LETTER I

_Heloise to Abelard_

_To her Lord, her Father, her Husband, her Brother; his Servant, his

Child, his Wife, his Sister, and to express all that is humble,

respectful and loving to her Abelard, Heloise writes this._

A consolatory letter of yours to a friend happened some days since to

fall into my hands; my knowledge of the writing and my love of the

hand gave me the curiosity to open it. In justification of the

liberty I took, I flattered myself I might claim a sovereign

privilege over everything which came from you. Nor was I scrupulous

to break through the rules of good breeding when I was to hear news

of Abelard. But how dear did my curiosity cost me! What disturbance

did it occasion, and how surprised I was to find the whole letter

filled with a particular and melancholy account of our misfortunes! I

met with my name a hundred times; I never saw it without fear, some

heavy calamity always followed it. I saw yours too, equally unhappy.

These mournful but dear remembrances put my heart into such violent

motion that I thought it was too much to offer comfort to a friend

for a few slight disgraces, but such extraordinary means as the

representation of our sufferings and revolutions. What reflections

did I not make! I began to consider the whole afresh, and perceived

myself pressed with the same weight of grief as when we first began

to be miserable. Though length of time ought to have closed up my

wounds, yet the seeing them described by your hand was sufficient to

make them all open and bleed afresh. Nothing can ever blot from my

memory what you have suffered in defence of your writings. I cannot

help thinking of the rancorous malice of Alberic and Lotulf. A cruel

Uncle and an injured Lover will always be present to my aching sight.

I shall never forget what enemies your learning, and what envy your

glory raised against you. I shall never forget your reputation, so

justly acquired, torn to pieces and blasted by the inexorable cruelty

of pseudo pretenders to science. Was not your treatise of Divinity

condemned to be burnt? Were you not threatened with perpetual

imprisonment? In vain you urged in your defence that your enemies

imposed upon you opinions quite different from your meanings. In vain

you condemned those opinions; all was of no effect towards your

justification, 'twas resolved you should be a heretic! What did not

those two false prophets accuse you of who declaimed so severely

against you before the Council of Sens? What scandals were vented on

occasion of the name of Paraclete given to your chapel! What a storm

was raised against you by the treacherous monks when you did them the

honour to be called their brother! This history of our numerous

misfortunes, related in so true and moving a manner, made my heart

bleed within me. My tears, which I could not refrain, have blotted

half your letter; I wish they had effaced the whole, and that I had

returned it to you in that condition; I should then have been

satisfied with the little time I kept it; but it was demanded of me

too soon.

I must confess I was much easier in my mind before I read your

letter. Surely all the misfortunes of lovers are conveyed to them

through the eyes: upon reading your letter I feel all mine renewed. I

reproached myself for having been so long without venting my sorrows,

when the rage of our unrelenting enemies still burns with the same

fury. Since length of time, which disarms the strongest hatred, seems

but to aggravate theirs; since it is decreed that your virtue shall

be persecuted till it takes refuge in the grave--and even then,

perhaps, your ashes will not be allowed to rest in peace!--let me

always meditate on your calamities, let me publish them through all

the world, if possible, to shame an age that has not known how to

value you. I will spare no one since no one would interest himself to

protect you, and your enemies are never weary of oppressing your

innocence. Alas! my memory is perpetually filled with bitter

remembrances of passed evils; and are there more to be feared still?

Shall my Abelard never be mentioned without tears? Shall the dear

name never be spoken but with sighs? Observe, I beseech you, to what

a wretched condition you have reduced me; sad, afflicted, without any

possible comfort unless it proceed from you. Be not then unkind, nor

deny me, I beg of you, that little relief which you only can give.

Let me have a faithful account of all that concerns you; I would know

everything, be it ever so unfortunate. Perhaps by mingling my sighs

with yours I may make your sufferings less, for it is said that all

sorrows divided are made lighter.

Tell me not by way of excuse you will spare me tears; the tears of

women shut up in a melancholy place and devoted to penitence are not

to be spared. And if you wait for an opportunity to write pleasant

and agreeable things to us, you will delay writing too long.

Prosperity seldom chooses the side of the virtuous, and fortune is so

blind that in a crowd in which there is perhaps but one wise and

brave man it is not to be expected that she should single him out.

Write to me then immediately and wait not for miracles; they are too

scarce, and we too much accustomed to misfortunes to expect a happy

turn. I shall always have this, if you please, and this will always

be agreeable to me, that when I receive any letter from you I shall

know you still remember me. Seneca (with whose writings you made me

acquainted), though he was a Stoic, seemed to be so very sensible to

this kind of pleasure, that upon opening any letters from Lucilius he

imagined he felt the same delight as when they conversed together.

I have made it an observation since our absence, that we are much

fonder of the pictures of those we love when they are at a great

distance than when they are near us. It seems to me as if the farther

they are removed their pictures grow the more finished, and acquire a

greater resemblance; or at least our imagination, which perpetually

figures them to us by the desire we have of seeing them again, makes

us think so. By a peculiar power love can make that seem life itself

which, as soon as the loved object returns, is nothing but a little

canvas and flat colour. I have your picture in my room; I never pass

it without stopping to look at it; and yet when you are present with

me I scarce ever cast my eyes on it. If a picture, which is but a

mute representation of an object, can give such pleasure, what cannot

letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them

all that force which expresses the transports of the heart; they have

all the fire of our passions, they can raise them as much as if the

persons themselves were present; they have all the tenderness and the

delicacy of speech, and sometimes even a boldness of expression

beyond it.

We may write to each other; so innocent a pleasure is not denied us.

Let us not lose through negligence the only happiness which is left

us, and the only one perhaps which the malice of our enemies can

never ravish from us. I shall read that you are my husband and you

shall see me sign myself your wife. In spite of all our misfortunes

you may be what you please in your letter. Letters were first

invented for consoling such solitary wretches as myself. Having lost

the substantial pleasures of seeing and possessing you, I shall in

some measure compensate this loss by the satisfaction I shall find in

your writing. There I shall read your most sacred thoughts; I shall

carry them always about with me, I shall kiss them every moment; if

you can be capable of any jealousy let it be for the fond caresses I

shall bestow upon your letters, and envy only the happiness of those

rivals. That writing may be no trouble to you, write always to me

carelessly and without study; I had rather read the dictates of the

heart than of the brain. I cannot live if you will not tell me that

you still love me; but that language ought to be so natural to you,

that I believe you cannot speak otherwise to me without violence to

yourself. And since by this melancholy relation to your friend you

have awakened all my sorrows, 'tis but reasonable you should allay

them by some tokens of your unchanging love.

I do not however reproach you for the innocent artifice you made use

of to comfort a person in affliction by comparing his misfortune to

another far greater. Charity is ingenious in finding out such pious

plans, and to be commended for using them. But do you owe nothing

more to us than to that friend--be the friendship between you ever so

intimate? We are called your Sisters; we call ourselves your

children, and if it were possible to think of any expression which

could signify a dearer relation, or a more affectionate regard and

mutual obligation between us, we should use it. If we could be so

ungrateful as not to speak our just acknowledgments to you, this

church, these altars, these walls, would reproach our silence and

speak for us. But without leaving it to that, it will always be a

pleasure to me to say that you only are the founder of this house,

'tis wholly your work. You, by inhabiting here, have given fame and

holiness to a place known before only for robberies and murders. You

have in a literal sense made the den of thieves into a house of

prayer. These cloisters owe nothing to public charities; our walls

were not raised by the usuries of publicans, nor their foundations

laid in base extortion. The God whom we serve sees nothing but

innocent riches and harmless votaries whom you have placed here.

Whatever this young vineyard is, is owing only to you, and it is your

part to employ your whole care to cultivate and improve it; this

ought to be one of the principal affairs of your life. Though our

holy renunciation, our vows and our manner of life seem to secure us

from all temptation; though our walls and gates prohibit all

approaches, yet it is the outside only, the bark of the tree, that is

protected from injuries; the sap of the original corruption may

imperceptibly spread within, even to the heart, and prove fatal to

the most promising plantation, unless continual care be taken to

cultivate and secure it. Virtue in us is grafted upon nature and the

woman; the one is changeable, the other is weak. To plant the Lord's

vineyard is a work of no little labour; but after it is planted it

will require great application and diligence to dress it. The Apostle

of the Gentiles, great labourer as he was, says he hath planted,

Apollos hath watered, but it is God that gives the increase. Paul had

planted the Gospel amongst the Corinthians, Apollos, his zealous

disciple, continued to cultivate it by frequent exhortations; and the

grace of God, which their constant prayers implored for that church,

made the work of both be fruitful.

This ought to be an example for your conduct towards us. I know you

are not slothful, yet your labours are not directed towards us; your

cares are wasted upon a set of men whose thoughts are only earthly,

and you refuse to reach out your hand to support those who are weak

and staggering in their way to heaven, and who with all their

endeavours can scarcely prevent themselves from falling. You fling

the pearls of the Gospel before swine when you speak to those who are

filled with the good things of this world and nourished with the

fatness of the earth; and you neglect the innocent sheep, who, tender

as they are, would yet follow you over deserts and mountains. Why are

such pains thrown away upon the ungrateful, while not a thought is

bestowed upon your children, whose souls would be filled with a sense

of your goodness? But why should I entreat you in the name of your

children? Is it possible I should fear obtaining anything of you when

I ask it in my own name? And must I use any other prayers than my own

in order to prevail upon you? The St. Austins, Tertullians and

Jeromes have written to the Eudoxias, Paulas and Melanias; and can

you read those names, though of saints, and not remember mine? Can it

be criminal for you to imitate St. Jerome and discourse with me

concerning the Scriptures; or Tertullian and preach mortification; or

St. Austin and explain to me the nature of grace? Why should I alone

not reap the advantage of your learning? When you write to me you

will write to your wife; marriage has made such a correspondence

lawful, and since you can without the least scandal satisfy me, why

will you not? I am not only engaged by my vows, but I have the fear

of my Uncle before me. There is nothing, then, that you need dread;

you need not fly to conquer. You may see me, hear my sighs, and be a

witness of all my sorrows without incurring any danger, since you can

only relieve me with tears and words. If I have put myself into a

cloister with reason, persuade me to stay in it with devotion. You

have been the occasion of all my misfortunes, you therefore must be

the instrument of all my comfort.

You cannot but remember (for lovers cannot forget) with what pleasure

I have passed whole days in hearing your discourse. How when you were

absent I shut myself from everyone to write to you; how uneasy I was

till my letter had come to your hands; what artful management it

required to engage messengers. This detail perhaps surprises you, and

you are in pain for what may follow. But I am no longer ashamed that

my passion had no bounds for you, for I have done more than all this.

I have hated myself that I might love you; I came hither to ruin

myself in a perpetual imprisonment that I might make you live quietly

and at ease. Nothing but virtue, joined to a love perfectly

disengaged from the senses, could have produced such effects. Vice

never inspires anything like this, it is too much enslaved to the

body. When we love pleasures we love the living and not the dead. We

leave off burning with desire for those who can no longer burn for

us. This was my cruel Uncle's notion; he measured my virtue by the

frailty of my sex, and thought it was the man and not the person I

loved. But he has been guilty to no purpose. I love you more than

ever; and so revenge myself on him. I will still love you with all

the tenderness of my soul till the last moment of my life. If,

formerly, my affection for you was not so pure, if in those days both

mind and body loved you, I often told you even then that I was more

pleased with possessing your heart than with any other happiness, and

the man was the thing I least valued in you.

You cannot but be entirely persuaded of this by the extreme

unwillingness I showed to marry you, though I knew that the name of

wife was honourable in the world and holy in religion; yet the name

of your mistress had greater charms because it was more free. The

bonds of matrimony, however honourable, still bear with them a

necessary engagement, and I was very unwilling to be necessitated to

love always a man who would perhaps not always love me. I despised

the name of wife that I might live happy with that of mistress; and I

find by your letter to your friend you have not forgot that delicacy

of passion which loved you always with the utmost tenderness--and yet

wished to love you more! You have very justly observed in your letter

that I esteemed those public engagements insipid which form alliances

only to be dissolved by death, and which put life and love under the

same unhappy necessity. But you have not added how often I have

protested that it was infinitely preferable to me to live with

Abelard as his mistress than with any other as Empress of the World.

I was more happy in obeying you than I should have been as lawful

spouse of the King of the Earth. Riches and pomp are not the charm of

love. True tenderness makes us separate the lover from all that is

external to him, and setting aside his position, fortune or

employments, consider him merely as himself.

It is not love, but the desire of riches and position which makes a

woman run into the embraces of an indolent husband. Ambition, and not

affection, forms such marriages. I believe indeed they may be

followed with some honours and advantages, but I can never think that

this is the way to experience the pleasures of affectionate union,

nor to feel those subtle and charming joys when hearts long parted

are at last united. These martyrs of marriage pine always for larger

fortunes which they think they have missed. The wife sees husbands

richer than her own, and the husband wives better portioned than his.

Their mercenary vows occasion regret, and regret produces hatred.

Soon they part--or else desire to. This restless and tormenting

passion for gold punishes them for aiming at other advantages by love

than love itself.

If there is anything that may properly be called happiness here

below, I am persuaded it is the union of two persons who love each

other with perfect liberty, who are united by a secret inclination,

and satisfied with each other's merits. Their hearts are full and

leave no vacancy for any other passion; they enjoy perpetual

tranquillity because they enjoy content.

If I could believe you as truly persuaded of my merit as I am of

yours, I might say there has been a time when we were such a pair.

Alas! how was it possible I should not be certain of your mind? If I

could ever have doubted it, the universal esteem would have made me

decide in your favour. What country, what city, has not desired your

presence? Could you ever retire but you drew the eyes and hearts of

all after you? Did not everyone rejoice in having seen you? Even

women, breaking through the laws of decorum which custom had imposed

upon them, showed they felt more for you than mere esteem. I have

known some who have been profuse in their husbands' praises who have

yet envied me my happiness. But what could resist you? Your

reputation, which so much attracts the vanity of our sex, your air,

your manner, that light in your eyes which expresses the vivacity of

your mind, your conversation so easy and elegant that it gave

everything you said an agreeable turn; in short, everything spoke for

you! Very different from those mere scholars who with all their

learning have not the capacity to keep up an ordinary conversation,

and who with all their wit cannot win a woman who has much less share

of brains than themselves.

With what ease did you compose verses! And yet those ingenious

trifles, which were but a recreation to you, are still the

entertainment and delight of persons of the best taste. The smallest

song, the least sketch of anything you made for me, had a thousand

beauties capable of making it last as long as there are lovers in the

world. Thus those songs will be sung in honour of other women which

you designed only for me, and those tender and natural expressions

which spoke your love will help others to explain their passion with

much more advantage than they themselves are capable of.

What rivalries did your gallantries of this kind occasion me! How

many ladies lay claim to them? 'Twas a tribute their self-love paid

to their beauty. How many have I seen with sighs declare their

passion for you when, after some common visit you had made them, they

chanced to be complimented for the Sylvia of your poems. Others in

despair and envy have reproached me that I had no charms but what

your wit bestowed on me, nor in anything the advantage over them but

in being beloved by you. Can you believe me if I tell you, that

notwithstanding my sex, I thought myself peculiarly happy in having a

lover to whom I was obliged for my charms; and took a secret pleasure

in being admired by a man who, when he pleased, could raise his

mistress to the character of a goddess. Pleased with your glory only,

I read with delight all those praises you offered me, and without

reflecting how little I deserved, I believed myself such as you

described, that I might be more certain that I pleased you.

But oh! where is that happy time? I now lament my lover, and of all

my joys have nothing but the painful memory that they are past. Now

learn, all you my rivals who once viewed my happiness with jealous

eyes, that he you once envied me can never more be mine. I loved him;

my love was his crime and the cause of his punishment. My beauty once

charmed him; pleased with each other we passed our brightest days in

tranquillity and happiness. If that were a crime, 'tis a crime I am

yet fond of, and I have no other regret save that against my will I

must now be innocent. But what do I say? My misfortune was to have

cruel relatives whose malice destroyed the calm we enjoyed; had they

been reasonable I had now been happy in the enjoyment of my dear

husband. Oh! how cruel were they when their blind fury urged a

villain to surprise you in your sleep! Where was I--where was your

Heloise then? What joy should I have had in defending my lover; I

would have guarded you from violence at the expense of my life. Oh!

whither does this excess of passion hurry me? Here love is shocked

and modesty deprives me of words.

But tell me whence proceeds your neglect of me since my being

professed? You know nothing moved me to it but your disgrace, nor did

I give my consent, but yours. Let me hear what is the occasion of

your coldness, or give me leave to tell you now my opinion. Was it

not the sole thought of pleasure which engaged you to me? And has not

my tenderness, by leaving you nothing to wish for, extinguished your

desires? Wretched Heloise! you could please when you wished to avoid

it; you merited incense when you could remove to a distance the hand

that offered it: but since your heart has been softened and has

yielded, since you have devoted and sacrificed yourself, you are

deserted and forgotten! I am convinced by a sad experience that it is

natural to avoid those to whom we have been too much obliged, and

that uncommon generosity causes neglect rather than gratitude. My

heart surrendered too soon to gain the esteem of the conqueror; you

took it without difficulty and throw it aside with ease. But

ungrateful as you are I am no consenting party to this, and though I

ought not to retain a wish of my own, yet I still preserve secretly

the desire to be loved by you. When I pronounced my sad vow I then

had about me your last letters in which you protested your whole

being wholly mine, and would never live but to love me. It is to you

therefore I have offered myself; you had my heart and I had yours; do

not demand anything back. You must bear with my passion as a thing

which of right belongs to you, and from which you can be no ways

disengaged.

Alas! what folly it is to talk in this way! I see nothing here but

marks of the Deity, and I speak of nothing but man! You have been the

cruel occasion of this by your conduct, Unfaithful One! Ought you at

once to break off loving me! Why did you not deceive me for a while

rather than immediately abandon me? If you had given me at least some

faint signs of a dying passion I would have favoured the deception.

But in vain do I flatter myself that you could be constant; you have

left no vestige of an excuse for you. I am earnestly desirous to see

you, but if that be impossible I will content myself with a few lines

from your hand. Is it so hard for one who loves to write? I ask for

none of your letters filled with learning and writ for your

reputation; all I desire is such letters as the heart dictates, and

which the hand cannot transcribe fast enough. How did I deceive

myself with hopes that you would be wholly mine when I took the veil,

and engage myself to live for ever under your laws? For in being

professed I vowed no more than to be yours only, and I forced myself

voluntarily to a confinement which you desired for me. Death only

then can make me leave the cloister where you have placed me; and

then my ashes shall rest here and wait for yours in order to show to

the very last my obedience and devotion to you.

Why should I conceal from you the secret of my call? You know it was

neither zeal nor devotion that brought me here. Your conscience is

too faithful a witness to permit you to disown it. Yet here I am, and

here I will remain; to this place an unfortunate love and a cruel

relation have condemned me. But if you do not continue your concern

for me, if I lose your affection, what have I gained by my

imprisonment? What recompense can I hope for? The unhappy

consequences of our love and your disgrace have made me put on the

habit of chastity, but I am not penitent of the past. Thus I strive

and labour in vain. Among those who are wedded to God I am wedded to

a man; among the heroic supporters of the Cross I am the slave of a

human desire; at the head of a religious community I am devoted to

Abelard alone. What a monster am I! Enlighten me, O Lord, for I know

not if my despair or Thy grace draws these words from me! I am, I

confess, a sinner, but one who, far from weeping for her sins, weeps

only for her lover; far from abhorring her crimes, longs only to add

to them; and who, with a weakness unbecoming my state, please myself

continually with the remembrance of past delights when it is

impossible to renew them.

Good God! What is all this? I reproach myself for my own faults, I

accuse you for yours, and to what purpose? Veiled as I am, behold in

what a disorder you have plunged me! How difficult it is to fight for

duty against inclination. I know what obligations this veil lays upon

me, but I feel more strongly what power an old passion has over my

heart. I am conquered by my feelings; love troubles my mind and

disorders my will. Sometimes I am swayed by the sentiment of piety

which arises within me, and then the next moment I yield up my

imagination to all that is amorous and tender. I tell you to-day what

I would not have said to you yesterday. I had resolved to love you no

more; I considered I had made a vow, taken a veil, and am as it were

dead and buried, yet there rises unexpectedly from the bottom of my

heart a passion which triumphs over all these thoughts, and darkens

alike my reason and my religion. You reign in such inward retreats of

my soul that I know not where to attack you; when I endeavour to

break those chains by which I am bound to you I only deceive myself,

and all my efforts but serve to bind them faster. Oh, for pity's sake

help a wretch to renounce her desires--her self--and if possible even

to renounce you! If you are a lover--a father, help a mistress,

comfort a child! These tender names must surely move you; yield

either to pity or to love. If you gratify my request I shall continue

a religious, and without longer profaning my calling. I am ready to

humble myself with you to the wonderful goodness of God, Who does all

things for our sanctification, Who by His grace purifies all that is

vicious and corrupt, and by the great riches of His mercy draws us

against our wishes, and by degrees opens our eyes to behold His

bounty which at first we could not perceive.

I thought to end my letter here, but now I am complaining against you

I must unload my heart and tell you all its jealousies and

reproaches. Indeed I thought it somewhat hard that when we had both

engaged to consecrate ourselves to Heaven you should insist upon my

doing it first. ‘Does Abelard then,’ said I, ‘suspect that, like

Lot's wife, I shall look back?’ If my youth and sex might give

occasion of fear that I should return to the world, could not my

behaviour, my fidelity, and this heart which you ought to know,

banish such ungenerous apprehensions? This distrust hurt me; I said

to myself, ‘There was a time when he could rely upon my bare word,

and does he now want vows to secure himself to me? What occasion have

I given him in the whole course of my life to admit the least

suspicion? I could meet him at all his assignations, and would I

decline to follow him to the Seats of Holiness? I, who have not

refused to be the victim of pleasure in order to gratify him, can he

think I would refuse to be a sacrifice of honour when he desired it?’

Has vice such charms to refined natures, that when once we have drunk

of the cup of sinners it is with such difficulty we accept the

chalice of saints? Or did you believe yourself to be more competent

to teach vice than virtue, or me more ready to learn the first than

the latter? No; this suspicion would be injurious to us both: Virtue

is too beautiful not to be embraced when you reveal her charms, and

Vice too hideous not to be abhorred when you display her deformities.

Nay, when you please, anything seems lovely to me, and nothing is

ugly when you are by. I am only weak when I am alone and unsupported

by you, and therefore it depends on you alone to make me such as you

desire. I wish to Heaven you had not such a power over me! If you had

any occasion to fear you would be less negligent. But what is there

for you to fear? I have done too much, and now have nothing more to

do but to triumph over your ingratitude. When we lived happily

together you might have doubted whether pleasure or affection united

me more to you, but the place from whence I write to you must surely

have dissolved all doubt. Even here I love you as much as ever I did

in the world. If I had loved pleasures could I not have found means

to gratify myself? I was not more than twenty-two years old, and

there were other men left though I was deprived of Abelard. And yet I

buried myself alive in a nunnery, and triumphed over life at an age

capable of enjoying it to its full latitude. It is to you I sacrifice

these remains of a transitory beauty, these widowed nights and

tedious days; and since you cannot possess them I take them from you

to offer them to Heaven, and so make, alas! but a secondary oblation

of my heart, my days, my life!

I am sensible I have dwelt too long on this subject; I ought to speak

less to you of your misfortunes and of my sufferings. We tarnish the

lustre of our most beautiful actions when we applaud them ourselves.

This is true, and yet there is a time when we may with decency

commend ourselves; when we have to do with those whom base

ingratitude has stupefied we cannot too much praise our own actions.

Now if you were this sort of creature this would be a home reflection

on you. Irresolute as I am I still love you, and yet I must hope for

nothing. I have renounced life, and stript myself of everything, but

I find I neither have nor can renounce my Abelard. Though I have lost

my lover I still preserve my love. O vows! O convent! I have not lost

my humanity under your inexorable discipline! You have not turned me

to marble by changing my habit; my heart is not hardened by my

imprisonment; I am still sensible to what has touched me, though,

alas! I ought not to be! Without offending your commands permit a

lover to exhort me to live in obedience to your rigorous rules. Your

yoke will be lighter if that hand support me under it; your exercises

will be pleasant if he show me their advantage. Retirement and

solitude will no longer seem terrible if I may know that I still have

a place in his memory. A heart which has loved as mine cannot soon be

indifferent. We fluctuate long between love and hatred before we can

arrive at tranquillity, and we always flatter ourselves with some

forlorn hope that we shall not be utterly forgotten.

Yes, Abelard, I conjure you by the chains I bear here to ease the

weight of them, and make them as agreeable as I would they were to

me. Teach me the maxims of Divine Love; since you have forsaken me I

would glory in being wedded to Heaven. My heart adores that title and

disdains any other; tell me how this Divine Love is nourished, how it

works, how it purifies. When we were tossed on the ocean of the world

we could hear of nothing but your verses, which published everywhere

our joys and pleasures. Now we are in the haven of grace is it not

fit you should discourse to me of this new happiness, and teach me

everything that might heighten or improve it? Show me the same

complaisance in my present condition as you did when we were in the

world. Without changing the ardour of our affections let us change

their objects; let us leave our songs and sing hymns; let us lift up

our hearts to God and have no transports but for His glory!

I expect this from you as a thing you cannot refuse me. God has a

peculiar right over the hearts of great men He has created. When He

pleases to touch them He ravishes them, and lets them not speak nor

breathe but for His glory. Till that moment of grace arrives, O think

of me--do not forget me--remember my love and fidelity and constancy:

love me as your mistress, cherish me as your child, your sister, your

wife! Remember I still love you, and yet strive to avoid loving you.

What a terrible saying is this! I shake with horror, and my heart

revolts against what I say. I shall blot all my paper with tears. I

end my long letter wishing you, if you desire it (would to Heaven I

could!), for ever adieu!