you, I must unload my heart, and tell you all its jealousies, and
reproaches. Indeed I thought it something hard, that when we had both
engaged to consecrate ourselves to Heaven, you should insist upon
doing it first. Does _Abelard_ then, said I, suspect he shall
see renewed in me the example of Lot's wife, who could not forbear
looking back when she left Sodom? 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, could
not banish such ungenerous apprehensions? This distrustful foresight
touched me sensibly. 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
of 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 following him to the feats of
holiness? I who have not refused to be a victim of pleasure to
gratify him, can he think I would refuse to be a sacrifice of honour
to obey him? Has Vice such charms to well-born souls? and, when we
have once drank of the cup of sinners, is it with such difficulty
that we take the chalice of saints? Or did you believe yourself a
greater master to teach vice than virtue, or did you think it was
more easy to persuade me to the first than the latter? No, this
suspicion would be injurious to both. Virtue is too amiable not to be
embraced, when you reveal her charms; and Vice too hideous not to be
avoided, when you show her deformities. Nay, when you please, any
thing seems lovely to me, and nothing is frightful or difficult when
you are by. I am only weak when I am alone and unsupported by you,
and therefore it depends on you alone that I may be such as you
desire. I wish to Heav'n 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 happy
together, you might have made it doubt whether pleasure or affection
united me more to you; but the place from whence I write to you must
now have entirely taken away that doubt. Even here I love you as much
as ever I did in the world. If I had loved pleasures, could I not yet
have found means to have gratified myself? I was not above twenty-two
years old; and there were other men left though I was deprived of
_Abelard_ and yet did I not bury myself alive in a nunnery, and
triumph over love, at an age capable of enjoying it in its full
latitude? 'Tis to you I sacrifice these remains of a transitory
beauty, these widowed nights and tedious days which I pass without
seeing you; and since you cannot possess them, I take them from you
to offer them to Heaven, and to make, alas! but a secondary oblation
of my heart, my days, and my life!
I am sensible I have dwelt too long on this head; I ought to speak
less to you of your misfortunes, and of my own sufferings, for love
of you. 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 good actions. Now, if you were of this sort of men, 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 stripped
myself of every thing, 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 made me marble by changing my
habit. My heart is not totally hardened by my perpetual imprisonment;
I am still sensible to what has touched me, though, alas I ought
not to be so. 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
amiable, if he shows me their advantage. Retirement, solitude! you
will not appear terrible, if I may but still know I have any place in
his memory. A heart which has been so sensibly affected as mine
cannot soon be indifferent. We fluctuate long between love and hatred
before we can arrive at a happy tranquillity, and we always flatter
ourselves with some distant hope that we shall not be quite
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 wish they
were to me. Teach me the maxims of divine love. Since you have
forsaken me, I 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 operates, and purifies itself. When we were tossed
in the ocean of the world, we could hear of nothing but your verses,
which published every where our joys and our pleasures: now we are in
the haven of grace, is it not fit that you should discourse to me of
this happiness, and teach me every thing which might improve and
heighten it? Shew 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 object; 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 which 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,
my fidelity, my constancy; love me as your mistress, cherish
me as your child, your sister, your wife. Consider that I still love
you, and yet strive to avoid loving you. What a word, what a design
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 can desire it, (would to Heaven I could,) for
ever adieu.
ADVERTISEMENT.
That the reader may make a right judgment on the following Letter,
it is proper he should be informed of the condition _Abelard_
was in when he wrote it. The Duke of Britany whose subject he was
born, jealous of the glory of France, which then engrossed all the
most famous scholars of Europe, and being, besides, acquainted with
the persecution _Abelard_ had suffered from his enemies, had
nominated him to the Abbey of St. Gildas, and, by this benefaction
and mark of his esteem, engaged him to past the rest of his days in
his dominions. He received this favour with great joy, imagining,
that by leaving France he should lose his passion, and gain a new
turn of mind upon entering into his new dignity. The Abbey of St.
Gildas is seated upon a rock, which the sea beats with its waves.
_Abelard_, who had lain on himself the necessity of vanquishing
a passion which absence had in a great measure weakened, endeavoured
in this solitude to extinguish the remains of it by his tears. But
upon his receiving the foregoing letter he could not resist so
powerful an attack, but proves as weak and as much to be pitied as
_Heloise_. 'Tis not then a master or director that speaks to
her, but a man who had loved her, and loves her still: and under this
character we are to consider _Abelard_ when he wrote the
following Letter. If he seems, by some passages in it, to have begun
to feel the motions of divine grace they appear as yet to be only by
starts, and without any uniformity.
LETTER III.
_Abelard_ to _Heloise._
Could I have imagined that a letter not written to yourself could
have fallen into your hands, I had been more cautious not to have
inserted any thing 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 of the loss he had
sustained. If by this well meaning artifice I have disturbed you, I
purpose here 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 secrets 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 had befallen
us, and observing that no change of our condition was to be expected;
that those prosperous days which had seduced us were now past, and
there remained nothing but to eraze out of our minds, by painful
endeavours, all marks and remembrance 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 ideas yet remain. I
promise myself that I will forget you, and yet cannot think of it
without loving you; and am pleased with that thought. My love is not
at all weakened by those reflections I make in order to free myself.
The silence I am surrounded with 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 drive to free myself; and that it is
wisdom sufficient if I can conceal from every one but you my
confusion and weakness.
I removed 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 such 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 lest I
should seem more indifferent than you, 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 your heart labours with, of serving two masters, affect
mine too? You see the confusion I am in, what I blame myself for, and
what I suffer. Religion commands me to pursue virtue, since I have
nothing to hope for from love. But love still preserves its dominion
in my fancy, 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 those regions of death and silence; and
it is very seldom that what ought to be is truly followed there, and
that God only is loved and served. Had I always had such notions as
these, I had instructed you better. You call me your Master 'tis
true, you were intrusted 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 therefore me enemy,
and revenge himself on me. If now, having lost the power of
satisfying my passion, I had lost too that of loving you, I should
have some consolation. My enemies would have given me that
tranquillity which Origen purchased by a crime. How miserable am I!
My misfortune does not loose my chains, my passion grows furious by
impotence; and that desire I still have for you amidst all my
disgraces makes me more unhappy than the misfortune itself. I find
myself much more guilty in my thoughts of you, even amidst my tears,
than in possessing yourself when I was in full liberty. I continually
think of you, I continually call to mind that day when you bestowed
on me the first marks of your tenderness. In this condition, O Lord!
if I run to prostrate myself before thy altars, if I beseech thee to
pity me, why does not the pure flame of thy Spirit consume the
sacrifice that is offered to thee? Cannot this habit of penitence
which I wear interest Heaven to treat me more favourably? But that 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 graces. 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 by 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, and that contrariety
which reigns in my heart. We commonly die to the affections of those
whom 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 only rest in my memory, without giving any
trouble to my mind; that Britany and the sea would inspire other
thoughts; that my fasts and studies would by degrees eraze you out of
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, such 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 own hands against
myself? I have exhausted my strength in constant exercises; I comment
upon St. Paul; I dispute 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; permit me to be indifferent. I envy their happiness who have
never loved; how quiet and easy are they! But the tide of pleasures
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 would procure me in their stead merit
and repose. Why should you use 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? but how humbled ought we to be when we
cannot master them? What efforts, what relapses, what agitations, do
we undergo? and how long are we tossed 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! Recoiled your extravagances
of passion, guess at my distractions: number up our cares, if
possible, our griefs, and our inquietudes; throw these things out of
the account, and let love have all its remaining softness 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 but by
extraordinary efforts; it has so powerful a party 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 must 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. 'Tis 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 filled it, and offered to make defence, love soon
made itself master. God, in order to punish me, forsook me. His
providence permitted those consequences which have since happened.
You are no longer of the world; you have renounced it; I am a
Religious, devoted to solitude; shall we make no advantage of our
condition? Would you destroy my piety in its infant-state? Would you
have me forsake the convent 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 if I violate them? Suffer me to seek for
ease in my duty; how difficult it is to procure that! 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 at once pierced with your sorrows and
its 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 have showed more firmness of mind, I should, perhaps, have
provoked 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 by verses and love-songs, ought not the dark
cells of this house to conceal that weakness, at least, under an
appearance of piety? Alas! I am still the same! or if I avoid the
evil, I cannot do the good; and yet I ought to join both, in order to
make this manner of living profitable. But how difficult is this in
the trouble which surrounds me? Duty, reason, and decency, which,
upon other occasions have such power over me, are here entirely
useless. The gospel is a language I do not understand, when it
opposes my passion. Those oaths which I have taken before the holy
altar, are feeble helps when opposed to you. Amidst so many voices
which call me to my duty, I hear and obey nothing but the secret
dictates of a desperate passion. Void of all relish for virtue, any
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, when I would at any time correct it. I feel a
perpetual strife between my inclination and my duty. I find myself
entirely a distracted lover; unquiet in the midst of silence, and
restless in this abode of peace and repose. How shameful is such a
condition!
Consider me no more, I intreat you, as a founder, or any great
personage; your encomiums do but ill agree with such multiplied
weaknesses. I am a miserable sinner, prostrate before my Judge, and,
with my face pressed to the earth, I mix my tears and my sighs in the
dust, when the beams of grace and reason enlighten me. Come, see me
in this posture, and solicit me to love you! Come, if you think fit,
and in your holy habit thrust yourself between God and me and be a
wall of separation! Come, and force from me those sighs, thoughts,
and vows, which I owe to him only. Assist the evil spirits, and be
the instrument of their malice. What cannot you induce a heart to,
whose weakness you so perfectly know? But rather withdraw yourself,
and contribute to my salvation. Suffer me to avoid destruction, I
intreat you, by our former tenderest affection, and by our common
misfortune. It will always be the highest love to show none. I here
release you of 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 be indeed a
Religious, and you a perfect example of an Abbess.
Make yourself amends by so glorious a choice; make your virtue a
spectacle worthy 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 slight a rate, as that you should not turn it to the
best advantage? Since you have permitted yourself to be abused by
false doctrine, and criminal instructions, 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
instill vice than to excite 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 inchanting a sweetness and we are naturally so much
inclined to taste it, that it needs only 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 you first; I willingly submit to these accusations. I
cannot enough admire the readiness you showed to take the religious
habit: bear, therefore, with courage the Cross, which you have taken
up so resolutely. 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 intreat 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 my misfortunes.
The Church is jealous of its glory, and commands that her children
should be induced to the practice of virtue by virtuous means. When
we have approached God after an unblameable manner, we may then 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 lose him even in idea, is what Heaven
enjoins _Heloise_. To forget in the case of love is the most
necessary penitence, 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 which we
have adored, and adoring God whom we have neglected. This may appear
harsh, but it must be done if we would be saved.
To make it more easy, observe 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 of
the particular you inquire after. When I saw myself so oppressed with
my misfortune, my impotency made me jealous, and I considered all
men as my rivals. Love has more of distrust than assurance. I was
apprehensive of abundance of things, because I saw I had abundance of
defects; and being tormented with fear from my own example, I
imagined your heart, which had been so much accustomed to love, would
not be long without entering into a new engagement. Jealousy can
easily believe to most dreadful consequences, I was desirous to put
myself out of a possibility of doubting you. I was very urgent to
persuade you, that decency required you should withdraw from the
envious eyes of the world; that modesty, and our friendship, demanded
it; nay, that your own safety obliged you to it; and, that after such
a revenge taken upon me, you could expect to be secure no where but
in a convent.
I will do you justice; you were very easily persuaded to it. My
jealousy secretly triumphed over 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
that I might effectually put it out of the power of 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 which of
the convents was most in my esteem. What a comfort did I feel in
seeing you shut up! I was now at ease, and took a satisfaction in
considering that you did not continue long in the world after my
disgrace, and that you would return into it no more.