to take, I hereby confirm before hand
every thing you do; I commit to your friendship that sad authority
over a lover which I have bought so dear. Divide me for ever from
myself. Kill me, if I must die; but do not force me to plunge the
dagger in my own breast. O my good angel! my protectress! what an
employment do I engage you in! Can you have the courage to go through
it? Can you find means to soften its severity? It is not my heart
alone you will rend to pieces. You know, Clara, yes, you know, how
sincerely I am beloved; that I have not even the consolation of being
the most to be pitied. Let my heart, I beseech you, speak from your
lips, and let yours sympathize with the tender compassion of love.
Comfort the poor unfortunate youth, tell him, ah, tell him, again and
again----do you not think so, my dear friend? Do you not think that,
in spite of prepossessions and prejudice, in spite of all obstacles
and crosses, Heaven has made us for each other? Yes, tell him so, I am
sure of it, we are destined to be happy. It is impossible for me to
lose sight of that prospect: it is impossible for me to give up that
delightful hope. Tell him, therefore, not to be too much afflicted;
not to give way to despair. You need not trouble yourself to exact a
promise of eternal love and fidelity; and still less to make him a
needless promise of mine. Is not the assurance of both firmly rooted
in our hearts? Do we not feel that we are indivisible, and that we
have but one mind between us? Tell him only to hope, and that though
fortune persecutes us, he may place his confidence in love; which I am
certain, my cousin, will in some way or other compensate for the evils
it makes us suffer; as I am that, however heaven may dispose of us, we
shall not live long from each other.
P.S. After I had written the above, I went into my mother’s apartment,
but found myself so ill that I was obliged to return, and lie down on
the bed. I even perceived----alas, I am afraid----indeed, my dear, I
am afraid, the fall I had last night will be of a much worse
consequence than I imagined. If so, all is over with me; all my hopes
are vanished at once.
Letter LXIV. Clara to Mr. Orbe.
My father has this morning related to me the conversation he had
yesterday with you. I perceive with pleasure that your expectations of
what you are pleased to call your happiness, are not without
foundation: you know I hope that it will prove mine too. Esteem and
friendship are already in your possession, and all of that more tender
sentiment of which my heart is capable is also yours. Yet be not
deceived: as woman, I am a kind of monster; by whatsoever strange whim
of nature it happens I know not, but this I know, that my friendship
is more powerful than my love. When I tell you that my Eloisa is
dearer to me than yourself, you only laugh at, me; and yet nothing can
be more certain. Eloisa is so sensible of this, that she is more
jealous for you than you are for yourself, and whilst you are
contented, she is upbraiding me, that I do not love you sufficiently.
I am even so strongly interested in every thing which concerns her,
that her lover and you hold nearly the same place in my heart, though
in a different manner. What I feel for him is friendship only; but it
is violent: for you, I think, I perceive something of a certain
passion called love; but then it is tranquil. Now, though this might
appear sufficiently equivocal to disturb the repose of a jealous mind,
I do not believe it will cause much uneasiness in you.
How far, alas, are those two poor souls from that tranquillity which
we dare presume to enjoy! and how ill does this contentment become us,
whilst our friends are in despair! It is decreed, they must part, and
perhaps this may be the very instant of their eternal separation. Who
knows but their mutual dejection, with which we reproached them at the
concert, might be a foreboding that it was the last time they would
ever meet? To this hour your friend is ignorant of his destiny. In the
security of his heart he still enjoys the felicity of which he is
already deprived. In the very instant of despair he tastes, in idea,
the shadow of happiness, and like one who is on the brink of sudden
death, the poor wretch dreams of existence unapprehensive of his fate.
O heavens! it is from me he is to receive the sad sentence. O
friendship divine! the idol of my soul! arm me, I beseech thee, with
thy sacred cruelty. Inspire me with barbarous resolution, and enable
me to perform this sad duty with becoming magnanimity!
I depend on your assistance, and I should expect it even if you loved
me less; for I know your tender heart: it will have no need of the
zeal of love when humanity pleads. You will engage our friend to come
to me to-morrow morning; but be sure not to mention a syllable of the
affair. To day I must not be interrupted. I shall pass the afternoon
with Eloisa. Endeavour to find Lord B----, and bring him with you
about eight o’clock this evening, that we may come to some
determination concerning the departure of this unhappy man, and
endeavour to prevent his despair.
I have great confidence in his resolution added to our precautions,
and I have still greater dependence on his passion for Eloisa: her
will, the danger of her life and honour, are motives which he cannot
resist. Be it as it will, you may be assured that I shall not dream of
marriage till Eloisa has recovered her peace of mind. I will not stain
the matrimonial knot with the tears of my friend, so that if you
really love me, your interest will second your generosity, and it
becomes your own affair rather than that of another.
Letter LXV. Clara to Eloisa.
All is over; and in spite of her indiscretion my Eloisa is in safety.
Her secrets are buried in silence. She is still loved and cherished in
the midst of her friends and relations, possessing every one’s esteem,
and a reputation without blemish. Consider, my friend, and tremble for
the dangers which, through motives of love or shame, through fear of
doing too little or too much, you have run. Learn hence, too fond or
too fearful girl, never more to attempt to reconcile sentiments so
incompatible; and thank heaven that, through a happiness peculiar to
yourself, you have escaped the evils that threatened you.
I would spare your sorrowing heart the particulars of your lover’s
cruel and necessary departure. But you desired to know them; I
promised you should, and will keep my word with that sincerity which
ever subsisted between us. Read on then, my dear and unhappy friend;
read on, but exert your courage and maintain your resolution.
The plan I had concerted, and of which I advised you yesterday, was
punctually followed in every particular. On my return home, I found
here Mr. Orbe and my Lord B----; with whom I immediately begun, by
declaring to the latter how much we were both affected by his heroic
generosity. I then gave them urgent reasons for the immediate
departure of your friend, and told them the difficulties I foresaw in
bringing it about. His Lordship was perfectly sensible that it was
necessary, and expressed much sorrow for the effects of his imprudent
zeal. They both agreed it was proper to hasten the separation
determined, and to lay hold of the first moment of consent, to prevent
any new irresolution: and to snatch him from the danger of delay. I
would have engaged Mr. Orbe to make the necessary preparations,
unknown to your friend; but his Lordship, regarding this affair as his
own, insisted on taking charge of it. He accordingly promised me that
his chaise would be ready at eleven o’clock this morning, adding that
he would carry him off under some other pretext, and accompany him as
far as it might be necessary; opening the matter to him at leisure.
This expedient however did not appear to me sufficiently open and
sincere, nor would I consent to expose him, at a distance, to the
first effects of a despair, which might more easily escape the eyes of
Lord B---- than mine. For the same reason I did not close with his
Lordship’s proposal of speaking himself to him, and prevailing on him
to depart. I foresaw, that negotiation would be a delicate affair, and
I was unwilling to trust any body with it but myself; knowing much
better how to manage his sensibility, and also that there is always a
harshness in the arguments of the men which a woman best knows how to
soften. I conceived nevertheless that my Lord might be of use in
preparing the way for an eclairissement; being sensible of the effects
which the discourse of a man of sense might have over a virtuous mind;
and what force the persuasions of a friend might give to the arguments
of the philosopher.
I engaged Lord B----, therefore, to pass the evening with him, and,
without saying any thing directly of his situation, to endeavour to
dispose his mind insensibly to a stoical resolution. You, my Lord, who
are so well acquainted with Epictetus, says I, have now an opportunity
of making some real use of him. Distinguish carefully between real and
apparent good, between that which depends on ourselves and what is
dependent on others. Demonstrate to him that, whatever threatens us
from without, the cause of evil is within us; and that the wise man,
being always on his guard, has his happiness ever in his own power. I
understood by his Lordship’s answer that this stroke of irony, which
could not offend him, served to excite his zeal, and that he counted
much on sending his friend the next day well prepared. This indeed was
the most I expected; for in reality, I place no great dependence, any
more than yourself, on all that verbose philosophy. And yet I am
persuaded a virtuous man must always feel some kind of shame, in
changing at night the opinions he embraced in the morning, and in
denying in his heart the next day what his reason dictated for truth
the preceding night.
Mr. Orbe was desirous of being of their party, and passing the evening
with them; but to this I objected; as his presence might only disturb
or lay a restraint on the conversation. The interest I have in him,
does not prevent me from seeing he is not a match for the other two.
The masculine turn of thinking in men of strong minds gives a peculiar
idiom to their discourse, and makes them converse in a language to
which Mr. Orbe is a stranger. In taking leave of them, I bethought me
of the effects of his Lordship’s drinking punch; and, fearing he might
when in liquor anticipate my design, I laughingly hinted as much to
him: to which he answered, I might be assured he would indulge himself
in such habits only when it could be of no ill effect; but that he was
no slave to custom; that the interview intended concerned Eloisa’s
honour, the fortune and perhaps the life of a man, and that man his
friend. I shall drink my punch, continued he, as usual, lest it should
give our conversation an air of reserve and preparation; but that
punch shall be mere lemonade; and, as he drinks none, he will not
perceive it. Don’t you think it, my dear, a great mortification to
have contracted habits that make such precautions as these necessary?
I passed the night in great agitation of mind, not altogether on your
account. The innocent pleasures of our early youth, the agreeableness
of our long intimacy, and the closer connections that have subsisted
between us for a year past, on account of the difficulty he met with
in seeing you; all this filled me with the most disagreeable
apprehensions of your separation. I perceived I was going to lose,
with the half of you, a part of my own existence. Awake and restless I
lay counting the clock, and when the morning dawned, I shuddered to
think it was the dawn of that day which might fix the destiny of my
friend. I spent the early part of the morning in meditating on my
intended discourse, and in reflecting on the impressions it might
make. At length the hour drew nigh, and my expected visitor entered.
He appeared much troubled, and hastily asked me after you; for he had
heard, the day after your severe treatment from your father, that you
was ill, which was yesterday confirmed by my Lord B----, and that you
had kept your bed ever since. To avoid entering into particulars on
this subject, I told him I had left you better last night, and that he
would know more by the return of Hans whom I had sent to you. My
precaution was to no purpose, he went on asking me a hundred
questions, to which, as they only tended to lead me from my purpose, I
made short answers, and took upon me to interrogate him in my turn.
I begun by endeavouring to found his disposition of mind, and found
him grave, methodical, and reasonable. Thank heaven, said I to myself,
my philosopher is well prepared. Nothing remained therefore but to put
him to the trial. It is an usual custom to open bad news by degrees;
but the knowledge I had of the furious imagination of your friend,
which at half a word’s speaking carries him often into the most
passionate extremes, determined me to take a contrary method; as I
thought it better to overwhelm him at once, and administer comfort to
him afterwards, than needlessly to multiply his griefs and give him a
thousand pains instead of one. Assuming, therefore, a more serious
tone, and looking at him very attentively; have you ever experienced,
my friend, said I, what the fortitude of a great mind is capable of?
Do you think it possible for a man to renounce the object he truly
loves? I had scarce spoke before he started up like a madman; and,
clasping his hands together, struck them against his forehead, crying
out, I understand you, Eloisa is dead! my Eloisa is dead! repeated he
in a tone of despair and horror that made me tremble. I see through
your vain circumspection, your useless cautions, that only render my
tortures more lingering and cruel. Frightened as I was by so sudden a
transport, I soon entered into the cause; the news he had heard of
your illness, the lecture which Lord B---- had read him, our appointed
meeting this morning, my evading his questions and those I put to him,
were all so many collateral circumstances combining to give him a
false alarm. I saw plainly also what use I might have made of his
mistake, by leaving him in it a few minutes, but I could not be cruel
enough to do it. The thoughts of the death of the person one loves is
so shocking, that any other whatever is comparatively agreeable; I
hastened accordingly to make the advantage of it. Perhaps, said I, you
will never see her again, yet she is alive and still loves you. If
Eloisa were dead, what could Clara have to say? Be thankful to heaven
that, unfortunate as you are, you do not feel all those evils which
might have overwhelmed you. He was so surprized, so struck, so
bewildered that, having made him sit down, again, I had leisure to
acquaint him with what it was necessary for him to know. At the same
time I represented the generous behaviour of Lord B---- in the most
amiable light, in order to divert his grief by exciting, in his honest
mind, the gentler emotions of gratitude. You see, continued I, the
present state of affairs. Eloisa is on the brink of destruction, just
ready to see herself exposed to public disgrace, by the resentment of
her family, by the violence of an enraged father, and by her own
despair. The danger increases every moment, and, whether in her own or
in the hand of a father, the poignard is every instant of her life
within an inch of her heart. There remains but one way to prevent
these misfortunes, and that depends entirely on you. The fate of
Eloisa is in your hands. See if you have the fortitude to save her
from ruin, by leaving her, since she is no longer permitted to see
you, or whether you had rather stay to be the author and witness of
her dishonour? After having done every thing for you, she puts your
heart to the trial to see what you can do for her. It is astonishing
that she bears up under her distresses. You are anxious for her life;
know then that her life, her honour, her all depends on you.
He heard me without interruption; and no sooner perfectly comprehended
me, than that wild gesture, that furious look, that frightful air,
which he had put on just before, immediately disappeared. A gloomy
veil of sorrow and consternation spread itself over his features,
while his mournful eyes and bewildered countenance betrayed the
sadness of his heart. In this situation he could hardly open his lips
to make me an answer. Must I then go? said he in a peculiar tone; it
is well, I will go. Have I not lived long enough? No, returned I, not
so, you should still live for her who loves you. Have you forgot that
her life is dependant on yours? Why then should our lives be
separated? cried he; there was a time. It is not yet too late.----
I affected not to understand the last words, and was endeavouring to
comfort him with some hopes, which I could see his heart rejected,
when Hans returned with the good news of your health. In the joy he
felt at this, he cried out, My Eloisa lives,----let her live, and if
possible be happy. I will never disturb her repose, I will only bid
her adieu----and, if it must be so, will leave her for ever.
You surely know, said I, that you are not permitted to see her. You
have already bidden farewell, and are parted. Consider, therefore, you
will be more at ease when you are at a greater distance, and will have
at least the consolation to think you have secured, by your departure,
the peace and reputation of her you love. Fly then this hour, this
moment; nor let so great a sacrifice be made too slow. Haste, lest
even your delay should cause the ruin of her to whose security you
have devoted yourself. What! said he in a kind of fury, shall I depart
without seeing her? Not see her again! We will both perish if it must
be so. I know she will not think much to die with me. But I will see
her, whatever may be the consequence; I will lay both my heart and
life at her feet before I am thus torn from myself.----It was not
difficult for me to shew the absurdity and cruelty of such a project.
But the exclamation of, _Shall I see her no more!_ repeated in the
most doleful accents, seemed to demand of me some consolation. Why,
said I to him, do you make your misfortunes worse than they really
are? Why do you give up hopes which Eloisa herself entertains? Can you
believe she would think of thus parting with you, if she conceived you
were not to meet again? No, my friend, you ought to know the heart of
Eloisa better. You ought to know how much she prefers her love to her
life. I fear, alas! too much I fear (this I confess I have added) she
will soon prefer it to every thing. Believe me, Eloisa lives in hopes,
since she consents to live: believe me the cautions which her prudence
dictates, regard yourself more than you are aware of; and that she is
more careful of herself on your account than her own. I then took out
your last letter; and, shewing him what were the hopes of a fond
deluded girl, animated his, by the gentle warmth of her tender
expressions. These few lines seemed to distil a salutary balsam into
his envenomed heart. His looks softened, the tears rose into his eyes,
and I had the satisfaction of seeing a sorrowful tenderness succeed by
degrees to his former despair; but your last words, so moving, so
heart-felt, _we shall not live long asunder_, made him burst into a
flood of tears. No, Eloisa, my dear Eloisa! said he, raising his voice
and kissing the letter, no, we shall not live long asunder. Heaven
will either join our hands in this world, or unite our hearts in those
eternal mansions where there is no more separation. He was now in the
temper of mind, I wished to have him; his former, sullen sorrow gave
me much uneasiness. I should not have permitted him to depart in that
disposition; but, as soon as I saw him weep and heard your endearing
name come from his lips with so much tenderness, I was no longer in
apprehensions for his life; for nothing is less tender than despair.
The soft emotions of his heart now dictated an objection which I did
not foresee. He spoke to me of the condition in which you lately
suspected yourself to be; protesting he would rather die a thousand
deaths than abandon you to those perils that threatened you. I took
care to say nothing about the accident of your fall; telling him only
that your expectations had been disappointed, and that there were no
hopes of that kind. To which he answered with a deep sigh, there will
remain then no living monument of my happiness; it is gone, and----
Here his heart seemed too full for expression.
After this, it remained only for me to execute the latter part of your
commission; and for which I did not think, after the intimacy in which
you lived, that any preparation or apology was necessary. I mildly
reproached him, therefore, for the little care he had taken of his
affairs; telling him that you feared it would be long before he would
be more careful, and that in the mean time you commanded him to take
care of himself for your sake, and to that end to accept of that small
present which I had to make him from you. He seemed neither offended
at the offer, nor to make a merit of the acceptance; telling me only
that you well knew nothing could come from you that he should not
receive with transport; but that your precaution was superfluous: a
little house, which he had sold at Grandson, the remains of his small
patrimony, having furnished him with more money than he ever had at
any one time in his life. Besides, added he, I possess some talents
from which I can always draw a subsistence. I shall be happy to find,
in the exercise of them, some diversion from my misfortunes; and,
since I have seen the use to which Eloisa puts her superfluities, I
regard it as a treasure sacred to the widow and the orphan, whom
humanity will never permit me to neglect. I reminded him of his former
journey to the Valois, your letter, and the preciseness of your
orders. The same reasons, said I, now subsist----The same! interrupted
he, in an angry tone. The penalty of my refusal then, was never to see
her more; if she will permit me now to stay, I will use it on those
conditions. If I obey, why does she punish me? If I do not, what can
she do worse than banish me?----The same reasons! repeated he, with
some impatience. Our union then was just commenced; it is now at an
end; and I part from her perhaps for ever; there is no longer any
connection between us, we are going to be torn asunder. He pronounced
these last words with such an oppression of heart that I trembled with
the apprehensions of his relapsing into that disposition of mind, out
of which I had taken so much pains to extricate him. I affected
therefore an air of gaiety, and told him with a smile, that he was a
child, and that I would be his tutor, as he stood greatly in need of
one. I will take charge of this, said I; and, that we may dispose of
it properly in the business we shall engage in together, I insist upon
knowing particularly the state of your affairs. I endeavoured thus to
direct his melancholy ideas by that of a familiar correspondence to be
kept up in his absence; and he, whose simplicity only sought to lay
hold of every twig, as one may say, that grew near to you, came easily
into my design. We accordingly settled the address of our letters;
and, as the talking about these regulations was agreeable to him, I
prolonged our discourse on this subject till Mr. Orbe arrived; who, on
his entrance, made a signal to me that every thing was ready. Your
friend, who easily understood what was meant, then desired leave to
write to you; but I would not permit him. I saw that an excess of
tenderness might overcome him, and that after he had got half way
through his letter, we might find it impossible to prevail on him to
depart. Delays, said I, are dangerous; make haste to go; and, when you
are arrived at the end of your first stage, you may write more at your
ease. In saying this, I made a sign to Mr. Orbe, advanced towards him
with a heavy heart, and took leave. How he left me I know not, my
tears preventing my sight; my head began also to turn round, and it
was high time my part was ended.
A moment afterwards, however, I heard them go hastily down stairs; on
which I went to the stair-head to look after them. There I saw your
friend, in all his extravagance, throw himself on his knees, in the
middle of the stairs, and kiss the steps; while Mr. Orbe had much to
do to raise him from the cold stones, which he pressed with his lips,
and to which he clung with his hands, sighing most bitterly. For my
part, I retired, that I might not expose myself to the servants.
Soon after Mr. Orbe returned, and, with tears in his eyes, told me it
was all over, and that they were set out. It seems the chaise was
ready at his door, where Lord B---- was waiting for our friend, whom
when his Lordship saw he ran to meet him, and with the most cordial
expressions of friendship, placed him in the chaise, which drove off
with them, like lightning.
Letter LXVI. To Eloisa.
How often have I taken up, and flung down, my pen! I hesitate in the
first period; I know not how, I know not where, to begin. And yet it
is to Eloisa I would write. To what a situation am I reduced? That
time is, alas! no more, when a thousand pleasing ideas crowded on my
mind, and flowed inexhaustibly from my pen. Those delightful moments
of mutual confidence, and sweet effusion of souls, are gone and fled.
We live no longer for each other. We are no more the same persons, and
I no longer know to whom I am writing. Will you deign to receive, to
read, my letters? Will you think them sufficiently cautious and
reserved? Shall I preserve the stile of our former intimacy? May I
venture to speak of a passion extinguished or despised? and am I not
to make as defiant approaches to Eloisa, as on the first day I
presumed to write? Good heavens! how different are the tedious hours
of my present wretchedness from those happy, those delightful days I
have passed! I but begin to exist, and am sunk into nothing. The hopes
of life that warmed my heart are fled, and the gloomy prospect of
death is all before me. Three revolving years have circumscribed the
happiness of my days. Would to God I had ended them, ere I had known
the misery of thus surviving myself! Oh that I had obeyed the
foreboding dictates of my heart, when once those rapid moments of
delight were passed, and life presented nothing to my view for which I
could wish to live! Better, doubtless, had it been that I had breathed
no longer, or that those three years of life and love I enjoyed could
be extracted from the number of my days. Happier is it never to taste
of felicity than to have it snatched from our enjoyment. Had I been
exempted from that fatal interval of happiness; had I escaped the
first enchanting look, that animated me to a new life, I might still
have preserved my reason, have still been fit to discharge the common
offices of life, and have displayed perhaps some virtues in the
duration of an insipid existence. One moment of delusion hath changed
the scene. I have ventured to contemplate with rapture an object I
should not have dared to look on. This presumption has produced its
necessary effect, and led me insensibly to ruin; I am become a
frantic, delirious wretch, a servile dispirited being, that drags
along his chain in ignominy and despair.
How idle are the dreams of a distracted mind! How flattering, how
deceitful the wishes of the wandering heart, that disclaims them as
soon as suggested! To what end do we seek, against real evils,
imaginary remedies, that are no sooner thought of than rejected? Who,
that hath seen and felt the power of love, can think it possible there
should be a happiness which I would purchase at the price of the
supreme felicity of my first transports. No, it is impossible----Let
heaven deny me all other blessings; let me be wretched, but I will
indulge myself in the remembrance of pleasures past. Better is it to
enjoy the recollection of my past happiness, though imbittered with
present sorrow, than to be for ever happy without Eloisa. Come then,
dear image of my love, thou idol of my soul! come, and take possession
of a heart that beats only for thee; live in exile, alleviate my
sorrows, rekindle my extinguished hopes, and prevent me from falling
into despair. This unfortunate breast shall ever be thy inviolable
sanctuary, whence neither the powers of heaven nor earth shall ever
expel thee. If I am lost to happiness, I am not to love, which renders
me worthy of it; a love irresistible as the charms that gave it birth.
Raised on the immoveable foundations of merit and virtue, it can never
cease to exist in a mind that is immortal: it needs no future hope for
its support, the remembrance of what is past will sustain it for ever.
But how is it with my Eloisa? With her, who was once so sensible of
love? Can that sacred flame be extinguished in her pure and
susceptible breast? Can she have lost her taste for those celestial
raptures, which she alone could feel or inspire?----She drives me
from her presence without pity, banishes me with shame, gives me up to
despair, and sees not, through the error which misleads her, that, in
making me miserable, she robs herself of happiness. Believe me, my
Eloisa, you will in vain seek another heart akin to yours. A thousand
will doubtless adore you, but mine only is capable of returning your
love.
Tell me, tell me, sincerely, thou deceived or deceiving girl! What is
become of those projects we formed together in secret? Where are fled
those vain hopes, with which you so often flattered my credulous
simplicity? What say you now to that sacred union my heart panted
after, the secret cause of so many ardent sighs, and with which your
lips and your pen have so often indulged my hopes? I presumed alas! on
your promises, to aspire to the sacred name of husband, and thought
myself already the most fortunate of men. Say, cruel Eloisa, did you
not flatter me thus only to render my disappointment the more
mortifying, my affliction the more severe? Have I incurred this
misfortune by my own crimes? Have I been wanting in obedience, in
tractability, in discretion? Have you ever seen me so weak and absurd
in my desires, as to deserve to be thus rejected? or have I ever
preferred their gratification to your absolute commands? I have done,
I have studied, every thing to please you, and yet you renounce me.
You undertook to make me happy, and you make me miserable. Ungrateful
woman! account with me for the trust I deposited in your hands;
account with me for my heart, after having reduced it by a supreme
felicity that raised me to an equality with angels. I envied not their
lot; I was the happiest of beings; though now alas! I am the most
miserable! A single moment has deprived me of every thing, and I am
fallen instantaneously from the pinnacle of happiness to the lowest
gulph of misery. I touch even yet the felicity that escapes me. I have
still hold of, it, and lose it for ever----Ah, could I but believe!
----if the remains of false hope did not flatter----Why, why, ye
rocks of Meillerie, whose precipices my wandering eye so often
measured, why did you not assist my despair! I had then less
regretted life, ere enjoyment had taught me its value.
Letter LXVII. Lord B---- to Mrs. Orbe.
Being arrived at Besançon, I take the first opportunity to write you
the particulars of our journey; which, if not passed very agreeably,
has at least been attended with no ill accident. Your friend is as
well in health as can be expected for a man so sick at heart. He even
endeavours to affect outwardly a kind of tranquillity, to which his
heart is a stranger; and, being ashamed of his weakness, lays himself
under a good deal of restraint before me. This only served, however,
to betray the secret agitations of his mind; and though I seemed to be
deceived by his behaviour, it was only to leave him to his own
thoughts, with the view of opposing one part of his faculties to
repress the effects of the other.
He was much dejected during the first day’s journey, which I made a
short one, as I saw the expedition of our travelling increased his
uneasiness. A profound silence was observed on both sides; on my part,
the rather, as I am sensible that ill-timed condolence only imbitters
violent affliction. Coldness and indifference easily find words, but
silent sorrow is in those cases the language of true friendship. I
began yesterday to perceive the first sparks of the fury which
naturally succeeded. At dinner time we had been scarce a quarter of an
hour out of the chaise, before he turned to me, with an air of
impatience, and asked me with an ill-natured smile, why we rested a
moment so near Eloisa? In the evening he affected to be very
talkative, but without saying a word of her, asking the same questions
over and over again. He wanted one moment to know if we had reached
the French territories, and the next if we should soon arrive at
Vevey. The first thing he did at every stage was to sit down to write
a letter, which he rumpled up, or tore to pieces, the moment
afterwards. I picked up two or three of these blotted fragments, by
which you may judge of the situation of his mind. I believe, however,
he has by this time written a compleat letter.----The extravagance
which these first symptoms of passion threaten is easily foreseen; but
I cannot pretend to guess what will be its effect, or how long may be
its continuance; these depend on a combination of circumstances, as
the character of the man, the degree and nature of his passion, and of
a thousand things which no human sagacity can determine. For my part,
I can answer for the transports of his rage, but not for the
sullenness of his despair; for, do as we will, every man has always
his life in his own power. I flatter myself, however, that he will pay
a due regard to his life and my assiduities; though I depend less on
the effects of my zeal, which nevertheless shall be exerted to the
utmost, than on the nature of his passion, and the character of his
mistress. The mind cannot long employ itself in contemplating a
beloved object, without contracting a disposition similar to what it
admires. The extreme sweetness of Eloisa’s temper must therefore have
softened the harshness of that passion it inspired; and I doubt not
but love, in a man of such lively passions, is always more alive and
violent than it would be in others. I have some dependence also upon
his heart: it was formed to struggle, and to conquer. A love like his
is not so much a weakness, as strength badly exerted. A violent and
unhappy passion may smother for a time, perhaps for ever, some of his
faculties; but it is itself a proof of their excellence, and of the
use that may be made of them to cultivate his understanding. The
sublimest wisdom is attained by the same vigour of mind which gives
rise to the violent passions; and philosophy must be attained by as
fervent a zeal as that which we feel for a mistress.
Be assured, lovely Clara, I interest myself no less than you in the
fate of this unfortunate couple; not out of a sentiment of compassion,
which might perhaps be only a weakness, but out of a due regard to
justice and the fitness of things, which require that every one should
be disposed of in a manner the most advantageous to himself and to
society. Their amiable minds were doubtless formed by the hands of
nature for each other. In a peaceful and happy union, at liberty to
exert their talents and display their virtues, they might have
enlightened the world with the splendor of their examples. Why should
an absurd prejudice then cross the eternal directions of nature, and
subvert the harmony of thinking Beings? Why should the vanity of a
cruel father thus _hide their light under a bushel_, and wound those
tender and benevolent hearts which were formed to sooth the pangs of
others? Are not the ties of marriage the most free, as well as the
most sacred of all engagements? Yes, every law to lay a constraint on
them is unjust. Every father, who presumes to form, or break them, is
a tyrant. This chaste and holy tie of nature is neither subjected to
sovereign power nor paternal authority but to the authority only of
that common parent who hath the power over our hearts, and, by
commanding their union, can at the same time make them love each
other.
To what end are natural conveniences sacrificed to those of opinion? A
disagreement in rank and fortune loses itself in marriage, nor doth
any equality therein tend to make the marriage state happy; but a
disagreement in person and disposition ever remains, and is that which
makes it necessarily miserable. [13] A child, that has no rule of
conduct but her fond passion, will frequently make a bad choice; but
the father, who has no other rule for his than the opinion of the
world, will make a worse. A daughter may want knowledge and experience
to form a proper judgment of the discretion and conduct of men; a good
father ought doubtless in that care to advise her. He has a right, it
is even his duty, to say “My child, this is a man of probity, or that
man is a knave, this is a man of sense, or that is a fool.” Thus far
ought the father to judge, the rest belongs of right to the daughter.
The tyrants, who exclaim that such maxims tend to disturb the good
order of society, are those who, themselves, disturb it most.
Let men rank according to their merit; and let those hearts be united
that are objects of each other’s choice. This is what the good order
of society requires; those who would confine it to birth or riches are
the real disturbers of that order; and ought to be rendered odious to
the public, or punished, as enemies to society.
Justice requires that such abuses should be redressed: it is the duty
of every man to set himself in opposition to violence, and to
strengthen the bonds of society. You may be assured therefore, that,
if it be possible for me to effect the union of these two lovers, in
spite of an obstinate father, I shall put in execution the intention
of heaven, without troubling myself about the approbation of men.
You, amiable Madam, are happy in having a father, who doth not presume
to judge better than yourself of the means of your own happiness. It
is not, however, from his greater sagacity, perhaps, nor from his
superior tenderness, that he leaves you thus mistress of your own
choice: but what signifies the cause if the effect be the same? Or
whether, in the liberty he allows you his indolence supplies the place
of his reason? Far from abusing that liberty, the choice you have
made, at twenty years of age, must meet with the approbation of the
most discreet parent. Your heart, taken up by a friendship without
example, had little room for love. You have yet substituted in its
place every thing that can supply the want of passion; and, though
less a lover than a friend, if you should not happen to prove the
fondest wife, you will be certainly the most virtuous; that union,
which prudence dictated, will increase with age and end but with life.
The impulse of the heart is more blind, but it is more irresistible;
and the way to ruin is to lay one’s self under the cruel necessity of
opposing it. Happy are those whom love unites as prudence dictates,
who have no obstacles to surmount, nor difficulties to encounter! Such
would be our friends, were it not for the unreasonable prejudice of an
obstinate father. And such, notwithstanding, may they be yet, if one
of them be well advised. By yours and Eloisa’s example, we may be
equally convinced that it belongs only to the parties themselves to
judge how far they will be reciprocally agreeable. If love be not
predominant, prudence only directs the choice, as in your case; if
passion prevail, nature has already determined it, as in Eloisa’s. So
sacred also is the law of nature, that no human being is permitted to
transgress it, or can transgress it with impunity; nor can any
consideration of rank or fortune abrogate it, without involving
mankind in guilt and misfortune.
Though the winter be pretty far advanced and I am obliged to go to
Rome, I shall not leave our friend till I have brought him to such a
consistency of temper that I may safely trust him with himself. I
shall be tender of him, as well on his own account, as because you
have entrusted him to my care. If I cannot make him happy, I will
endeavour at least to make him prudent; and to prevail on him to bear
the evils of humanity like a man. I purpose to spend a fortnight with
him here; in which time I hope to hear from you and Eloisa; and that
you will both assist me in binding up the wounds of a broken heart, as
yet unaffected by the voice of reason, unless it speak in the language
of the passions.
Inclosed is a letter for your friend. I beg you will not trust it to a
messenger, but give it her with your own hands.
Fragments, Annexed to the Preceding Letter.
Why was I not permitted to see you before my departure? You were
afraid our parting would be fatal! Tender Eloisa! Be comforted----I am
well----I am at ease----I live----I think of you----I think of the time
when I was dear to you----My heart is a little oppressed----The chaise
has made me giddy----My spirits are quite sunk----I cannot write much
to-day; tomorrow, perhaps, I shall be able to----or I shall have no
more occasion----
Whither do these horses hurry me so fast? Where is this man, who calls
himself my friend, going to carry me? Is it from Eloisa? Is it by her
order that I am dispatched so precipitately away? Mistaken Eloisa!----
How rapidly does the chaise move! Whence come I? Where am I going?
Why all this expedition? Are ye afraid, ye persecutors, that I should
not fly fast enough to ruin? O friendship! O love! is this your
contrivance? Are these your favours?----
Have you consulted your heart in driving me from you so suddenly? Are
you capable, tell me Eloisa, are you capable of renouncing me for
ever? No, that tender heart still loves me, I know it does----In spite
of fortune, in spite of itself, it will love me for ever.----I see
it, you have permitted yourself to be persuaded [14]----What lasting
repentance are you preparing for yourself!----Alas! it will be too
late----how! forget me! I did not know your heart!----Oh consider
yourself, consider me, consider----hear me: it is yet time enough----
’twas cruel to banish me: I fly from you swifter than the wind.----
Say but the word, but one word, and I return quicker than lightening.
Say but one word, and we will be united for ever. We ought to be----
We will be----Alas! I complain to the winds----I am going again----I
am going to live and die far from Eloisa----Live I did I say? It is
impossible.----
Letter LXVIII. Lord B---- to Eloisa.
Your cousin will give you information concerning your friend. I
imagine, also, he has written to you himself, by the post. First
satisfy your impatience on that head, that you may afterwards peruse
this letter with composure; for, I give you previous notice, the
subject of it demands your attention. I know mankind; I have lived a
long time in a few years, and have acquired experience at my own cost;
the progress of the passions having been my road to philosophy. But of
all the extraordinary things that have come within the compass of my
observation, I never saw any thing equal to you and your lover. It is
not that either the one or the other has any peculiar characteristic,
whereby you might at first be known and distinguished, and through the
want of which yours might well enough be mistaken, by a superficial
observer, for minds of a common and ordinary cast. You are eminently
distinguished, however, by this very difficulty of distinguishing you,
and in that the features of a common model, some one of which is
wanting in every individual, are all equally perfect in you. Thus
every printed copy that comes from the press has its peculiar defects,
which distinguish it from the rest of its kind; and if there should
happen to come one quite perfect, however beautiful it might appear at
first sight, it must be accurately examined to know its perfection.
The first time I saw your lover, I was struck as with something new;
my good opinion of him increasing daily in proportion as I found
cause. With regard to yourself, it was quite otherwise; and the
sentiments you inspired were such as I mistook for those of love. The
impression you made on me, however, did not arise so much from a
difference of sex, as from a characteristical perfection of which the
heart cannot be insensible, though love were out of the question. I
can see what you would be, though without your friend; but I cannot
pretend to say what he would prove without you. Many men may resemble
him, but there is but one Eloisa in the world. After doing you an
injury, which I shall never forgive myself, your letter soon convinced
me of the nature of my sentiments concerning you. I found I was not
jealous, and consequently not in love. I saw that you were too amiable
for me; that you deserved the first fruits of the heart, and that mine
was unworthy of you.
From that moment, I took an interest in your mutual happiness, which
will never abate; and, imagining it in my power to remove every
obstacle to your bliss, I made an indiscreet application to your
father; the bad success of which is one motive to animate my zeal in
your favour. Indulge me so far as to hear me, and perhaps I may yet
repair the mischief I have occasioned. Examine your heart, Eloisa, and
see if it be possible for you to extinguish the flame with which it
burns. There was a time, perhaps, when you could have stopt its
progress; but, if Eloisa fell from a state of innocence, how will she
resist after her fall? How will she be able to withstand the power of
love triumphing over her weakness, and armed with the dangerous
weapons of her past pleasures. Let not your heart impose on itself;
but renounce the fallacious presumption that seduces you: you are
undone, if you are still to combat with love: you will be debased and
vanquished, while a sense of your debasement will by degrees stifle
all your virtues. Love has insinuated itself too far into your mind,
for you ever to drive it thence. It has eaten its way, has penetrated
into its inmost recesses, like a corrosive menstruum, whose
impressions you will never be able to efface, without destroying at
the same time all that virtuous sensibility you received from the
hands of nature: root out love from your mind, and you will have
nothing left in it truly estimable. Incapable of changing the
condition of your heart, what then remains for you to do? Nothing sure
but to render your union legitimate. To this end, I will propose to
you the only method that now offers. Make use of it, while it is yet
time, and add to innocence and virtue, the exercise of that good sense
with which heaven has endowed you.
I have a pretty considerable estate in Yorkshire, which has been long
in our family, and was the seat of my ancestors. The mansion-house is
old, but in good condition and convenient; the country about is
solitary, but pleasant, and variegated. The river Ouse, which runs
through the park, presents at once a charming prospect to the view,
and affords a commodious transport for all kinds of necessaries. The
income of the estate is sufficient for the reputable maintenance of
the master, and might be doubled in its value, if under his immediate
inspection. Hateful prepossession and blind prejudices harbour not in
that delightful country; the peaceful inhabitant of which preserves
the ancient manners, whose simplicity presents to you a picture of the
Valois, such as it is described by the affecting touches of your
lover’s pen. This estate, Eloisa, is yours, if you will deign to
accept it, and reside there with your friend. There may you see
accomplished all those tender wishes with which he concludes the
letter I have just hinted at.
Come, amiable and faithful pair! The choicest pattern of true lovers!
come, and take possession of a spot, destined for the asylum of love
and innocence. Come, and, in the face of God and man, confirm the
gentle ties by which you are united. Come, and let your example do
honour to a country where your virtues will be revered, and where the
people, bred up in innocence and simplicity, will be proud to imitate
them. May you enjoy in that peaceful retirement, and with the same
sentiments that united you, the happiness of souls truly refined! May
your chaste embraces be crowned with offspring resembling yourselves!
may you see your days lengthened to an honourable old age, and
peacefully end them in the arms of your children and may our
posterity, in relating the story of your union, affectingly repeat,
_Here was the asylum of innocence, this was the refuge of the two
lovers._
Your destiny, Eloisa, is in your own power. Weigh maturely the
proposal I make to you, and examine only the main point; for, as to
the rest, I shall take upon myself to settle every thing with your
friend, and make firm and irrevocable the engagement into which I am
willing to enter. I shall take charge also for the security of your
departure, and the care of your person, till your arrival. There you
may be immediately married without difficulty: for with us a girl that
is marriageable has no need of any one’s consent to dispose of herself
as she pleases. Our laws contradict not those of nature; and although
there sometimes result from their agreement some slight
inconveniencies, they are nothing compared to those it prevents. I
have left at Vevey my Valet-de-chambre, a man of probity and courage,
as well as discreet, and of approved fidelity. You may easily concert
matters with him, either by word of mouth, or by letter, with the
assistance of Regianino, without the latter’s knowing any thing of the
affair. When every thing is ready, we will set out to meet you, and
you shall not quit your father’s house but under the conduct and
protection of your husband.
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.