_Abelard to Heloise_
Could I have imagined that a letter not written to yourself would
fall into your hands, I had been more cautious not to have inserted
anything in it which might awaken the memory of our past misfortunes.
I described with boldness the series of my disgraces to a friend, in
order to make him less sensible to a loss he had sustained. If by
this well-meaning device I have disturbed you, I purpose now to dry
up those tears which the sad description occasioned you to shed; I
intend to mix my grief with yours, and pour out my heart before you:
in short, to lay open before your eyes all my trouble, and the secret
of my soul, which my vanity has hitherto made me conceal from the
rest of the world, and which you now force from me, in spite of my
resolutions to the contrary.
It is true, that in a sense of the afflictions which have befallen
us, and observing that no change of our condition could be expected;
that those prosperous days which had seduced us were now past, and
there remained nothing but to erase from our minds, by painful
endeavours, all marks and remembrances of them. I had wished to find
in philosophy and religion a remedy for my disgrace; I searched out
an asylum to secure me from love. I was come to the sad experiment of
making vows to harden my heart. But what have I gained by this? If my
passion has been put under a restraint my thoughts yet run free. I
promise myself that I will forget you, and yet cannot think of it
without loving you. My love is not at all lessened by those
reflections I make in order to free myself. The silence I am
surrounded by makes me more sensible to its impressions, and while I
am unemployed with any other things, this makes itself the business
of my whole vacation. Till after a multitude of useless endeavours I
begin to persuade myself that it is a superfluous trouble to strive
to free myself; and that it is sufficient wisdom to conceal from all
but you how confused and weak I am.
I remove to a distance from your person with an intention of avoiding
you as an enemy; and yet I incessantly seek for you in my mind; I
recall your image in my memory, and in different disquietudes I
betray and contradict myself. I hate you! I love you! Shame presses
me on all sides. I am at this moment afraid I should seem more
indifferent than you fare, and yet I am ashamed to discover my
trouble. How weak are we in ourselves if we do not support ourselves
on the Cross of Christ. Shall we have so little courage, and shall
that uncertainty of serving two masters which afflicts your heart
affect mine too? You see the confusion I am in, how I blame myself
and how I suffer. Religion commands me to pursue virtue since I have
nothing to hope for from love. But love still preserves its dominion
over my fancies and entertains itself with past pleasures. Memory
supplies the place of a mistress. Piety and duty are not always the
fruits of retirement; even in deserts, when the dew of heaven falls
not on us, we love what we ought no longer to love. The passions,
stirred up by solitude, fill these regions of death and silence; it
is very seldom that what ought to be is truly followed here and that
God only is loved and served. Had I known this before I had
instructed you better. You call me your master; it is true you were
entrusted to my care. I saw you, I was earnest to teach you vain
sciences; it cost you your innocence and me my liberty. Your Uncle,
who was fond of you, became my enemy and revenged himself on me. If
now having lost the power of satisfying my passion I had also lost
that of loving you, I should have some consolation. My enemies would
have given me that tranquillity which Origen purchased with a crime.
How miserable am I! I find myself much more guilty in my thoughts of
you, even amidst my tears, than in possessing you when I was in full
liberty. I continually think of you; I continually call to mind your
tenderness. In this condition, O Lord! if I run to prostrate myself
before your altar, if I beseech you to pity me, why does not the pure
flame of the Spirit consume the sacrifice that is offered? Cannot
this habit of penitence which I wear interest Heaven to treat me more
favourably? But Heaven is still inexorable because my passion still
lives in me; the fire is only covered over with deceitful ashes, and
cannot be extinguished but by extraordinary grace. We deceive men,
but nothing is hid from God.
You tell me that it is for me you live under that veil which covers
you; why do you profane your vocation with such words? Why provoke a
jealous God with a blasphemy? I hoped after our separation you would
have changed your sentiments; I hoped too that God would have
delivered me from the tumult of my senses. We commonly die to the
affections of those we see no more, and they to ours; absence is the
tomb of love. But to me absence is an unquiet remembrance of what I
once loved which continually torments me. I flattered myself that
when I should see you no more you would rest in my memory without
troubling my mind; that Brittany and the sea would suggest other
thoughts; that my fasts and studies would by degrees delete you from
my heart. But in spite of severe fasts and redoubled studies, in
spite of the distance of three hundred miles which separates us, your
image, as you describe yourself in your veil, appears to me and
confounds all my resolutions.
What means have I not used! I have armed my hands against myself; I
have exhausted my strength in constant exercises; I comment upon St.
Paul; I contend with Aristotle: in short, I do all I used to do
before I loved you, but all in vain; nothing can be successful that
opposes you. Oh! do not add to my miseries by your constancy; forget,
if you can, your favours and that right which they claim over me;
allow me to be indifferent. I envy their happiness who have never
loved; how quiet and easy are they! But the tide of pleasure has
always a reflux of bitterness; I am but too much convinced now of
this: but though I am no longer deceived by love, I am not cured.
While my reason condemns it my heart declares for it. I am deplorable
that I have not the ability to free myself from a passion which so
many circumstances, this place, my person and my disgraces tend to
destroy. I yield without considering that a resistance would wipe out
my past offences, and procure me in their stead both merit and
repose. Why use your eloquence to reproach me for my flight and for
my silence? Spare the recital of our assignations and your constant
exactness to them; without calling up such disturbing thoughts I have
enough to suffer. What great advantages would philosophy give us over
other men, if by studying it we could learn to govern our passions?
What efforts, what relapses, what agitations do we undergo! And how
long are we lost in this confusion, unable to exert our reason, to
possess our souls, or to rule our affections?
What a troublesome employment is love! And how valuable is virtue
even upon consideration of our own ease! Recollect your
extravagancies of passion, guess at my distractions; number up our
cares, our griefs; throw these things out of the account and let love
have all the remaining tenderness and pleasure. How little is that!
And yet for such shadows of enjoyments which at first appeared to us
are we so weak our whole lives that we cannot now help writing to
each other, covered as we are with sackcloth and ashes. How much
happier should we be if by our humiliation and tears we could make
our repentance sure. The love of pleasure is not eradicated out of
the soul save by extraordinary efforts; it has so powerful an
advocate in our breasts that we find it difficult to condemn it
ourselves. What abhorrence can I be said to have of my sins if the
objects of them are always amiable to me? How can I separate from the
person I love the passion I should detest? Will the tears I shed be
sufficient to render it odious to me? I know not how it happens,
there is always a pleasure in weeping for a beloved object. It is
difficult in our sorrow to distinguish penitence from love. The
memory of the crime and the memory of the object which has charmed us
are too nearly related to be immediately separated. And the love of
God in its beginning does not wholly annihilate the love of the
creature.
But what excuses could I not find in you if the crime were excusable?
Unprofitable honour, troublesome riches, could never tempt me: but
those charms, that beauty, that air, which I yet behold at this
instant, have occasioned my fall. Your looks were the beginning of my
guilt; your eyes, your discourse, pierced my heart; and in spite of
that ambition and glory which tried to make a defence, love was soon
the master. God, in order to punish me, forsook me. You are no longer
of the world; you have renounced it: I am a religious devoted to
solitude; shall we not take advantage of our condition? Would you
destroy my piety in its infant state? Would you have me forsake the
abbey into which I am but newly entered? Must I renounce my vows? I
have made them in the presence of God; whither shall I fly from His
wrath should I violate them? Suffer me to seek ease in my duty:
though difficult it is to procure it. I pass whole days and nights
alone in this cloister without closing my eyes. My love burns fiercer
amidst the happy indifference of those who surround me, and my heart
is alike pierced with your sorrows and my own. Oh, what a loss have I
sustained when I consider your constancy! What pleasures have I
missed enjoying! I ought not to confess this weakness to you; I am
sensible I commit a fault. If I could show more firmness of mind I
might provoke your resentment against me and your anger might work
that effect in you which your virtue could not. If in the world I
published my weakness in love-songs and verses, ought not the dark
cells of this house at least to conceal that same weakness under an
appearance of piety? Alas! I am still the same! Or if I avoid the
evil, I cannot do the good. Duty, reason and decency, which upon
other occasions have some power over me, are here useless. The Gospel
is a language I do not understand when it opposes my passion. Those
vows I have taken before the altar are feeble when opposed to
thoughts of you. Amidst so many voices which bid me do my duty, I
hear and obey nothing but the secret cry of a desperate passion. Void
of all relish for virtue, without concern for my condition or any
application to my studies, I am continually present by my imagination
where I ought not to be, and I find I have no power to correct
myself. I feel a perpetual strife between inclination and duty. I
find myself a distracted lover, unquiet in the midst of silence, and
restless in the midst of peace. How shameful is such a condition!
Regard me no more, I entreat you, as a founder or any great
personage; your praises ill agree with my many weaknesses. I am a
miserable sinner, prostrate before my Judge, and with my face pressed
to the earth I mix my tears with the earth. Can you see me in this
posture and solicit me to love you? Come, if you think fit, and in
your holy habit thrust yourself between my God and me, and be a wall
of separation. Come and force from me those sighs and thoughts and
vows I owe to Him alone. Assist the evil spirits and be the
instrument of their malice. What cannot you induce a heart to do
whose weakness you so perfectly know? Nay, withdraw yourself and
contribute to my salvation. Suffer me to avoid destruction, I entreat
you by our former tender affection and by our now common misfortune.
It will always be the highest love to show none; I here release you
from all your oaths and engagements. Be God's wholly, to whom you are
appropriated; I will never oppose so pious a design. How happy shall
I be if I thus lose you! Then shall I indeed be a religious and you a
perfect example of an abbess.
Make yourself amends by so glorious a choice; make your virtue a
spectacle worthy of men and angels. Be humble among your children,
assiduous in your choir, exact in your discipline, diligent in your
reading; make even your recreations useful. Have you purchased your
vocation at so light a rate that you should not turn it to the best
advantage? Since you have permitted yourself to be abused by false
doctrine and criminal instruction, resist not those good counsels
which grace and religion inspire me with. I will confess to you I
have thought myself hitherto an abler master to instil vice than to
teach virtue. My false eloquence has only set off false good. My
heart, drunk with voluptuousness, could only suggest terms proper and
moving to recommend that. The cup of sinners overflows with so
enchanting a sweetness, and we are naturally so much inclined to
taste it, that it needs only to be offered to us. On the other hand
the chalice of saints is filled with a bitter draught and nature
starts from it. And yet you reproach me with cowardice for giving it
to you first. I willingly submit to these accusations. I cannot
enough admire the readiness you showed to accept the religious habit;
bear therefore with courage the Cross you so resolutely took up.
Drink of the chalice of saints, even to the bottom, without turning
your eyes with uncertainty upon me; let me remove far from you and
obey the Apostle who hath said ‘Fly!’.
You entreat me to return under a pretence of devotion. Your
earnestness in this point creates a suspicion in me and makes me
doubtful how to answer you. Should I commit an error here my words
would blush, if I may say so, after the history of our misfortunes.
The Church is jealous of its honour, and commands that her children
should be induced to the practice of virtue by virtuous means. When
we approach God in a blameless manner then we may with boldness
invite others to Him. But to forget Heloise, to see her no more, is
what Heaven demands of Abelard; and to expect nothing from Abelard,
to forget him even as an idea, is what Heaven enjoins on Heloise. To
forget, in the case of love, is the most necessary penance, and the
most difficult. It is easy to recount our faults; how many, through
indiscretion, have made themselves a second pleasure of this instead
of confessing them with humility. The only way to return to God is by
neglecting the creature we have adored, and adoring the God whom we
have neglected. This may appear harsh, but it must be done if we
would be saved.
To make it more easy consider why I pressed you to your vow before I
took mine; and pardon my sincerity and the design I have of meriting
your neglect and hatred if I conceal nothing from you. When I saw
myself oppressed by my misfortune I was furiously jealous, and
regarded all men as my rivals. Love has more of distrust than
assurance. I was apprehensive of many things because of my many
defects, and being tormented with fear because of my own example I
imagined your heart so accustomed to love that it could not be long
without entering on a new engagement. Jealousy can easily believe the
most terrible things. I was desirous to make it impossible for me to
doubt you. I was very urgent to persuade you that propriety demanded
your withdrawal from the eyes of the world; that modesty and our
friendship required it; and that your own safety obliged it. After
such a revenge taken on me you could expect to be secure nowhere but
in a convent.
I will do you justice, you were very easily persuaded. My jealousy
secretly rejoiced in your innocent compliance; and yet, triumphant as
I was, I yielded you up to God with an unwilling heart. I still kept
my gift as much as was possible, and only parted with it in order to
keep it out of the power of other men. I did not persuade you to
religion out of any regard to your happiness, but condemned you to it
like an enemy who destroys what he cannot carry off. And yet you
heard my discourses with kindness, you sometimes interrupted me with
tears, and pressed me to acquaint you with those convents I held in
the highest esteem. What a comfort I felt in seeing you shut up. I
was now at ease and took a satisfaction in considering that you
continued no longer in the world after my disgrace, and that you
would return to it no more.
But still I was doubtful. I imagined women were incapable of
steadfast resolutions unless they were forced by the necessity of
vows. I wanted those vows, and Heaven itself for your security, that
I might no longer distrust you. Ye holy mansions and impenetrable
retreats! from what innumerable apprehensions have ye freed me?
Religion and piety keep a strict guard round your grates and walls.
What a haven of rest this is to a jealous mind! And with what
impatience did I endeavour after it! I went every day trembling to
exhort you to this sacrifice; I admired, without daring to mention it
then, a brightness in your beauty which I had never observed before.
Whether it was the bloom of a rising virtue, or an anticipation of
the great loss I was to suffer, I was not curious in examining the
cause, but only hastened your being professed. I engaged your
prioress in my guilt by a criminal bribe with which I purchased the
right of burying you. The professed of the house were alike bribed
and concealed from you, at my directions, all their scruples and
disgusts. I omitted nothing, either little or great; and if you had
escaped my snares I myself would not have retired; I was resolved to
follow you everywhere. The shadow of myself would always have pursued
your steps and continually have occasioned either your confusion or
your fear, which would have been a sensible gratification to me.
But, thanks to Heaven, you resolved to take the vows. I accompanied
you to the foot of the altar, and while you stretched out your hand
to touch the sacred cloth I heard you distinctly pronounce those
fatal words that for ever separated you from man. Till then I thought
your youth and beauty would foil my design and force your return to
the world. Might not a small temptation have changed you? Is it
possible to renounce oneself entirely at the age of two-and-twenty?
At an age which claims the utmost liberty could you think the world
no longer worth your regard? How much did I wrong you, and what
weakness did I impute to you? You were in my imagination both light
and inconstant. Would not a woman at the noise of the flames and the
fall of Sodom involuntarily look back in pity on some person? I
watched your eyes, your every movement, your air; I trembled at
everything. You may call such self-interested conduct treachery,
perfidy, murder. A love so like to hatred should provoke the utmost
contempt and anger.
It is fit you should know that the very moment when I was convinced
of your being entirely devoted to me, when I saw you were infinitely
worthy of all my love, I imagined I could love you no more. I thought
it time to leave off giving you marks of my affection, and I
considered that by your Holy Espousals you were now the peculiar care
of Heaven, and no longer a charge on me as my wife. My jealousy
seemed to be extinguished. When God only is our rival we have nothing
to fear; and being in greater tranquillity than ever before I even
dared to pray to Him to take you away from my eyes. But it was not a
time to make rash prayers, and my faith did not warrant them being
heard. Necessity and despair were at the root of my proceedings, and
thus I offered an insult to Heaven rather than a sacrifice. God
rejected my offering and my prayer, and continued my punishment by
suffering me to continue my love. Thus I bear alike the guilt of your
vows and of the passion that preceded them, and must be tormented all
the days of my life.
If God spoke to your heart as to that of a religious whose innocence
had first asked him for favours, I should have matter of comfort; but
to see both of us the victims of a guilty love, to see this love
insult us in our very habits and spoil our devotions, fills me with
horror and trembling. Is this a state of reprobation? Or are these
the consequences of a long drunkenness in profane love? We cannot say
love is a poison and a drunkenness till we are illuminated by Grace;
in the meantime it is an evil we doat on. When we are under such a
mistake, the knowledge of our misery is the first step towards
amendment. Who does not know that 'tis for the glory of God to find
no other reason in man for His mercy than man's very weakness? When
He has shown us this weakness and we have bewailed it, He is ready to
put forth His Omnipotence and assist us. Let us say for our comfort
that what we suffer is one of those terrible temptations which have
sometimes disturbed the vocations of the most holy.
God can grant His presence to men in order to soften their calamities
whenever He shall think fit. It was His pleasure when you took the
veil to draw you to Him by His grace. I saw your eyes, when you spoke
your last farewell, fixed upon the Cross. It was more than six months
before you wrote me a letter, nor during all that time did I receive
a message from you. I admired this silence, which I durst not blame,
but could not imitate. I wrote to you, and you returned me no answer:
your heart was then shut, but this garden of the spouse is now
opened; He is withdrawn from it and has left you alone. By removing
from you He has made trial of you; call Him back and strive to regain
Him. We must have the assistance of God, that we may break our
chains; we are too deeply in love to free ourselves. Our follies have
penetrated into the sacred places; our amours have been a scandal to
the whole kingdom. They are read and admired; love which produced
them has caused them to be described. We shall be a consolation to
the failings of youth for ever; those who offend after us will think
themselves less guilty. We are criminals whose repentance is late;
oh, let it be sincere! Let us repair as far as is possible the evils
we have done, and let France, which has been the witness of our
crimes, be amazed at our repentance. Let us confound all who would
imitate our guilt; let us take the side of God against ourselves, and
by so doing prevent His judgment. Our former lapses require tears,
shame and sorrow to expiate them. Let us offer up these sacrifices
from our hearts, let us blush and let us weep. If in these feeble
beginnings, O Lord, our hearts are not entirely Thine, let them at
least feel that they ought to be so.
Deliver yourself, Heloise, from the shameful remains of a passion
which has taken too deep root. Remember that the least thought for
any other than God is an adultery. If you could see me here with my
meagre face and melancholy air, surrounded with numbers of
persecuting monks, who are alarmed at my reputation for learning and
offended at my lean visage, as if I threatened them with a
reformation, what would you say of my base sighs and of those
unprofitable tears which deceive these credulous men? Alas! I am
humbled under love, and not under the Cross. Pity me and free
yourself. If your vocation be, as you say, my work, deprive me not of
the merit of it by your continual inquietudes. Tell me you will be
true to the habit which covers you by an inward retirement. Fear God,
that you may be delivered from your frailties; love Him that you may
advance in virtue. Be not restless in the cloister for it is the
peace of saints. Embrace your bands, they are the chains of Christ
Jesus; He will lighten them and bear them with you, if you will but
accept them with humility.
Without growing severe to a passion that still possesses you, learn
from your own misery to succour your weak sisters; pity them upon
consideration of your own faults. And if any thoughts too natural
should importune you, fly to the foot of the Cross and there beg for
mercy--there are wounds open for healing; lament them before the
dying Deity. At the head of a religious society be not a slave, and
having rule over queens, begin to govern yourself. Blush at the least
revolt of your senses. Remember that even at the foot of the altar we
often sacrifice to lying spirits, and that no incense can be more
agreeable to them than the earthly passion that still burns in the
heart of a religious. If during your abode in the world your soul has
acquired a habit of loving, feel it now no more save for Jesus
Christ. Repent of all the moments of your life which you have wasted
in the world and on pleasure; demand them of me, 'tis a robbery of
which I am guilty; take courage and boldly reproach me with it.
I have been indeed your master, but it was only to teach sin. You
call me your father; before I had any claim to the title, I deserved
that of parricide. I am your brother, but it is the affinity of sin
that brings me that distinction. I am called your husband, but it is
after a public scandal. If you have abused the sanctity of so many
holy terms in the superscription of your letter to do me honour and
flatter your own passion, blot them out and replace them with those
of murderer, villain and enemy, who has conspired against your
honour, troubled your quiet, and betrayed your innocence. You would
have perished through my means but for an extraordinary act of grace
which, that you might be saved, has thrown me down in the middle of
my course.
This is the thought you ought to have of a fugitive who desires to
deprive you of the hope of ever seeing him again. But when love has
once been sincere how difficult it is to determine to love no more!
'Tis a thousand times more easy to renounce the world than love. I
hate this deceitful, faithless world; I think no more of it; but my
wandering heart still eternally seeks you, and is filled with anguish
at having lost you, in spite of all the powers of my reason. In the
meantime, though I should be so cowardly as to retract what you have
read, do not suffer me to offer myself to your thoughts save in this
last fashion. Remember my last worldly endeavours were to seduce your
heart; you perished by my means and I with you: the same waves
swallowed us up. We waited for death with indifference, and the same
death had carried us headlong to the same punishments. But Providence
warded off the blow, and our shipwreck has thrown us into a haven.
There are some whom God saves by suffering. Let my salvation be the
fruit of your prayers; let me owe it to your tears and your exemplary
holiness. Though my heart, Lord, be filled with the love of Thy
creature, Thy hand can, when it pleases, empty me of all love save
for Thee. To love Heloise truly is to leave her to that quiet which
retirement and virtue afford. I have resolved it: this letter shall
be my last fault. Adieu. If I die here I will give orders that my
body be carried to the House of the Paraclete. You shall see me in
that condition, not to demand tears from you, for it will be too
late; weep rather for me now and extinguish the fire which burns me.
You shall see me in order that your piety may be strengthened by
horror of this carcase, and my death be eloquent to tell you what you
brave when you love a man. I hope you will be willing, when you have
finished this mortal life, to be buried near me. Your cold ashes need
then fear nothing, and my tomb shall be the more rich and renowned.