volume I will never part with; it shall be the manual of my devotions,

my companion through the world which I am going to enter; it shall be

my antidote against the pernicious maxims of society; it shall comfort

me under my afflictions; it shall prevent or amend my errors; it shall

afford me instruction in my youth, and yield me edification in age:

the first love-letters, Eloisa, that perhaps ever were put to such an

use! With respect to your last epistle, which I have before me,

excellent as it appears to me, I find however one thing you should

have omitted. You may think it strange; but it is much more so, that

this very article should particularly regard yourself, and that I

blame you even for writing it at all. Why do you talk to me of

fidelity and constancy? you once were better acquainted both with my

passion and your own power. Ah, Eloisa, do you entertain such

changeable sentiments? what, though I had promised you nothing, should

I the sooner cease to be yours? Oh, no, it was at the first glance you

directed to me, at the first word you spoke, at the first motion of my

heart, that a flame was kindled in my soul which can never be

extinguished. Had I never seen you since that first moment, it had

been enough, it had been afterwards too late to have ever forgotten

you. And is it possible for me to forget you now? now, that,

intoxicated with my past felicity, the very remembrance of it makes me

still happy? now, that the soul, which once animated me, is fled, and

I live only by that which Eloisa hath inspired? now, that I despise

myself for expressing so coldly what I so sensibly feel? should all

the beauties in the universe display their charms to seduce me, is

there one amongst them could eclipse thine? let them all combine to

captivate my heart; let them pierce, let them wound it, let them break

to pieces, this faithful mirror of my Eloisa, her unsullied image will

not cease to be reflected from its smallest fragments, for nothing is

able to drive it thence. No, not omnipotence itself can go thus far;

it may annihilate my soul, but it cannot leave its existence and make

it cease to love Eloisa.

Lord B---- has undertaken to give you an account of my affairs, and

what he has projected in my favour: but I am afraid he will not

strictly fulfil his promise with respect to his present plan. For you

are to know that he has abused the right his beneficence has given him

over me, in extending it beyond the bounds of generosity. The pension

he has settled on me, and which he has made independent, has put me in

a condition to make an appearance here much above my rank, and perhaps

even that which I shall have occasion to make in London. While I am

here, as I have nothing to do, I live just as I please, and shall have

no temptation to throw away the savings of my income in idle expenses.

You, Eloisa, have taught me that our principal, at least our most

pressing wants, are those of a benevolent mind; and, as long as one

individual is deprived of the necessaries of life, what virtuous man

will riot in its superfluities?

Letter LXXIX. To Eloisa. [20]

I enter with a secret horror on this vast desert, the world; whose

confused prospect appears to me only as a frightful scene of solitude

and silence. In vain my soul endeavours to shake off the universal

restraint it lies under. It was the saying of a celebrated ancient,

that he was never less alone than when he was by himself: for my part,

I am never alone but when I mix with the crowd, and am neither with

you nor with any body else. My heart would speak, but it feels there

is none to hear: it is ready to answer, but no one speaks any thing

that regards it. I understand not the language of the country, and no

body here understands mine. Yet I own that I am greatly caressed, and

that all the obliging offices of friendship and civility are readily

offered to me: this is the very thing of which I complain. The

officious zeal of thousands is ever on the wing to oblige me, but I

know not how to entertain immediately a friendship for men I have

never seen before. The honest feelings of humanity, the plain and

affecting openness of a frank heart, are expressed in a different

manner from those false appearances of politeness, and that external

flattery, which the customs of the world require. I am not a little

afraid that he, who treats me at first sight, as if I was a friend of

twenty years standing, if at the end of twenty years I should want his

assistance, will treat me as a stranger; and, when I see men, lost in

dissipation, pretend to take so tender a part in the concerns of every

one, I readily presume they are interested for no body but themselves.

There is, however, some truth in all this profession: the French are

naturally good-natured, open, hospitable, and generous. But they have

a thousand modes of expression, which are not to be too strictly

understood. A thousand apparent offers of kindness which they make

only to be refused; they are no more than the snares of politeness

laid for rustic simplicity. I never before heard such profusion of

promises: _you may depend on my serving you, command my credit, my

purse, my house, my equipage._----But, if all this were sincere, and

literally taken, there would not be a people upon earth less attached

to property. The community of possessions would be in a manner already

established; the rich always making offers, and the poor accepting

them, both would naturally soon come upon a level, and not the

citizens of Sparta itself could ever have been more upon an equality

than would be the people of Paris. On the contrary, there is not a

place, perhaps, in the world, where the fortunes of men are so

unequal, where are displayed at once the most sumptuous opulence and

the most deplorable poverty. This is surely sufficient to prove the

insignificance of that apparent commiseration, which every one here

affects to have for the wants and sufferings of others, and that

tenderness of heart, which in a moment contracts eternal friendship.

But if, instead of attending to professions so justly to be suspected,

and assurances so liable to deceive, I desire information, and would

see knowledge; here is its most agreeable source. One is immediately

charmed with the good sense which is to be met with in company of the

French, not only among the learned, but with men of all ranks, and

even among the women: the turn of conversation is always easy and

natural, it is neither dull nor frivolous, but learned without

pedantry, gay without noise, polite without affectation, gallant

without being fulsome, and jocose without immodesty. Their discourse

is neither made up of dissertations nor epigrams; they reason without

argumentation, and are witty without punning: they artfully unite

reason and vivacity, maxims and rhapsodies; and mix the most pointed

satire and refined flattery with strictness of morals. They talk about

every thing, because every one has something to say; they examine

nothing to the bottom, for fear of being tedious, but propose matters

in a cursory manner, and treat them with rapidity: every one gives his

opinion, and supports it in few words; no one attacks with virulence

that of another, nor obstinately defends his own; they discuss the

point only for the sake of improvement, and stop before it comes to a

dispute: every one improves, every one amuses himself, and they part

all satisfied with each other; even the philosopher himself carrying

away something worthy his private meditation.

But, after all, what kind of knowledge do you think is to be gained

from such agreeable conversation? to form a just judgment of life and

manners; to make a right use of society; to know, at least, the people

with whom we converse; there is nothing, Eloisa, of all this: all they

teach is to plead artfully the cause of falsehood, to confound, by

their philosophy, all the principles of virtue; to throw a false

colour, by the help of sophistry, on the passions and prejudices of

mankind; and to give a certain turn to error, agreeable to the

fashionable mode of thinking. It is not necessary to know the

characters of men, but their interests, to guess their sentiments on

any occasion. When a man talks on any subject, he rather expresses the

opinions of his garb or his fraternity, than his own, and will charge

them as often as he changes his situation and circumstances.

Dress him up, for instance, by turns, in the robe of a judge, a peer,

and a divine, and you shall hear him successively stand up, with the

same zeal, for the rights of the people, the despotism of the prince,

and the authority of the inquisition. There is one kind of reason for

the lawyer, another for the officer of the revenue, and a third for

the soldier. Each of them can demonstrate the other two to be knaves;

a conclusion not very difficult to be drawn by all three. [21] Thus

men do not speak their own sentiments but those they would instill

into others, and the zeal which they affect is only the mask of

interest. You may imagine, however, that such persons as are

unconnected and independent, have at least a personal character and an

opinion of their own. Not at all: they are only different machines,

which never think for themselves, but are set a going by springs.

You need only inform yourself of their company, their clubs, their

friends, the women they visit, the authors they are acquainted with;

and you may immediately tell what will be their opinion of the next

book that is published, the next play that is acted, the works of this

or that writer they know nothing of, or this or that system of which

they have not one idea. As ordinary clocks, also, are wound up to go

but four and twenty hours, so are these people under the necessity of

going every evening into company, to know what they are to think the

next day.

Hence it is, that there is but a small number of both sexes, who think

for all the rest, and for whom all the rest talk and act. As every one

considers his own particular interest, and none of them that of the

public, and as the interests of individuals are always opposed, there

is amongst them a perpetual clashing of parties and cabals, a

continual ebb and flow of prepossessions and contrary opinions; amidst

which the most violent tempers, agitated only by the rest, seldom

understand a word of the matter in dispute. Every club has its rules,

its opinions, its principles, which are no where else admitted. An

honest man at one house is a knave at the next door. The good, the

bad, the beautiful, the ugly, truth, and even virtue itself, have all

only a limited and local existence. Whoever chuses a general

acquaintance, therefore, and goes into different societies, should be

more pliable than Alcibiades; he should change his principles with his

company, new-model his sentiments in a manner at every step, and lay

down his maxims by the rod. He ought at every visit to leave his

conscience, if he has one, at the door, and take up with that

belonging to the house as a new servant, on his entrance, puts on its

livery, which he leaves behind him when turned out, and if he chuses

it, again takes up his own, which serves him till he gets a new suit

with a new place. But what is still more extraordinary, is, that every

one here is perpetually contradicting himself, without being concerned

at all about it. They have one set of principles for conversation, and

another for their actions; nor is any body scandalized at their

inconsistency, it being generally agreed they should be very

different. It is not required of an author, particularly of a moral

writer, that he should maintain in conversation what he advances in

his works; nor that he should put in practice what he inculcates. His

writings, conversation, and conduct, are three things essentially

different, which he is not at all obliged to reconcile to each other.

In a word, every thing is absurd, and yet nothing offends, because

absurdity is the fashion. Nay, there is attached to this incongruity

of principles and manners, a fashionable air of which they are proud,

and which is frequently affected. In fact, although every one

zealously preaches up the maxims of his profession, he piques himself

on the carriage and manners of another. The attorney, for instance,

assumes the martial air of a soldier, and a petty clerk of the

customs, the supercilious deportment of a lord; the bishop affects the

gallantry of a fine gentleman; the courtier the precision of a

philosopher; and the statesman the repartee and raillery of a wit.

Even the plain mechanic, who knows not how to put on the airs of any

other profession, dresses himself up in a suit of black on Sundays, in

order to pass for a practitioner in the law. The military gentlemen

alone, despising every other profession, preserve, without

affectation, the manners of their own, which, to say the truth, are

insufferable. Not that M. de Muralt was in the wrong, when he gave the

preference to the conversation of a soldier; but, what might be true

in his time, is no longer so now. The progress of literature has since

improved conversation in general; and, as the gentlemen of the army

despised such improvement in theirs, that which used to be the best,

is at length become the worst. [22]

Hence it is, that the persons we talk to are not those with whom we

converse; their sentiments do not come from the heart; their knowledge

is not the acquisition of their own genius; their conversation does

not discover their thoughts; and one perceives nothing of them but

their figure. Thus, a man in company here, is nearly in the same

situation as if he were spectator of a moving picture, where he

himself is the only figure capable of self-motion.

Such are the notions I have formed of great societies, by that which I

have seen at Paris. They may, nevertheless, be rather adapted to my

own particular situation than to the true state of things; and will

doubtless improve as I become more acquainted with the manners of the

world. Besides this, I have hitherto kept no other company than that

into which I have been introduced by the friends of Lord B----, and am

sensible it is necessary to descend to persons of different ranks, to

know the peculiar manners of a country; those of the opulent being

almost every where the same. I shall endeavour to inform myself better

hereafter; in the mean time, I leave you to judge whether I had not

sufficient reason to call this crowded scene a desert, and to be

terrified by a solitude, where I find only an empty appearance of

sentiments and of sincerity, that falsifies itself in the instant of

expression; and where I perceive only the mere apparitions of men,

phantoms that strike the eye for a moment, but are insensible to the

touch? Hitherto I have seen a great number of masks; when shall I

behold the faces of mankind?

Letter LXXX. From Eloisa.

Yes, my friend, we shall continue to be united, notwithstanding our

separation; we shall be happy in spite of fortune. It is the union of

minds which constitutes their true felicity; the mutual attraction of

hearts does not follow the _ratio_ of their distance, and ours would

be in contact, were they distant as the poles asunder. I am sensible

with you that true lovers have a thousand expedients to sooth the

pains of absence, and to fly to each other’s arms in a moment. Hence

have they more frequent interviews even in absence, than when they see

each other every day; for, no sooner is either alone, than they are

both together. If you, my friend, can taste that pleasure every

evening, I feast on it a hundred times a day. I am more alone, and am

surrounded by objects I cannot look on without calling you to mind,

without finding you ever near me.

_Qui canto dolcemente e qui s’assise

Qiu si revolve, e qui ritenne il passo

Qui co ’begli occhi me trafise il core

Qui disse una parola, e qui sorrise._

But is it so with you? can you thus alleviate the pains of absence?

can you experience the sweets of a peaceful and tender passion, that

speaks to the heart without inflaming the senses? Are your griefs at

present more prudent than were formerly your desires? the violence of

your first letter still makes me tremble. I dread those deceitful

transports, by so much the more dangerous as the imagination which

excites them, is the less subject to controul; and, I fear, lest even

your excess of love should prove injurious to the object of it. Alas!

you know not, your sensations are too indelicate to perceive how

offensive to love is an irrational homage. You do not consider that

your life is mine, nor that self-preservation leads us frequently to

destruction. Sensual man! will you never learn to love? call to mind

those peaceful, those tender sensations you once felt, and so

affectingly described. If such be the highest pleasures which even

happy lovers can taste, they are the only ones wherein those who pine

in absence are permitted to indulge themselves; and those who once

have felt them, though but for a moment, should never regret the loss

of any other. I remember the reflections we made in reading your

Plutarch, on the sensuality and depravity of taste, which debase our

nature. Were such wretched pleasures attended only with the

circumstance of their not being mutual, it were enough, we said, to

render them insipid and contemptible. Let us apply the same conclusion

to the sallies of an extravagant imagination, to which it is no less

applicable. What can the wretch enjoy whose pleasures are confined to

himself alone? his pleasures are lifeless, but thine, O love! are

animated and generous delights. It is the union of souls: we receive

more pleasure from that which we excite, than from our own enjoyment.

But, pray, tell me, my friend, in what language, or rather, in what

jargon, is the description you give me in your last letter? did you

not make use of it as an occasional display of your wit? if you intend

to repeat it in your letters to me, it will be necessary to send me a

dictionary. What is it you mean by the opinions of a garb? by a

conscience that is to be put off and on, like a livery? by laying down

maxims by the rod? how would you have a poor, simple Swiss comprehend

those sublime tropes and figures? have you not already borrowed some

of the tinsel understanding of the people you describe? take care, my

good friend, how you proceed. Do you not think the metaphors of the

chevalier Marini, which you have so often laughed at, bear some

resemblance to your own? if a garment may be said to think, in a

letter, why not that fire may sweat in a sonnet? [23]

To observe in the space of three weeks all the different company that

is kept in a great city; to pass judgment on their conversation; to

distinguish precisely the false from the true, the real from the

affected; the difference between their thoughts and words: this is the

very thing for which the French are frequently censured by people of

other countries; but this nation especially deserves to be studied

more at leisure. I as little approve also of persons speaking ill of a

country where they reside and are well received: they had better, in

my judgment, submit to be deceived by appearances, than to moralize at

the expense of their hosts. In short, I always suspect the candour of

those observers, who set up for wits. I am always apprehensive lest

they should insensibly sacrifice the real state of things to the arts

of description, and affect a brilliancy of stile at the expense of

truth.

You know, my friend, the saying of Muralt, that wit is the epidemical

madness of the French: I am mistaken if I do not discover some marks

of your being yourself infected with this phrenzy. There is this

difference, however, that while it is agreeable enough in the French,

the Swiss are of all people in the world those it becomes the least.

There is something very quaint and far-fetched in many passages of

your letter. I do not speak of the lively turn or animated

expressions, which are dictated by any peculiar strength of

sentiments, but of that affected prettiness of stile, which being

unnatural in itself, can be natural to no people whatever, but betrays

the absurd pretensions of the person who uses it. Pretensions, with

those we love, good God! ought not all our pretensions to be confined

to the object beloved? It may be permitted to enliven an indifferent

conversation with such rhetorical flourishes, and they may pass off as

fine strokes of wit; but this is not the language adapted to the

intercourse of lovers; the florid jargon of gallantry comes less from

the heart than the most rude and simple of all dialects. I appeal to

yourself: did wit ever find an opportunity to intrude into our private

parties? if those fond, those endearing conversations had a charm to

dispel and keep wit at a distance, how ill-suited are its

embellishments to the letters of absence, always clouded in some

measure with sorrow; and in which the heart expresses itself with

peculiar tenderness? but, though every passion truly great should be

serious, excess of joy sooner calling forth our tears than our smiles,

I would not have love be always sad; its chearfulness should,

nevertheless, be simple and unaffected, without art, without

embellishment, and undissembled as the passion itself. In a word, I

would have love appear in its native graces, and not in the false

ornaments of wit.

My _constant companion_, in whose apartment I write this letter,

pretends, that in the beginning of it I had just that pleasantry of

disposition which love inspires; but I know not what is become of it.

In proportion as I proceed, a languor invades my heart, and hardly

leaves me spirits to write the reproaches she would have me make you.

For you are to know the above hypercriticisms are rather hers than my

own. It was she that dictated in particular the first article,

laughing like an idiot, and insisting on my not altering a single

syllable. She says, it is to teach you to respect Marini, whom she

patronizes and you have the presumption to ridicule.

But can you guess the cause of our good humour? it is her approaching

marriage. The contract was signed last night, and the day is fixed for

Monday sevennight. If ever love was a chearful passion, it is surely

so with her: surely no girl was ever so droll upon the like occasion.

The good Mr. Orbe, whose head is also a little turned, was highly

delighted with the comical manner in which he was received. Less

difficult to be pleased than you were, he takes great pleasure in

adding to the pleasantry of courtship, and looks upon the art of

diverting his mistress as a master-piece in making love. For her part,

we may talk to her as we please of decorum, tell her as much as we

will of the grave and serious turn she ought to assume on the point of

matrimony, and of doing honour to the virgin state she is going to

quit; she laughs at all we can say, as ridiculous grimace, and tells

Mr. Orbe to his face, that on the wedding day she shall be in the best

humour in the world; and that one cannot go too chearfully to be

married. But the little dissembler does not tell all; I surprized her

this morning wiping her eyes, which were red with crying, and I would

lay a wager, the tears of the night equal the smiles of the day. She

is going to bind herself in new chains, that will relax the gentle

ties of friendship: she is entering on a manner of life very different

to that which she most affected. Hitherto always pleased and tranquil,

she is going to run those hazards which are inseparable from the best

marriage; and, whatever face she may assume, I see that, as a clear

and smooth water begins to be troubled at the approach of a storm, so

her chaste and timid heart feels an alarm at her approaching change of

condition.

May they be happy, my dear friend! they love, and will be united in

marriage: they will reap the transports of mutual enjoyment without

obstacles, without fear, without remorse! Adieu, my heart is full----I

can write no more.

P.S. We have seen Lord B----, but he was in such haste to proceed on

his journey, that he staid with us but a moment. Impressed with a due

sense of the obligations we owe him, I would have made him my

acknowledgments and yours; but, I know not how, I was ashamed. It is

surely a kind of insult offered to his unparallel’d generosity to

thank such a man for any thing!

Letter LXXXI. To Eloisa.

What children does the impetuosity of our passions make of us! how

readily does an extravagant affection nourish itself on chimeras; and

how easily are our too violent desires prevented by the most frivolous

objects! I received your letter with as much rapture as your presence

could have inspir’d: in the excess of my transport, a piece of folded

paper supplying in my mind the place of Eloisa. One of the greatest

evils of absence, and the only one which reason cannot alleviate, is

the inquietude we are under concerning the actual state of the person

we love. Her health, her life, her repose, her affections, nothing

escapes the apprehensions of him who has every thing to lose. Nor are

we more certain of the present condition than of the future; and every

possible accident is realiz’d in the mind of the timid lover. I

breathe, and am alive again. You are in health, and still love me; or

rather ten days ago you loved me, and was well; but who can assure me

it is so at this instant? How cruel! how tormenting is absence! how

fatally capricious is that situation in which we can enjoy only the

past moment and the present not yet arrived.

Had you said nothing about your _constant companion_, I should have

detected her little malice in the censures passed on my observations,

and her old grudge in the apology for Marini; but, if it be permitted

me in turn to apologize for myself, I will not make her wait for a

reply.

In the first place then, my dear cousin, for it is to her I should

address my answer, as to the stile of my remarks, I have adopted that

of the subject: I endeavoured to give you at once both an idea and an

example of the mode of conversation in fashion; and thus, following an

ancient precept, I wrote to you in the same manner they talk in some

companies to each other. Besides, it is not the use of rhetorical

figures, but the choice of them, which I blame in Marini. If a man has

the least warmth of imagination, he must necessarily use metaphors and

figurative expressions to make himself understood. Even your own

letters are full of them, without your knowing it; and I will maintain

it, that none but a geometrician or a blockhead can talk without

metaphor. In effect, the same sentiment may admit of an hundred

different degrees of energy; and how are we to determine the precise

degree in which to enforce it, but by the turn of expression? I must

confess I could not help smiling myself at the absurdity of some

phrases I used. I thank you for the trouble you took to pick them out.

But, let them stand where they are, you will find them clear and

peculiarly emphatical. Let us suppose that your two sprightly

sparkling eyes, whose language is now expressive, were separated one

from the other, and from the set of features to which they give such

lustre; what think you, cousin, they would say, even with all their

vivacity and fire? Believe me, they would lose all power of

expression; they would be mute even to Mr. Orbe.

Is not the first thing that presents itself to observation in a

strange country, the general cast and turn of conversation? And is not

this the first observation I have made in Paris? I have written to you

only what is said, and not what is done in this city. If I remarked a

contrast between the discourse, the sentiments, and the actions of the

people, it is because the contrast is too striking to escape the most

superficial observer. When I see the same persons change their maxims

according to the company they frequent, Molinists in one and

Jansenists in another, court sycophants with the minister, and

factious grumblers with an anticourtier: when I see a man in lace and

embroidery rail at luxury, an officer of the revenue against imposts,

or a prelate against gluttony; when I hear a court-lady talk of

modesty, a noble lord of honesty, an author of candour, or an abbé of

religion, and see nobody surprized at these absurdities, is it not

natural enough to conclude that people here are as little anxious to

hear truth as to speak it? And that, so far from endeavouring to

persuade others into their own opinion, they care not whether they are

believed or not?

But, let this suffice, in the way of pleasantry, for an answer to our

cousin. I will lay aside an affectation to which we are all three

strangers, and I hope you will find in me for the future as little of

the satirist as the wit. And now, Eloisa, let me reply to you; for I

am at no loss to distinguish between critical raillery and serious

reproaches.

I cannot conceive how both you and your cousin could so egregiously

mistake the object of my description. It was not the French in

particular, on whom I intended to animadvert. For, if the characters

of nations can be determined only by their difference, how can I, who

have as yet no acquaintance with any other, pretend to draw the

character of this? I should not besides have been so indiscreet as to

fix on the metropolis for the place of observation. I am not ignorant

that capital cities differ less from each other, than the national

characters of the people, which are there in a great measure lost and

confounded, as well from the influence of courts, all which bear a

great resemblance to each other, as from the common consequence of

living in a close and numerous society; which is also every where

nearly the same, and prevails over the original and peculiar character

of the country.

Were I to study the national characteristics of a people, I would

repair to some of the more distant provinces, where the inhabitants

still pursue their natural inclinations. I would proceed slowly and

carefully through several of those provinces, and those at greatest

distance from each other: from the difference I might observe between

them, I would then trace the peculiar genius of each province; from

what was theirs in common and not customary to other countries, I

would trace the genius of the nation in general; and what appeared

common to all nations, I should regard as characteristics of mankind

in general. But I have neither formed so extensive a project; nor, if

I had, am I possessed of the necessary experience to put it in

execution. My design is to improve myself in the knowledge of mankind

universally, and my method is to consider man in his several

relations. I have hitherto been acquainted only with small societies

scattered up and down, in a manner alone, and without connections. At

present I am in the midst of others, which are surrounded by

multitudes on the same spot, from which I shall begin to judge of the

genuine effects of society; for, if men are constantly made better by

their association, the more numerous and closely connected they are,

still better they ought to be; and their manners should be more simple

and less corrupted at Paris than in the Valais; but if experience

prove the contrary, we must draw the opposite conclusion.

This method, I confess may in time lead to the knowledge of the

national characters of people; but by a route so tedious and indirect,

that I may perhaps never be qualified to determine that of any one

nation upon earth. I must begin to make my observations on the first

country in which I reside, proceeding in the others I pass through to

mark the difference between them and the first: comparing France to

every other, as we describe an olive-tree by a willow, or a palm-tree

by a fir, and must defer the forming my judgment of the first people

observed, till I have finished my observations on all the rest.

Please to distinguish then, my charming monitor, between philosophical

observation and national satire. It is not the Parisians that I study,

but the inhabitants of a great city; and I know not whether the

remarks I have made be not as applicable to those of Rome and London,

as of Paris. Moral principles do not depend on the customs of a

people; so in spite of their reigning prejudices I can perceive what

is wrong in itself but I know not whether I can justly attribute it to

the Frenchman, or the _man_; whether it be the effect of habit, or of

nature. Vice is in every place offensive to an impartial eye, and it

is no more blameable to reprove it in whatever country it is found,

than to correct the failings of humanity, because we live among men.

Am not I at present an inhabitant of Paris? perhaps, I may have

already unconsciously contributed my share, to the disorders I have

remarked: perhaps too long a stay may corrupt even my inclinations,

and at the end of a year I may be no more than a Parisian myself; if,

in order to be deserving of Eloisa, I do not cherish the spirit of

liberty and the manners of a free citizen. Let me proceed therefore,

without restraint, in describing objects I should blush to resemble,

and in animating my zeal for virtue by displaying the disgustful

pictures of falsehood and vice.

Were my employment and fortune in my own power, I might without doubt

make choice of other subjects for my letters. You were not displeased

with those I wrote you from Meillerie, and the Valais: but, my dear

friend, it is necessary for me, in order to support the noise and

hurry of the world, in which I am obliged to live, to console myself

in writing to you; and the thoughts of drawing up my narratives for

your perusal, should excite me to look out for proper subjects.

Discouragement would otherwise overtake me at every step, and I must

entirely relinquish my observations on mankind, if you refuse to hear

me. Consider that, to live in a manner so little conformable to my

taste, I make an effort not unworthy of its cause: and to enable you

to judge of what I must undergo to obtain you, permit me to speak

sometimes of the maxims I am forced to learn, and the obstacles I am

obliged to encounter.

In spite of my slow pace, and unavoidable avocations, my collection

was finish’d when your letter happily arrived to prolong my task of

copying: but, I admire, in seeing it so short, how you contrive to say

so much in so few words. I will maintain it, there can be no reading

so delightful as that of your letters, even to those to whom you are a

stranger, if their hearts do but sympathise with ours. But how can you

be a stranger to any one who reads your letters? is it possible that a

manner so engaging, that sentiments so tender, can belong to any other

than Eloisa? your enchanting looks accompany every sentence; your

charming voice pronounces every word. It is impossible for any other

to love, to think, to speak, to act, to write like Eloisa. Be not

surprized then if your letters, which so strikingly convey your form

and feature, should sometimes have the same effect as your presence on

a lover, who so devoutly idolizes your person. I lose my senses in

their perusal; my head grows giddy, a devouring flame consumes me; my

blood boils, and I become frantic with passion. I fancy I see, I feel,

I press you to my heart, adorable object! bewitching beauty! source of

rapture and delight! image of those angelic forms, which are the

fabled companions of the bless’d! come to my arms----she is here----

I clasp her in my embrace----ah! no, she is vanish’d; and I grasp but

a shadow.----Indeed, my dear friend, you are too charming; you have

been too indulgent to the weakness of a heart, that can never forget

your charms, nor your tenderness. Your beauty even triumphs in its

absence, it pursues me wherever I go, it makes me dread to be alone,

and it is my greatest misery that I dare not give myself to the

contemplation of so ravishing an object.

Our friends then, I find, will be united in spite of all obstacles; or

rather they are so while I am now writing. Amiable and deserving pair!

may heaven bestow on them all the blessings their prudent and peaceful

affections, innocence of manners, and goodness of heart, deserve! may

it bless them with that happiness it is so sparing of to those who

were formed by nature to taste its delights! happy indeed will they

be, if heaven should grant to them what it has taken from us! and

yet, Eloisa, we may draw some consolation even from our misfortunes.

Do you not perceive that our severest troubles are not without their

peculiar satisfactions; and that altho’ our friends may taste

pleasures of which we are deprived, we enjoy others of which they are

ignorant? yes, my gentle friend, in spite of absence, losses, fears;

in spite even of despair itself, the powerful exertion of two hearts,

longing for each other, is always attended with a secret pleasure

unknown to those at ease. This is one of the miracles of love, that

teacheth us how to extract pleasure from pain; and would make us look

upon a state of indifference as the greatest of all misfortunes. Tho’

we lament our own situation, then, let us not envy that of others. On

the whole, perhaps, there is none preferable to our own: as the deity

derives his happiness from himself, the hearts that glow with a

celestial passion, find in themselves the source of refined enjoyment,

independent of fortune.

Letter LXXXII. To Eloisa.

At length, Eloisa, behold me swim with the stream. My collection being

finish’d, I begin to frequent the public diversions, and to sup in

company; I spend the whole day abroad, and am attentive to every

striking object: but, perceiving nothing that resembles you, I

recollect myself in the midst of noise and confusion, and converse in

secret with my love. It is not however, that this busy and tumultuous

life has not in it something agreeable, or that such a vast variety of

objects do not present a considerable fund of gratification to the

curiosity of a stranger: but, to taste the entertainment they afford,

the heart should be vacant, and the understanding idle. Both love and

reason seem to unite in raising my disgust against such amusement.

Every thing here being confined to appearances, which are every

instant changing, I have neither the time to be moved with, nor to

examine, any thing.

Hence I begin to see the difficulties of studying the world, and I

know not what situation is most likely to make me a proficient in this

science. The speculatist lives at too great a distance, and the man of

business too near the object, to view it critically: the one sees too

much to be able to reflect on any part, and the other too little to

judge of the whole piece. Every object that strikes the philosopher he

examines apart, and not being able to discern its connections and

relations with others, that lie beyond the field of his observation,

he never sees them placed in their proper point of view, and knows

neither their real causes nor effects. The man of business sees all,

and has leisure to think on nothing. The instability of objects

permits him barely to perceive their existence, and not to examine

their qualities: they pass in succession before him with such

rapidity, that they efface the impression of each other, and load his

memory only with a chaos of confused ideas. It is also as impossible

to make observations, and meditate on them alternately: as the scene

requires a constant and unremitted attention, which reflection would

interrupt. A man who should divide his time by intervals between

solitude and society, always perplexed in retirement and to seek in

the world, would be able to do nothing in either. There is but one

way: and that is to divide the whole period of life into two parts;

applying the one to observation, and the other to reflection. But this

is next to impossible; for reason is not a piece of furniture that can

be thrown aside, and put to use again at pleasure: the man who should

live ten years without reflection, will never again be capable of

reflection as long as he lives.

I find it is a folly to think to study mankind in the quality of a

simple spectator. He, who pretends only to make observations, will be

able to observe nothing: for, being useless to the men of business,

and troublesome to those of pleasure, he will find no where

admittance. We can have the opportunity of seeing others act, in

proportion only as we act with them; in the school of the world, as

well as in that of love, we must begin by praising whatever we desire

to learn.

What method then can I take? I that am a stranger, and can follow no

employment in this country, and whom the difference of religion alone

excludes from aspiring to office? I am reduced to be humble, in order

to instruct myself; and, as I can never be useful, must endeavour to

make myself agreeable. To this end, I aim as much as possible to be

polite without flattery, complaisant without meanness, and to put so

good a face on what is tolerable in society that I may be admitted

into it, without being under the necessity of adopting its vices.

Every man that would see the world, and has nothing to do in it, ought

at least to adopt its manners to a certain degree. For what pretension

can he have to be admitted into the society of people to whom he can

be of no service, and to whom he has not the address to make himself

agreeable? But, if he has found out this art, it is all that is

required of him, particularly if he be a stranger. Such a one has no

occasion to take part in their cabals, their intrigues, or their

quarrels: if he behaves obligingly to every one; if he neither

excludes, nor prefers women of a certain character; if he keeps the

secrets of the company into which he is admitted; if he turns not into

ridicule at one house, what he sees in another; if he avoids making

confidents; entering into broils; and, in particular, if he maintains

a certain personal dignity; he may see the world, without molestation,

preserve the purity of his manners, his probity, and even his

frankness itself, if it arises from a spirit of liberty, and not from

that of party. This is what I have endeavoured to do, agreeable to the

advice of some people of sense, whom I have chosen for my advisers,

among the acquaintance Lord B----’s interest has procured me. In

consequence of this, I begin now to be admitted into companies, less

numerous and more select. Hitherto I have been chiefly invited to

regular dinners, where the only woman at table is the mistress of the

family; where open house is kept for all the idle people about Paris,

with whom they have the slightest acquaintance; and where every one

pays for his dinner in wit, or flattery, as he can best afford: the

conversation being in general noisy and confused, and very much

resembling that of a public ordinary.

I am at present initiated into the more secret mysteries of visiting:

being intreated to private suppers, where the door is shut against all

strolling and chance guests, and every one is upon an agreeable

footing, if not with each other, at least with the provider of the

entertainment. Here it is that the women are less reserved, and their

real characters more easily discovered. The conversation is in these

parties carried on with more decorum, and is more refined and

satirical: instead of talking of the public news, plays, promotions,

births, deaths, and marriages, which were the topics of the morning,

they here take a review of the several anecdotes of Paris, divulge the

secret articles of the scandalous chronicle, turn the good and bad

alike into ridicule, and, in artfully describing the characters of

others, undesignedly display their own. It is in these companies that

the little circumspection which remains has invented a peculiar kind

of language, under which they affect to render their satire more

obscure, while it only makes it more severe. It is here, in a word,

that they carefully sharpen the poignard, under pretence of making it

less hurtful; but, in fact, only to make it wound the deeper. To

judge, however, of this conversation according to our notions of

things, we should be in the wrong to call it satirical; for it

consists more of raillery than censure, and turns less upon the

vicious than the ridiculous. Satire in general is not common in large

cities, where that which is downright wicked is too simple to be worth

talking about. What can they condemn where virtue is in no esteem? and

what should they revile where nothing is held to be villainous? At

Paris, more particularly, where every thing is seen in an agreeable

light, the representation of things that ought to raise our

indignation is well received, if it be but wrapt up in a song or an

epigram. The fine ladies of this country do not like to be displeased;

and are therefore displeased at nothing: they love to laugh, but woe

be to him who happens to be the butt of their ridicule; the fears this

caustic leaves are never to be effaced; they not only defame good

manners and virtue, but exaggerate even vice itself. We now return to

our company.

What strikes me most in these select meetings, is to see that half a

dozen people, expressly chosen to entertain one another agreeably, and

between whom there generally subsist very intimate connections, cannot

converse an hour together without introducing the affairs of half the

people in Paris; just as if their hearts had nothing to say to each

other, or that there was no person in company of merit enough to

engage their attention. You know, Eloisa, how far otherwise it was

with us, when we supped together at your cousin’s, or your own

apartment; how we could find means, in spite of constraint and

secrecy, to turn the discourse on subjects that related to ourselves;

how at every moving reflection, at every subtle allusion, a look more

swift than lightening, a sigh rather imagined than perceived, conveyed

the pleasing sensation from one heart to the other.

If the discourse here turn by accident on any of the company, it is

commonly carried on in a jargon known only to the persons concerned,

and which one had need of a vocabulary to understand. Thus by talking

as it were in cypher, they are enabled to banter each other with

insipid raillery, in which the greatest blockhead does not always

shine the least. In the mean time, perhaps, a third part of the

company, incapable of taking the jest, are either reduced to a

disagreeable silence, or to laugh at what they do not understand. Of

this kind, Eloisa, is all the tenderness and affection I have observed

in the intimacies of this country: those of a more private nature,

with only a second person, I have not, nor ever shall have

experienced.

In the midst of all this, however, if a man of any weight and

consequence should enter on a grave discourse, or begin to discuss a

serious question, a general attention would be immediately fixed on

this new object: men and women, old and young, every one would be

ready to enter into its examination; and it is astonishing how much

good sense and precision would, as it were, through emulation, sally

out of their extravagant heads. [24] A point of morality could not be

better determined in a society of philosophers, than in that of a fine

lady at Paris: their conclusions would even be less precise and

severe: for the philosopher, who thinks himself obliged to act as he

speaks, will be less rigid in his principles; but, where morality is

nothing more than a topic of discourse, the severity of it is of no

consequence: and no one is displeased at an opportunity of checking

philosophical pride, by placing virtue out of its reach.

Besides this, influenced by a knowledge of the world and of their own

hearts, all agree in thinking human nature as depraved as possible:

hence their philosophy is always of the gloomy cast; they are ever

indulging their own vanity by depreciating the virtues of humanity;

always accounting for good actions from vicious motives, and

attributing to mankind in general the depravity of their own minds.

And yet, notwithstanding their adopting this abject doctrine, one of

the favourite topics of these societies is _sentiment_; a word by

which we are not to understand the sensation of a heart susceptible of

love or friendship: this would be thought vulgar and disgusting. No,

sentiment consists in great and general maxims, heightened by the

most sublime subtilties of metaphysics. I can safely say that in my

life, I have never heard so much talk of sentiment, nor ever

comprehended so little what was meant by it; so inconceivable are

these French refinements! our simple hearts, Eloisa, never were

governed by any of these fine maxims; and I am afraid it is with

sentiment in the polite world, as it is with Homer among the pedants,

who discover in him a thousand imaginary beauties, for want of taste

to point out his real ones. So much sentiment is here laid out in wit,

and evaporated in conversation, that none is left to influence their

actions. Happily politeness supplies its place, and people act from

custom nearly as they would from sensibility: at least so long as it

costs them only a few compliments, and such trifling restraints, as

they willingly lay themselves under in order to be respected; but, if

any considerable sacrifice of their ease or interest is required,

adieu to sentiment: politeness does not proceed so far; so far as it

goes, however, you can hardly believe how nicely every article of

behaviour is weighed, measured, and estimated. What is not regulated

by sentiment, is subjected to custom, by which indeed every thing here

is governed. These people are all professed copyists; and, tho’ they

abound in originals, nobody knows any thing of them, or presumes to be

so himself. _To do like other people_, is a maxim of the greatest

weight in this country: _and this is the mode----that is not the

mode_, are decisions from which there is no appeal.

This apparent regularity gives to the common, and even the most

serious transactions of life, the most comical air in the world. They

have settled even the very moment when it is proper to send cards to

their acquaintance; when to visit with a card, that is, to visit

without visiting at all; when to do it in person; when it is proper to

be at home; when to be denied; what advances it is proper to make, or

reject on every occasion; what degree of sorrow should be affected at

the death of such, or such a one; [25] how long to mourn in the

country; when they may come to console themselves in town; the very

day, and even the minute, when the afflicted is permitted to give a

ball, or go to the play. Every body in the same circumstances does the

same thing: they keep time, and their motions are made all together,

like the evolutions of a regiment in battalia; so that you would think

them so many puppets, nailed to the same board, or danced by the same

wire.

Now, as it is morally impossible that all these people, tho’ they act

in the same manner, should be at once equally affected, it is plain,

their peculiar characters are not to be known by their actions; it is

plain their discourse is only a formal jargon, which assists us less

to form a judgment of the French manners in general, than the peculiar

mode of conversing in Paris. In like manner, we learn only here their

terms of conversation, but nothing by which we can judge of their

estimation in the conduct of life. I say the same of most of their

writings; and even of their theatrical representations. The stage,

since the time of Moliere, being a place where they rather repeat

agreeable dialogues, than give a representation of life and manners.

There are here three theatres; on two of which they only introduce

imaginary characters; such as Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Scaramouch, on

the one; and, on the other, gods, devils, and conjurers. On the third,

they represent those immortal dramas, which give us so much pleasure

in reading, and other new pieces, which are from time to time written

for the stage; many of which are tragical, but not affecting. And,

tho’ the sentiments contained in them are sometimes natural, and well

enough adapted to the human heart, they give us not the least light

into the peculiar manners of the people to whom they afford

entertainment.

The institution of tragedy was originally founded on religion, whose

sanction was sufficient to establish its authority. Besides this, the

tragic scene always presented to the Greeks an instructive and

agreeable representation, either in the misfortunes of the Persians

their enemies, or in the vices and follies of the kings from which

they themselves were delivered. Should they represent in like manner

at Berne, at Zurich, or at the Hague, the ancient tyranny of the house

of Austria, the love of liberty and their country would make such a

representation peculiarly interesting to the spectators: but I would

be glad to know of what use are the tragedies of Corneille at Paris;

and what interest its citizens can take in the fate of a Pompey or

Sertorius. The Greek tragedies turned upon real events, or such as

were supposed to be real, being founded on historical tradition. But

what business has a refined heroic passion in the breasts of the

great? the conflicts of love and virtue cause them, no doubt, many an

unhappy day and sleepless night! the heart is doubtless vastly

concerned in the marriage of kings! judge then of the probability and

use of so many performances all turning on such imaginary subjects.

As to comedy, it should certainly be a lively representation of the

manners of the people for whom it is written; that it may serve them

as a mirror to shew them their vices and follies. Terence and Plautus

mistook their subjects; but their predecessors, Aristophanes and

Menander, displayed Athenian manners before an Athenian audience; and

since these, Moliere, and Moliere only, has represented still more

ingenuously in France the manners of the French in the last age.

The objects of the picture are since changed; but they have never

since had so faithful, so masterly a painter. At present, they only

copy on the theatre the manner of conversing in about an hundred

families in Paris; and this is their representation of French manners:

so that there are in this great city five or six hundred thousand

persons, whose various characters are never introduced on the stage.

Moliere described the shopkeeper and artisan, as well as the Marquis;

Socrates introduces the discourses of coachmen, carpenters,

shoemakers, and masons. But our present writers, quite of another

stamp, think it beneath them to know what passes in a trader’s

counting house or the shop of a mechanic: their dramas must consist of

persons of the first quality; for by the grandeur of their characters,

they aim at a degree of eminence they never could attain by the

assistance of genius. Nay, the audience itself is become so very

delicate, that the chief of the spectators are as jealous of place and

precedence in going to a play as in making a visit, never

condescending to be present at the representation of characters of

inferior condition.

Indeed, the people of fashion here are considered by themselves as the

only inhabitants of the earth; all the rest of mankind are nobody. All

the world keep a coach, a Swiss and a _Maitre d’Hotel_: all the world,

therefore, consist of a very small number of people. Those who walk

afoot are nobody; they are your common people, human creatures, the

vulgar, folks in short of another world: so that a coach is not so

necessary to carry one about, as to give one a title to existence. And

hence there is a handful of impertinent people, who look upon

themselves as the only beings of any consequence in the universe:

though, were it not for the mischief they occasion, they themselves

would not deserve to be numbered with the rest of mankind. It is

nevertheless solely for these people that theatrical entertainments

are made. They are represented by fictitious characters in the middle

of the theatre, and shew themselves in real ones on each side; they

are at once persons of the drama on the stage, and comedians in the

boxes. It is thus that the sphere of the world and genius is

contracted, while the present dramatic writers absurdly affect to

introduce only characters of imaginary importance. No man is worthy of

being brought upon the stage that does not wear a laced coat. A

stranger would hence be apt to think France peopled only by counts and

marquises, altho’, in fact, the more miserable and beggarly its

inhabitants grow, the more splendid and brilliant is their

representation on the theatre; and hence it is, that the ridiculous

behaviour of persons of rank, in being exposed on the stage, rather

gains ground than diminishes, and that the common people, who are ever

aping the rich, go less to the theatre to laugh at their follies than

to study them, and to become by imitation greater fools than the

originals.

The French are indebted even to Moliere in a great measure for this

evil; he corrected the courtiers by spoiling the citizens, and his

ridiculous marquises were the first model of those still more

contemptible petit-maitres, which succeeded them in the city.

There is in general much discourse and but very little action on the

French stage: the reason of which is, perhaps, that the French talk

much more than they do, or at least, that they pay a much greater

regard to what is said than to what is done. I remember the answer of

a spectator, who, in coming out from the representation of one of the

pieces of Dionysius the tyrant, was asked, what he had seen? _I have

seen nothing,_ said he, _but I have heard a deal of talk._ The same

might be said of the French plays. Racine and Corneille, with all

their genius, are no more than talkers, and their successor is the

first of all the French poets, who, in imitation of the English, has

sometimes ventured to bring scenes of action on the stage. In common,

their plays consist only of witty, or florid dialogues well disposed;

where it is obvious the chief design of the speakers is to display

their talents of wit and elocution. In the mean time, almost every

sentiment is delivered in the stile of a general maxim. However

transported they may be with passion, they always preserve their

respect to the public, of whom they think more constantly than of

themselves: the pieces of Racine and Moliere excepted, [26] egotism is

excluded as scrupulously from the French drama as from the writings of

messieurs de Port-Royal; and the passions of the human heart never

speak, but with all the modesty of Christian humility, in the third

person. There is besides a certain affected dignity in theatrical

discourse and action, which never permits the passions to be expressed

in their natural language, or suffers the writer to divest himself of

the poet and attend to the scene of action, but binds him constantly

down to the theatre and the audience. Hence the most critical

situations, the most interesting circumstances of the piece, never

make him forget the nicest arrangement, of phrase or elegancies of

attitude. Should even despair plunge a dagger in the heart of his

hero, not contented that, like Polixenes, he should observe a decency

in falling, he would not let him fall at all: for the sake of decency,

he is supported bolt upright after he is dead; and continues as erect

after he has expired as before.

The reason of all this is, that a Frenchman requires on the stage

neither nature nor deception, but only wit and sentiment: he requires

only to be diverted, and cares not whether what he sees be a true or

false representation of nature. No body goes here to the theatre for

the pleasure of seeing the play, but for the sake of seeing, and being

seen, by the company, and to catch a subject for conversation after

the play is over. The actor with them is always the actor, never the

character he represents. He who gives himself those important airs of

an universal sovereign is not the emperor Augustus, it is only Baron.

The relict of Pompey is no other than Adrienne, Alzira is mademoiselle

Gaussin, and that formidable savage is no other than the civil

Grandval. The comedians, on the other hand, give themselves no trouble

to keep up an illusion which no body expects. They place the venerable

heroes of antiquity between six rows of young, spruce Parisians: they

have their Roman dresses made up in the French fashion: the weeping

Cornelia is seen bathed in tears, with her rouge laid on two fingers

thick: Cato has his hair dressed and powdered, and Brutus struts along

in a Roman hoop-petticoat; yet no body is shocked at all this

absurdity, nor doth it hinder the success of the piece; for, as the

actors only are seen in the characters, so what respects the author is

the only thing considered in the play; and, though propriety should be

entirely neglected, it is easily excused, for every one knows that

Corneille was no tailor, nor Crebillon a peruke-maker.

Thus, in whatever light we view this people, all is verbosity and

jargon, talk without design, and words without meaning. In the

theatre, as in the world, be as attentive as ye will to what is said,

you will learn nothing of what is done; when a man has spoken, it

would be thought impertinent to enquire after his conduct: he has

spoken, that’s sufficient, and he must stand or fall by what he has

said. The respectable man here is not he that does good actions, but

he that says good things; and a single sentence sometimes

inadvertently uttered shall cast an odium on a man’s character, that

forty years of integrity will not be able to eraze. In a word,

although the conduct of men does not always resemble their discourse,

yet I see they are characterized by their discourse without any regard

to their actions: I have remarked also, that in a great city, society

appears more free, agreeable, and even more safe, than among people

less knowing and less civilized: but I will not pretend to say the

latter are therefore less humane, temperate, or just. On the contrary,

among the former, where every thing is governed by appearances, the

heart is perhaps more hid by external shew, and lies deeper concealed

under agreeable deceptions. It does not belong, however, to me, who am

a stranger, without business, pleasures or connections, to decide

here. I begin, nevertheless, to perceive in myself that intoxication

into which such a busy tumultuous life plunges every one who leads it;

and am affected with a dizziness like that of a man, before whose eyes

a multitude of successive objects pass with rapidity. Not one of

these, which thus strike me, affects my heart; but all together they

so disturb and suspend its affections, that I sometimes forget not

only myself, but even my Eloisa. Every day, on leaving my apartment, I

leave my _observations_ locked up behind me, and proceed to make

others on the frivolous objects which present themselves. Insensibly

I begin to think and reason in the manner of other people; and, if

ever I strive to get the better of their prejudices, and look upon

things as they are, I am immediately borne down by a torrent of words,

which carry with them a shew of reason. The people here will prove to

a demonstration, that none but superficial, half-witted reasoners

regard the reality of things; that the true philosopher considers only

their appearances; that prejudice and prepossession should pass for

principle, decorum for law, and that the most profound wisdom consists

in living like fools.

Thus constrained to pervert the order of the moral affections, to set

a value on chimeras, and put nature and reason to silence, I see with

regret, how sullied and defaced is that divine image, which I cherish

in my breast, once the sole object of my desires, and the only guide

of my conduct: I am borne by one caprice to another, while my

inclinations are continually enslaved by the general opinion, and I am

never certain one day what I shall approve the next.

Abashed and confounded to find my humanity so far debased; to see

myself fallen so low from that innate greatness of mind, to which our

passion had reciprocally elevated us, I return home at night, with a

heart swelling, yet vacant as a ball puffed up with air; sickened with

disgust, and sunk in sorrow. But with what joy do I recollect myself,

when alone! with what transports do I feel the sensations of love

again take possession of my heart, and restore me to the dignity of a

man! O love! how refined are thy sensations! how do I applaud myself

when I see the image of virtue preserve its lustre still in my breast;

when I contemplate thine, my Eloisa! still there, unsullied, sitting

on a throne of glory, and dissipating in a moment my gloomy delusions.

I feel my depressed soul revive; I seem to recover my existence, to

live anew, and to regain, with my love, those sublime sentiments that

render the passion worthy of its object.

Letter LXXXIII. From Eloisa.

I am just returned, my dear friend, from the enjoyment of one of the

most delightful sights I shall ever behold. The most prudent, the most

amiable girl in the world is at length become the most deserving, the

best of women. The worthy man, to whom she has given her hand, lives

only to revere, to cherish, to make her happy; and I feel that

inexpressible pleasure of being a witness to the happiness of my

friend, and of sharing it with her: nor will you, I am convinced,

partake of it less than my self; you, for whom she had always the

tenderest esteem, who were dear to her almost from her infancy, and

have received from her obligations which should render her yet more

dear to you. Yes, we will sympathize with all her sensations; if to

her they give pleasure they shall afford us consolation; for, so great

is the value of that friendship which unites us, that the happiness of

either of the three is sufficient to moderate the afflictions of the

other two. Let us not, however, too highly felicitate ourselves; our

incomparable friend is going in some measure to forsake us. She is

now entered on a new scene of life, is bound by new engagements, and

become subject to new obligations. Her heart, which once was only

ours, will now find room for other affections, to which friendship

must give place. We ought therefore, my friend, to be more scrupulous

hereafter in the services we impose on her zeal; we ought not only to

consult the sincerity of her attachment, and the need we have of her

service, but what may with propriety be required in her present

situation; what may be agreeable or displeasing to her husband. We

have no business to enquire what virtue demands in such a case, the

laws of friendship are sufficient. He, who, for his own sake, could

expose his friend, deserves not to have one. When ours was unmarried,

she was at liberty; she had no body to call her to account for her

conduct, and the uprightness of her intentions was sufficient to

justify her to herself. She considered us as man and wife, destined

for each other; and, her chaste yet susceptible heart, uniting a due

regard for herself to the most tender compassion for her culpable

friend, she concealed my fault without abetting it: but at present,

circumstances are changed; and she is justly accountable to the man,

to whom she has not only plighted her vows, but resigned her liberty.

She is now entrusted not only with her own honour, but with that of

her husband; and it is not enough that she is virtuous, her virtue

must be respected, and her conduct approved: She must not only

_deserve_ the esteem of her husband, but she must _obtain_ it: if he

blames her, she is to blame: and tho’ she be innocent, she is in the

wrong the moment she is suspected; for to study appearances, is an

indispensable part of her duty.

I cannot determine precisely how far I am right in my judgment; I

leave that to you: but there is a monitor within that tells me it is

not right, my cousin should continue to be my confident; nor that she

should be the first to tell me so. I may be frequently mistaken in my

arguments, but I am convinced I am always right in the sensations on

which they are founded; and this makes me confide more in those

sensations than on the deductions of my reason.

From this consideration, I have already formed a pretence to get back

your letters, which, for fear of a surprise I had put into her hands.

She returned them with an oppression of heart, which that of mine made

me easily perceive; and which convinced me I had acted as I ought. We

entered into no explanation, but our looks were sufficiently

expressive; she embraced me, and burst into tears: the tender

sensibility of friendship hath little occasion for the assistance of

language.

With respect to the future address of your letters, I thought

immediately of my little Anet, as the safest; but if this young woman

be inferior in rank to my cousin, is that a reason we should less

regard her virtue? have I not reason, on the contrary, to fear my

example may be more dangerous to one of less elevated sentiments; that

what was only an effort of the sublimest friendship in one, may be the

first step to corruption in the other; and that, in abusing her

gratitude, I may make virtue itself subservient to the promotion of

vice? is it not enough, alas! for me to be culpable, without seducing

accomplices, and aggravating my own crime, by involving others in my

guilt? of this, therefore, no more: I have hit on another expedient,

less safe indeed, but less exceptionable, as it lays nobody open to

censure, nor requires a confident. It is for you to write to me under

a fictitious name; as for example, that of Mr. Bosquet, and to send

your letters under cover addressed to Regianino, whom I shall take

care to instruct. Thus Regianino himself may know nothing of our

correspondence, or at most can only form suspicions, which he dares

not confirm; for Lord B----, on whose favour he depends, has answered

for his fidelity. In the mean time, while our correspondence is

maintained by this means, I will try if it be possible to resume the

method we made use of in your voyage to the Valois, or some other that

may be durable and safe.

There is something in the turn and stile of your letters, that would

convince me, were I even unacquainted with the state of your heart,

that the life you lead at Paris is in no wise agreeable to your

inclinations. The letters of Muralt, of which they so loudly complain

in France, are even less satirical and severe than yours. Like a child

that is angry with its tutors, you revenge the disagreeable necessity

you are under of studying the world, upon your first teachers.

What I am surprized at the most, however, is, that the very

circumstance, which usually prejudices foreigners in favour of the

French, should give you disgust. I mean their polite reception of

strangers, and their general turn of conversation; tho’ by your own

confession, you have met with great civility. I have not forgot your

distinction between Paris in particular, and great cities in general;

but I see plainly, that, without knowing precisely what belongs to

either, you censure without considering whether it be truth or

slander. But, however, this be, the French are my favourites, and you

don’t at all oblige me in reviling them. It is to the many excellent

writings France has produced, that I am indebted for most of those

lessons, by which we have together profited. If Switzerland is emerged

from its ancient barbarity, to whom is it obliged? the two greatest

and most virtuous men in modern story, Catinat and Fenelon, were both

Frenchmen. Henry the fourth, the good king, whose character I admire,

was a Frenchman. If France be not the country of liberty, it is

properly that of men; a superior advantage in the eyes of a

philosopher to that of licentious freedom. Hospitable, protectors of

the stranger, the French overlook real insult, and a man would be

pelted in London for saying half so much against the English, as the

French will bear at Paris. My father, who hath spent the greatest part

of his life in France, never speaks but with rapture of this agreeable

people. If he has spilt his blood in the service of its king, he has

not been forgotten in his retirement, but is still honoured by royal

beneficence. Hence, I think myself in some degree interested in the

glory of a nation, to which that of my father is indebted. If the

people of all nations, my friend, have their good and ill qualities,

you ought surely to pay the same regard to that impartiality which

praises, as to that which blames them.

To be more particular with you, I will ask you why you throw away in

idle visits the time you are to spend at Paris? Is not Paris a

theatre, wherein great talents may be displayed, as well as London?

and do strangers find more difficulties in their way to reputation in

the former, than they do in the latter? believe me, all the English

are not like Lord B----, nor do all the French resemble those fine

talkers that give you so much disgust. Try, put them to the proof,

tho’ it be only to acquire a more intimate acquaintance with their

manners; and judge of people, that you own speak so well, by their

deeds. My cousin’s father says, you know the constitution of the

empire, and the interests of princes. My Lord B---- acknowledges also,

that you are well versed in the principles of politics, and the

various systems of government: and I have got it into my head that of

all countries in the world you will succeed best in that where merit

is most esteemed, and that you want only to be known, to be honourably

employed. As to your religion’s being an obstacle, why should yours be

more so than another’s? is not good sense a security against

fanaticism and persecution? does bigotry prevail more in France, than

in Germany? and is there any thing that should hinder your succeeding

at Paris, as Mr. St. Saphorin has done at Vienna? if you consider the

end, the more speedy your attempts the sooner may you promise yourself

success. If you balance the means, it is certainly more reputable for

a man to advance himself by his own abilities, than to be obliged for

preferment to his friends. But, if you purpose a longer voyage----

ah! that _sea!_----I should like England better if it lay on this side

Paris.----But, a-propos, now I talk of Paris, may I venture to take

notice of another piece of affection, I have remarked in your letters?

how comes it that you, who spoke to me so freely of the women of this

country, say nothing about the Parisian ladies? can those celebrated

and polite females be less worth your description, than the simple and

unpolished inhabitants of the mountains? or are you apprehensive of

giving me uneasiness by a picture of the most charming and seductive

creatures in the universe? If this be the case, my friend, undeceive

your-self, and rest assured, that the worst thing you can do for my

repose is to say nothing about them and that, however, you might

praise them, your silence in that respect is more suspicious than

would be your highest encomiums. I shall be glad also to have some

little account of the opera at Paris, of which we hear such wonders;

[27] for, after all, the music may be bad, and yet the representation

have its beauties; but if not, it will at least, afford a subject for

your criticism, which will offend no body.

I know not whether it be worth while to tell you, that my cousin’s

wedding produced me two suitors; they met here a few days ago; one of

them from Yverdon, hunting all the way from castle to castle, and the

other from Germany, in the stage-coach from Berne. The first is a kind

of smart, that speaks loud and peremptory enough to make his repartees

pass for wit, among those who attend only to his manner. The other is

a great bashful simpleton, whose timidity, however, is not of that

amiable kind which arises from the fear of displeasing; but is owing

to the embarrassment of a blockhead, that knows not what to say, and

the awkwardness of a libertine who is at a loss how to behave himself

in the company of modest women. As I well know the intentions of my

father in regard to these two gentlemen, I took, with pleasure, the

freedom he gave me, of treating them agreeable to my own humour,

which, I believe, is such as will soon get the better of that which

brought them hither. I hate them for their presumption, in pretending

to a heart which is yours, without the least merit to dispute it with

you; yet if they had ever so much, I should hate them the more; but

where could they acquire it? they or any other man in the universe?

no, my dear friend, rest satisfied, it is impossible. Nay, were it

possible that another should be possessed of equal merit, or even that

another _you_ should attack my heart, I should never listen to any but

the first. Be not uneasy, therefore, at these two animals, which I

have with regret condescended to mention. What pleasure should I have

in being able to give them both such equal portions of disgust, as

that they should resolve to depart both together as they came.

M. de Crouzas has lately given us a refutation of the ethic epistles

of Mr. Pope, which I have read, but it did not please me. I will not

take upon me to say which of these two authors is in the right, but I

am conscious that M. de Crouza’s book will never excite the reader to

do any one virtuous action, while our zeal for every thing great and

good is awakened by that of Pope. For my own part, I have no other

rule by which to judge of what I read, than that of consulting the

dispositions in which I rise up from my book, nor can I well conceive

what sort of merit any piece has to boast, the reading of which leaves

no benevolent impression behind it, nor stimulates the reader to any

thing that is good. [28]

Adieu, my dear friend, I would not finish my letter so soon, but am

called away. I leave you with regret, for I am at present in a

chearful disposition, and I love you should partake of my happiness.

The cause which now inspires it is, that my dear mother is much better

within these few days; she has indeed found herself so well as to be

present at the wedding, and to give away her niece, or rather her

other daughter. Poor Clara wept for joy to see her; and I----but you

may judge of my sensations, who, deserving her so little, hourly

tremble at the thoughts of losing her. In fact, she did the honours of

the table, and acquitted herself on the occasion with as good a grace

as if she had been in perfect health. Nay, it seemed to me that some

remains of languor in her disposition rendered her elegant

complacencies still more affecting. Never did this incomparable parent

appear so good, so charming, so worthy to be revered!----Do you know

that she asked Mr. Orbe concerning you several times? Although she

never speaks of you to me, I am not ignorant of her esteem for you;

and that if ever she were consulted, your happiness and mine would be

her first concern. Ah! my friend, if your heart can be truly grateful,

you owe many, many obligations!

Letter LXXIV. To Eloisa.

There, my Eloisa, scold me, quarrel with me, beat me; I will endure

every thing, but I will not cease to acquaint you with my thoughts.

Who should be the depositary of those sentiments you have enlightened,

and with whom should my heart hold converse, if you refuse to hear me?

I give you an account of the observations I have made, and of my own

opinions, not so much for your approbation, as correction; and the

more liable I am to fall into error, the more punctual I should be in

my applications to your judgment. If I censure the manners of the

people in this great city, I do not seek to be justified for taking

this liberty, because I write to you in confidence; for I never say

any thing of a third person, which I would not aver to his face; and

all I write to you concerning the Parisians, is no more than a

repetition of what I daily advance in conversation with themselves:

however, they are not displeased with me, and they even join with me

in many particulars. They complain of our _Muralt_; I am persuaded,

they see, and are convinced, how much he hated them, even in his

panegyricks; but, I am much mistaken, if, in my criticism they do not

perceive the contrary. The esteem and gratitude their generosity

inspires, but increases my freedom; it may be serviceable to some of

them, and, if I may judge from their manner of receiving truth from my

lips, they do not think me below their regard. When this is the case,

my Eloisa, true censure is more laudable than even true praise; for

that only serves to corrupt the heart of those on whom it is bestowed,

and there are none so eager to obtain it as the most worthless; on the

contrary, censure may be useful, and can only be endured by the most

deserving. I sincerely own, I honour the French as the only people in

the world who really love their fellow creatures, and who are

naturally benevolent; but, for this very reason, I am less inclined to

grant them that general admiration they seem to expect, even for the

faults they acknowledge. If the French had no virtues, I should not

mention them; if they had no vices they would not be men: they have

too many excellent qualities for indiscriminate praise.

As to the attempts you mention, they are impracticable, because I

should be obliged to use means which are not only inconvenient, but

which you have also interdicted. Republican austerity is not in vogue

here; they need more flexible virtues, which are more easily adapted

to the interest of their friends or patrons. They respect merit, I

confess, but the talents that acquire reputation are very different

from those which lead to fortune; and, if I am so unfortunate as to

possess the latter only, will Eloisa consent to become the wife of an

adventurer? In England it is quite the contrary, and though their

manners are perhaps less refined than in France, yet they rise to

fortune by more honourable steps, because the people having more share

in the government, public esteem is of more consequence. You are not

ignorant of what Lord B---- proposed to do for me, and of my intention

to justify his zeal. I can have no objection to any spot on the globe

except its distance from you. O Eloisa! if it is difficult to procure

your hand, it is still more difficult to deserve so great a blessing,

and yet, methinks, ’tis a noble task.

The good account you give of your mother’s health, relieved me from

the greatest anxiety. I perceived your distress, even before my

departure, and therefore I durst not express my fears; but I thought

her so changed, that I was apprehensive she would fall into some

dangerous illness, Be careful of her, because she is dear to me,

be cause my heart reveres her, because all my hopes are centered in

her goodness, and because she is the mother of my Eloisa.

As for the two suitors, I own, I do not like to hear of them, even in

jest; but the manner in which you mention them expels my fears, and I

will no longer hate these unfortunate pretenders, since you imagine

they are hated by you: yet I admire your simplicity in believing

yourself capable of hatred. Don’t you perceive that what you take for

hatred, is nothing more than the impatience of insulted love? thus

anxious mourns the amorous turtle when its beloved mate is in danger

of being caught. No, Eloisa, no, incomparable maid! when you are

capable of hatred, I may cease to love you.

P. S. Beset by two importunate rivals! how I pity you! for your own

sake, hasten their dismission.

Letter LXXXV. From Eloisa.

I have delivered into Mr. Orbe’s hands a packet which he has engaged

to forward to M. Sylvester, from whom you will receive it; but I

caution you, my dear friend, not to open it, till you retire into your

own chamber, and are quite alone. You will find in this packet a small

trinket for your particular use.

’Tis a kind of charm which lovers gladly wear. The manner of using it

is very whimsical. It must be contemplated for a quarter of an hour

every morning, or until it softens the spectator into a certain degree

of tenderness. It is then applied to the eyes, the mouth, and next to

the heart: and it is generally esteemed the best preservative against

the noxious air of a country infected with gallantry. They even

attribute an electrical quality, to these talismans, which is very

singular, but which acts only upon faithful lovers. They say it

communicates the impression of kisses from one to the other, though at

the distance of a hundred leagues. I do not pretend to warrant the

success of this charm from experience; only, this I know, it is your

own fault if you do not put it to the proof.

Calm your fears with regard to my two gallants, or pretenders, call

them which you please. They are gone: let them depart in peace; I

shall no longer hate them, since they are out of my sight.

Letter LXXXVI. To Eloisa.

And so, my Eloisa, you insist on a description of these Parisian

ladies? vain girl! but it is a homage due to your charms.

Notwithstanding all your affected jealousy, your modesty, and your

love, I have discovered more vanity than fear disguised under this

curiosity. Be it as it will, I shall be just; I may safely speak the

truth; but I should undertake the taste with better spirits if I had

more to praise. Why are they not a hundred times more lovely! would

they had sufficient charms, to reflect new excellence upon yours by

the comparison!

You complain of my silence: good heaven! what could I have written?

when you have read this letter, you will perceive why I take pleasure

in speaking of your neighbours, the Valesian ladies, and why I have

hitherto neglected to mention those of this country: the first

continually remind me of you, my Eloisa, but the others----read, and

you will know. Few people think of the French ladies as I do, if

indeed, I am not quite singular in my opinion. Equity obliges me

therefore to give you this hint, that you may suppose I delineate

them, perhaps, not as they are in reality, but as they appear to me.

Nevertheless, if I am not just in my description, I know you will

censure me; and then will your injustice be greater than mine, because

the fault is entirely your own.

Let us begin with their exterior qualities; the greatest number of

observers proceed no farther should I follow their example, the women

in this country would have great cause to be dissatisfied: they have

an _exterior_ character as well as an _exterior_ face, and as neither

one or the other is much to their advantage, it would be unjust to

form our opinions of them from either. Their figure, for the most

part, is only tolerable, and in the general rather indifferent than

perfect; yet there are exceptions. They are slender rather than well-

made, and therefore they gladly embrace the fashions which disguise

them most; but, I find that in other countries, the women are foolish

enough to imitate there fashions, tho’ contrived merely to hide

defects which they have not.

Their air is easy and natural, their manner free and unaffected,

because they hate all restraint; but they have a certain

_disinvoltura_, [29] which, though it is not entirely destitute of

grace, they frequently carry, even to a degree of absurdity. Their

complexion is moderately fair, and they are commonly pale, which does

not in the least add to their beauty. With regard to their necks, they

are in the opposite extreme to the Valesians. Conscious of this

defect, they endeavour to supply it by art; nor are they less

scrupulous in borrowing an artificial whiteness. Though I have never

seen these objects but at a distance, they expose so much of

themselves, that they leave the spectators very little room for

conjecture. In this case, these ladies seem not to understand their

own interest; for if the face is but moderately handsome, the

imagination heightens every concealed charm, and according to the

gascon philosopher, there is no appetite so strong as that which was

never satisfied, especially in this sense.

Their features are not very regular, but they have something in their

countenance which supplies the place of beauty, and which is sometimes

much more agreeable. Their eyes are quick and sparkling, yet they are

neither penetrating nor sweet: they strive to animate them by the help

of rouge, but the expression they acquire by this means, has more of

anger in it than love; nature has given them sprightliness only, and

though they sometimes seem to solicit tenderness, they never promise a

return. [30]

They have acquired so great a reputation for their judgment in dress,

that they are patterns to all Europe. Indeed, it is impossible to

adapt such absurd fashions with more taste. They are, of all women,

the least under subjection to their own modes. Fashion governs in the

provinces, but the Parisians govern fashion, and every one of them is

skilled in suiting it to her own advantage: the first are ignorant and

servile plagiarists, who copy even orthographical errors; the latter

are like authors, who imitate with judgment, and have abilities to

correct the mistakes of their original.

Their apparel is more uncommon than magnificent, more elegant than

rich. The rapid succession of their fashions renders them old and

obsolete even from one year to another; that neatness which induces

them to change their dress so frequently, preserves them from much

ridiculous magnificence; they do not however spend less money on that

account, but their expenses are, by this means, better conducted. They

differ greatly in this particular from the Italians; instead of superb

trimmings and embroidery, their cloaths are always plain and new. Both

sexes observe the same moderation and delicacy, which is extremely

pleasing: for my part I like to see a coat neither laced nor foiled.

There is no nation in the world, except our own, where the people,

especially the women, wear less gold and silver. The same kind of

stuffs are wore by people of all ranks, so that it would be difficult

to distinguish a duchess from a citizen, if the first had not some

marks of distinction which the other dares not imitate. But this seems

to have its inconveniences, for whatever is the fashion at court, is

immediately followed in the city, and you never see in Paris, as in

other countries, a beau or belle of the last age. Nevertheless, it is

not here as in most other places, where the people of the highest

rank, being also the richest, the women of fashion distinguish

themselves by a degree of luxury which cannot be equalled. Had the

ladies of the court of France attempted this kind of distinction, they

would very soon have been eclipsed by the wives of the citizens.

What then do you think was their resource? why they took a much more

effectual method, and which required more abilities. They knew that

the minds of the people were deeply impressed with a sense of

bashfulness and modesty. This suggested to them fashions not to be

easily imitated. They perceived that the people could not endure the

thoughts of _rouge_, and that they obstinately persisted in calling it

by the vulgar name of paint, and therefore they daubed their cheeks,

not with paint, but with _rouge_; for change but the name, and ’tis no

longer the same thing. They also perceived that a bare neck was

scandalous in the eyes of the public; and, for that reason, they chose

to enlarge the scene. They saw----many things, which, my Eloisa,

young as she is, will never see. In their manners they are governed

exactly by the same principle. That charming diffidence which

distinguishes and adorns the sex, they despise as ignoble and vile;

they animate their actions and discourse with a noble assurance, and,

I am confident, they would look any modest man out of countenance.

Thus they cease to be women, to avoid being confounded with the

vulgar; they prefer their rank to their sex, and imitate women of

pleasure that they themselves may be above imitation.

I know not how far they may have carried _their_ imitation, but I am

certain they have not succeeded in their design to prevent it in

others. As to _rouge_, and the fashion of displaying those charms,

which they ought to conceal, they have made all the progress that was

possible. The ladies of the city had much rather renounce their

natural complexion, and the charms they might borrow from the amoroso

_pensier_ [31] of their lovers, than preserve the appearance of what

they are; and if this example has not prevailed among the lower sort

of people, ’tis only because they are afraid of being insulted by the

populace; and thus are an infinite number of women kept within the

bounds of decency, by the fear of offending the delicacy of the mob.

Their masculine air, and dragon-like deportment is less striking

because so universal; it is conspicuous only to strangers. From one

end of this metropolis to the other there is scarce a woman whose

appearance is not sufficiently bold to disconcert any man who has

never been accustomed to the like in his own country; from this

astonishment proceeds that awkward confusion which they attribute to

all strangers, and which increases the moment she opens her lips. They

have not the sweet voice of our country-women; their accent is hoarse,

sharp, interrogative, imperious, jibing, and louder than that of a

man. If, in the tone of their voice, they retain any thing feminine,

it is entirely lost in the impertinence of their manner. They seem to

enjoy the bashful confusion of every foreigner; but it would probably

give them less pleasure, if they were acquainted with its true cause.

Whether it be, that I, in particular, am prejudiced in favour of

beauty, or whether the power of beauty may not universally influence

the judgment, I know not; but the handsomest women appear to me,

rather the most decent in their dress, and in general, behave with the

greatest modesty. They lose nothing by this reserve; conscious of

their advantages, they know they have no need of borrowed allurements

to attract our admiration. It may be also, that impudence is more

intolerably disgusting when joined with ugliness; for certainly, I

should much sooner be tempted to affront an impertinent ugly woman,

than to embrace her; whereas, by modesty, she might excite, even a

tender compassion, which is often a harbinger of love. But, though it

is generally remarked, that the prettiest women are the best behaved,

yet they are often so extremely affected, and are always so evidently

taken up with themselves, that, in this country, there is little

danger of being exposed to that temptation which M. de Muralt

sometimes experienced amongst the English ladies, of telling a woman

she was handsome, only for the pleasure of persuading her to think so.

Neither the natural gaiety of the French, nor their love of

singularity, is the cause of this freedom of conversation and

behaviour for which these ladies are so remarkable; but it is rather

to be deduced from their manners, by which they are authorized to

spend all their time in the company of men; and hence it is, that the

behaviour of each sex seems to be copied from the other.

Our Swiss ladies, on the contrary, are fond of little female

assemblies, in which they are extremely social and happy; [32] for,

though they probably may not dislike the company of men, yet it is

certain their presence is some constraint upon them.

In Paris it is quite the reverse; the women are never easy nor

satisfied without the men. In most companies, the lady of the house is

seen alone amidst a circle of gentlemen, and this is so generally the

case, that one cannot help wondering how such an unequal proportion of

men can be every where assembled. But Paris is full of _avanturiers_,

priests and abbés, who spend their whole lives in running from house

to house. Thus the women learn to think, act and speak from the men,

whilst these, in return, imbibe a certain degree of effeminacy; and

this seems the only consequence of their trifling gallantry: however,

they enjoy a fulsome adoration, in which their devotees do not think

it worth while to preserve even the appearance of sincerity. No

matter: in the midst of her circle, she is the sole object of

attention, and that’s sufficient. But, if a second female enters the

room, familiarity instantly gives place to ceremony, the high airs of

quality are assumed, the adoration becomes divided, and each continues

to be a secret constraint upon the other till the company breaks up.

The Parisian ladies are fond of public diversions: that is, they are

fond of shewing themselves in public; but the great difficulty, every

time they go, is to find a female companion, for decorum will not

allow one lady alone to appear in the boxes, even though attended by

her husband, or by any other man. It is amazing, in this very social

country, how difficult it is to form these parties; out of ten that

are proposed, nine generally miscarry: they are projected by the

desire of being seen, and are broken by the disagreeable necessity for

a sister petticoat. I should imagine it an easy matter for the ladies

to abolish this ridiculous custom. What reason can there be why a

woman should not be seen alone in public? perhaps, there being no

reason for it, is the very cause of its continuance. However, upon the

whole, it may be prudent to preserve decency where the abolition would

be attended with no great satisfaction. What great matter would there

be in the privilege of appearing alone at the opera? is it not much

better to reserve this exclusive privilege for the private reception

of one’s friends in one’s own house?

Nothing can be more certain than that this custom of being alone

amidst such a number of men, is productive of many secret connections:

indeed the world is pretty well convinced of it, since experience has

proved the absurdity of that maxim, which told us, that by multiplying

temptations we should destroy them; so that they do not defend this

fashion for its decency, but that it is most agreeable; which, by the

by, I do not believe. How can any love exist, where modesty is held in

derision? and what pleasure can there be in a life which is at once

deprived both of love and decency? but as the want of entertainment is

the greatest evil which these slaves to dissipation have to fear, the

ladies are solicitous for amusement rather than love; gallantry and

attendance is all they require, and provided their danglers are

assiduous, they are very indifferent about the violence or sincerity

of their passion. The words _love_ and _lover_ are entirely banished

even from the most private intercourse of the sexes, and are sunk into

oblivion with the _darts_ and _flames_ of ancient romance.

One would imagine that the whole order of natural sensations was here

reversed. A girl is to have no feelings, passions, or attachments;

that privilege is reserved for the married women, and excludes no

paramour except their husbands. The mother had better have twenty

lovers, than her daughter one. Adultery is considered as no crime, and

conveys no indecency in the idea: their romances, which are

universally read for instruction, are full of it, and there appears

nothing shocking in its consequences, provided the lovers do not

render themselves contemptible by their fidelity. O Eloisa! there are

many women in this city, who have defiled their marriage-bed a hundred

times, yet would presume, with the voice of impurity, to slander an

union like ours, that is yet unsullied with infidelity.

It should seem that in Paris, marriage is a different institution from

what it is in other parts of the world: they call it a sacrament, and

yet it has not half the power of a common contract. It appears to be

nothing more than a private agreement between two persons to live

together, to bear the same name, and acknowledge the same children;

but who, in other respects, have no authority one over the other. If

at Paris a man should pretend to be offended with the ill conduct of

his wife, he would be as generally despised, as if, in our country, he

was to take no notice of her scandalous behaviour. Nor are the ladies

on their parts less indulgent to their husbands; for I have not yet

heard of an instance of their being punished for having imitated the

infidelity of their wives. In short, what other effect can be expected

from an union in which their hearts were never consulted? those who

marry fortune or title, seem to be under no personal obligation.

Love, even love, has lost its privilege, and is no less degenerated

than marriage. As man and wife may be looked upon as a bachelor and a

maid, who live together for the sake of enjoying more liberty; so are

lovers a kind of people, who, with great indifference, meet for

amusement, through custom, or out of vanity. The heart is entirely

unconcerned in these attachments, in which nothing more than certain

external conveniences are ever consulted: it is, in short, to know

each other, to dine together, now and then to exchange a few words,

or, if possible, even less than this. An affair of gallantry lasts but

a little longer than a visit, and consists chiefly in a few genteel

conversations, and three or four pretty letters, filled with

descriptions, maxims, philosophy, and wit. As to experimental

philosophy, it does not require so much mystery; they have wisely

discovered the folly of letting slip any opportunity of gratification:

whether it happens to be the lover or any other man, a man is a man,

and why should a lady be more scrupulous of being guilty of an

infidelity to her lover than to her husband? after a certain age they

may all be considered as the same kind of puppets, made up by the same

fashion monger, and consequently the first that comes to hand is

always the best.

Knowing nothing of these matters from experience, I can relate only

what I have heard; and indeed, the representation is so very

extraordinary, that I have but an imperfect idea of what I have been

told. That which I chiefly comprehend is, that the gallant is

generally regarded as one of the family; that if the lady happens to

be dissatisfied with him, he is dismissed, or if he meets with a

service more to his inclination or advantage, he takes his leave, and

she engages a fresh one. There are, I have been told, some ladies so

capricious as even to take up with their own husbands for a while,

considering them, at least, as a kind of male creature; but this whim

seldom lasts long: as soon as it is past, the good man is entirely

discarded, or, if he should happen to be obstinate, why then she takes

another and keeps them both.

But I could not help objecting to the person who gave me this strange

account, how it was possible, after this, to live among these

discarded lovers. Live among them, says he, why, they are entire

strangers to her ever after; and if they should, by chance, take it

into their heads to renew their amours, they would have to begin anew,

and would hardly be able to recollect their former acquaintance. I

understand you, I replied, but I have great difficulty in reconciling

these extravagancies. I cannot conceive how it is possible, after such

a tender union, to see each other without emotion; how the heart can

avoid palpitation, even at the name of a person once beloved; why they

do not tremble when they meet. You make me laugh, says he, with your

tremblings: and so you would have our ladies continually fainting

away.

Suppress a part of this caricature representation; place my Eloisa in

opposition to the rest, and remember the sincerity of my heart: I have

nothing more to add.

However, I must confess, that many of these disagreeable impressions

are effaced by custom. Though the dark side of their character may

first catch our attention, it is no reason why we should be blind to

their amiable qualities. The charms of their understanding and good

humour are no small addition to their personal accomplishments. Our

first repugnance overcome frequently generates a contrary sentiment.

It is not just to view the picture only in its worst point of sight.

The first inconveniency of great cities is, that mankind are generally

disguised, and that in society they appear different from what they

really are. This is particularly true in Paris with regard to the

ladies, who derive from the observation of others, the only existence

about which they are solicitous. When you meet a lady in public,

instead of seeing a Parisian, as you imagine, you behold only a

phantom of the fashion: her stature, dimension, gait, shape, neck,

colour, air, look, language, every thing is assumed; so that, if you

were to see her in her natural state, you would not know her to be the

same creature. But this universal mask is greatly to her disadvantage;

for nature’s substitutes are always inferior to herself: besides, it

is almost impossible to conceal her entirely; in spite of us, she will

now and then discover herself, and in seizing her with dexterity

consists the true art of observation. This is indeed no difficult

matter in conversing with the women of this country, for, if you take

them off their grand theatre of representation, and consider them

attentively, you will see them as they really are, and it is then

possible that your aversion may be changed into esteem and friendship.

I had an opportunity of verifying this remark last week, on a party of

pleasure, to which, along with some other strangers, I was, abruptly

enough, invited by a company of ladies, probably with a design to

laugh at us without constraint or interruption. The first day the

project succeeded to their wish: they immediately began to dart their

wit and pleasantry in showers, but as their arrows were not retorted,

their quivers were soon empty. They then behaved with great decency,

and finding themselves unable to bring us to _their_ stile, they were

obliged to conform to ours. Whether they were pleased with it or not I

am ignorant; however, the change was very agreeable to me, for I soon

found that I stood a better chance to profit by the conversation of

these females, than from the generality of men. Their wit now appeared

so great an ornament to their natural good sense, that I changed my

opinion of the sex, and could not help lamenting, that so many amiable

women should want reason, only because it is their humour to reject

it. I perceived also that their natural graces began insensibly to

efface the artificial airs of the city: for, without design, our

manner is generally influenced by the nature of our discourse: it is

impossible to introduce much coquettish grimace in a rational

conversation. They appeared much more handsome after they grew

indifferent about it, and I perceived, that if they would please, they

need only throw off their affectation. Hence, I am apt to conclude,

that Paris, the pretended seat of taste, is of all places in the

world, that in which there is the least; since all their methods of

pleasing are destructive of real beauty.

Thus we continued together four or five days, satisfied with each

other, and with ourselves. Instead of satirising Paris and its

innumerable follies, we forgot both the city and its inhabitants. Our

whole care was to promote the happiness of our little society. We

wanted no ill-natured wit or sarcasm to excite our mirth, but our

laughter, like your cousin’s, was the effect of good humour.

I had yet another reason to be confirmed in my good opinion of these

females. Frequently in the very midst of our enjoyment, a person would

come in abruptly and whisper the lady of the house. She left the room,

shut herself up in her closet, and continued writing a considerable

time. It was natural to suppose, that her heart was engaged in this

correspondence; and of this one of the company gave a hint, which,

however, was not very graciously received; a proof at least, that

though she might possibly have no lovers, she was not without friends.

But, judge of my surprize, when I was informed that these supposed

Parisian suitors were no other than the unhappy peasants of the

parish, who came in their tribulation to implore the protection of

their lady; one being unjustly taxed, another enrolled in the militia,

regardless of his age and family, a third groaning under a lawsuit

with a powerful neighbour, a fourth ruined by a form of hail, was

going to be dragged to prison. In short, each had some petition to

make, each was patiently heard, and the time we supposed to be spent

in an amorous correspondence, was employed in writing letters in

favour of these unhappy sufferers. It is impossible to conceive how I

was astonished to find with what delight, and with how little

ostentation this young, this gay woman, performed these charitable

offices of humanity. Oh, says I to myself, if she were even Eloisa,

she could not act otherwise! From that moment I continued to regard

her with respect, and all her faults vanished.

My enquiries had no sooner taken this turn, than I began to discover a

thousand advantageous particulars in the very women who before

appeared so insupportable. Indeed all strangers are agreed, that,

provided you exclude the fashionable topic, there is no country in the

world whose women have more knowledge, talk more sensibly, with more

judgment, and are more capable of giving advice. If from the Spanish,

Italian, or German ladies, we should take the jargon of gallantry and

wit, what would there remain of their conversation? and you, my

Eloisa, are not ignorant how it is in general with our country-women.

But if, with a French woman, humour to reject it. I perceived also

that their natural graces began insensibly to efface the artificial

airs of the city: for, without design, our manner is generally

influenced by the nature of our discourse: it is impossible to

introduce much coquettish grimace in a rational conversation. They

appeared much more handsome after they grew indifferent about it, and

I perceived, that if they would please, they need only throw off their

affectation. Hence, I am apt to conclude, that Paris, the pretended

seat of taste, is of all places in the world, that in which there is

the least; since all their methods of pleasing are destructive of real

beauty.

Thus we continued together four or five days, satisfied with each

other, and with ourselves. Instead of satirising Paris and its

innumerable follies, we forgot both the city and its inhabitants. Our

whole care was to promote the happiness of our little society. We

wanted no ill-natured wit or sarcasm to excite our mirth, but our

laughter, like your cousin’s, was the effect of good humour.

I had yet another reason to be confirmed in my good opinion of these

females. Frequently in the very midst of our enjoyment, a person would

come in abruptly and whisper the lady of the house. She left the room,

shut herself up in her closet, and continued writing a considerable

time. It was natural to suppose, that her heart was engaged in this

correspondence; and of this one of the company gave a hint, which,

however, was not very graciously received; a proof at least, that

though she might possibly have no lovers, she was not without friends.

But, judge of my surprize, when I was informed that these supposed

Parisian suitors were no other than the unhappy peasants of the

parish, who came in their tribulation to implore the protection of

their lady; one being unjustly taxed, another enrolled in the militia,

regardless of his age and family, a third groaning under a lawsuit

with a powerful neighbour, a fourth ruined by a storm of hail, was

going to be dragged to prison. In short, each had some petition to

make, each was patiently heard, and the time we supposed to be spent

in an amorous correspondence, was employed in writing letters in

favour of these unhappy sufferers. It is impossible to conceive how I

was astonished to find with what delight, and with how little

ostentation, this young, this gay woman, performed these charitable

offices of humanity. Oh, says I to myself, if she were even Eloisa,

she could not act otherwise! From that moment I continued to regard

her with respect, and all her faults vanished.

My enquiries had no sooner taken this turn, than I began to discover a

thousand advantageous particulars in the very women who before

appeared so insupportable. Indeed all strangers are agreed, that,

provided you exclude the fashionable topic, there is no country in the

world whose women have more knowledge, talk more sensibly, with more

judgment, and are more capable of giving advice. If from the Spanish,

Italian, or German ladies, we should take the jargon of gallantry and

wit, what would there remain of their conversation? and you, my

Eloisa, are not ignorant how it is in general with our country-women.

But if, with a French woman, a man has resolution to sacrifice his

pretensions to gallantry, and to draw her out of that favourite

fortress, she will then make a virtue of necessity, and arming herself

with reason, will fight manfully in the open field. With regard to

their goodness of heart. I will not instance their zeal to serve their

friends; for, as with the rest of mankind, that may partly proceed

from self-love. But, though they generally love no body but

themselves, long habit will frequently produce in them the effects of

a sincere friendship. Those who have constancy enough to support an

attachment of ten years, commonly continue it to the end of their

lives, and they will then love their old friends with more tenderness,

at least with more fidelity than their new lovers.

One common accusation against the women of France is, that they do

every thing, and consequently more evil than good; but it may be

observed in their justification, that in doing evil they are

stimulated by the men, and in doing good are actuated by their own

principles. This does not in any ways contradict what I said before,

that the heart has no concern in the commerce between the two sexes;

for the gallantry of the French has given to the women an universal

power, which stands in no need of tenderness to support it. Every

thing depends upon the ladies; all things are done by them or for

them; Olympus and Parnassus, glory and fortune, are equally subject to

their laws. Neither books nor authors have any other value or esteem

than that which the ladies are pleased to allow them. There is no

appeal from their decree in matters of the nicest judgment or most

trivial taste. Poetry, criticism, history, philosophy, are all

calculated for the ladies, and even the bible itself has lately been

metamorphosed into a polite romance. In public affairs, their

influence arises from their natural ascendency over their husbands,

not because they are their husbands, but because they are men, and it

would be monstrous for a man to refuse any thing to a lady, even

though she were his wife.

Yet this authority implies neither attachment nor esteem, but merely

politeness and compliance with custom; for it is as essential to

French gallantry to despise the women as to oblige them; and this

contempt is taken as a proof, that a man has seen enough of the world

to know the sex. Whoever treats them with respect is deemed a novice,

a knight-errant, one who has known woman only in romances. They judge

so equitably of themselves, that to honour them is to forfeit their

esteem; so that the principal requisite in a man of gallantry is

superlative impertinence.

Let the ladies of this country pretend what they will, they are, in

spite of themselves, extremely good-natured. All men who are burthened

with a multiplicity of affairs, are difficult of access, and without

commiseration; and in Paris, the center of business of one of the most

considerable nations in Europe, the men of consequence are

particularly obdurate: those, therefore, who have any thing to ask,

naturally apply to the ladies, whose ears are never shut against the

unhappy; they console and serve them. In the midst of all their

frivolous dissipation, they do not scruple to steal a few moments from

their pleasure, and devote them to acts of benevolence; and though

there may be some women mean enough to make an infamous traffic of

their services, there are hundreds, on the contrary, who are daily

employed in charitably assisting the distressed. However, it must be

confessed, that they are sometimes so indiscreet, as to ruin an

unfortunate man they happen not to know, in order to serve their own

friend. But how is it possible to know every body in so extensive a

country? or how can more be expected from good-nature destitute of

real virtue, whose sublimest effort is not so much to do good, as to

avoid evil? After all, it must be allowed that their inclinations are

not naturally bad; that they do a great deal of good; that they do it

from their hearts; that they alone preserve the remains of humanity,

which are still to be found in Paris; and that without them, we should

see the men avaricious and insatiable, like wolves devouring each

other.

I should have remained ignorant of all this, if I had not consulted

their comedies and romances, whose authors are, perhaps, too apt to

stumble upon those foibles from which they themselves are not exempt,

rather than the virtues they happen not to possess; who, instead of

encouraging their readers by praising their real virtues, amuse

themselves with painting imaginary characters too perfect for

imitation.

Romances are perhaps the last vehicle of instruction that can be

administered to a corrupt people. It were to be wished that none were

suffered to prepare this medicine but men of honest principles and

true sensibility; authors, whose writings should be a picture of their

own hearts; who, instead of fixing virtue in the heavens, beyond the

reach of our nature, would, by smoothing the way, insensibly tempt us

out of the gulph of vice.

But to return to the Parisian ladies; concerning whom, I do not by any

means agree in the common opinion. They are universally allowed to

have the most enchanting address, the most seducing manner, to be the

most refined coquets, to possess the most sublime gallantry, and the

art of pleasing to a most superlative degree. For my part, I think

their address shocking, their coquettish airs disgusting, and their

manner extremely immodest. I should imagine that the heart would

shrink back at all their advances, and I can never be persuaded, that

they can for a single moment, talk of love, without shewing themselves

incapable of either feeling or inspiring that tender passion.

On the other hand, we find them represented frivolous, artful, false,

thoughtless, inconstant, talking well, but without reflection or

sentiment, and evaporating all their merit in idle chit-chat. But to

me, all this appears to be as external as their hoops or _rouge_. They

are a kind of fashionable vices, which are supposed necessary at

Paris, but which are not incompatible with sense, reason, humanity and

good-nature. These ladies are, in many cases, more discreet, and less

given to tattling than those of any other country. They are better

instructed, and the things they are taught have a stronger effect

upon their judgment. In short, if I dislike them for having disfigured

the proper characteristics of their sex, I esteem them for those

virtues in which they resemble us; and, my opinion is, that they are

better calculated to be men of merit, than amiable women.

One word more and I have done. If Eloisa had never been, if my heart

had been capable of any other attachment than that for which it was

created, I should never have taken a wife or mistress in Paris; but I

should gladly have chosen a friend, and such a treasure might possibly

have consoled me for the want of the others. [33]

Letter LXXXVII. To Eloisa.

Since the receipt of your letter, I have been daily with Mr.

Silvester, to see after the packet you mentioned: but my impatience

has been seven times disappointed. At length, however, on the eighth

time of going, I received it; and it was no sooner put into my hands,

than, without staying to pay the postage, even without asking what it

came to, or speaking a word to any body, I ran with it out of doors;

and, as if I had been out of my senses passed by the door of my

lodgings, though it stood open before me, and traversed a number of

streets that I knew nothing of, till in about half an hour I found

myself at the farther end of Paris. I was then obliged to take a

hackney coach in order to get the more speedily home, which is the

first time I have made use of those conveniences in a morning; indeed

it is with regret I use them even in an afternoon, to pay some distant

visits; for my legs are good, and I should be sorry that any

improvement in my circumstances should make me neglect the use of

them.

When I was seated in the coach, I was a good deal perplexed with my

packet; as you had laid your injunctions on me to open it no where but

at home. Besides, I was unwilling to be subject to any interruption in

opening the packet, and indulging myself in that exquisite

satisfaction, I find in every thing that comes from you. I held it

therefore with an impatience and curiosity which I could scarce

contain: endeavouring to discover its contents through the covers, by

pressing it every way with my hands; from the continual motions of

which you would have thought the packet contained fire, and burned the

ends of my fingers. Not but that from its size, weight, and the

contents of your former letter, I had some suspicion; but then, how

could I conceive you to have found either the opportunity or the

artist? but what I then could not conceive, is one of the miracles of

almighty love: the more it surpasses my conception, the more it

enchants my heart, and one of the greatest pleasures it gives me

arises from my ignorance in the manner in which you could effect it.

Arrived at length at my lodgings, I flew to my chamber, locked the

door, threw myself, out of breath, into a chair, and with a trembling

hand broke open the seal. ’Twas then, Eloisa, I felt the first effect

of this powerful talisman. The palpitations of my heart increased at

every paper I unfolded; till coming to the last, I was forced to stop

and take breath a moment, before I could open it. It is open----my

suggestions are true,----it is so,----it is the portrait of Eloisa.

----O , my love! your divine image is before me; I gaze with rapture

on your charms! my lips, my heart, pay them the first homage, my

knees bend;----Again, my eyes are ravished with thy heavenly

beauties. How immediate, how powerful, is their magical effect! no

Eloisa, it requires not, as you pretend, a quarter of an hour to make

itself perceived; a minute, an instant suffices, to draw from my

breast a thousand ardent sighs, and to recall, with thy image, the

remembrance of my past happiness. Ah! why is the rapture of having

such a treasure in possession allayed with so much bitterness? how

lively is the representation it gives me of days that are no more!

I gaze on the portrait, I think I see Eloisa, and enjoy in

imagination those delightful moments, whose remembrance imbitters

my present hours; and which heaven in its anger bestowed on me only

to take them away. Alas! the next instant undeceives me; the pangs

of absence throb with increased violence, after the agreeable

delusion is vanished, and I am in the fate of those miserable

wretches, whose tortures are remitted only to render them the more

cruel. Heavens! what flames have not my eager eyes darted on this

unexpected object! how has the sight of it roused in me those

impetuous emotions, which used to be effected by your presence! O,

my Eloisa, were it possible for this talisman to affect your senses

with the phrenzy and illusion of mine----But why is it not possible?

why may not those impressions, which the mind darts forth with such

rapidity, reach as far as Eloisa? Ah, my charming friend! wherever

you are, or however you are employed, at the time I am now writing,

at the time your portrait receives the same homage I pay to the idol

of my soul, do you not perceive your charming face bedewed with

tears? do you not sympathize with me in love and sorrow? do you not

feel the ardour of a lover’s kisses on your lips, your cheeks, your

breast? do you not glow all over with the flame imparted from my

burning lips?----Ha! what’s that?----some body knocks----I will hide

my treasure----an impertinent breaks in upon me,----accursed be the

cruel intruder, for interrupting me in transports so delightful, may

he never be capable of love,----or may he be doomed to pine in

absence, like me.

Letter LXXXVIII. To Mrs. Orbe.

It is to you, dear cousin, I am to give an account of the French

opera; for, although you have not mentioned it in your own letters,

and Eloisa has kept your secret in hers, I am not at a loss to whom to

attribute that piece of curiosity. I have been once at the opera to

satisfy myself, and twice to oblige you, but am in hopes, however,

this letter will be my excuse for going no more. If you command me,

indeed, I can bear it again; I can suffer, I can sleep there, for your

service; but to remain awake and attentive is absolutely impossible.

But, before I tell you what I think of this famous theatre, I will

give you an account of what they say of it here; the opinion of the

connoisseurs may perhaps rectify mine, where I happen to be mistaken.

The French opera passes at Paris for the most pompous, the most

delightful, the most wonderful entertainment that was ever effected by

the united efforts of the human genius. It is said to be the most

superb monument of the magnificence of Louis the fourteenth. In fact,

every one is not so much at liberty, as you imagine, to give his

opinion on so grave a subject. Every thing may be made a point of

dispute here, except music and the opera; but with respect to these,

it may be dangerous not to dissemble one’s thoughts, as the French

music is supported by an inquisition no less arbitrary than severe.

Indeed the first lesson which strangers are taught, is, that

foreigners universally allow that nothing in the whole world is so

fine as the opera at Paris. The truth is, discreet people are silent

upon this topic, because they dare not laugh, except in private.

It must be allowed, however, that they represent at the opera, at a

vast expense, not only all the wonderful things in nature, but many

others still more wonderful, and which nature never produced. For my

part, I cannot help thinking Mr. Pope meant this theatre, where he

said, one might see there, mixed in one scene of confusion, gods,

devils, monsters, kings, shepherds, fairies, madness, joy, a wild-

fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball.

This assemblage, so magnificent and well conducted, is regarded by the

spectators as if all the things and characters exhibited were real. On

seeing the representation of a heathen temple, they are seized with a

profound reverence; and, if the goddess be at all pretty, half the men

in the pit are immediately pagans.

Here the audience is not so nice as at the French comedy. Those very

spectators, who could not there consider the player as the character

he represented, cannot, at the opera consider him any otherwise. It

seems as if they were shocked at a national deception, and could give

into nothing but what was grossly absurd; or perhaps they can more

easily conceive players to be gods than heroes. Jupiter being of

another nature, people may think of him as they please; but Cato was a

man, and how few men are there, who, to judge from themselves, have

any reason to think such a man as Cato ever existed.

This opera is not composed, therefore, as in other places, of a

company of mercenaries, hired to furnish out an entertainment for the

public. It is true, they are paid by the public, and it is their

business to attend the opera: but the nature of it is quite changed by

its becoming a royal academy of music, a sort of sovereign tribunal

that judges without appeal in its own cause, and is not very

remarkable for justice and integrity. Thus you see, how much in some

countries the essence of things depends on mere words, and how a

respectable title may do honour to that which least deserves it.

The members of this illustrious academy are not degraded by their

profession: in revenge, however, they are excommunicated, which is

directly contrary to the custom of all other countries: but, perhaps,

having had their choice, they had rather live honourably and be

damned, than go, as plebeians, vulgarly to heaven. I have seen a

modern chevalier, on the French theatre, as proud of the profession of

a player, as the unfortunate Laberius was formerly mortified at it,

although the latter was forced into it by the commands of Caesar, and

recited only his own works. [34] But then our degraded ancient could

not afterwards take his place in the circus among the Roman knights;

whilst the modern one found his every day at the French comedy, among

the first nobility in the kingdom. And I will venture to say, never

did they talk at Rome with so much respect, of the majesty of the

Roman people, as they do at Paris, of the majesty of the opera.

This is what I have gathered chiefly from conversation about this

splendid entertainment; I will now relate to you what I have seen of

it myself.

Imagine to yourself the inside of a large box, about fifteen feet

wide, and long in proportion: this box is the stage; on each side are

placed screens, at different distances, on which the objects of the

scene are coarsely painted. Beyond there is a great curtain, bedaubed

in the same manner; which extends from one side to the other, and is

generally cut through, to represent caves in the earth, and openings

in the heavens, as the perspective requires. So that, if any person,

in walking behind the scenes, should happen to brush against the

curtain, he might cause an earthquake so violent as to shake----our

sides with laughing. The skies are represented by a parcel of bluish

rags, hung up with lines and poles, like wet linen at the washer-

woman’s. The sun, for he is represented here sometimes, is a large

candle in a lanthorn. The chariots of the gods and goddesses are made

of four bits of wood, nailed together in the form of a square, and

hung up by a strong cord, like a swing: across the middle is fastened

a board, on which the deity sits a straddle; and in the front of it

hangs a piece of coarse canvas, bedaubed with paint, to represent the

clouds that attend on this magnificent car. The bottom of this

machine is illuminated by two or three stinking, unsnuffed candles,

which, as often as the celestial personage bustles about and shakes

his swing, smoke him deliciously, with incense worthy such a divinity.

As these chariots are the most considerable machines of the opera, you

may judge by them of the rest. A troubled sea is made of long rollers

covered with canvas or blue paper, laid parallel and turned by the

dirty understrappers of the theatre. Their thunder is a heavy cart,

which rumbles over the floor’d ceiling, and is not the least affecting

instrument of their agreeable music. The flashes of lightning are made

by throwing powdered rosin into the flame of a link; and the falling

thunderbolt is a cracker at the end of a squib.

The stage is provided with little square trap doors; which, opening on

occasion, give notice that the infernal demons are coming out of the

cellar. And when they are to be carried up into the air, they

substitute dexterously in their room little devils of brown canvas

stuffed with straw, or sometimes real chimney-sweepers, that are drawn

up by ropes, and ride triumphant through the air till they

majestically enter the clouds, and are lost among the dirty rags I

mentioned. But what is really tragical is, that when the tackle is not

well managed, or the ropes happen to break, down come infernal spirits

and immortal gods together, and break their limbs and sometimes their

necks. To all this I shall add their monsters; which certainly make

some scenes very pathetic, such as their dragons, lizards, tortoises,

crocodiles, and great toads, all which stalk or crawl about the stage

with a threatening air, and put one in mind of the temptation of St.

Anthony: every one of these figures being animated by a looby of a

Savoyard, that has not sense enough to play the brute.

Thus you see, cousin, in what consists, in a great degree, the

splendid furniture of the opera; at least, thus much I could observe

from the pit, with the help of my glass; for you must not imagine

these expedients are much hid, or produce any great illusion: I only

tell you here what I saw, and what every other unprejudiced spectator

might have seen as well as myself. I was told, nevertheless, that a

prodigious quantity of machinery is employed to effect all these

motions, and was several times offered a sight of it; but I was never

curious to see in what manner extraordinary efforts were made to be

productive of insignificant effects.

The number of people engaged in the service of the opera is

inconceivable. The orchestra and chorus together consist of near an

hundred persons: there is a multitude of dancers, every part being

doubly and triply supplied, [35] that is to say, there is always one or

two inferior actors ready to take the place of the principal, and who

are paid for doing nothing, till the principal is pleased to do

nothing in his turn, and which is seldom long before it happens. After

a few representations, the chief actors, who are personages of great

consequence, honour the public no more with their presence in that

piece, but give up their parts to their substitutes, or to the

substitutes of those substitutes. They receive always the same money

at the door, but the spectator does not always meet with the same

entertainment. Every one takes a ticket, as he does in the lottery,

without knowing what will be his prize; but, be what it will, no body

dares complain; for you are to know, that the honourable members of

this academy owe the public no manner of respect, it is the public

which owes it to them.

I will say nothing to you of their music, because you are acquainted

with it. But you can have no idea of the frightful cries and hideous

bellowings, with which the theatre resounds during the representation.

The actresses, throwing themselves into convulsions as it were, rend

their lungs with squeaking: in the mean time, with their fists

clenched against their stomach their heads thrown back, their faces

red, their veins swelled, and their breasts heaving, one knows not

which is most disagreeably affected, the eye or the ear. Their actions

make those suffer as much who see them, as their singing does those

who hear them; and yet what is inconceivable is, that these howlings

are almost the only thing the audience applaud. By the clapping of

their hands, one would imagine them a parcel of deaf people, delighted

to be able to hear the voice now and then strained to the highest

pitch, and that they strove to encourage the actors to repeat their

efforts. For my part, I am persuaded that they applaud the squeaking

of an actress at the opera, for the same reason as they do the tricks

of a tumbler or posture-master at the fair: it is displeasing and

painful to see them; one is in pain while they last, but we are so

glad to see all pass off without any accident, that we willingly give

them applause.

Think how well this manner of singing is adapted to express all that

Quinault has written the most soft and tender. Imagine the muses,

loves and graces, imagine Venus herself expressing her sentiments in

this delicate manner, and judge of the effects. As to their devils,

let us leave their music to something infernal enough to suit it. As

also that of their magicians, conjurers and witches; all which,

however meets with the greatest applause at the French opera.

To these ravishing sounds, as harmonious as sweet, we may very

deservedly join those of the orchestra. Conceive to yourself a

continual clashing of jarring instruments, attended with the drawling

and perpetual groans of the base, a noise the most doleful and

insupportable that I ever heard in my life, and which I could never

bear a quarter of an hour together without being seized with a violent

head-ach. All this forms a species of psalmody, which has commonly

neither time nor tune. But when, by accident they hit on an air a

little lively, the feet of the audience are immediately in motion, and

the whole house thunders with their clattering. The pit in particular,

with much pains and a great noise, always imitate a certain performer

in the orchestra. [36] Delighted to perceive for a moment that cadence

which they so seldom feel, they strain their ears, voice, hands, feet,

and in short, their whole body to keep that time, which is every

moment ready to escape them. Instead of this the Italians and Germans,

who are more easily affected with the measures of their music, pursue

them without any effort, and have never any occasion to beat time. At

least, Regianino has often told me, that, at the opera in Italy, where

the music is so affecting and lively, you will never see, or hear, in

the orchestra or among the spectators, the least motion of either

hands or feet. But in this country, every thing serves to prove the

dullness of their musical organs; their voices are harsh and

unpleasing, their tones affected and drawling, and their transitions

hard and dissonant: there is no cadence nor melody in their songs;

their martial instruments, the fifes of the infantry, the trumpets of

their cavalry, their horns, their hautboys, the ballad-singers in the

streets, and the fiddlers in their public-houses, all have something

so horribly grating as to shock the most indelicate ear. [37] All

talents are not bestowed on the same men, and the French in general

are of all the people in Europe those of the least aptitude for music.

Lord B---- pretends that the English have as little, but the

difference is, that they know it, and care nothing about the matter,

whereas the French give up a thousand just pretensions, and will

submit to be censured in any other point whatever, sooner than admit

they are not the first musicians in the world. There are even people

at Paris who look upon the cultivation of music as the concern of the

state, perhaps because the improvement of Timotheus’s lyre was so at

Sparta. However this be, the opera here may, for aught I know, be a

good political institution, in that it pleases persons of taste no

better. But to return to my description.

The _ballets_, which are the most brilliant parts of the opera,

considered of themselves, afford a pleasing entertainment, as they are

magnificent and truly theatrical; but, as they enter into the

composition of the piece, it is in that light we must consider them.

You remember the operas of Quinault; you know in what manner the

diversions are there introduced; it is much the same or rather worse

with his successors. In every act, the action of the piece is stopt

short, just at the most interesting period, by an interlude which is

represented before the actors, who are seated on the stage while the

audience in the pit are kept standing. From these interruptions it

frequently happens, that the characters of the piece are quite

forgotten, and always that the spectators are kept looking at actors

that are looking at something else. The fashion of these interludes is

very simple. If the prince is in a good humour, it partakes of the

gaiety of his disposition, and is a dance; if he is displeased, it is

contrived in order to bring him to temper again, and it is also a

dance. I know not whether it be the fashion at court to make a ball

for the entertainment of the king, when he is out of humour; but this

I know, with respect to our opera kings, that one cannot sufficiently

admire their stoical firmness and philosophy, in sitting so tranquil

to see comic dances and attend to songs, while the fate of their

kingdoms, crowns and lives, is sometimes determined behind the scenes.

But they have besides many other occasions for the introduction of

dances; the most solemn actions of human life are here performed in a

dance. The parsons dance, the soldiers dance, the gods dance, the

devils dance, the mourners dance at their funerals, and in short all

their characters dance upon all occasions.

Dancing is thus the fourth of the fine arts employed in the

constitution of the lyric drama: the other three are arts of

imitation; but what is imitated in dancing? nothing.----It is

therefore foreign to the purpose, for what business is there for

minuets or rigadoons in a tragedy? nay, I will venture to say, dancing

would be equally absurd in such compositions, though something was

imitated by it: for of all the dramatic unities the most indispensable

is that of language or expression; and an opera made up partly of

singing, partly of dancing, is even more ridiculous than that in which

they sing half French half Italian.

Not content to introduce dancing as an essential part of the

composition, they even attempt to make it the principal, having

operas, which they call ballets, and which so badly answer their

title, that dancing is no less out of character in them than in all

the rest. Most of these ballets consist of as many different subjects

as acts; which subjects are connected together by certain meta-

physical relations, of which the spectator would never form the least

suspicion or conjecture, if the author did not take care to advise him

of it in the prologue. The seasons, ages, senses, elements, are the

subjects of a dance; but I should be glad to know what propriety there

is in all this, or what ideas can by this means be conveyed to the

mind of the spectator? some of them again are purely allegorical, as

the _carnival_, the _folly_, and are the most intolerable of all,

because with a good deal of wit and finesse, they contain neither

sentiment, description, plot, business, nor any thing that can either

interest the audience, set off the music to advantage, flatter the

passions, or heighten the illusion. In these pretended ballets the

action of the piece is performed in singing, the dancers continually

finding occasion to break in upon the singers, tho’ without meaning or

design.

The result of all this, however, is, that these ballets, being less

interesting than their tragedies, their interruptions are little

remarked. Were the piece itself more affecting, the spectator would be

more offended; but the one defect serves to hide the other, and, in

order to prevent the spectators being tired with the dancing, the

authors artfully contrive it so that they may be more heartily tired

with the piece itself.

This would lead me insensibly to make some queries into the true

composition of the lyric drama, but there would be too prolix to be

compressed in this letter; I have therefore written a little

dissertation on that subject, which you will find inclosed, and may

communicate to Regianino. I shall only add, with respect to the French

opera, that the greatest fault I observed in it is a false taste for

magnificence; whence they attempt to represent the marvellous, which,

being only the object of imagination, is introduced with as much

propriety in an epic poem, as it is ridiculously attempted on the

stage. I should hardly have believed, had not I seen it, that there

could be found artists weak enough to attempt an imitation of the

chariot of the sun, or spectators so childish as to go to see it.

Bruyere could not conceive how so fine a sight as the opera could be

tiresome. For my part, who am no Bruyere, I can conceive it very well,

and will maintain, that to every man who has a true taste for the fine

arts, the French music, their dancing, and the marvellous of their

scenery put together, compose the most tiresome representation in the

world. After all, perhaps the French do not deserve a more perfect

entertainment, especially with respect to the performance not because

they want ability to judge of what is good, but because the bad

pleases them better. For, as they had rather censure than applaud, the

pleasure of criticizing compensates for every defect, and they had

rather laugh after they get home, than be pleased with the piece

during the representation.

Letter LXXXIX. From Eloisa.

Yes, I see it well: Eloisa is still happy in your love, the same fire

that once sparkled in your eyes, glows throughout your last letter,

and kindles all the ardour of mine. Yes, my friend, in vain doth

fortune separate us; let our hearts press forward to each other, let

us preserve by such a communication, their natural warmth against the

chilling coldness of absence and despair; and let every thing that

tends to loosen the ties of our affections, serve only to draw them

closer and bind them fast.

You will smile at my simplicity, when I tell you, that since the

receipt of your letter, I have experienced something of those charming

effects therein mentioned, and that the jest of the talisman, although

purely my own invention, is turned upon myself and become serious. I

am seized a hundred times a day, when alone, with a fit of trembling,

as if you were before me. I imagine you are gazing on my portrait, and

am foolish enough to feel, in conceit, the warmth of those embraces,

the impression of those kisses you bestow on it. Sweet illusion!

charming effects of fancy; the last resources of the unhappy. Oh, if

it be possible, be ye to us a pleasing reality! ye are yet something

to those who are deprived of real happiness.

As to the manner in which I obtained the portrait, it was indeed the

contrivance of love; but, believe me, if mine could work miracles, it

would not have made choice of this. I will let you into the secret. We

had here some time ago a miniature painter, on his return from Italy:

he brought letters from Lord B----, who perhaps had some view in

sending him. Mr. Orbe embraced this opportunity to have a portrait of

my cousin; I was desirous of one also. In return, she and my mother

would each have one of me, of which the painter at my request took

secretly a second copy. Without troubling myself about the original, I

chose of the three that which I thought the most perfect likeness,

with a design to send it to you. I made but little scruple, I own, of

this piece of deceit; for, as to the likeness of the portrait, a

little more or less can make no great difference with my mother and

cousin but the homage you might pay to any other resemblance than

mine, would be a kind of infidelity, by so much the more dangerous, as

my picture might be handsomer than me; and I would not, on any

account, that you should nourish a passion for charms I do not

possess. With respect to the drapery, I could have liked to have been

not so negligently dressed; but I was not heard, and my father himself

insisted on the portrait’s being finished as it is. Except the head-

dress, however, nothing of the habit was taken from mine, the painter

having dressed the picture as he thought proper, and ornamented my

person with the works of his own imagination.

Letter XC. To Eloisa.

I must talk to you still, my dear Eloisa, of your portrait; no longer,

however, in that rapturous strain which the first sight of it

inspired; and with which you yourself were so much affected; but, on

the contrary, with the regret of a man deceived by false hopes, and

whom nothing can recompense for what he has lost. Your portrait, like

yourself, is both graceful and beautiful; it is also a tolerable

likeness, and is painted by the hand of a master; but to be satisfied

with it I ought never to have known you.

The first fault I find in it is, that it resembles you, and yet is not

yourself; that it has your likeness, and is insensible. In vain the

painter thought to copy your features; where is that sweetness of

sentiment that enlivens them, and without which, regular and beautiful

as they are, they are nothing? your heart, Eloisa, no painting can

imitate. This defect, I own, should be attributed to the imperfection

of the art; but it is the fault of the artist not to have been exact

in every thing that depended on himself. He has, for instance, brought

the hair too forward on the temples, which gives the forehead a less

agreeable and delicate air. He has also forgotten two or three little

veins, seen through the transparent skin in winding branches of

purple, resembling those on the Iris we once stood admiring in the

gardens of _Clarens_. The colouring of the cheeks is also too near the

eyes, and is not softened into that glowing blush of the rose toward

the lower part of the face, which distinguishes the lovely original.

One would take it for an artificial _rouge_, plastered on like the

carmine of the French ladies. Nor is this defect a small one, as it

makes the eyes appear less soft, and its looks more bold.

But pray what has he done with those dimples, wherein the little

cupids lurk at the corners of your mouth; and which in my fortunate

days I used to stifle with kisses? he has not given half their beauty

to these charming lips. He has not given the mouth that agreeable

serious turn, which changing in an instant into a smile, ravishes the

heart with inconceivable enchantment, inspires it with an

instantaneous rapture which no words can express. It is true, your

portrait cannot pass from the serious to a smile. This is, alas! the

very thing of which I complain. To paint all your charms you should be

drawn every instant of your life.

But to pass over the injustice the painter has done you, in

overlooking your beauties, he has done you more, in having omitted

your defects. He has left out that almost imperceptible mole under

your right eye, as well as that on the right side of your neck. He has

not----heavens! was the man a statue? he has forgot the little scar

under your lip; he has made your hair and eyebrows of the same colour:

which they are not. Your eye-brows are more upon the chestnut, and

your hair rather of the ash-colour.

_Bionda testa occhi azurri e bruno ciglio._

He has made the lower part of the face exactly oval; not observing the

small hollow between your cheeks and chin, which makes their out-lines

less regular and more agreeable. These are the most palpable defects,

but he has omitted several others, for which I owe him no goodwill:

for I am not only in love with your beauties, but with Eloisa herself,

just as she is. If you would not be obliged for any charm to the

pencil, I would not have you lose by it the smallest defect; my heart

can never be affected by charms that are not your own.

As to the drapery, I shall take the more notice of it, as, whether in

a dishabille or otherwise, I have always seen you dressed with more

taste than you are in the portrait: the head-dress is too large; you

will say it is composed only of flowers. That’s true; but there are

too many. Don’t you remember the ball, at which you were dressed like

a country girl, and your cousin told me I danced like a philosopher?

You had then no other head-dress than your long tresses, turned up and

fastened at top with a golden bodkin, in the manner of the villagers

of Berne. No, the sun glittering in all its radiance displays not half

that lustre, with which you then engaged the eyes and hearts of the

beholders; and there is no one who saw you that day, that can ever

forget you during his whole life. It is thus, my Eloisa, your head

ought to have been dressed. It is your charming hair that should adorn

your face, and not those spreading roses. Tell my cousin, for I

discover her choice and direction, that the flowers with which she has

thus covered and profaned your tresses, are in no better taste than

those she gathers in _Adonis_. One might overlook them did they serve

as an ornament to beauty, but I cannot permit them to hide it.

With respect to the bust, it is singular that a lover should be more

nice in this particular than a father; but, to say the truth, I think

you are too carelessly dressed. The portrait of Eloisa should be

modest as herself. These hidden charms should be sacred to love. You

say the painter drew them from his imagination. I believe it; indeed,

I believe it. Had he caught the least glimpse of thine, his eyes would

have gazed on them for ever, but his hand would not have attempted to

paint them: why was it necessary the rash artist should form them in

imagination? this was not only an offence against decency, but I will

maintain it also to be want of taste. Yes, your countenance is too

modest to support the disorder of your breast; it is plain that one of

these objects ought to hinder the other from being seen: it is the

privilege of love alone to see both together, and when its glowing

hand uncovers the charms that modesty conceals, the sweet confusion of

your eyes shews that you forget not that you expose them.

Such are the criticisms that a continual attention has occasioned me

to make on your portrait: in consequence of which I have formed a

design to alter it, agreeable to my own taste. I have communicated my

intentions to an able master, and from what he has already done, I

hope to see you soon more like yourself. For fear of spoiling the

picture, however, we try our alterations first on a copy, which I have

made him take; and make them in the original only when we are quite

sure of their effect. Although I design but indifferently, my artist

cannot help admiring the subtilty of my observations, but he does not

know that love, who dictates them, is a greater master than he. I seem

to him also sometimes very whimsical: he tells me I am the first lover

that ever chose to hide objects which others think cannot be too much

exposed; and when I answer him, it is in order to have a full view of

you, that I dress you up with so much care, he stares at me, as if he

thought me a fool. Ah! my Eloisa, how much more affecting would be

your portrait, if I could but find out the means to display it in your

mind, as well as your face; to paint at once your modesty and your

charms! what would not the latter gain by such an amendment! at

present those only are seen which the painter imagined, and the

ravished spectator thinks them such as they are. I know not what

secret enchantment is about your person, but every thing that touches

you seems to partake of its virtue: one need only perceive the corner

of your garment to revere the wearer of it. One perceives in your

dress how the veil of the graces affords a covering to the model of

beauty; and the taste of your modest apparel displays to the mind all

those charms it conceals.

Letter XCI. To Eloisa.

Oh, Eloisa! you whom once I could call mine, though now I profane your

virtuous name! my pen drops from my trembling hand, I blot the paper

with my tears, I can hardly trace the first words of a letter, which

ought never to be written; alas! I can neither speak nor be silent.

Come, thou dear and respectable image of my love, come, purify and

strengthen a heart depressed with shame and torn to pieces by remorse.

Support my resolution that fails me, and give my contrition the power

to avow the involuntary crime into which the absence of Eloisa has

plunged me.

Oh! Eloisa, how contemptible will you think me! and yet you cannot

hold me in greater contempt than I do myself. Abject as I may seem in

your eyes, I am yet a hundred times more so in my own; for, in

reflecting on my own demerits, what mortifies me most is to see, to

feel you still in my heart, in a place henceforward so little worthy

of your image and to think that the remembrance of the truest

pleasures of love could not prevent me from falling into a snare that

had no lure, from being led into a crime that had presented no

temptation.

Such is the excess of my confusion, that I am afraid, even in

recurring to your clemency, lest the perusal of the lines in which I

confess my guilt should offend you. Let your purity and chastity

forgive me a recital which should have been spared your modesty, were

it not the means to expiate, in some degree, my infidelity. I know I

am unworthy of your goodness; I am a mean, despicable wretch, but I

will not be an hypocrite or deceive you, for I had rather you should

deprive me of your love, and even life itself, than to impose on

Eloisa for a moment. Lest I should be tempted, therefore, to seek

excuses to palliate my crime, which will only render me the more

criminal, I will confine myself to an exact relation of what has

happened to me; a relation that shall be as sincere as my repentance,

which is all I shall say in my defence.

I had commenced acquaintance with some officers in the guards, and

other young people among my countrymen, in whom I found a good innate

disposition, which I was sorry to see spoiled by the imitation of I

know not what false airs, which nature never designed for them. They

laughed at me in their turn, for preserving in Paris the simplicity of

our ancient Helvetian manners; and, construing my maxims and behaviour

into an indirect censure of theirs, resolved to make me a convert to

their own practices at all hazards. After several attempts which did

not succeed, they made another too well concerted to fail of success.

Yesterday morning they came to me, with a proposal to go with the lady

of a certain colonel they mentioned, who, from the report, they were

pleased to say, of my good sense, had a mind to be acquainted with me.

Fool enough to give into this idle story, I represented to them the

propriety of first making her a visit; but they laughed at my

punctilios, telling me the frankness of a Swiss did not at all agree

with such formality, and that so much ceremony would only serve to

give her a bad opinion of me. At nine o’clock then in the evening, we

waited on the lady. She came out to receive us on the stair-case,

through an excess of civility which I had never seen practised before.

Having entered the apartment, I observed a servant lighting up pieces

of old wax candles over the chimney, and over all an air of

preparation which did not at all please me. The mistress of the house

appeared handsome, tho’ a little past her prime: there were also

several other women with her much about the same age and figure; their

dress, which was rich enough, had more of finery in it than taste; but

I have already observed to you that this is not a sure sign by which

to judge of the condition of the women of this country.----The first

compliments were made as usual, custom teaching one to cut them short,

or to turn them into pleasantry, before they grew tiresome. Something

unusual however appeared as soon as our discourse became general and

serious. I thought the ladies seemed to wear an air of restraint as if

it were not familiar to them, and now, for the first time since I have

been at Paris, I saw women at a loss to support a rational

conversation. To find an easy topic, they brought up at length their

family affairs, and as I knew none of them, I had little share in the

conversation. Never before did I hear so much talk of the colonel, and

the colonel; which not a little surprized me, in a country where it is

the custom to distinguish people rather by their names than by their

profession, and in which almost every man of rank in the army has

besides some other title of distinction.

This affectation of dignity soon gave way to a behaviour more natural

to them: they began to talk low, and, running insensibly into an air

of indecent familiarity, they laughed and whispered every time they

looked at me; while the lady of the house asked me the situation of my

heart, with a certain boldness of manner, not at all adapted to make a

conquest of it. The table was spread, and that freedom which seems to

make no distinction of persons, but generally puts every one without

design in the proper place, fully convinced me what sort of company I

was in. But it was too late to recede: putting my confidence therefore

in my aversion, I determined to apply that evening to observation, and

to employ in the study of that order of women, the only opportunity I

might ever have. Little, however, was the fruit of my attention: I

found them so insensible to their present situation, so void of

apprehensions for the future, and, excepting the tricks of their

profession, so stupid in all respects, that the contempt into which

they sunk in my opinion, soon effaced the pity I first entertained for

them. In speaking even of pleasure itself, I saw they were incapable

of feeling it. They appeared rapacious after every thing that could

gratify their avarice; and, excepting what regarded their interest, I

heard not a word drop from their lips that came from the heart. I was

astonished to think how men, not abandoned like themselves, could

support so disgustful a society. It were, in my opinion, the most

cruel punishment that could be inflicted, to oblige them to keep such

company.

We sat a long while at supper, and the company at length began to grow

noisy. For want of love, the wine went briskly round to inflame the

guests: the discourse was not tender but immodest, and the women

strove by the disorder of their dress to excite those passions which

should have caused that disorder. All this had a very different effect

upon me, and their endeavours to reduce me only heightened my disgust.

Sweet modesty! said I to myself, it is thine to inspire the sublimest

raptures love can bestow! how impotent are female charms when thou

hast left them! if the sex did but know thy power, what pains would

they not take to preserve thee inviolate; if not for the sake of

virtue, at least for their interest! but modesty is not to be assumed.

There is not a more ridiculous artifice in the world than that of the

prude who affects it. What a difference, thought I, is there between

the impudence of these creatures, with their licentious expressions,

and those timid and tender looks, those conversations so full of

modesty, so delicate, so sentimental, which----but I dare not finish

the sentence; I blush at the comparison.----I reproach myself, as if

it were criminal, with the delightful remembrance of her who pursues

me wherever I go. But how shall I now dare to think of her?----alas!

it is impossible to eraze your image from my heart: let me then strive

to conceal it there.

The noise, the discourse I heard, together with the objects that

presented themselves to my view, insensibly inflamed me; my two

neighbours plied me incessantly with wine. I found my head confused,

and, though I drank all the while a good deal of water in my wine, I

now took more water, and at length determined to drink water only. It

was then I perceived the pretended water set before me was white wine,

and that I had drank it from the first. I made no complaints, as they

would only have subjected me to raillery, but gave over drinking

entirely. But it was too late, the mischief was already done, and the

intoxicating effects of what I had already drank soon deprived me of

the little sense that remained. I was surprized, in recovering my

senses, to find myself in a retired closet, locked in the embraces of

one of those creatures I had supped with, and in the same instant had

the mortification to find myself as criminal as I could possibly be.

I have finished this horrible relation. Would to heaven it might never

more offend your eyes, nor torture my memory. O Eloisa! it is from you

I expect my doom; I demand, I deserve, your severity. Whatever be my

punishment it will be less cruel than the remembrance of my crime.

Letter XCII. The Answer.

You may be easy as to the fear of having offended me. Your letter

rather excited my grief than my anger. It is not me, it is your-self

you have offended, by a debauch in which the heart had no share. I am

at this, however, but the more afflicted; for I had much rather you

should affront Eloisa than debase yourself; and the injury you have

done to yourself is that only which I cannot forgive.----To regard

only the fault of which you accuse yourself, you are not so culpable

as you imagine: I can reproach you on that account only with

imprudence. But what I blame you for, is of a greater moment, and

proceeds from a failing, that has taken deeper root than you imagine,

and which it is the part of a friend to lay before you.

Your primary error lies in having at first taken a wrong path, in

which, the farther you advance the more you will go astray; and I

tremble to see that, unless you tread back the steps you have taken,

you are inevitably lost. You have suffered yourself to be led

insensibly into the very snares I dreaded. The more gross and palpable

allurements of vice I knew could not seduce you, but the bad company

you keep, hath begun by deluding your reason, to corrupt your morals,

and hath already made the first essay of its maxims on your behaviour.

You have told me nothing, it is true, in particular, of the

acquaintance you have made in Paris; but it is easy to judge of your

companions by your letters, and of those who point out the objects, by

your manner of describing them. I have not concealed from you how

little satisfied I have been with your remarks; you have nevertheless

continued them in the same stile, which has only increased my

displeasure. In fact, one would rather take your observations for the

sarcasms of some petit-maitre, than for the animadversions of a

philosopher; and it is hardly possible to believe them written by the

same hand that wrote your former letters. Do you think to study

mankind by the confined behaviour of a few societies of finical prudes

and other idlers? do none of your remarks penetrate beyond the

exterior and changeable varnish which ought hardly to have engaged

your attention? was it worthwhile to collect with so much care those

peculiarities of manners and decorum, which ten years hence will no

longer exist; while the unalterable springs of the human heart, the

constant and secret workings of the passions have escaped your

researches? let us turn to your letter concerning women: in what have

you instructed me to know them? you have given indeed a description of

their dress, which all the world might be as well acquainted with; and

have made some malicious observations on the address and behaviour of

some, as also of the irregularities of a few others, which you have

unjustly attributed to them all, as if no person of virtuous

sentiments was to be found in Paris, and every woman flaunted about

there in her chariot, and sat in the front boxes. Have you told me any

thing that can throw real light upon their true character, taste or

maxims? and is it not strange, that in describing the women of a

country, a man of sense should omit what regards their domestic

concerns and education of their children? [38] the only circumstance

in that letter characteristic of its author, is the apparent

satisfaction with which you commend the goodness of their natural

disposition, which, I must confess, doth honour to yours. And yet,

what have you done more in that than barely justice to the sex in

general? for in what country are not gentleness of manners and

compassion for the distressed, the amiable qualities of the women?

What a difference had there been in the picture, if you had described

what you had seen, rather than what you had heard; or, at least, if

you had only consulted people of sense and solidity on the occasion?

was it for you, who have taken so much pains to cultivate your genius,

to throw away your time deliberately in the company of a parcel of

inconsiderate young fellows, who take pleasure in the society of

persons of virtue and understanding, not to imitate, but only to

seduce and corrupt them. You lay a stress on the equality of age, with

which you should have nothing to do, and forgot that of sense and

knowledge, which is more peculiarly essential. In spite of your

violent passions, you are certainly the most pliable man in the world;

and, notwithstanding the ripeness of your judgment, permit yourself to

be conducted so implicitly by those you converse with, that you cannot

keep company with young people of your own age without condescending

to become a mere infant in their hands. Thus you mistake in your

choice of proper companions, and demean yourself in not fixing upon

such as have more understanding than yourself.

I do not reproach you with having been inadvertently taken into a

dishonest house; but with having been conducted thither by a party of

young officers, who ought never to have known you; or at least, whom

you should never have permitted to direct your amusements. With

respect to your project of making them converts to your own

principles, I discover in it more zeal than prudence; if you are of

too serious a turn to be their companion, you are too young to be

their tutor, and you ought not to think of reforming others till there

is nothing left to reform in yourself.

The next fault, which is of more moment and less pardonable, is to

have passed voluntarily the evening in a place so unworthy of you, and

not to have left the house the moment you knew what it was. Your

excuses on this head are mean and pitiful. You say _it was too late to

recede_, as if any decorum was necessary to be observed in such a

place, or as if decorum ought ever to take place of virtue, and that

it were ever too late to abstain from doing evil. As to the security

you found in your aversion to the manners of such a company, I will

say nothing of it; the event has shewn you how well it was founded.

Speak more freely to one who so well knows how to read your heart;

say, you were ashamed to leave your companions. You were afraid they

would laugh at you, a momentary hiss struck you with fear, and you had

rather expose yourself to the bitterness of remorse than the tartness

of raillery. Do you know what a maxim you followed on this occasion?

that which first vitiates every innocent mind, drowns the voice of

conscience in public clamour, and represses the resolution of doing

well by the fear of censure. Such a mind may overcome temptations, and

yet yield to the force of bad examples, may blush at being really

modest and become impudent through bashfulness, a false bashfulness

that is more destructive to a virtuous mind than bad inclinations.

Look well then to the security of yours; for, whatever you may

pretend, the fear of ridicule which you affect to despise, prevails

over you, in spite of yourself. You would sooner face a hundred

dangers than one raillery, and never was seen so much timidity united

to so intrepid a mind.

Not to make a parade of precepts which you know better than I, I shall

content myself with proposing a method more easy and sure perhaps

than all the arguments of philosophy. This is on such occasions to

make in thought a slight transposition of circumstances, to anticipate

a few minutes of time. If, at that unfortunate supper, you had but

fortified yourself against a moment’s raillery, by the idea of the

state of mind you should be in as soon as you got into the street; had

you represented to yourself that inward contentment you should feel at

having escaped the snares laid for you, the consciousness of having

avoided the danger, the pleasure it would give you to write me an

account of it, that which I should myself receive in reading it: had

you, I say, called these circumstances to mind, is it to be supposed

they would not have over-balanced the mortification of being laughed

at for a moment; a mortification you would never have dreaded, could

you but have foreseen the consequences? but what is this

mortification, which gives consequence to the raillery of people for

whom one has no esteem? this reflection would infallibly have saved

you, in return for a moment’s imaginary disgrace, much real and more

durable shame, remorse and danger; it would have saved (for why should

I dissemble?) your friend, your Eloisa, many tears.

You determined, you tell me, to apply that evening to your

observations. What an employment! what observations! I blush for your

excuses. Will you not also, when an opportunity offers, have the same

curiosity to make observations on robbers in their dens? and to see

the methods they take to seize their prey, and strip the unhappy

passengers that fall into their hands? are you ignorant that there

are objects too detestable for a man of probity to look on, and that

the indignation of virtue cannot support the sight of vice?

The philosopher remarks indeed the public licentiousness which he

cannot prevent; he sees it, and his countenance betrays the concern it

gives him: but as to that of individuals, he either opposes it or

turns away his eyes from the sight, lest he should give it a sanction

by his presence. May I not ask besides what necessity there was to be

eye-witness of such scenes, in order to judge of what passed, or the

conversation that was held there? for my part, I can judge more easily

of the whole, from the intention and design of such a society, than

from the little you tell me of it, and the idea of those pleasures

that are to be found there, gives me a sufficient insight into the

characters of such as go to seek them.

I know not if your commodious scheme of philosophy has already adopted

the maxims, which, it is said, are established in large towns, for the

toleration of such places: but I hope, at least, you are not one of

those who debase themselves so much as to put them in practice, under

the pretext of I know not what chimerical necessity, that is known

only to men of debauched lives; as if the two sexes were in this

respect of a different constitution; and, that during absence or

celibacy, a virtuous man is under a necessity of indulging himself in

liberties which are denied to a modest woman. But if this error does

not lead you to prostitutes, I am afraid it will continue to lead your

imagination astray. Alas! if you are determined to be despicable, be

so at least without pretext; and add not the vice of lying to that of

drunkenness. All those pretended necessities have no foundation in

nature, but in the voluntary depravation of the senses. Even the fond

illusions of love are refined by a chaste mind, and pollute it only

when the heart is first depraved. On the contrary, chastity is its own

support; the desires constantly repressed accustom themselves to

remain at rest, and temptations are only multiplied by the habit of

yielding to them. Friendship has made me twice overcome the reluctance

I had to write on such a subject, and this shall be the last time: for

on what plea can I hope to obtain that influence over you, which you

have refused to virtue, to love, and to reason?

But I return to that important point, with which I began this letter;

at one and twenty years of age you sent me, from the Valais, grave and

judicious descriptions of men and things: at twenty-five you write me,

from Paris, a pack of trifling letters, wherein good sense is

sacrificed to a certain quaintness and pleasantry, very incompatible

with your character. I know not how you have managed; but since you

have resided among people of refined talents, yours appear to be

diminished: you profited among clowns, and have lost by the wits. This

is not, however, the fault of the place you are in, but of the

acquaintance you have made: for nothing requires greater judgment than

to make a proper choice in a mixture of the excellent and execrable.

If you would study the world, keep company with men of sense, who have

known it by long experience and observations made at leisure; not with

giddy-headed boys, who see only the superficies of things, and laugh

at what they themselves make ridiculous. Paris is full of sensible

men, accustomed to reflection, and to whom every day presents a

fertile field for observation. You will never make me believe that

such grave and studious persons run about, as you do, from house to

house, and from club to club, to divert the women and young fellows,

and turn all philosophy into chit chat. They have too much dignity

thus to debase their characters, prostitute their talents, and give a

sanction by their example, to modes which they ought to correct. But,

if even most of them should, there are certainly many who do not, and

it is those you ought to have chosen for companions.

Is it not extraordinary, that you should fall into the very same error

in your behaviour, which you blame in the writings of the comic poets:

from which you say one would imagine Paris was peopled only by persons

of distinction. These are your constant theme, while those of your own

rank escape your notice; as if the ridiculous prejudices of nobility

had not cost you sufficiently dear, to make you hate them for ever; or

that you thought you degraded yourself in keeping company with honest

citizens and tradesmen, the most respectable order of men, perhaps in

the whole country. It is in vain you endeavour to excuse yourself, in

that yours are the acquaintance of Lord B----: with the assistance of

these, you might easily have made others of an inferior rank. So many

people are desirous to rise, that it is always easy to descend; and by

your own confession the only way, to come at the true manners of a

nation is to study the private life of the most numerous order among

them; for to confine your observations to those who only personate

assumed characters, is only to observe the actions of a company of

comedians.

I would have your curiosity exerted still farther. How comes it that,

in so opulent a city, the poor people are so miserable; while such

extreme distress is hardly ever experienced among us, where, on the

other hand, we have no examples of immense wealth? This question is,

in my opinion, well worth your asking; but it is not the people you

converse with that are to resolve it. It is in the splendid apartments

of the rich that the novice goes to learn the manners of the world;

but the man of sense and experience betakes himself to the cottages of

the poor. These are the places for the detection of those iniquitous

practices, that in polite circles are varnished over and hid beneath a

specious shew of words. It is here that the rich and powerful, by

coming to the knowledge of the basest arts of oppression, feel for the

unhappy what in public they only affect. If I may believe our old

officers, you will learn many things in the garrets of a fifth floor,

which are buried in profound silence at the _hotels_, in the suburbs

of St. Germain: you will find that many fine talkers would be struck

dumb, if all those they have made unhappy were present to contradict

their boasted pretensions to humanity.

I know the sight of misery that excites only fruitless pity is

disagreeable; and that even the rich turn away their eyes from the

unhappy objects to whom they refuse relief: but money is not the only

thing the unfortunate stand in need of; and they are but indolent in

well-doing who can exert themselves only with their purse in their

hands. Consolation, advice, concern, friends, protection, there are

all so many resources which compassion points out to those who are not

rich, for relief of the indigent. The oppressed often stand in need

only of a tongue, to make known their complaints. They often want no

more than a word they cannot speak, a reason they are ashamed to give,

entrance at the door of a great man which they cannot obtain. The

intrepid countenance of disinterested virtue may remove infinite

obstacles, and the eloquence of a man of probity make even a tyrant

tremble in the midst of his guards.

If you would then act as a man, learn to descend again. Humanity, like

a pure salutary stream, flows always downwards to its level;

fertilising the humble vales, while it leaves dry those barren rocks,

whose threatening heads cast a frightful shade, or tumbling headlong

down involve the plain in ruins.

Thus, my friend, may you make use of the past, by drawing thence

instructions for your future conduct; and learn how goodness of heart

may be of advantage to the understanding: whoever lives among people

in office, cannot be too cautious of the corruptible maxims they

inculcate; and it is only the constant exercise of their benevolence

that can secure the best hearts from the contagion of ambition. Try

this new kind of study: it is more worthy of you, than those you have

hitherto adopted; and; believe me, as the genius is impoverished in

proportion as the mind is corrupted, you will soon find, on the

contrary, how much the practice of virtue elevates and improves it:

you will experience how much the interest you take in the misfortunes

of others will assist you in tracing their source, and will thereby

learn to escape the vices that produce them.

I ought to take all the freedom with you that friendship authorises in

the critical situation in which you at present appear: lest a second

step towards debauchery should plunge you beyond recovery, and that,

before you have time to recollect yourself. I cannot conceal from you,

my friend, how much your ready and sincere confession has affected me;

as I am sensible how much shame and confusion it must have cost you,

and from thence how heavy this piece of ill-conduct must sit upon your

heart; an involuntary crime, however, is easily forgiven and forgot.

But, for the future, remember well that maxim, from which I shall

never recede: he who is a second time deceived on these occasions,

cannot be said to have been deceived the first.

Adieu, my friend, be careful, I conjure you, of your health; and be

assured I shall not retain the least remembrance of a fault I have

once forgiven.

P. S. I have seen, in the hands of Mr. Orbe, the copies of several of

your letters to Lord B----, which oblige me to retract part of the

censure I have passed on the matter and manner of your observations.

These letters, I must confess, treat of important subjects, and appear

to be full of serious and judicious reflections. But hence it is

evident, that you either treat my cousin and me disdainfully, or that

you set little value on our esteem, in sending us such trivial

relations as might justly forfeit it, while you transmit so much

better to your friend. It is, in my opinion, doing little honour to

your instructions to think your scholars unworthy to admire your

talents: for you ought to affect at least, were it only through

vanity, to think us capable of it.

I own political matters are not proper subjects for women: and my

uncle has tired us with them so heartily, that I can easily conceive

you were afraid of doing so too. To speak freely, also, these are not

the topics I prefer: their utility is too foreign to affect me, and

their arguments too subtle to make any lasting impression. Bound to

respect the government, under which it is my fate to have been born, I

give myself no trouble to enquire whether there are any better. To

what end should I be instructed in the knowledge of governments, who

have so little power to establish them? and why should I afflict

myself with the consideration of evils too great for me to remedy,

when I am surrounded with others that are in my power to redress? but,

for my love to you, the interest I should not take in the subject, I

should take in the writer. I collect, with a pleasing admiration, all

the fruits of your genius; and, proud of merit so deserving of my

heart, I beseech of love only so much wit as to make me relish yours.

Refuse me not then the pleasure of knowing and admiring your works of

merit. Will you mortify me so much as to give me reason to think that,

if heaven should ever unite us, you will not judge your companion

worthy to know and adopt your sentiments?

Letter XCIII. From Eloisa.

We are undone! all is discovered! your letters are gone! they were

there last night, and could have been taken away but to day. ’Tis my

mother: it can be no body else. If my father should see them, my life

is in danger. But why should he not see them, if I must renounce----

Heavens! my mother sends for me, whither shall I fly? how shall I

support her presence? O that I could hide myself in the centre of the

earth! I tremble every limb, and am unable to move one step----the

shame, the mortification, the killing reproaches----I have deserved

it, I will support it all. But oh! the grief, the tears of a weeping

mother----O, my heart, how piercing!----she waits for me; I can stay

no longer----she will know----I must tell her all----Regianino

will be dismissed. Write no more till you hear further----who knows

if ever----yet I might----what? deceive her?----deceive my

mother!----alas! if our safety lies in supporting a falsehood,

farewell, we are indeed undone!

Letter XCIV. From Mrs. Orbe.

O how you afflict all those who love you! what tears have already been

shed on your account, in an unfortunate family, whose tranquillity has

been disturbed by you alone! Fear to add to these tears by covering us

with mourning: tremble lest the death of an afflicted parent should be

the last effect of the poison you have poured into the heart of her

child, and that your extravagant passion will at length fill you with

eternal remorse. My friendship made me support your folly, while it

was capable of being nourished by the shadow of hope; but how can it

allow a vain constancy condemned by honour and reason, and which

producing nothing but pain and misfortune can only deserve the name of

obstinacy?

You know in what manner the secret of your passion, so long concealed

from the suspicions of my aunt, has been discovered by your letters.

How sensibly must such a stroke be felt by a tender and virtuous

mother, less irritated against you, than against herself! she blames

her blind negligence, she deplores her fatal delusion, her deepest

affliction arises from her having had too high an esteem for her

daughter, and her grief has filled Eloisa with a hundred times more

sorrow than all her reproaches.

My poor cousin’s distress is not to be conceived. No idea can be

formed of it without seeing her. Her heart seems stifled with grief,

and the violence of the sensations by which it is oppressed, gives her

an air of stupidity more terrifying than the most piercing cries. She

continues night and day by her mother’s bed, with a mournful look, her

eyes fixed on the floor, and profoundly silent; yet serving her with

greater attention and vivacity than ever; then instantly relapsing

into a state of dejection, she appears to be no longer the same

person. It is very evident, that the mother’s illness supports the

spirits of her daughter; and if an ardent desire to serve her did not

give her strength, the extinguished lustre of her eyes, her paleness,

her extreme grief, make me apprehensive she would stand in great need

of the assistance she bestows. My aunt likewise perceives it, and I

see from the earnestness with which she recommends Eloisa’s health to

my care, how her poor heart is agitated, and how much reason we have

to hate you for disturbing such a pleasing union.

This anxiety is still increased by the care of hiding from a

passionate father, a dangerous secret, which the mother, who trembles

for the life of her daughter, would conceal. She has resolved to

observe in his presence their former familiarity; but if maternal

tenderness with pleasure takes advantage of this pretext, a daughter

filled with confusion, dares not yield her heart to caresses which she

believes feigned, and which are the more painful, in proportion as

they would be engaging, could she presume to think them real. At the

fond caresses of her father she looks towards her mother with an air

so tender, and so humble, that she seems to say: Ah! why am I not

still worthy of your tenderness!

In my frequent conversations with the baroness D’Etange I could easily

find by the mildness of her reprimands, and by the tone in which she

spoke of you, that Eloisa has endeavoured, to the utmost of her power,

to calm her too just indignation, and that she has spared no pains to

justify us both at her own expense. Even your letters, besides a

violent passion, contain a kind of excuse which has not escaped her:

she reproaches you less for abusing her confidence, than she does her

own weakness for putting it in your power. She has such an esteem for

you, as to believe that no other man in your place would have made a

better resistance; and that your faults even spring from virtue. She

now, she says, perceives the vanity of that boasted probity which does

not secure a person in love, who is in other respect a worthy man,

from the guilt of corrupting a virtuous girl, and without scruple

dishonouring a whole family, to indulge a momentary madness. But to

what purpose do we recur to what is past? our present business is to

conceal, under an everlasting veil, this odious mystery; to efface, if

possible, the least vestige of it, and to second the goodness of

heaven, which has left no visible proof of your folly. The secret is

confined to six safe persons. The repose of all you have loved, the

life of a mother reduced to despair, the honour of a respectable

family, your own virtue, all these still depend on you, all these

point out your duty: you may repair the evil you have done, you may

render yourself worthy of Eloisa, and justify her fault by renouncing

your pretensions. If I am not deceived in my opinion of your heart,

nothing but the greatness of such a sacrifice can be equal to the love

that renders it necessary. Relying on the sublimity of your

sentiments, I have promised, in your name, every thing you ought to

perform: dare to undeceive me, if I have presumed too much on your

merit, or be now what you ought to be. It is necessary to sacrifice

either your mistress or your love, and to shew yourself the most

abject, or the most virtuous of mankind.

This unfortunate mother resolved to write to you: she even began the

painful task. Oh! what stabs would her bitter complaints have given

you! how would her affecting reproaches have wounded your heart! and

her humble intreaties have filled you with shame! I have torn in

pieces this distressful letter, which you would never have been able

to support. I could not endure the preposterous sight of a mother

humbling herself before the seducer of her child: you are worthy, at

least, that we should not use means that would rend a heart of

adamant, and drive to the extremes of despair, a man of uncommon

sensibility.

Were this the first effort love had demanded from you, I might doubt

of the success, and hesitate as to the degree of esteem you deserve:

but the sacrifice you have made to the honour of Eloisa, by quitting

this country, is a pledge of that you are going to make to her repose,

by putting a stop to a useless correspondence. The first efforts of

virtue are always the most painful; and you will lose the advantage of

that which has cost you so dear, by obstinately maintaining a vain

correspondence, attended with such danger to her you love, without the

least advantage to either of you; and which can only serve to prolong

the torments of both. No longer doubt it; it is become absolutely

necessary that this Eloisa, who was so dear to you, should be

forgotten by the man she loved so well: in vain you dissemble your

misfortunes, she was lost to you at the moment you left her. Or rather

heaven disposed of her, before she gave herself to you; for her father

had promised her to another before his return, and you too well know

that the promise of that inexorable man is irrevocable. In what

manner soever you regulate your conduct your desires are opposed by an

inevitable fate, and you can never possess her. The only choice you

have left, is either to plunge her into an abyss of misfortunes and

reproach, or to honour what you have adored, and restore to her,

instead of the happiness she has lost, at least, the prudence, peace,

and safety, of which she has been deprived by your fatal connections.

How would you be afflicted, how would you be stung with remorse, could

you contemplate the real state of this unhappy friend, and the

abasement to which she is reduced by remorse and shame? how is her

lustre tarnished, how languid all her gracefulness? how are all her

noble and engaging sentiments unhappily absorbed in this one passion?

her friendship itself is cooled; scarcely does she partake of the

pleasure I feel when we meet, her sick heart is only sensible of love

and grief. Alas! what is become of that fondness and sensibility, of

that delicacy of taste, of that tender interest in the pains and

pleasures of others? she is still, I confess mild, generous,

compassionate; the amiable habit of doing well cannot be effaced, but

’tis only a blind habit, a taste without reflection. Her actions are

the same, but they are not performed with the same zeal; those sublime

sentiments are weakened, that divine flame is extinguished, this angel

is now no more than woman. Oh, what a noble mind have you seduced from

the path of virtue!

Letter XCV. To The Baroness D’Etange.

Overwhelmed with endless sorrow, I throw myself at your feet, madam,

not to shew a repentance that is out of my power; but to expiate an

involuntary crime, by renouncing all that could render life a

blessing. As no human passion ever equalled that inspired by your

celestial daughter, never was there a sacrifice equal to that I am

going to make to the most respectable of mothers; but Eloisa has too

well taught me how to sacrifice happiness to duty; she has too

courageously set me the example, for me, at least, in one instance,

not to imitate her. Were my blood capable of removing your distress, I

would shed it in silence, and complain of being able to give you only

so feeble a proof of my affection; but to break the most sweet, the

most pure, the most sacred bond that ever united two hearts, is alas!

an effort which the whole universe could not oblige me to make, and

which you alone could obtain.

Yes, I promise to live far from her, as long as you require it; I will

abstain from seeing and writing to her; this I swear by your precious

life, so necessary to the preservation of hers. I submit, not without

horror, but without murmuring, to whatever you condescend to enjoin

her and me. I will even add, that her happiness is capable of

alleviating my misery, and that I shall die contented, if you give her

a husband worthy of her. Oh, let him be found! and let him dare to

tell me that his passion for Elois is greater than mine! In vain, may

he have every thing that I want; if he has not my heart, he has

nothing for Eloisa; but I have only this honest and tender heart.

Alas! I have nothing more. Love, which levels all, exalts not the

person, it elevates only the sentiments. Oh, had I dared to listen to

mine for you, how often, in speaking to you, madam, would my lips have

pronounced the tender name of mother?

Deign to confide in oaths, which shall not be vain, and in a man who

is not a deceiver. If I ever dishonour your esteem, I must first

dishonour myself. My unexperienced heart knew not the danger, till it

was too late to fly: I had not then learned of your daughter the cruel

art she has since taught me, of conquering love with its own weapons.

Banish your fears, I conjure you. Is there a person in the world to

whom her repose, her felicity, her honour, is dearer than it is to me?

no, my word and my heart are securities for the engagement into which

I now enter, both in my own name, and in that of my lovely friend.

Assure yourself that no indiscreet word shall ever pass my lips, and

that I will breathe my last sigh without divulging the cause of my

death. Calm therefore that affliction which consumes you, and which

adds infinitely to my sufferings; dry up the tears that pierce my very

soul; try to recover your health; restore to the most affectionate

daughter the world ever produced, the happiness she has renounced for

you; be happy; live, that she may value life; for regardless of our

misfortunes, to be the mother of Eloisa, is still sufficient cause for

happiness.

Letter XCVI. To Mrs. Orbe,

_With the preceding Letter inclosed._

There, cruel friend! is my answer. When you read it, if you know my

heart, you will burst into tears, unless yours has lost its

sensibility; but no longer overwhelm me with that merciless esteem,

which I so dearly purchase, and which serves but to increase my

torture.

Has your barbarous hand then dared to break the gentle union formed

under your eye, even almost from infancy, and which your friendship

seemed to share with so much pleasure? I am now as wretched as you

would have me, and as there is a possibility of being. Do you conceive

all the evil you have done? are you sensible that you have torn me

from my soul? that what I have lost is beyond redemption, and that it

is better to die an hundred times, than not to live for each other?

why do you urge the happiness of Eloisa? can she be happy without

contentment? why do you mention the danger of her mother? ah! what is

the life of a mother, of mine, of yours, of hers itself, what is the

existence of the whole world, to the delightful sensation by which we

were united? O senseless and savage virtue! I obey thy unmeaning

voice, I abhor thee, while I sacrifice all to thy dictates. What avail

thy vain consolations against the distressful agonies of the soul? go,

thou sullen idol of the unhappy, thou only knowest to augment their

misery, by depriving them of the resources which fortune offers: yet I

obey; yes, cruel friend, I obey; I will become, if possible, as

insensible and savage as yourself. I will forget every thing upon

earth that was dear to me. I will no longer hear or pronounce Eloisa’s

name, or yours. I will no more recall their insupportable remembrance.

An inflexible vexation and rage shall preserve me from such

misfortunes. A steady obstinacy shall supply the place of courage: I

have paid too dearly for my sensibility; it were better to renounce

humanity itself.

Letter XCVII. From Mrs. Orbe.

Your letter is indeed extremely pathetic, but there is so much love

and virtue in your conduct, that it effaces the bitterness of your

complaints: you are so generous, that I have not the courage to

quarrel with you; for whatever extravagancies we may commit, if we are

still capable of sacrificing all that is dear to us, we deserve praise

rather than reproach; therefore, notwithstanding your abuse, you never

was so dear to me, as since you have made me so fully sensible of your

worth.

Return thanks to that virtue you believe you hate, and which does more

for you than even your love. There is not one of us, not even my aunt,

whom you have not gained by a sacrifice, the value of which she well

knows. She could not read your letter without melting into tears: she

had even the weakness to shew it to her daughter; but poor Eloisa’s

endeavours while she read it, to stifle her sighs and tears, quite

overcame her, and she fainted away.

This tender mother, whom your letters had already greatly affected,

begins to perceive from every circumstance, that your hearts are of a

superior mould, and that they are distinguished by a natural sympathy,

which neither time nor human efforts will ever be able to efface. She

who stands in such need of consolation would herself freely console

her daughter, if prudence did not restrain her; and I see her too

ready to become her confident, to fear that she can be angry with me.

Yesterday I heard her say, even before Eloisa, perhaps a little

indiscreetly, “ah! if it only depended on me!”----and tho’ she said no

more, I perceived by a kiss which Eloisa impressed on her hand, that

she too well understood her meaning. I am even certain that she was

several times inclined to speak to her inflexible husband, but whether

the danger of exposing her daughter to the fury of an enraged father,

or whether it was fear for herself, her timidity has hitherto kept her

silent: and her illness increases so fast, that I am afraid she will

never be able to execute her half-formed resolution.

However, notwithstanding the faults of which you are the cause, that

integrity of heart, visible in your mutual affection, has given her

such an opinion of you, that she confides in the promise you have both

made, of discontinuing your correspondence, and has not taken any

precaution to have her daughter more closely watched: indeed, if

Eloisa makes an ill return to her confidence, she will no longer be

worthy of her affection. You would both deserve the severest

treatment, if you were capable of deceiving the best of mothers, and

of abusing her esteem.

I shall not endeavour to revive in your mind the hopes which I myself

do not entertain; but I would shew you, that the most honest, is also

the wisest part, and that if you have any resource left, it is in the

sacrifice which reason and honour require. Mother, relations, and

friends are now all for you, except the father, who will by this

method be gained over, if any thing can do it. Whatever imprecations

you may utter in the moment of despair, you have a hundred times

proved to us, that there is no path more sure of leading to happiness

than that of virtue. Therefore resume your courage, and be a man! be

yourself. If I am well acquainted with your heart, the most cruel

manner of losing Eloisa, would be by rendering yourself unworthy of

her.

Letter XCVIII. From Eloisa.

She is no more! my eyes have seen hers closed for ever; my lips have

received her last sigh; my name was the last word she pronounced; her

last look was fixed on me. No, ’twas not life she seemed to quit; too

little had I known how to render that valuable! From me alone she was

torn. She saw me without a guide, and void of hope, overwhelmed by my

misfortunes and my crime: to her, death was nothing; she grieved only

to leave her daughter in such a state of misery. She had but too much

reason. What had she to regret on earth? what could there be here

below, in her eye, worth the immortal prize of patience and virtue,

reserved for her in a better world? what had she to do on earth, but

to lament my shame? Oh! most incomparable woman! thou now dwellest in

the abode of glory and felicity! thou livest; whilst I, given up to

repentance and despair, deprived for ever of thy care, of thy counsel,

of thy sweet caresses, am dead to happiness, to peace, to innocence!

Nothing do I feel but thy loss; nothing do I see but my reproach: my

life is only pain and grief. Oh my dear, my tender mother alas, I am

more dead than thou art!

Good God! to whom do I shed these tears, and vent these sighs? the

cruel man who caused them, I make my confident! with him who has

rendered my life unhappy, I dare to deplore my misfortunes! yes, yes,

barbarous as you are, share the torments you have made me suffer. You,

for whom I have plunged the poignard into a mother’s bosom, tremble at

the misfortunes you have occasioned, and shudder with me at the horrid

act you have committed. To what eyes dare I presume to appear, as

despicable as I really am? before whom shall I degrade myself to the

bent of my remorse? to whom, but to the accomplice of my crime, can I

sufficiently make it known? it is my insupportable punishment, to have

no accuser but my own heart, and to see attributed to the goodness of

my disposition the impure tears that flow from a bitter repentance. I

saw, I trembling saw the poisonous sorrow put a period to the life of

my unhappy mother. In vain did her pity for me prevent her confessing

it; in vain she affected to attribute the progress of her illness to

the cause by which it was produced; in vain was my cousin induced to

talk in the same strain. Nothing could deceive a heart torn with

regret; and to my lasting torment, I shall carry to my tomb the

frightful idea of having shortened her life, to whom I am indebted for

my own.

O thou, whom heaven in its anger raised up to render me guilty and

unhappy, for the last time receive into thy bosom the tears thou hast

occasioned! I come not, as formerly, to share with thee the grief that

ought to be mutual. These are the sighs of a last adieu, which escape

from me in spite of myself. It is done: the empire of love is subdued

in a soul condemned wholly to despair. I will consecrate the rest of

my days to lamentation for the best of mothers. To her I will

sacrifice that passion which was the cause of her death: happy shall I

be, if the painful conquest be sufficient to expiate my guilt! Oh, if

her immortal mind penetrates into the bottom of my heart, she will

know that the sacrifice I make, is not entirely unworthy of her! Share

with me then an effort which you have rendered necessary. If you have

any remaining respect for the memory of an union, once so dear and

fatal, by that I conjure you to fly from me for ever; no more to write

to me; no more to exasperate my remorse; but suffer me to forget, if

possible, our former connection. May my eyes never behold you more! may

I never more hear your name pronounced! may the remembrance of you

never more agitate my mind! I dare still intreat, in the name of that

love which ought never to have existed, that to so many causes of

grief, you add not that of seeing my last request despised. Adieu then

for the last time, dear and only----Ah, fool that I am, adieu for ever!

Letter XCIX. To Mrs. Orbe.

At last the veil is rent; the long illusion is vanished; all my

flattering hopes are extinguished; nothing is left to feed the eternal

flame, but a bitter, yet pleasing remembrance, which supports my life,

and nourishes my torments with the vain recollection of a happiness

that is now no more.

Is it then true, that I have tasted supreme felicity? am I the same

being whose happiness was once so perfect? could any one be

susceptible of such torments, who was not doomed to eternal misery?

Can he who has enjoyed the blessings I have lost, be deprived of

felicity, and still exist? and can such contrary sensations affect the

same mind? O ye glorious and happy days, surely ye were immortal! ye

were too celestial ever to perish! your whole duration was one

continued extasy, by which ye were converged like eternity into a

single point. I knew neither of past nor future, and I tasted at once

the delights of a thousand ages. Alas! ye are vanished like a shadow!

that eternity of happiness was but an instant of my life. Time now

resumes his tardy pace, and slowly measures the sad remains of my

existence.

To render my distress still more insupportable, my increasing

affliction is cruelly aggravated by the loss of all that was dear to

me. It is possible, madam, that you have still some regard for me: but

you are busied by other cares, and employed in other duties. These my

complaints, to which you once listened with concern, are now

indiscreet. Eloisa! Eloisa herself discourages and abandons me. Gloomy

remorse has banished love for ever. All is changed with respect to me;

except the steadfastness of my own heart, which serves but to render

my fate still more dreadful.

But, to what purpose is it to say what I am, and what I ought to be?

Eloisa suffers! is it a time to think of myself? her sorrow adds

bitterness to mine. Yes, I had rather she would cease to love me, and

that she were happy----cease to love me!----can she----hope it?----

never, never! She has indeed forbid me to see or write to her. Alas!

she removes the comforter, but never can the torment! should the loss

of a tender mother deprive her of a still more tender friend? does she

think to alleviate her griefs, by multiplying her misfortune? O love!

can nature be revenged only at thy expense?

No, no; in vain she pretends to forget me. Can her tender heart ever

be separated from mine? do I not retain it in spite of herself? are

sensations like those we have experienced, to be forgotten; and can

they be remembered; without feeling them still? Triumphant love was

the bane of her felicity; and having conquered her passion, she will

only be the more deserving of pity. Her days will pass in sorrow,

tormented at once by vain regret, and vain desires, without being ever

able to fulfil the obligations either of love or virtue.

Do not however imagine, that in complaining of her errors, I cease to

respect them. After so many sacrifices, it is too late for me to begin

to disobey. Since she commands, it is sufficient; she shall hear of me

no more. Is my fate now sufficiently dreadful? renounce my Eloisa!

yes, but that’s not the chief cause of my despair; it is for her I

feel the keenest pangs; and her misfortunes render me more miserable

than my own. You, whom she loves more than all the world, and who next

to me, are best acquainted with her worth; you, my amiable friend, are

the only blessing she has left: a blessing so valuable as to render

the loss of all the rest supportable. Be you her recompense for the

comforts of which she is deprived, and for those also which she

rejects: let a sacred friendship supply at once the tenderness of a

parent, and a lover, by administering every consolation that may

contribute to her happiness. O let her be happy, if she can, how great

soever the purchase! may she soon recover the peace of mind of which

I, alas, have robbed her! I shall then be less sensible of the torment

to which I am doomed. Since in my own eyes I am nothing; since it is

my fate to pass my life in dying for her; let her regard me as already

dead; I am satisfied, if this idea will add to her tranquillity.

Heaven grant, that by your kindness she may be restored to her former

excellence, and her former happiness.

Unhappy daughter! alas, thy mother is no more! this is a loss that

cannot be repaired, and for which so long as she reproaches herself,

she can never be consoled. Her troubled conscience requires of her

this dear and tender mother; and thus the most dreadful remorse is

added to her affliction. O Eloisa! oughtest thou to feel these

terrible sensations? thou who wert a witness of the sickness and of

the last moments of that unfortunate parent! I intreat, I conjure you

to tell me, what I ought to believe? If I am guilty, tear my heart in

pieces: if our crimes were the cause of her death, we are two monsters

unworthy of existence, and it were a double crime to think of so fatal

an union: O, it were even a crime to live! But, no; I cannot believe

that so pure a flame could produce such black effects. Surely the

sentiments of love are too noble. Can heaven be unjust? and could she,

who sacrificed her happiness to the author of her life, ever deserve

to be the cause of her death?

Letter C. The Answer.

How can I cease to love you, when my esteem for you is daily

increasing? how can I stifle my affection, whilst you are growing

every day more worthy of my regard? No, my dear, my excellent friend;

what we were to each other in early life, we shall continue to be for

ever; and if our mutual attachment no longer increases, it is because

it cannot be increased. All the difference is, that I then loved you

as my brother, and that now I love you as my son; for tho’ we are both

younger than you, and were even your scholars, I now in some measure

consider you as ours. In teaching us to think, you have learnt of us

sensibility; and whatever your English philosopher may say, this

education is more valuable than the other; if it is reason that

constitutes the man, it is sensibility that conducts him.

Would you know why I have changed my conduct towards you? it is not,

believe me, because my heart is not still the same; but because your

situation is changed. I favoured your passion, while there remained a

single ray of hope; but since, by obstinately continuing to aspire to

Eloisa, you can only make her unhappy, to flatter your expectations

would be to injure you, I had even rather increase your discontent,

and thus render you less deserving of my compassion. When the

happiness of both becomes impossible, all that is left for a hopeless

lover, is to sacrifice his own to that of his beloved.

This, my generous friend, you have performed in the most painful

sacrifice that ever was made; but, by renouncing Eloisa, you will

purchase her repose, tho’ at the expense of your own.

I dare scarce repeat to you the ideas that occur to me on this

subject; but they are fraught with consolation, and that emboldens me.

In the first place, I believe, that true love, as well as virtue, has

this advantage, that it is rewarded by every sacrifice we make to it,

and that we in some measure enjoy the privations we impose on

ourselves, in the very idea of what they cost us, and of the motives

by which we were induced. You will be sensible that your love for

Eloisa was in proportion to her merit; and that will increase your

happiness. The exquisite self-love, which knows how to reap advantage

from painful virtue, will mingle its charm with that of love. You will

say to yourself, I know how to love, with a pleasure more durable and

more delicate than even possession itself would have afforded. The

latter wears out the passion by constant enjoyment; but the other

sails for ever; and you will still enjoy it even when you cease to

love.

Besides, if what Eloisa and you have so often told me be true, that

love is the most delightful sensation that can enter into the human

heart, every thing that prolongs and fixes it, even at the expense of

a thousand vexations, is still a blessing. If love is a desire, that

is increased by obstacles, as you still say, it ought never to be

satisfied; it is better to preserve it at any rate, than that it

should be extinguished in pleasure. Your passion, I confess, has stood

the proof of possession, of time, of absence, and of dangers of every

kind; it has conquered every obstacle, except the most powerful of

all, that of having nothing more to conquer, and of feeding only on

itself. The world has never seen the passion stand this proof; what

right have you then to hope, that yours would have stood the test?

Time which might have joined to the disgust of a long possession, the

progress of age, and the decline of beauty, seems by your separation

fixed and motionless in your favour; you will be always to each other

in the bloom of your years; you will incessantly see her, as she was

when you beheld her at parting, and your hearts, united even to the

grave, will prolong, by a charming illusion, your youth and your love.

Had you never been happy, you might have been tormented by

insurmountable inquietudes; your heart might have panted after a

felicity of which it was not unworthy; your warm imagination would

have incessantly required that which you have not obtained. But love

has no delights which you have not tasted, and to write like you, you

have exhausted in one year the pleasures of a whole life. Remember the

passionate letter you wrote after a rash interview. I read it with an

emotion I had never before experienced; it had no traces of the

permanent state of a truly tender heart, but was filled with the last

delirium of a mind inflamed with passion, and intoxicated with

pleasure. You yourself may judge that such transports are not to be

twice experienced in this life, and that death ought immediately to

succeed. This, my friend, was the summit of all, and whatever love or

fortune might have done for you, your passion and your felicity must

have declined. That instant was also the beginning of your disgrace,

and Eloisa was taken from you, at the moment when she could inspire no

new sensations, as if fate intended to secure your passion from being

exhausted, and to leave in the remembrance of your past pleasures, a

pleasure more sweet than all those you could now have enjoyed.

Comfort yourself then with the loss of a blessing that would certainly

have escaped you, and would besides have deprived you of that you now

possess. Happiness and love would have vanished at once; you have at

least preserved that passion, and we are not without pleasure, while

we continue to love. The idea of extinguished love is more terrifying

to a tender heart, than that of an unhappy flame; and to feel a

disgust for what we possess, is an hundred times worse than regretting

what is lost.

If the reproaches made you, by my afflicted cousin, on the death of

her mother, were well founded, the cruel remembrance would, I confess,

poison that of your love, which ought for ever to be destroyed by so

fatal an idea; but give no credit to her grief; it deceives her; or

rather the cause to which she would ascribe her sorrow, is only a

pretence to justify its excess. Her tender mind is always in fear that

her affliction is not sufficiently severe, and she feels a kind of

pleasure in adding bitterness to her distress; but she certainly

imposes on herself, she cannot be sincere.

Do you think she could support the dreadful remorse she would feel, if

she really believed she had shortened her mother’s life? no, no, my

friend, she would not then weep, she would have sunk with her into the

grave. The baronet D’Etange’s disease is well known; it was a dropsy

of the pericardium, which was incurable, and her life was despaired

of, even before she had discovered your correspondence. I own it

afflicted her much, but she had great consolation. How comfortable was

it to that tender mother to see, while she lamented the fault of her

daughter, by how many virtues it was counter-balanced, and to be

forced to admire the dignity of her soul, while she lamented the

weakness of nature? how pleasing to perceive with what affection she

loved her? such indefatigable zeal! such continual solicitude! such

grief at having offended her! what regret, what tears, what affecting

caresses, what unwearied sensibility! In the eyes of the daughter were

visible all the mother’s sufferings; it was she who served her in the

day, and watched her by night; it was from her hand that she received

every assistance: you would have thought her some other Eloisa, for

her natural delicacy disappeared, she was strong and robust, the most

painful services caused no fatigue, and the intrepidity of her soul

seemed to have created her a new body. She did every thing, yet

appeared to be unemployed; she was every where, and yet rarely left

her; she was perpetually on her knees by the bed, with her lips

pressed to her mother’s hand, bewailing her illness and her own

misfortunes, and confounding these two sensations, in order to

increase her affliction. I never saw any person enter my aunt’s

chamber, during the last days, without being moved even to tears, at

this most affecting spectacle, to behold two hearts more closely

uniting, at the very moment when they were to be torn asunder. It was

visible that their only cause of anguish was their separation, and

that to live or die would have been indifferent to either, could they

have remained, or departed together.

So far from adopting Eloisa’s gloomy ideas, assure yourself that every

thing that could be hoped for from human assistance and consolation,

have on her part concurred to retard the progress of her mother’s

disease, and that her tenderness and care have undoubtedly preserved

her longer with us, than she would otherwise have continued. My aunt

herself has told me a hundred times that her last days were the

sweetest of her life, and that the happiness of her daughter was the

only thing wanting to compleat her own.

If grief must be supposed in any degree to have hastened her

dissolution, it certainly sprang from another source. It is to her

husband it ought to be ascribed. Being naturally inconstant, he

lavished the fire of his youth on a thousand objects infinitely less

pleasing, than his virtuous wife; and when age brought him back to

her, he treated her with that inflexible severity with which faithless

husbands are accustomed to aggravate their faults. My poor cousin has

felt the effects of it. An high opinion of his nobility, and that

roughness of disposition which nothing can ever soften, have produced

your misfortunes and hers. Her mother, who had always a regard for

you, and who discovered Eloisa’s love when it was too violent to be

extinguished, had long secretly bemoaned the misfortune of not being

able to conquer either the inclinations of her daughter, or the

obstinacy of her husband, and of being the first cause of an evil

which she could not remedy. When your letters unexpectedly fell into

her hands, and she found how far you had misused her confidence, she

was afraid of losing all by endeavouring to save all, and to hazard

the life of her child in attempting to restore her honour. She several

times sounded her husband without success. She often resolved to

venture an entire confidence in him, and to shew him the full extent

of his duty; but she was always restrained by her timidity. She

hesitated while it was in her power, and when she would have told him,

she was no longer able to speak; her strength failed her, she carried

the fatal secret with her to the grave, and I who know this austerity,

without having the least idea how far it may be tempered by natural

affection, am satisfied, since Eloisa’s life is in no danger.

All this she knows; but you will ask, what I think of her apparent

remorse? in answer to which I must tell you, that Love is more

ingenuous than she. Overcome with grief for the loss of her mother,

she would willingly forget you, and yet in spite of herself, Love

disturbs her conscience in order to bring you to her memory. He

chuses that her tears should be connected with the object of her

passion, but she not daring to employ her thoughts directly on you, he

deceives her into it under the mask of repentance: thus he imposes on

her with so much art, that he is willing to increase her woes rather

than banish you from her thoughts. Your heart may perhaps be ignorant

of such subterfuges, but they are not the less natural; for though

your passion may be equal in degree, its nature in each of you is very

different. Yours is warm and violent, hers soft and tender; your

sensations are breathed forth with vehemence, but hers retort upon

herself, and pierce and poison her very inmost soul. Love animates and

supports your heart, whilst hers is oppressed and dejected with its

weight, all its springs are relaxed, her strength is gone, her courage

is extinguished, and her virtue has lost its power. Her heroic

faculties are not however annihilated but suspended: a momentary

crisis may restore them to their full vigour, or totally destroy their

existence. One step farther in this gloomy path and she is lost; but

if her incomparable soul should recover itself, she will be greater,

more heroic, more virtuous than ever, and there will be no danger of a

relapse. Learn then, in this perilous situation, to revere the object

of your love. Any thing that should come from you, though it were

against yourself, would at this time prove mortal. If you are

determined to persist, your triumph will be certain, but you will

never possess the same Eloisa.

Letter CI. From Lord B----.

I had some pretentions to your friendship, you were become serviceable

to me, and I was prepared to meet you. But what are my pretensions, my

necessities, or my eagerness to you? you have forgot me, you do not

even deign to write to me. I am not ignorant of your solitude, nor of

your secret design; you are weary of existence. Die then, weak youth:

yes die, thou daring yet cowardly mortal; but, in thy last moments,

remember that thou hast stung the soul of thy sincere friend with the

recollection having served an ungrateful man.

Letter CII. The Answer.

Yes, my kind friend, you may come. I was determined to taste no more

pleasure upon earth, but we will meet once more. You are wrong; it is

as impossible that you should meet with ingratitude as that I should

ever be ungrateful.

Billet. From Eloisa.

It is time to renounce the errors of youth, and to abandon an illusive

hope. I can never be yours. Restore to me that liberty of which my

father chuses to dispose; or compleat my misery by a refusal which

will ruin me for ever, without producing any advantage to yourself.

_Eloisa Etange._

Letter CIII. From the Baron D’Etange.

_In which the preceding billet was inclosed._

If there remains in the mind of a seducer the least sentiment of

honour or humanity, answer the billet of an unhappy girl, whose heart

you have corrupted, and who would no longer exist, if I could suppose

her to have carried the forgetfulness of herself any farther. I should

not indeed be much surprized if the same philosophy which taught her

to catch at the first man she saw, should also instruct her to

disobey her father. Think of this matter. I always chuse to proceed

with lenity and decency, when those methods are likely to succeed; but

because I act thus with you, you are not to suppose me ignorant in

what manner a gentleman should take revenge of those beneath him.

Letter CIV. The Answer.

Let me intreat you, Sir, to spare those vain menaces, and that unjust

reproach, which can neither terrify nor humble me. Between two persons

of the same age there can be no seducer but love, and you can have no

right to vilify a man whom your daughter honoured with her esteem.

What concessions do you expect, and from what authority are they

imposed? is it to the author of all my misfortunes that I must

sacrifice my remaining glimpse of hope? I will respect the father of

Eloisa; but let him deign to be mine if he expects obedience. No, Sir,

what opinion soever you may entertain of your proceedings, they will

not oblige me, for your sake, to relinquish such valuable and just

pretensions. As you are the sole cause of my misery, I owe you nothing

but hatred; your pretensions are without foundation. But Eloisa

commands: her I shall never disobey; therefore you have my consent.

Another may possess her, but I shall be more worthy.

If your daughter had deigned to consult me concerning the limits of

your authority, doubt not but I would have taught her to disregard

your unjust pretensions. How despotic soever may be the empire you

assume, my rights are infinitely more sacred. The chain by which we

are united marks the extent of paternal dominion, even in the

estimation of human laws, and whilst you appeal to the law of nature,

you yourself are trampling upon its institutions.

Do not alledge that delicate phantom honour, which you seem so

determined to vindicate; for here again you are the sole offender.

Respect Eloisa’s choice, and your honour is secure; for I honour you

in my heart, regardless of your insults. Notwithstanding all your

gothic maxims, one honest man was never dishonoured by his alliance

with another. If my presumption offends you, attempt my life; against

you I shall never defend it. As to the rest, I am little anxious to

know in what consists the honour of a gentleman; but with regard to

that of an honest man, I own, it concerns me, and therefore I shall

defend and preserve it pure and spotless to the end of my life.

Go, inhuman father, and meditate the destruction of your only child,

whilst she, full of duty and affection, stands ready to yield her

happiness a victim to prejudice and opinion: but be assured your own

remorse will one day severely revenge my injuries, and you will then

perceive, when it is too late, that your blind and unnatural hatred

was no more fatal to me than to yourself. That I shall be wretched, is

most certain; but if ever the just feelings of nature should emerge

from the bottom of your heart, how infinitely greater will be your

unhappiness in having sacrificed the only daughter of your bosom to a

mere phantom: a daughter who has no equal in beauty, merit or virtue,

and on whom indulgent heaven has bestowed every blessing, except a

kind father.

Billet.

_Inclosed in the foregoing._

I restore to Eloisa Etange the power to dispose of herself, and to

give her hand without consulting her heart.

_S. G._

Letter CV. From Eloisa.

I designed to give you a description of the scene which produced the

billet you have received; but my father took his measures so

skilfully, that it ended only the instant before the post went out.

His letter as certainly saved the mail as this will be too late; so

that your resolution will be taken, and your answer dispatched before

it can possibly reach you: therefore all detail would now be useless.

I have done my duty; you will do yours: but fate will overwhelm us,

and we are betrayed by honour. We are divided for ever! and to

increase my horror, I am going to be forced into the----O heavens! it

was once in my power to live in thine. Just God!----we must tremble

and be silent.

The pen falls from my hand. I have been of late much indisposed. This

morning’s affair has hurt me not a little----Oh, my head, my poor

heart! I feel, I feel, I shall faint----Will heaven have no mercy on

my sufferings?----I am no longer able to support myself----I will

retire to my bed, and console myself, in the hope of rising no more.

Adieu, my only love! adieu, for the last time, my dear, my tender

friend. Ah! I live no longer for thee! have I not then already ceased

to live?

Letter CVI. From Eloisa to Mrs. Orbe.

Can it be true, my dear, my cruel friend, that you have called me back

to life and sorrow? I saw the happy instant when I was going to be

again united to the tenderest of mothers; but thy inhuman kindness has

condemned me to bemoan her yet longer: when my desire to follow her

had almost snatched me from this earth, my unwillingness to leave thee

behind held me fast. If I am at all reconciled to life, it is from the

comfort of not having entirely escaped the hand of death. Thank

heaven! that beauty is no more for which my heart has paid so dearly.

The distemper from which I have risen has happily deprived me of it.

This circumstance I hope will abate the gross ardour of a man so

indelicate as to dare to marry me without my consent. When the only

thing which he admired no longer exists, surely he will be little

anxious about the rest. Without breach of promise to my father,

without injuring that friend whose life is in his power, I shall be

able to repulse this importunate wretch: my lips will be silent, but

my looks will speak for me. His disgust will defend me against his

tyranny, and he will find me too disagreeable to dare to make me

unhappy.

Ah, my dear cousin! you know a constant tender heart that would not be

so repulsed. His passion was not confined to outward form or charms of

person; it was me that he loved, and not my face; we were united in

every part of our being, and so long as Eloisa had remained, her

beauty might have fled, but love would for ever have continued. And

yet he could consent----ungrateful youth!----yet it was but just,

since I could ask it. Who would wish to retain by promise those who

could withdraw their heart? and did I attempt to withdraw mine?----

have I done it?----O heavens! why must every thing conspire to remind

me of times that are no more, and to increase a flame which ought to

be extinguished? In vain, Eloisa, are thy endeavours to tear the dear

image from thy heart: ’tis too firmly attached; thy heart itself would

first be torn in pieces, and all thy endeavours serve but to engrave

it the deeper.

May I venture to tell you a vision of my delirium during my fever,

which has continued to torment me ever since my recovery? Yes, learn

and pity the distraction of your unhappy friend, that you may thank

heaven for preserving your heart from the horrid passion by which it

is occasioned. During the most violent moment of my phrenzy, when my

fever was at the height, I thought I beheld the unhappy youth kneeling

by my bed-side: not such as when he charmed my senses during the short

period of my felicity; but pale, wild, and lost in despair. He took my

hand, not disgusted with its appearance, and fearless of the sad

infection, eagerly kissed and bathed it with his tears. I felt at the

sight of him that pleasing emotion which his unexpected appearance

used formerly to occasion. I endeavoured to dart towards him, but was

restrained. You tore him from me, and what affected me most was his

sighs and groans, which seemed to increase as he went farther from me.

It is impossible to describe the effect of this strange dream. My

fever was long and violent; I continued many days insensible; I have

seen him often in my phrenzy; but none of my dreams have left half the

impression on my memory which this last did: it is impossible to drive

it from my imagination. Methinks I see him every moment in that

attitude. His air, his dress, his manner, his sorrowful and tender

look, are continually before my eyes. His lips seem still to press my

hand; I feel it wet with his tears. His plaintive voice melts my

heart; now I behold him dragged far from me, whilst I endeavour in

vain to hold him fast. In short, the whole imaginary scene appears in

my mind more real than reality itself.

I deliberated long before I could resolve to tell you this. Shame kept

me silent when we were together; but the idea grows every day

stronger, and torments me to such a degree, that I can no longer

conceal my folly. Would that I were entirely a fool! why should I wish

to preserve that reason which serves only to make me wretched?

But to return to my dream. Rally me, my dear friend, if you will, for

my simplicity; but surely there is something mysterious in this

vision, which distinguishes it from common phrenzy. Can it be a

presage of his death? or is he already dead? and was it thus that

heaven deigned, for once to be my guide, and invite me to follow him

whom I was ordained to love? Alas! a summons to the grave would be the

greatest blessing I could receive.

To what purpose do I recall these vain maxims of philosophy which

amuse only those who have no feelings? they impose on me no longer,

and I cannot help despising them. I believe that spirits are

invisible; but is it impossible that, between two lovers so closely

united, there should be an immediate communication, independent of the

body and the senses? may not their mutual impressions be transmitted

through the brain?----Poor Eloisa, what extravagant ideas! how

credulous are we rendered by our passions! and how difficult it is for

a heart severely affected to relinquish its errors, even after

conviction!

Letter CVII. The Answer.

Ah, thou most unfortunate and tender girl! art thou then destined to

be unhappy? I try in vain to keep thee from sorrow, but thou dost seem

to court affliction; thy evil genius is more powerful than all my

endeavours. Do not however add chimerical apprehensions to so many

real causes of inquietude: and since my caution has been more

prejudicial than serviceable to you, let me free you from a mistake

which aggravates your misery; perhaps the melancholy truth will be

less tormenting. Know then that your dream, was not a dream; that it

was not the phantom of your friend which you beheld, but his real

person; and that the affecting scene, which is ever present to your

imagination, did actually pass in your room, on the day after your

disorder was at the crisis.

On the preceding day, I left you very late; and Mr. Orbe, who would

take me from you that night, was ready to depart; when on a sudden we

perceived that unhappy wretch, whose condition is truly deplorable,

enter hastily, and throw himself at our feet. He took post horses

immediately on the receipt of your last letter. By travelling day and

night, he performed the journey in three days, and never stopped till

the last stage; where he waited in order to enter the town under

favour of the night. I am ashamed to confess, that I was less eager

than Mr. Orbe to embrace him: without knowing the intent of his

journey, I foresaw the consequence. The bitter recollection of former

times, your danger and his, his manifest discomposure of mind, all

contributed to check so agreeable a surprize; and I was too powerfully

affected to salute him with eagerness. I nevertheless embraced him

with a heart-felt emotion in which he sympathized, and which

reciprocally displayed itself in a kind of mute grief, more eloquent

than tears and lamentations. The first words he uttered were----“How

does she? O, how is my Eloisa? am I to live or die?” I concluded from

thence, that he was informed of your illness, and upon the

supposition that he was likewise acquainted with the nature of it, I

spoke without any other precaution than that of extenuating the

danger. When he understood that it was the small-pox, he made dreadful

lamentation, and was taken suddenly ill. Fatigue and the want of

sleep, together with perturbation of mind, had so entirely overcome

him, that it was some time before we could bring him to himself. He

had scarce strength to speak; we persuaded him to take rest.

Nature being quite spent, he slept twelve hours successively, but with

so much agitation that such a sleep must rather impair than recruit

his strength. The next day gave birth to new perplexity: he was

absolutely determined to see you. I represented to him the danger

there was that his presence might occasion some fatal revolution in

your distemper. He proposed to wait till there was no risque; but his

stay itself was a terrible risque, of which I endeavoured to make him

sensible. He rudely interrupted me. “Cease, said he, with a tone of

indignation, your cruel eloquence: it is too much, to exert it for my

ruin. Do not hope to drive me from hence as you did when I was forced

into exile. I would travel a hundred times from the farthest extremity

of the world for one glance of my Eloisa: but I swear, added he with

vehemence, by the author of my being, that I will not stir till I have

seen her. We will try for once, whether I shall move you with

compassion, or you make me guilty of perjury.”

His resolution was fixed. Mr. Orbe was of opinion that we should

contrive some means to gratify him, that we might send him away before

his return was discovered: for he was only known to one person in the

house, of whose secrecy I was assured; and we called him by a feigned

name before the family. [39] I promised him that he should see you the

next night, upon condition that he staid but a minute, that he did not

utter a syllable, and that he departed the next morning before break

of day. To these conditions, I exacted his solemn promise; then I was

easy, I left my husband with him, and returned to you.

I found you much better, the irruption was quite compleat; and the

physician raised my courage, by giving me hope. I laid my plan

beforehand with Bab, and the increase of your fever, though a little

abated, leaving you still somewhat light-headed, I took that

opportunity to dismiss every body, and send my husband word to

introduce his guest, concluding that before the paroxysm of your

disorder was over, you would be less likely to recollect him. We had

all the difficulty in the world to get rid of your disconsolate

father, who was determined to sit up with you every night. At length

I told him with some warmth, that he would spare nobody the trouble

of watching, for that I was determined likewise to sit up with you,

and that he might be assured, though he was your father, his

tenderness for you was not more diligent than mine. He departed with

reluctance, and we remained by ourselves Mr. Orbe came about eleven,

and told me that he had left your friend in the street. I went in

search of him: I took him by the hand: he trembled like a leaf. As he

went through the anti-chamber, his strength failed him: he drew his

breath with difficulty, and was forced to sit down.

At length, having singled out some objects by the faint glimmering of

a distant light----yes, said he, with a deep sigh, I recollect these

apartments. Once in my life I traversed them----about the same hour

----with the same mysterious caution----I trembled as I do now----My

heart fluttered with the same emotion----O! rash creature that I was

----though but a poor mortal, I nevertheless dared to taste.----What

am I now going to behold in that same spot, where every thing

diffused a delight with which my soul was intoxicated? what am I

going to view, in that same object which inspired and shared my

transports?----the retinue of melancholy, the image of death,

afflicted virtue, and expiring beauty!

Dear cousin; I will spare thy tender heart the dismal detail of such

an affecting scene. He saw you, and was mute. He had promised to be

silent;----but such a silence! he fell upon his knees; he sobbed, and

kissed the curtains of your bed; he lifted up his hands and eyes; he

fetched deep and silent groans; he could scarce stifle his grief and

lamentations. Without seeing him, you accidentally put one of your

hands out of bed; he seized it with extravagant eagerness; the ardent

kisses he impressed on your sick hand, awaked you sooner than all the

noise and murmur which buzzed about you. I perceived that you

recollected him, and in spite of all his resistance and complaints, I

forced him from your chamber directly, hoping to elude the impression

of such a fleeting apparition, under the pretence of its being the

effect of your delirium. But finding that you took no notice of it, I

concluded that you had forgot it. I forbad Bab to mention it, and I am

persuaded she has kept her word. A needless caution which love has

disconcerted, and which has only served to aggravate the pain of a

recollection which it is too late to efface.

He departed as he had promised, and I made him swear not to stop in

the neighbourhood. But, my dear girl, this is not all; I must acquaint

you with another circumstance, of which likewise you cannot long

remain ignorant. Lord B---- passed by two days afterwards; he hastened

to overtake him; he joined him at Dijon, and found him ill. The

unlucky wretch had caught the small-pox. He kept it secret from me

that he had never had the distemper, and I introduced him without

precaution. As he could not cure your disorder, he was determined to

partake of it. When I recollect the eagerness with which he kissed

your hand, I make no doubt but he underwent inoculation purposely. It

is impossible to have been worse prepared to receive it; but it was

the inoculation of love, and it proved fortunate. The author of life

preserved the most tender lover that ever existed; he is recovered,

and according to my lord’s last letter, they are by this time actually

set out for Paris.

You see, my too lovely cousin, that you ought to banish those

melancholy terrors, which alarm you without reason. You have long

since renounced the person of your friend, and you find that his life

is safe. Think of nothing therefore, but how to preserve your own, and

how to make the promised sacrifice to paternal affection with becoming

grace. Cease to be the sport of vain hope, and to feed yourself with

chimeras. You are in great haste to be proud of your deformity; let me

advise you to be more humble; believe me you have yet too much reason

to be so. You have undergone a cruel infection, but it has spared your

face. What you take for seams, is nothing but a redness which will

quickly disappear. I was worse affected than you, yet nevertheless you

see I am tolerable. My angel, you will still be beautiful in spite of

yourself; and do you think that the enamoured Wolmar, who, in three

years absence, could not conquer a passion conceived in eight days, is

likely to be cured of it, when he has an opportunity of seeing you

every hour? Oh! if your only resource is the hope of being

disagreeable, how desperate is your condition!

Letter CVIII. From Eloisa.

It is too much. It is too much. O my friend! the victory is yours. I

am not proof against such powerful love; my resolution is exhausted.

My conscience affords me the consolatory testimony, that I have

exerted my utmost efforts. Heaven, I hope, will not call me to account

for more than it has bestowed upon me. This sorrowful heart which cost

you so dear, and which you have more than purchased, is yours without

reserve; it was attached to you the first moment my eyes beheld you;

and it will remain yours to my dying breath. You have too much

deserved it, ever to be in danger of losing it; and I am weary of

being the slave of a chimerical virtue, at the expense of justice.

Yes, thou most tender and generous lover, thy Eloisa will be ever

thine, will love thee ever: I must, I will, I ought. To you I resign

the empire which love has given you; a dominion of which nothing shall

ever deprive thee more. The deceitful voice which murmurs at the

bottom of my soul, whispers in vain: it shall no longer betray me.

What are the vain duties it prescribes, in opposition to a passion

which heaven itself inspire? is not the obligation which binds me to

you, the most solemn of all? is it not to you alone that I have given

an absolute promise? was not the first vow of my heart never to forget

you; and is not your insoluble attachment a fresh tie to secure my

constancy? ah! in the transports of love with which I once more

surrender my heart to thee, my only regret is, that I have struggled

against sentiments so agreeable and so natural. Nature, O gentle

nature, resume thy rights! I abjure the savage virtues which conspire

to thy destruction. Can the inclinations which you have inspired, be

more seductive, than a specious reason which has so often misled me?

O my dear friend, have some regard for the tenderness of my

inclinations; you are too much indebted to them, to abhor them; but

allow of a participation which nature and affection demands; let not

the rights of blood and friendship be totally extinguished by those of

love. Do not imagine that to follow you, I will ever quit my father’s

house. Do not hope that I will refuse to comply with the obligations

imposed on me by parental authority. The cruel loss of one of the

authors of my being, has taught me to be cautious how I afflict the

other. No, she whom he expects to be his only comfort hereafter, will

not increase the affliction of his soul, already oppressed with

disquietude: I will not destroy all that gave me life. No, no, I am

sensible of my crime, but cannot abhor it. Duty, honour, virtue, all

these considerations have lost their influence, but yet I am not a

monster; I am frail, but not unnatural. I am determined, I will not

grieve any of the object of my affection. Let a father, tenacious of

his word, and jealous of a vain prerogative, dispose of my hand

according to his promise, but let love alone dispose of my heart; let

my tears incessantly trickle down the bosom of my tenderest friend.

Let me be lost and wretched, but, if possible, let every one dear to

me, be happy and contented. On you three my existence depends, and may

your felicity make me forget my misery and despair.

Letter CIX. The Answer.

We revive my Eloisa; all the real sentiments of our souls resume their

wonted course. Nature has preserved our existence, and love has

restored us to life. Did you suppose, could you be rash enough to

imagine you could withdraw your affections from me? I am better

acquainted with your heart than yourself: that heart which heaven

destined to be mine! I find them united by one common thread, which

death alone can divide. Is it in our power to separate them, or ought

we even to attempt it? are they joined together by ties which man hath

formed, and which man can dissolve? No, no, my Eloisa! if cruel

destiny bars our claim to tender conjugal titles, yet nothing can

deprive us of the character of faithful lovers; that shall be the

comfort of our melancholy days, and we will carry it with us to the

grave.

Thus we recover life only to renew our sufferings, and the

consciousness of our existence is nothing more than a sense of

affliction. Unfortunate beings! how we are altered? how have we ceased

to be what we were formerly? where is that enchantment of supreme

felicity? where are those exquisite raptures which enlivened our

passion? nothing is left of us but our love; love alone remains, and

all its charms are eclipsed. O, thou dear and too dutiful girl, thou

fond fair one without resolution! all our misfortunes are derived from

thy errors. Alas! a heart of less purity would not have so fatally

misled thee! yes, the honour of thy heart has been our ruin, the

upright sentiments which fill thy breast, have banished discretion.

You would endeavour to reconcile filial tenderness with unconquerable

love; by attempting to gratify all your inclinations, you confound

instead of conciliating them, and your very virtue renders you guilty.

O Eloisa, how incredible is your power! by what strange magic do you

fascinate my reason! even while you endeavour to make me blush at our

passion, you have the art of appearing amiable in your very failings.

You force me to admire you, even while I partake of your remorse----

your remorse!----does it become you to feel remorse?----you, whom I

loved----you, whom I shall never cease to adore----can guilt ever

approach thy spotless heart?----O cruel Eloisa! if you mean to

restore the heart which belongs to me alone, return it to me such as

it was, when you first bestowed it.

What do you tell me?----will you venture to intimate----you, fall

into the arms of another?----shall another possess you?----will you

be no longer mine?----or, to compleat my horror, will you not be

solely mine?----I----shall I suffer such dreadful punishment----

shall I see you survive yourself?----no I had rather lose you

entirely, than share you with another.----Why has not heaven armed

me with courage equal to the rage which distracts me?----sooner than

_thy_ hand should debase itself by a fatal union which love abhors,

and honour condemns, I would interpose my own, and plunge a poignard

in thy breast. I would drain thy chaste heart of blood which

infidelity never tainted: with that spotless blood I would mix my

own, which burns in my veins with inextinguishable ardour; I would

fall in thy arms; I would yield my last breath on thy lips----I would

receive thine----How! Eloisa expiring! those lovely eyes closed by

the horrors of death!----that breast, the throne of love, mangled by

my hand, and pouring forth copious streams of blood and life!----No,

live and suffer, endure the punishment of my cowardice. No, I wish

thou wert no more, but my passion is not so violent as to stab thee.

O, that you did but know the state of my heart, which is ready to

burst with anguish! Never did it burn with so pure a flame. Never were

your innocence and virtue so dear to me. I am a lover, I know how to

prize an amiable object, I am sensible that I do: but I am no more

than man, and it is not within the compass of human power to renounce

supreme felicity. One night, one single night, has made a thorough

change in my soul. Preserve me, if thou canst, from that dangerous

recollection, and I am virtuous still. But that fatal night is sunk to

the bottom of my soul, and the remembrance of it will darken all the

rest of my days. O Eloisa, thou most adorable object! if we must be

wretched for ever, yet let us enjoy one hour of transport, and then

resign ourselves to eternal lamentations.

Listen to the man who loves you. Why should we alone affect to be

wiser than the rest of mankind, and pursue, with puerile simplicity,

those chimerical virtues, which all the world talks of, and no one

practises. What! shall we pretend to be greater moralists than the

crowd of philosophers which people London and Paris, who all laugh at

conjugal fidelity, and treat adultery as a jest? instances of this

nature are far from being scandalous; we are not at liberty even to

censure them, and people of spirit would laugh at a man who should

stifle the affections of his heart out of respect to matrimony. In

fact, say they, an injury which only consists in opinion, is no injury

while it remains secret. What injury does a husband receive from an

infidelity to which he is a stranger? by how many obliging

condescensions, does a woman compensate for her failings? [40] what

endearments she employs to prevent, and to remove his suspicions?

deprived of an imaginary good, he actually enjoys more real felicity,

and this supposed crime which makes such a noise, is but an additional

tie, which secures the peace of society.

O God forbid, thou dear partner of my soul, that I should wish to

preserve thy affections by such shameful maxims. I abhor them, though

I am not able to confute them, and my conscience is a better advocate

than my reason. Not that I pride myself upon a spirit which I detest,

or that I am fond of a virtue bought so dear: but I think it less

criminal to reproach myself with my failings, than to attempt to

vindicate them, and I consider an endeavour to stifle remorse, as the

strongest degree of guilt.

I know not what I write. I find my mind in a horrid state, much worse

than it was, even before I received your letter. The hope you tender

me, is gloomy and melancholy; it totally extinguishes that pure light,

which has so often been our guide; your charms are blasted, and yet

appear more affecting; I perceive that you are affectionate and

unhappy: my heart is overwhelmed with the tears which flow from your

eyes, and I vent bitter reproaches on myself for having presumed to

taste a happiness, which I can no longer enjoy, but at the hazard of

your peace.

Nevertheless I perceive that a secret ardour fires my soul, and

revives that courage which my remorse has subdued. Ah, lovely Eloisa,

do you know how many losses a love like mine can compensate for? do

you know how far a lover, who only breathes for you, can make your

life agreeable? are you sensible that it is for you alone I wish to

live, to move, to think? no, thou delicious source of my existence, I

will have no soul but thine, I will no longer be any thing but a part

of thy lovely self, and you will meet with such a kind reception in

the inmost recesses of my heart, that you will never perceive any

decay in your charms. Well, we shall be guilty, yet we will not be

wicked; we shall be guilty, yet we will be in love with virtue: so far

from attempting to palliate our failings, we will deplore them; we

will lament together; if possible, we will work our redemption, by

being good and benevolent. Eloisa! O Eloisa! what will you do? what

can you do? you can never disengage yourself from my heart: is it not

espoused to thine?

I have long since bid adieu to those vain prospects of fortune which

so palpably deluded me. I now solely confine my attention to the

duties I owe Lord B----; he will force me with him to England; he

imagines I can be of service to him there. Well, I will attend him.

But I will steal away once every year; I will come in secret to visit

you. If I cannot speak to you, at least I shall have the pleasure of

gazing on you; I may at least kiss your footsteps; one glance from

your eyes will support me ten months. When I am forced to return, and

retire from her I love, it will be some consolation to me, to count

the steps which will bring me back again. These frequent journeys will

be some amusement to your unhappy lover; when he sets out to visit

you, he will anticipate the pleasure of beholding you; the remembrance

of the transports he has felt, will enchant his imagination during his

absence; in spite of his cruel destiny, his melancholy time will not

be utterly lost; every year will be marked with some tincture of

pleasure, and the short-lived moments he passes near you, will be

multiplied during his whole life.

Letter CX. From Mrs. Orbe.

Your mistress is no more; but I have recovered my friend, and you too

have gained one, whose affection will more than recompense your loss.

Eloisa is married, and her merit is sufficient to make the gentleman

happy, who has blended his interest with hers. After so many

indiscretions, thank heaven which has preserved you both, her from

ignominy, and you from the regret of having dishonoured her. Reverence

her change of condition; do not write to her, she desires you will

not. Wait till she writes to you, which she will shortly do. Now is

the time to convince me that you merit that esteem I ever entertained

for you, and that your heart is susceptible of a pure and

disinterested friendship.

Letter CXI. From Eloisa.

I have been so long accustomed to make you the confident of all the

secrets of my soul, that it is not in my power to discontinue so

agreeable a correspondence. In the most important occurrences of life

I long to disclose my heart to you. Open yours, my beloved friend, to

receive what I communicate; treasure up in your mind the long

discourse of friendship, which, though it sometimes renders the

speaker too diffusive, always makes the friendly hearer patient.

Attached to the fortune of a husband, or rather to the will of a

parent, by an indissoluble tie, I enter upon a new state of life,

which death alone can terminate: let us for a moment cast our eyes on

that which I have quitted; the recollection of former times cannot be

painful to us. Perhaps it will afford some lessons, which will teach

me how to make a proper use of the time to come: perhaps it will open

some lights which may serve to explain those particulars of my

conduct, which always appeared mysterious in your eyes. At least, by

reflecting in what relation we lately stood to each other, our hearts

will become more sensible of the reciprocal duties, from which death

alone can release us.

It is now near six years since I first saw you. You was young,

genteel, and agreeable. I had seen others more comely, and more

engaging; but no one ever excited the least emotion within me, and my

heart surrendered itself to you [41] on the first interview. I

imagin’d that I saw, in your countenance, the traces of a soul which

seemed the counterpart of mine. I thought that my senses only served

as organs to more refined sentiments; and I loved in you, not so much

what I saw, as what I imagined, I felt within myself. It is not two

months since, that I still flattered myself I was not mistaken: blind

Love, said I, was in the right; we were made for each other, if human

events do not interrupt the affinity of nature; and if we are allowed

to enjoy felicity in this life, we shall certainly be happy together.

These sentiments were reciprocal; I should have been deceived, had I

entertained them alone. The love I felt, could not arise but from a

mutual conformity and harmony of souls. We never love, unless we are

beloved; at least our passion is short-lived. Those affections which

meet with no return, and which are supposed to make so many wretched,

are only founded on sensuality; if ever they penetrate the heart, it

is by means of some false resemblance, and the mistake is quickly

discovered. Sensual love cannot subsist without fruition, and dies

with it: the sublimer passion cannot be satisfied without engaging the

heart, and is as permanent as the analogy which gave it birth. [42]

Such was ours from the beginning; and such, I hope, it will ever be to

the end of our days. I perceived, I felt that I was beloved, and that

I merited your affection. My lips were silent, my looks were

constrained; but my heart explained itself: we quickly experienced I

know not what, which renders silence eloquent, which gives utterance

to the downcast eye, which occasions a kind of forward bashfulness

which discovers the tumult of desire through the veil of timidity, and

conveys ideas which it dares not express.

I perceived the situation of my heart, and gave myself over for lost,

the first word you spoke. I found what pain your reserve cost you. I

approved of the distance you observed, and admired you the more; I

endeavoured to recompense you for such a necessary and painful

silence, without prejudice to my innocence; I offered violence to my

natural disposition; I imitated my cousin; I became, like her, arch

and lively, to avoid too serious explanations, and to indulge a

thousand tender caresses, under cover of that affected sprightliness.

I took such pains to make your situation agreeable, that the

apprehensions of a change increased your reserve. This scheme turned

to my disadvantage: we generally suffer for assuming a borrowed

character. Fool that I was! I accelerated my ruin, instead of

preventing it; I employed poison as a palliative, and what should have

induced you to preserve silence, was the occasion which tempted you to

explain yourself. In vain did I attempt, by an affected indifference,

to keep you at a distance in our private interviews; that very

constraint betrayed me: you wrote. Instead of committing your first

letter to the fire, or delivering it to my mother, I ventured to open

it. That was my original crime, and all the rest was a necessary

consequence of that first fault. I endeavoured to avoid answering

those fatal letters, which I could not forbear reading. This violent

struggle affected my health. I saw the abyss in which I was going to

plunge. I looked upon myself with horror, and could not resolve to

endure your absence. I fell into a kind of despair; I had rather that

you had ceased to live, than not to live to me: I even went so far as

to wish, and to desire your death. Heaven knew my heart; these efforts

may make amends for some failings.

Finding you disposed to implicit obedience, I was determined to speak.

Chaillot had given me some instructions, which made me too sensible of

the danger of avowing my passion. But love, which extorted the

confession, taught me to elude its consequence. You was my last

resort; I had such an entire confidence in you, that I furnished you

with arms against my weakness; such was my opinion of your integrity,

that I trusted you would preserve me from myself, and I did you no

more than justice. When I found the respect you paid to so valuable a

trust, I perceived that my passion had not blinded me in my opinion of

those virtues with which I supposed you endowed. I resigned myself

with greater security, as I imagined that we should both of us be

contented with a sentimental affection. As I discovered nothing at the

bottom of my heart but sentiments of honour, I tasted without reserve

the charms of such a delightful intimacy. Alas! I did not perceive

that my disorder grew inveterate from inattention, and that habit was

still more dangerous than love. Being sensibly affected by your

reserve, I thought I might relax mine without any risk; in the

innocence of my desires, I hoped to lead you to the heights of virtue,

by the tender caresses of friendship. But the grove at Clarens soon

convinced me that I trusted myself too far, and that we ought not to

grant the least indulgence to the senses, where prudence forbids us to

gratify them to the full. One moment, one single moment, fired me with

a desire which nothing could extinguish; and if my will yet resisted,

my heart was from that time corrupted.

You partook of my distraction; your letter made me tremble. The danger

was double: to preserve me from you and from myself, it was necessary

to banish you. This was the last effort of expiring virtue; but by

your flight, you made your conquest sure, and when I saw you no more,

the languor your absence occasioned, deprived me of the little

strength I had left to resist you.

When my father quitted the service, he brought M. Wolmar home with

him. His life which he owed to him, and an intimacy of twenty years,

rendered this friend so dear, that he could never part from him. M.

Wolmar was advanced in years, and tho’ of high birth, he had met with

no woman who had fixed his affections. My father mentioned me to him,

as to a man whom he wished to call his son: he was desirous to see me,

and it was with this intent that they came together. It was my fate to

be agreeable to him, who was never susceptible of any impression

before. They entered into secret engagements, and M. Wolmar, who had

some affairs to settle in one of the northern courts, where his family

and fortune were, desired time, and took leave upon their mutual

engagement. After his departure, my father acquainted my mother and

me, that he designed him for my husband; and commanded me, with a tone

which cut off all reply from my timidity, to prepare myself to receive

his hand. My mother, who too plainly perceived the inclinations of my

heart, and who had a natural liking for you, made several attempts to

shake my father’s resolution; she durst not absolutely propose you,

but she spoke of you in such terms as she hoped might make my father

esteem you, and wish to be acquainted with you; but your rank in life

made him insensible to all your accomplishments; and though he

allowed, that high birth could not supply them, yet he maintained that

birth alone could make them of any value.

The impossibility of being happy, fanned the flame which it ought to

have extinguished. A flattering delusion had supported me under all my

troubles; when that was gone, I had no strength to oppose them. While

I had the least hope of being yours, I might have triumphed over my

inclinations; it would have cost me less to have spent my whole life

in resistance, than to renounce you for ever; and the very idea of an

everlasting opposition, deprived me of fortitude to subdue my passion.

Grief and love preyed upon my heart; I fell into a state of dejection,

which you might perceive in my letters: yours, which you wrote to me

from Meillerie, compleatd my affliction; to the measure of my own

troubles, was added the sense of your despair. Alas! the weakest mind

is always destined to bear the troubles of both. The scheme you

ventured to propose to me, put the finishing stroke to my perplexity.

Misery seemed to be the infallible lot of my days, the inevitable

choice which remained for me to make, was to add to it either my

parents or your infelicity. I could not endure the horrible

alternative; the power of nature has its bounds; such agitations

overpowered my strength. I wished to be delivered from life. Heaven

seemed to take pity of me; but cruel death spared me for my

destruction. I saw you, I recovered, and was undone.

If my failings did not contribute to my felicity, I was not

disappointed: I never considered them as the means to procure

happiness. I perceived that my heart was formed for virtue, without

which I could never be happy; I fell through weakness, not from error;

I had not even blindness to plead in excuse for my frailty, I was

bereaved of every hope; it was impossible for me to be otherwise than

unfortunate. Innocence and love were equally requisite to my peace: as

I could not preserve them both, and was witness to your distraction, I

consulted your interest alone in the choice I made, and to save you, I

ruined myself.

But it is not so easy, as many imagine to forsake virtue. She

continues for some time, to torment those who abandon her, and her

charms, which are the delight of refined souls, constitute the chief

punishment of the wicked, who are condemned to be in love with her

when they can no longer enjoy her. Guilty, yet not depraved, I could

not escape the remorse which pursued me; honour was dear to me, even

after it was gone; though my shame was secret, it was not less

grievous; and though the whole world had been witness to it, I could

not have been more sensibly affected. I comforted myself under my

affliction, like one who having a wound, dreads a mortification; and

who, by the sense of pain, is encouraged not to despair of a cure.

Nevertheless, my shameful state was insupportable. By endeavouring to

stifle the reproach of guilt, without renouncing the crime, I

experienced what every honest mind feels when it goes astray, and is

fond of its mistake. A new delusion lent its aid to assuage the

bitterness of repentance; I flattered myself, that my frailty would

afford me the means of repairing my indiscretion, and I ventured to

form a design of forcing my father to unite our hands. I depended on

the first pledge of our love to close this delightful union. I prayed

to heaven for offspring as the pledge of my return to virtue, and of

our mutual happiness: I wished for it with as much earnestness as

another, in my place, would have dreaded it. The tenderness of love,

by its soft illusion, allayed the murmurs of my conscience; the

effects I hoped to derive from my frailty inspired me with

consolation, and this pleasing expectation was all the hope and

comfort of my life.

Whenever I should discover evident symptoms of my pregnancy, I was

determined to make a public declaration of my condition to Mr. Perret,

[43] in the presence of the whole family. I am timorous, it is true; I

was sensible how dear such a declaration would cost me, but honour

itself inspired me with courage, and I chose rather to bear at once

the confusion I deserved, than to nourish everlasting infamy at the

bottom of my soul. I knew that my father would either doom me to

death, or give me to my lover; this alternative had nothing in it

terrible to my apprehension, and whatever might be the event, I

concluded that this step would put an end to all my sufferings.

This, my dear friend, was the mystery which I concealed from you, and

which you endeavoured to penetrate with such solicitous curiosity. A

thousand reasons conspired to make me use this reserve with a man of

your impetuosity, not to mention that it would have been imprudent to

have furnished you with a new pretence for pressing your indiscreet

and importunate application. It was above all things requisite to

remove you during such a perilous situation, and I was very sensible

that you would never have consented to leave me in such an extremity,

had you known my danger.

Alas! I was once more deceived by such a flattering expectation.

Heaven refused to favour designs which were conceived in wickedness. I

did not deserve the honour of being a mother; my scheme was abortive,

and I was even deprived of an opportunity of expiating my frailty, at

the expense of my reputation. Disappointed in my hope, the indiscreet

assignation which exposed your life to danger, was a rashness which my

fond love coloured with this gentle palliation: I imputed the ill

success of my wishes to myself, and my heart, misled by its desires,

flattered itself that its eagerness to gratify them arose entirely

from my anxiety to render them lawful hereafter.

At one time I thought my wishes accomplished: that mistake was the

source of my most bitter affliction, and after nature had granted the

petition of love, the stroke of destiny came with aggravated cruelty.

You know the accident which destroyed my last hopes, together with the

fruit of my love. That misfortune happened during our separation, as

if heaven at that time intended to oppress me with all the evils I

merited, and to separate me at once from every connection which might

contribute to our union.

Your departure put an end to my delusion and to my pleasures; I

discovered, but too late the chimeras which had imposed upon me. I

perceived that I had fallen into a state truly despicable, and I felt

myself compleatly wretched; which was the inevitable consequence of

love without innocence, and hopeless desires which I could never

extinguish. Tortured by a thousand fruitless griefs, I stifled

reflections which were as painful as unprofitable; I no longer looked

upon myself as worthy of consideration, and I devoted my life to

solitude for you: I had no honour, but yours; no hope, but in your

happiness, and the sentiments which you communicated were alone

capable of affecting me.

Love did not make me blind to your faults, but it made those faults

dear to me; and its delusion was so powerful, that, had you been more

perfect, I should have loved you less. I was no stranger to your

heart, to your impetuosity. I was sensible, that with more courage

than I, you had less patience, and that the afflictions which

oppressed my soul, would drive yours to despair. It was for this

reason that I always carefully kept my father’s promise a secret from

you, and at our parting, taking advantage of Lord B----’s zeal for

your interest, and with a view to make you more attentive to your own

welfare, I flattered you with a hope which I myself did not entertain.

Yet more; apprized of the danger which threatened us, I took the only

precaution for our mutual security, and by a solemn engagement having

made you, as much as possible, master of my will, I hoped to inspire

you with confidence, and myself with fortitude, by mean of a promise

which I never durst violate, and which might ensure your peace of

mind. I own it was a needless obligation, and yet I should never have

infringed it. Virtue is so essential to our souls, that when we have

once abandoned that which is real, we presently fashion another after

the same model, and we keep the more strongly attached to this

substitute, because, perhaps, it is of our own election.

I need not tell you what perturbation I felt after your departure. The

worst of my apprehensions was the dread of being forsaken. The place

of your residence made me tremble. Your manner of living increased my

terror. I imagined that I already saw you debased into a man of

intrigue. An ignominy of this nature touched me more sensibly than all

my afflictions; I had rather have seen you wretched than contemptible;

after so many troubles to which I had been inured, your dishonour was

the only one I could not support.

My apprehensions, which the stile of your letters confirmed, were

quickly removed; and that by such means as would have made any other

compleatly uneasy. I allude to the disorderly course of life into

which you was seduced, and of which your ready and frank confession

was, of all the proofs of your sincerity, that which affected me most

sensibly. I knew you too well to be ignorant what such a confession

must have cost you, even if I had been no longer dear to you. I

perceived that love alone had triumphed over shame, and extorted it

from you. I concluded that a heart so sincere, was incapable of

disguised infidelity; I discovered less guilt in your failing, than

merit in the confession; and calling to mind your former engagements,

I was entirely cured of jealousy.

My worthy friend, my cure did not increase my felicity; for one

torment less, a thousand others rose up incessantly, and I was never

more sensible of the folly of seeking that repose in an unsettled

mind, which nothing but prudence can bestow. I had for a long time

secretly lamented the best of mothers, who insensibly wasted away with

a fatal decay. Bab, whom the unhappy consequence of my misconduct

obliged me to make my confident, betrayed me, and discovered our

mutual love, and my frailty, to my mother. I had just received your

letters from my cousin, when they were seized. The proofs were too

convincing; grief deprived her of the little strength her illness had

left her. I thought I should have expired at her feet with remorse. So

far from consigning me to the death I merited, she concealed my shame,

and was contented to bemoan my fall. Even you, who had so ungratefully

abused her kindness, was not odious to her. I was witness to the

effect which your letter produced on her tender and affectionate mind.

Alas! she wished for your happiness and mine. She attempted more than

once----but why should I recall a hope which is now for ever

extinguished? heaven decreed it otherwise. She closed her melancholy

days with the afflicting consideration of being unable to move a rigid

husband, and of leaving a daughter behind her so little worthy of such

a parent.

Oppressed with such a crude loss, my soul had no other strength than

what it received from that impression; the voice of nature uttered

groans which stifled the murmurs of love. I regarded the author of my

troubles with a kind of horror. I endeavoured to stifle the detestable

passion which had brought them upon me, and to renounce you for ever.

This, no doubt, was what I ought to have done; had I not sufficient

cause of lamentation the remainder of my days, without being in

continual quest of new subjects of affliction? every thing seemed to

favour my resolution. If melancholy softens the mind, deep affliction

hardens it. The remembrance of my dying mother effaced your image; we

were distant from each other; hope had entirely abandoned me; my

incomparable friend was never more great or more deserving wholly to

engross my heart. Her virtue, her discretion, her friendship, her

tender caresses, seemed to have purified it; I thought I had forgotten

you, and imagined myself cured. But it was too late; what I took for

the indifference of extinguished love, was nothing but the heaviness

of despair.

As a sick man who falls into a weak state when free from pain, is

suddenly revived by more acute sensations, so I quickly perceived all

my troubles renewed when my father acquainted me with Mr. Wolmar’s

approaching return. Invincible love then gave me incredible

strength. For the first time I ventured to oppose my father to his

face. I frankly protested that I could never like Mr. Wolmar; that I

was determined to die single; that he was master of my life, but not

of my affections, and that nothing could ever make me alter my

resolution. I need not describe the rage he was in, nor the treatment

I was obliged to endure. I was immoveable; my timidity once

vanquished, carried me to the other extreme, and if my tone was less

imperious than my father’s, it was nevertheless equally resolute.

He found that I was determined, and that he should make no impression

on me by dint of authority. For a minute I thought myself freed from

his persecution. But what became of me, when on a sudden I saw the

most rigid father softened into tears, and prostrate at my feet?

without suffering me to rise, he embraced my knees, and fixing his

streaming eyes on mine, he addressed himself to me in a plaintive

voice, which still murmurs within me. O my child! have some respect

for the grey hairs of your unhappy father; do not send me with sorrow

to the grave, after her who bore thee. Ah! will you be the death of

all your family?

Imagine my grief and astonishment. That attitude, that tone, that

gesture, those words, that horrible idea, overpowered me to that

degree, that I dropped half dead into his arms, and it was not till

after repeated sobs, which for some time stifled utterance, that I was

able to answer him in a faint and faltering voice. O my father! I was

armed against your menaces, but I am not proof against your tears. You

will be the death of your daughter.

We were both of us in such violent agitation that it was a long while

before we could recover. In the mean time, recollecting his last

words, I concluded that he was better informed of the particulars of

my conduct than I had imagined, and being resolved to turn those

circumstances of information against him, I was preparing, at the

hazard of my life, to make a confession which I had too long deferred,

when he hastily interrupted me, and as if he had foreseen and dreaded

what I was going to declare, he spoke to me in the following terms.

“I know you have encouraged inclinations unworthy a girl of your

birth. It is time to sacrifice to duty and honour a shameful passion

which you shall never gratify but at the expense of my life. Attend to

what your father’s honour, and your own require of you, and then

determine for yourself.”

“Mr. Wolmar is of noble extraction, one who is distinguished by all

the accomplishments requisite to maintain his dignity; one who enjoys

the public esteem, and who deserves it. I am indebted to him for my

life; and you are no stranger to the engagement I have concluded with

him. You are farther to understand that on his return home to settle

his concerns, he found himself involved by an unfortunate turn of

affairs: he had lost the greatest part of his estate, and it was by

singular good luck that he himself escaped from exile to Siberia: he

is coming back with the melancholy wreck of his fortune, upon the

strength or his friend’s word, which never yet was forfeited. Tell me

now, in what manner I shall receive him on his, return? shall I say to

him? Sir, I promised you my daughter while you were in affluent

circumstances, but now your fortune is ruined I must retract my word,

for my daughter will never be yours. If I do not express my refusal in

these words, it will be interpreted in this manner. To alledge your

pre-engagement, will be considered as a pretence, or it will be

imputed as an additional disgrace to me, and we shall pass, you for an

abandoned girl, and I for a dishonest man, who has sacrificed his word

and honour to forbid interest, and has added ingratitude to

infidelity. My dear child, I have lived too long, now to close an

unblemished life with infamy, and sixty years spent with honour are

not to be prostituted in a quarter of an hour.”

“You perceive therefore, continued he, how unreasonable is every

objection which you can offer. Judge whether the giddy passion of

youth, whether attachments which modesty disavows, are to be put in

competition with the duty of a child, and the honour by which a parent

stands bound. If the dispute was, which of us two should fall a victim

to the happiness of the other, my tenderness would challenge the right

of making that sacrifice to affection; but honour, my child, calls

upon me, and that always determines the resolution of him whose blood

you inherit.”

I was not without a pertinent answer to these remonstrances; but my

father’s prejudices confirmed him in his principles, so different from

mine, that reasons which appeared to me unanswerable, would not have

had the least weight with him. Besides, not knowing whence he had

gathered the intelligence he seemed to have gained with respect to my

conduct, or how far his information extended; apprehending likewise by

his eagerness to interrupt me, that he had formed his resolution with

regard to the matter I was going to communicate, and above all, being

restrained by a sense of shame which I could never subdue, I rather

chose to avail myself of an excuse, which I thought would have greater

weight, as it squared more with my father’s peculiarity of thinking. I

therefore made a frank declaration of the engagement I had made with

you; I protested that I would never be false to my word, and that

whatever was the consequence, I would never marry without your

consent.

In truth, I was delighted to find that my scruples did not offend him;

he reproached me severely for entering into such an engagement, but he

made no objection to its validity. So exalted are ideas which a

gentleman of honour naturally entertains with regard to the faith of

engagements, and so sacred a thing does he esteem a promise! instead

of attempting therefore to dispute the force of my obligation to you,

he made me write a note, which he inclosed in a letter and sent away

directly. [44] With what agitation did I expect your answer! how often

did I wish that you might shew less delicacy than you ought! but I

knew you too well, however, to doubt your compliance, and was sensible

that the more painful you felt the sacrifice required of you, the

readier you would be to undergo it. Your answer came, it was kept a

secret from me during my illness; after my recovery, my fears were

confirmed, and I was cut off from all farther excuses. At least, my

father declared he would admit of no more, and the dreadful expression

he had made use of gave him such an ascendency over my will that he

made me swear never to say any thing to M. Wolmar which might make him

averse from marrying me; for, he added, that will appear to him like a

trick concerted between us, and at all events the marriage must be

concluded.

You know, my dear friend, that my constitution, which is strong enough

to endure fatigue and inclemency of weather, is not able to resist the

violence of passion, and that too exquisite a sensibility is the

source of all the evils which have afflicted my mind and body. Whether

continued grief had tainted my blood, or whether nature took that

opportunity to purify it from the fatal effects of fermentation,

however it was, I found myself violently disordered at the end of our

conversation. When I left my father’s room, I endeavoured to write a

line to you, but found myself so ill, that I was obliged to go to bed,

from whence I hoped never to rise. You are too well acquainted with

the rest. My imprudence led you to indiscretion. You came, I saw you,

and thought that I had only beheld you in one of those dreams, which,

during my delirium, so often presented your image before me. But when

I found that you had really been there, that I had actually seen you,

that being resolved to partake of my distemper which you could not

cure, you had purposely caught the infection; I could no longer resist

this last proof, and finding that the tenderness of your affection

survived even hope itself, my love which I had taken such pains to

smother, instantly broke through all restraint, and revived with more

ardour than ever. I perceived that I was doomed to love in spite of

myself; I was sensible that I must be guilty; that I could neither

resist my father nor my love, and that I could never reconcile the

rights of love and consanguinity, but at the expense of honour. Thus

all my noble sentiments were utterly extinguished; all my faculties

were altered; guilt was no longer horrible in my sight; I felt a

thorough change within me; at length, the unruly transports of a

passion, rendered impetuous by opposition, threw me into the most

dismal dejection with which human nature was ever oppressed; I even

dared to despair of virtue. Your letter, which was rather calculated

to awaken remorse than to stifle it, put the finishing stroke to my

distraction. My heart was so depraved, that my reason could not

withstand the arguments of your plausible philosophy. Horrible ideas

ventured to crowd into my mind, with which it had never been tainted

before. My will still opposed them, but my imagination grew familiar

with them, and if my soul did not harbour anticipated guilt, yet I was

no longer mistress of that noble resolution which alone is capable of

resisting temptation.

I am scarce able to proceed. Let me stop a while. Recall to your mind

those days of innocence and felicity, when the lively and tender

passion with which we were mutually animated, only served to refine

our sentiments, when that holy ardour contributed to render modesty

more lovely, and honour more amiable, when our very desires seemed

kindled only that we might have the glory of subduing them, and of

rendering ourselves more worthy of each other. Look over our first

letters; reflect on those moments so fleeting and so little enjoyed,

when love appeared to us arrayed in all the charms of virtue, and when

we were too fond of each other to enter into any connections which she

condemned.

What were we then, and what are we now? Two tender lovers spent a

whole year together in painful silence; they scarce ventured to

breathe a sigh, but their hearts understood each other; they thought

their sufferings great, but, had they known it, they were happy. Their

mutual silence was so intelligible, that at length they ventured to

converse; but, satisfied with the power of triumphing over their

inclinations, and with giving each other the glorious proofs of their

victory, they passed another year in a reserve scarce less severe;

they imparted their troubles to each other, and were happy. But these

violent struggles were too painful to be supported long; one moment’s

weakness led them astray; they forgot themselves in their transports;

but if they were no longer chaste, they were still constant; at least,

heaven and nature authorized the ties which united them; at least

virtue was still dear to them; they still loved and honoured her

charms; they were less corrupted than debased. Though they were less

worthy of felicity, they still continued happy.

What now are those affectionate lovers who glowed with so refined a

passion, and were so sensible of the worth of honour? who can be

acquainted with their condition, without sighing over them?----behold

them a prey to guilt. Even the idea of defiling the marriage bed does

not now strike them with horror----they meditate adultery!----how,

is it possible that they can be the same pair? Are not their souls

entirely altered? how could that lovely image which the wicked never

behold, be effaced in the minds where it once shone so bright? are not

they, who have once felt the charms of virtue, for ever after

disgusted with vice? how many ages have passed to produce this

astonishing alteration? what length of time could be capable of

destroying so delightful a remembrance, and of extinguishing the true

sense of happiness in those who had once enjoyed it? Ah! if the first

step of irregularity moves with slow and painful pace, how easy and

precipitate are those which follow! O, the illusion of passion! it is

that which fascinates reason, betrays prudence, and new models nature,

before we perceive the change. A single moment leads us astray; one

step draws us out of the right path. From that time an irresistible

propensity hurries us on to our ruin. From that time we fall into a

gulph, and arise frightened to find ourselves oppressed with crimes,

with a heart formed to virtue. My dear friend, let us drop the

curtain. Can it be necessary to see the dangerous precipice it

conceals from us, in order to avoid approaching it? I resume my

narrative.

M. Wolmar arrived, and made no objection to the alteration in my

features. My father pressed me. The mourning for my mother was just

over, and my grief was proof against time. I could form no pretence to

elude my promise; and was under a necessity of fulfilling it. I

thought the day which was to separate me for ever from you and from

myself, would have been the last of my life. I could have beheld the

preparations for my funeral, with less horror than those for my

marriage. The nearer the fatal moment drew, the less I found myself

able to root out my first affections from my soul; my efforts rather

served to inflame than to extinguish them. At length I gave over the

fruitless struggle. At the very time that I was prepared to swear

eternal constancy to another, my heart still vowed eternal love to

thee, and I was carried to the temple as a polluted victim, which

defiles the altar on which it is sacrificed.

When I came to the church, I felt, at my entrance, a kind of emotion

which I had never experienced before. An inconceivable terror seized

my mind in that solemn and august place which was full of the Being

worshipped there. A sudden horror made me shiver. Trembling and ready

to faint, it was with difficulty that I reached the altar. Far from

being composed, I found my disorder increase during the ceremony, and

every object I beheld struck me with terror. The gloomy light of the

temple, the profound silence of the spectators, their decent and

collected deportment, the train of all my relations, the awful look of

my venerable father, all contributed to give the ceremony an air of

solemnity which commanded my attention and reverence, and which made

me tremble at the very thought of perjury. I imagined that I beheld

the instrument of Providence, and that I heard the voice of heaven, in

the minister who pronounced the holy liturgy with uncommon solemnity.

The purity, the dignity, the sanctity of marriage, so forcibly

expressed in the words of scripture, the chaste, the sublime duties it

inculcates, and which are so important to the happiness, the order,

the peace, the being of human nature, so agreeable in themselves to be

observed; all conspired to make such an impression upon me, that I

felt a thorough revolution within ne. An invisible power seemed

suddenly to rectify the disorder of my affections, and to settle them

according to the laws of duty and nature. The eternal and omnipresent

Power, said I to myself, now reads the bottom of my soul; he compares

my secret will with my verbal declaration: heaven and earth are

witness to the solemn engagement I am going to contract; and they

shall be witness of my fidelity in observing the obligation. What

human duty can they regard, who dare to violate the first and most

sacred of all?

A casual glance on Mr. and Mrs. Orbe, whom I saw opposite to each

other, fixing their tender looks on me, affected me more powerfully

than all the other objects around me. O most amiable and virtuous

pair! though your love is less violent, are you therefore less closely

attached to each other? duty and honour are the bonds which unite you;

affectionate friends! faithful couple! you do not burn with that

devouring flame which consumes the soul, but you love each other with

a gentle and refined affection, which nourishes the mind, which

prudence authorizes, and reason directs; you therefore enjoy more

substantial felicity. Ah! that, in an union like yours, I could

recover the same innocence, and attain the same happiness! if I have

not like you deserved it, I will at least endeavour to make myself

worthy of it by your example.

These sentiments renewed my hopes, and revived my courage. I

considered the sacred tie I was preparing to form, as a new state

which would purify my soul, and restore me to a just sense of my duty.

When the minister asked me, whether I promised perfect obedience and

fidelity to him whom I received for my husband, I made the promise not

only with my lips but with my heart; and I will keep it inviolably

till my death.

When we returned one, I sighed for an hour’s solitude and

recollection. I obtained it, not without difficulty; and however eager

I was to make the best advantage of it, I nevertheless entered into

self-examination with reluctance, being afraid lest I should discover

that I had only been affected by some transitory impressions, and that

at the bottom I should find myself as unworthy a wife, as I had been

an indiscreet girl. The method of making the trial was sure, but

dangerous; I began it by turning my thoughts on you. My heart bore

witness that no tender recollection had profaned the solemn engagement

I had lately made. I could not conceive, without astonishment, how

your image could have forborne its obstinate intrusion, and have left

me so long at rest, amidst so many occasions which might have recalled

you to my mind; I should have mistrusted my insensibility and

forgetfulness, as treacherous dependencies, which were too unnatural

to be lasting. I found however that I was in no danger of delusion: I

was sensible that I still loved you as much, if not more than ever;

but I felt my affection for you without a blush. I found that I could

venture to think of you, without forgetting that I was the wife of

another. When a tacit self-confession reported how dear you was to me,

my heart was affected, but my conscience and my senses were composed;

and from that moment I perceived that my mind was changed in reality.

What a torrent of pure joy then rushed into my soul! what tranquil

sensations, so long effaced, then began to revive a heart which

ignominy had stained, and to diffuse an unusual serenity through my

whole frame! I felt as if I had been new born; and I fancied that I

was entering into another life. O gentle and balmy virtue! I am

regenerated for thee; thou alone canst make life dear to me; to thee

alone I consecrate my being. Oh I have too fatally experienced the

loss of thee, ever to abandon thee a second time.

In the rapture of so great, so sudden, so unexpected a change I

ventured to reflect on the state I was in the preceding day: I

trembled on thinking what a state of unworthy debasement I had been

reduced by forgetting what I owed to myself; and I shuddered at all

the dangers I had since my first step of deviation. What a happy

revolution of mind enabled me to discover the horror of the crime which

threw temptation before me; and how did the love of discretion revive

within me! by what uncommon accident, said I, could I hope to be more

faithful to love, than to honour, which I held in such high esteem?

what good fortune would prevent your inconstancy or my own, from

delivering me a prey to new attachments? how could I oppose to another

lover, that resistance which the first had conquered, and that shame

which had been accustomed to yield to inclination? should I pay more

regard to the rights of extinguished love, than I did to the claim of

virtue, while it maintained its full empire in my soul? what security

could I have to love no other but you, except that inward assistance

which deceives all lovers, who swear eternal constancy, and

inconsiderately perjure themselves upon every change of their

affections? thus one deviation from virtue would have led to another;

and vice, grown habitual, would no longer have appeared horrible in my

sight. Fallen from honour to infamy, without any hold to stop me; from

a seduced virgin I should have become an abandoned woman, the scandal

of my sex and the torment of my family. What has saved me from so

natural a consequence of my first transgression? what checked me after

my first guilty step? what has preserved my reputation, and the esteem

of my beloved friends? what has placed me under the protection of a

virtuous and discreet husband, whose character is amiable, whose

person is agreeable, and who is full of that respect and affection for

me, which I have so little deserved? what, in short, enables me to

aspire after the character of a virtuous wife, and gives me courage to

render myself worthy of that title? I see it, I feel it; it is the

friendly hand which has conducted me thro’ the paths of darkness, that

now removes the veil of error from my eyes; and, in my own despite,

restores me to myself. The gentle voice which incessantly murmured

within me, now raised its tone, and thundered in my ears, at the very

moment that I was near being lost for ever. The author of all truth

would not allow me to quit his presence with the conscious guilt of

detestable perjury; and preventing my crime by my remorse, he has

shewn me the frightful abyss into which I was ready to fall. Eternal

Providence! who dost make the insect crawl, and the heavens revolve,

thou art watchful over the least of all thy works! thou hast recalled

me to that virtue, which I was born to revere! deign therefore to

receive, from a heart purified by thy goodness, that homage which thou

alone hast rendered worthy thy acceptance.

That instant, being impressed with a lively sense of the danger I had

escaped, and of the state of honour and security in which I was

happily re-established, I prostrated myself on the ground, and lifting

my suppliant hands to heaven, I invoked that Being enthroned on high,

whole pleasure supports or destroys, by means of our own strength,

that free-will he has bestowed. I eagerly, said I, embrace the

professed good, of which Thou alone art the author. I will love the

husband to whom thou hast attached me. I will be faithful, because it

is the chief duty which unites private families and society in

general. I will be chaste, because it is the parent virtue which

nourishes all the rest. I will adhere to everything relative to the

order of nature which thou hast established, and to the dictates of

reason which I derive from thee. I recommend my heart to thy

protection, and my desires to thy guidance. Render all my actions

conformable to my steadfast will, which is ever thine, and never more

permit momentary error to triumph over the settled choice of my life.

Having finished this short prayer, the first I ever made with true

devotion, I found myself confirmed in virtuous resolutions; it seemed

so easy and so agreeable to follow these dictates, that I clearly

perceived where I must hereafter resort for that power to resist my

inclinations, which I could not derive from myself. From this new

discovery, I acquired fresh confidence, and lamented that fatal

blindness, which had so long disguised it from me. I had never been

devoid of religion, but perhaps I had better have been wholly so, than

to have professed one which was external and mechanical; and which

satisfied the conscience, without affecting the heart; one which was

confined to set forms; and taught me to believe in God at stated

hours, without thinking of him the remainder of my time. Scrupulously

attendant on public worship, I nevertheless drew no advantage from it

to assist me in the practice of my duty. Knowing that I was of good

family, I indulged my inclinations, I was fond of speculation, and put

my trust in reason. Not being able to reconcile the Spirit of the

Gospel with the manners of the world, nor faith with works, I steered

a middle course which satisfied the vanity of my wisdom; I had one set

of maxims for speculation, and another for practice; I forgot in one

place, the opinions I formed in another; I was devotee at church, and

a philosopher at home: Alas! was nothing any where; my prayers were

but words, my reasoning mere sophistry, and the only light I followed

was the false glimmering of an _ignis fatuus_ which guided me to

destruction.

I cannot describe to you how much this inward principle, which had

escaped me till now, made me despise those which had so shamefully

misled me. Tell me, I intreat you, what was the strongest reason in

their support, and on what foundation did they rest? A favourable

instinct directs me to good, some impetuous passion rises in

opposition: it takes root in the same instant, and what must I do to

destroy it? From a contemplation on the order of nature, I discover

the beauty of virtue; and from its general utility, I derive its

excellence. But what do these arguments avail, when they stand in

competition to my private interest; and which in the end is of most

consequence to me, to procure my own happiness at the expense of

others, or to promote the felicity of others at the expense of my own

happiness? if the dread of shame or punishment deter me from

committing evil for the sake of my own private good, I have nothing

more to do than to sin in secret; virtue then cannot upbraid me, and

if I am detected, I shall be punished, as at Sparta, not on account of

my crime, but because I had not ingenuity to conceal it. In short,

admitting the character and the love of virtue to be imprinted in my

heart by nature, it will serve me as a rule of conduct till its

impressions are dead; but how shall I be sure always to preserve this

inward effigies in its original purity, which has no model, among

sublunary beings, to which it can be referred? Is it not evident, that

irregular afflictions corrupt the judgement as well as the will, and

that conscience changes, and in every age, in every people, in every

individual, accommodates itself to inconstancy of opinion and

diversity of prejudice.

Adore the supreme Being, my worthy and prudent friend; with one puff

of breath you will be able to dissipate those chimeras of reason,

which have a visionary appearance, and which fly like so many others,

before immutable truth. Nothing exists but through him, who is self-

existent. It is he who directs the tendency of justice, fixes the

basis of virtue, and gives a recompense to a short life spent

according to his will; it is he who proclaims aloud to the guilty that

their secret crimes are detected, and gives assurance to the righteous

in obscurity, that their virtues are not without a witness; it is he,

it is his unalterable substance, that is the true model of those

perfections, of which we all bear the image within us. It is in vain

that our passions disfigure it; its traces which are allied to the

infinite Being, ever present themselves to our reason, and serve to

re-establish what error and imposture have perverted. These

distinctions seem to me extremely natural; common sense is sufficient

to point them out. Every thing which we cannot separate from the idea

of divine essence, is God; all the rest is the work of men. It is by

the contemplation of this divine model, that the soul becomes refined

and exalted, that it learns to despise low desires, and to triumph

over base inclinations. A heart impressed with these sublime truths,

is superior to the mean passions of human nature; the idea of infinite

grandeur subdues the pride of man; the delight of contemplation

abstracts him from gross desires; and if the immense Being, who is the

subject of his thoughts had no existence, it would nevertheless be of

use to exercise his mind in such meditations, in order to make him

more master of himself, more vigorous, more discreet, and more happy.

Do you require a particular instance of the vain subtleties framed by

that self sufficient reason, which so vainly relies on its own

strength? Let us coolly examine the arguments of those philosophers,

those worthy advocates of a crime, which never yet reduced any whose

minds were not previously corrupted. Might one not conclude that, by a

direct attack of the most holy and most solemn of all contracts, these

dangerous disputants were determined at one stroke to annihilate human

society in general, which is founded on the faith of engagements? But

let us consider, I beseech you, how they exculpate secret adultery? it

is because, say they, no mischief arises from it; not even to the

husband, who is ignorant of the wrong. But, can they be certain that

he will always remain ignorant of the injury offered him? is it

sufficient to authorise perjury and infidelity, that they do no wrong

to others? is the mischief which the guilty do to themselves, not

sufficient to create an abhorrence of guilt? is it no crime to be

false to our word, to destroy, as far as we are able, the obligation

of oaths, and the most inviolable contracts? is it no crime to take

pains to render ourselves false, treacherous, and perjured? is it no

crime to form attachments, which occasion you to desire the prejudice,

and to wish the death of another? even the death of one whom we ought

to love above others, and with whom we have sworn to live? is not that

state in itself an evil, which is productive of a thousand

consequential crimes? even good itself, if attended with so many

mischiefs, would, for that reason only, be an evil.

Shall one of the parties pretend to innocence, who may chance to be

disengaged, and have pledged his faith to no one? He is grossly

mistaken. It is not only the interest of husband and wife, but it is

the common benefit of mankind, that the purity of marriage be

preserved unsullied. Whenever two persons are joined together by that

solemn contract, all mankind enter into a tacit engagement to respect

the sacred tie, and to honour the conjugal union; and this appears to

be a powerful reason against clandestine marriages, which, as they

express no public sign of such an union, expose innocent maids to the

temptation of adulterous passion. The public are in some measure

guarantees of a control which passes in their presence; and we may

venture to say, that the honour of a modest woman is under the special

protection of all good and worthy people. Whoever therefore dares to

seduce her, sins; first because he has tempted her to sin, and that

every one is an accomplice in those crimes which he persuades others

to commit: in the next place, he sins directly himself, because he

violates the public and sacred faith of matrimony, without which no

order or regularity can subsist in society.

The crime, say they, is secret, consequently no injury can result from

it to any one. If these philosophers believe the existence of a God

and the immortality of the human soul, can they call that crime

secret, which has for its witness the Being principally offended, and

the only righteous judge? it is a strange kind of a secret, which is

hid from all eyes, except those from which it is our interest most to

conceal it! if they do not however admit of the omnipresence of the

Divinity, yet how can they dare to affirm that they do injury to no

one? how can they prove that it is a matter of indifference to a

parent to educate heirs who are strangers to his blood; to be

encumbered perhaps with more children than he would otherwise have

had, and to be obliged to distribute his fortune among those pledges

of his dishonour, without feeling for them any sensations of parental

tenderness, and natural affection. If we suppose these philosophers to

be materialists, we have then a stronger foundation for opposing their

tenets by the gentle dictates of nature, which plead in every breath

against the principles of a vain philosophy, which have never yet been

controverted by sound reasoning. In short, if the body alone produces

cogitation, and sentiment depends entirely on organization, will there

not be a more strict analogy between two beings of the same blood;

will they not have a more violent attachment to each other, will there

not be a resemblance between their souls as well as their features,

which is a most powerful motive to inspire mutual affection?

Is it doing no injury therefore, in your opinion, to destroy or

disturb this natural union by the mixture of adulterate blood, and to

pervert the principle of that mutual affection, which ought to cement

all the members of one family? who would not shudder with horror at

the thoughts of having one infant changed for another by a nurse? and

is it a less crime to make such a change before the infant is born?

If I consider my own sex in particular, what mischiefs do I discover

in this incontinency, which is supposed to do no injury! the

debasement of a guilty woman, who, after the loss of her honour, soon

forfeits all other virtues, is alone sufficient. What manifest

symptoms convey to a tender husband the intelligence of that injury

which they think to justify by secrecy! the loss of the wife’s

affection is sufficient proof. To what purpose will all her affected

endeavours serve, but to manifest her indifference the more? can we

impose upon the jealous eye of love by feigned caresses? and what

torture must he feel, who is attached to a beloved object, whose hand

embraces, while her heart rejects him! Admitting however that fortune

should favour a conduct which she has so often betrayed, and to say

nothing of the rashness of trusting our own affected innocence and

another’s peace to precautions which Providence often thinks proper to

disconcert----yet what deceit, what falsehood, what imposture, is

requisite to conceal a criminal commerce, to deceive a husband, to

corrupt servants, and to impose upon the public! what a disgrace to

the accomplices! what an example to children! what must become of

their education amidst so much solicitude how to gratify a guilty

passion with impunity! how is the peace of the family and the union of

the heads of it to be maintained? what! in all these circumstances

does the husband receive no injury? but who can make him recompense

for a heart which should have been devoted to him? who can restore him

the affections of a valuable woman? who can give him peace of mind,

and conjugal confidence! who can cure him of his well-grounded

suspicions? who can engage a father to trust the feelings of nature,

when he embraces his child?

With regard to the pretended connections which may be formed in

families by means of adultery and infidelity, it cannot be considered

as a serious argument, but rather as an absurd and brutal mockery,

which deserves no other answer than disdain and indignation. The

treasons, the quarrels, the battles, the murders with which this

irregularity has in all ages pestered the earth, are sufficient proofs

how far the peace and union of mankind is to be promoted by

attachments founded in guilt. If any social principle results from

this vile and despicable commerce, it may be compared to that which

unites a band of robbers, and which ought to be destroyed and

annulled, in order to ensure the safety of lawful communities.

I have endeavoured to suppress the indignation which these principles

excited in me, in order to discuss them with greater moderation. The

more extravagant and ridiculous I find them, the more I am interested

to refute them, in order to make myself ashamed of having listened to

them with too little reserve. You see how ill they can endure the test

of sound reason; but from whence can we derive the sacred dictates of

reason, if not from him who is the source of all? and what shall we

think of those who, in order to mislead mankind, pervert this heavenly

ray, which he gave them as an unerring guide to virtue? Let us abandon

this philosophy of words; let us distrust a fallacious virtue which

undermines all other virtues, and attempts to vindicate every vice, to

authorize the practice of every species of guilt. The surest method of

discovering our duty is diligently to examine what is right, and we

cannot long continue the examination, without recurring to the author

of all goodness. This is what I have done, since I have taken pains to

rectify my principals, and improve my reason: this is a task you will

perform better than I, when you are disposed to pursue the same

course. It is a comfort to me to reflect, that you have frequently

nourished my mind with elevated notions of religion, and you whose

heart disguised nothing from me, would not have talked to me in that

strain, had your sentiments differed from your declaration. I

recollect that conversations of this kind were ever delightful to us.

We never found the presence of the supreme Being troublesome: it

rather filled us with hope than terror: it never yet dismayed any but

guilty souls; we were pleased to think that he was witness to our

interviews, and we loved to exalt our minds to the contemplation of

the deity. If we were now and then abased by shame, we reflected, that

at least he was privy to our in most thoughts, and that idea renewed

our tranquillity.

If this confidence led us astray, nevertheless the principle on which

it was founded, is alone capable of reclaiming us to virtue. Is it not

unworthy of a man to be always at variance with himself, to have one

rule for his actions, another for his opinions, to think as if he was

abstracted from matter, to act as if he was devoid of soul, and never

to be capable of appropriating a single action of his life to his own

entire self? for my own part, I think the principles of the ancients

are sufficient to fortify us, when they are not confined to mere

speculation. Weakness is incident to human nature, and the merciful

Being who made man frail, will no doubt pardon his frailty; but guilt

is a quality which belongs only to the wicked, and will not remain

unpunished by the author of all justice. An infidel, who is otherwise

well inclined, praises those virtues he admires; he acts from taste,

not from choice. If all his desires happen to be regular, he indulges

them without reserve. He would gratify them in the same manner, if

they were irregular; for what should restrain him? But he who

acknowledges and worships the common father of mankind, perceives that

he is destined for nobler purposes. An ardent wish to fulfil the end

of his being, animates his zeal; he follows a more certain rule of

action than appetite; he knows how to do what is right at the expense

of his inclinations, and to sacrifice the desires of his heart to the

call of duty. Such, my dear friend, is the heroic sacrifice required

of us both. The love which attached us would have proved the delight

of our lives; it survived hope, it bid defiance to time and absence,

it endured every kind of proof. So sincere a passion ought not ever to

have decayed of itself; it was worthy to be sacrificed to virtue

alone.

I must observe farther. All circumstances are altered between us, and

your heart must accommodate itself to the change. The wife of Mr.

Wolmar is not your former Eloisa; your change of sentiment, with

regard to her, is unavoidable; and it depends upon your own choice to

make the alteration redound to your honour, according to the election

you make of vice or virtue. I recollect a passage in an author, whose

authority you will not controvert. Love, says he, is destitute of its

greatest charm, when it is abandoned by honour. To be sensible of its

true value, it must warm the heart, and exalt us by raising the object

of our desires. Take away the idea of perfection, and you deprive love

of all its enthusiasm; banish esteem, and love is no more. How can a

woman honour the man whom she ought to despise? how can he himself

honour her, who has not scrupled to abandon herself to a vile seducer?

thus they will soon entertain a mutual contempt for each other. Love,

that celestial principle, will be debased into a shameful commerce

between them. They will have lost their honour without attaining

felicity. [45] This, my dear friend, is our lesson, penned by your own

hand! Never were our hearts more agreeably attached, and never was

honour so dear to us as in those happy days when this letter was

written. Reflect then, how we should be misled at this time by a

guilty passion, nourished at the expense of the most agreeable

transports which can inspire the soul! The horror of vice which is so

natural to us both, would soon extend to the partner of our guilt; we

should entertain mutual hatred, for having loved each other

indiscreetly, and remorse would quickly extinguish affection. Is it

not better to refine a generous sentiment, in order to render it

permanent? is it not better at least to preserve what we may grant

with innocence? is not this preserving what is more delightful than

all other enjoyments? yes, my dear and worthy friend, to keep our love

inviolable, we must renounce each other. Let us forget all that has

passed, and continue the lover of my soul. This idea is so agreeable

that it compensates for every thing.

Thus have I drawn a faithful picture of my life, and given you a

genuine detail of every inward sentiment. Be assured that I love you

still. I am still attached to you with such a tender and lively

affection, that any other than myself would be alarmed: but I feel a

principle of a different kind within me, which secures me against any

apprehensions from my attachment. I perceive that the nature of my

affection is entirely altered, and in this respect, my past failings

are the grounds of my present security; I know that scrupulous decorum

and the parade of virtue might require more of me, and not be

satisfied unless I utterly forgot you. But I have a more certain rule

of conduct, and I will abide by it. I attend to the secret dictates of

conscience; I find nothing there which reproaches me, and it never

deceives those who consult it with sincerity. If this is not

sufficient to justify me before the world, it is enough to restore me

to composure of mind. How has this happy change been produced? I know

not how. All I know is, that I wished for it most ardently. God alone

has accomplished the rest. I am convinced that a mind once corrupted,

will ever remain so, and will never recover of itself, unless some

sudden revolution, some unexpected change of fortune and condition,

entirely alters its connections. When all its habits are destroyed,

and all its passions modified, by that thorough revolution, it

sometimes resumes its primitive characters, and becomes like a new

being recently formed by the hands of nature. Then the recollection of

its former unworthiness may serve as a preservative against relapse.

Yesterday we were base and abject; to-day we are vigorous and

magnanimous. By thus making a close compassion between the two

different states, we become more sensible of the value of that which

we have recovered, and more attentive to support it.

My marriage has made me experience something like the change I

endeavour to explain to you. This tie, which I dreaded so much, has

extricated me from a slavery much more dreadful; and my husband

becomes dearer to me, for having restored me to myself.

You and I were, however, too closely attached, for a change of this

kind to destroy the unison between us. If you lose an affectionate

mistress, you gain a faithful friend; and whatever we may have

imagined in our state of delusion, I cannot believe that the

alteration is to your prejudice. Let it, I conjure you, encourage you

to take the same resolution that I have formed, to become hereafter

more wise and virtuous, and to refine the lessons of philosophy, by

the precepts of Christian morality. I shall never be thoroughly happy,

unless you likewise enjoy happiness, and I am more convinced than

ever, that there is no real felicity without virtue. If you sincerely

love me, afford me the agreeable consolation to find that our hearts

correspond in their return to virtue, as they unhappily agreed in

their deviation from it.

I need not make any apology for the length of my epistle. Were you

less dear to me, I should have shortened it. Before I conclude, I have

one favour to request of you. M. Wolmar is a stranger to my past

conduct; but a frank sincerity is part of the duty I owe to him; I

should have made the confession a hundred times; you alone have

restrained me. Though I am acquainted with M. Wolmar’s discretion and

moderation, yet to mention your name, is always to bring you in

competition, and I would not do it without your consent. Can this

request be disagreeable to you, and when I flatter myself to obtain

your leave, do I depend too much on you or on myself? consider, I

beseech you, that this reserve is inconsistent with innocence, that it

grows every day more insupportable, and that I shall not enjoy a

moment’s rest till I receive your answer.

Letter CXII. To Eloisa.

And will you no longer be my Eloisa? ah! do not tell me so, thou most

worthy of all thy sex! Thou art more mine than ever. Thy merit claims

homage from the whole world. It was thee whom I adored, when I first

became susceptible of the impressions of beauty: and I shall never

cease to adore thee, even after death, if my soul still retains any

recollection of those truly celestial charms, which were my sole

delight when living. The courageous effort by which you have recovered

all your virtue, renders you more equal to your lovely self. No,

whatever torment the sensation and the confession give me, yet I must

declare that you never were my Eloisa more perfectly, than at this

moment in which you renounce me. Alas! I regain my Eloisa, by losing

her for ever. But I, whose heart shudders even at an attempt to

imitate your virtue, I, who am tormented with a criminal passion which

I can neither support nor subdue, am I the man whom I vainly imagined

myself to be? was I worthy of your esteem? what right had I to

importune you with my complaints and my despair? did it become me, to

presume so high for you? Ah! what was I, that I should dare to love

Eloisa?

Fool that I am! as tho’ I did not feel myself sufficiently humbled,

without taking pains to seek fresh circumstances of humiliation! why

should I increase my mortification by enumerating distinctions unknown

to love? It was that which exalted me; and which made me your equal.

Our hearts were blended, we shared our sentiments in common, and mine

partook of the elevation of yours. Behold me now sunk into my pristine

baseness! thou gentle hope, which didst so long feed my soul to

deceive me, art thou then extinguished without a prospect of return?

will she not be mine? must I lose her for ever? does she make another

happy?----O rage! O torments of hell!----O faithless! ought you

ever----pardon me, pardon me! dearest madam! have pity on my

distraction. O! you had too much reason when you told me, she is no

more----She is indeed no more than affectionate Eloisa, to whom I

could disclose every emotion of my heart. How could I complain when I

found myself unhappy? could she listen to my complaints? was I

unhappy?----what then am I now? No, I will not make you blush for

yourself or me. Hope is no more, we must renounce each other; we must

part. Virtue herself has pronounced the decree; and your hand has been

capable of transcribing it. Let us forget each other----Forget me, at

least. I am determined, I swear, that I will never speak to you of

myself again.

May I yet venture to talk of you, and to interest myself in what is

now the only object of my concern; I mean your happiness? In

describing to me the state of your mind, you say nothing of your

present situation. As a reward of the sacrifice I have made, of which

you ought to be sensible, at least deign to deliver me from this

insupportable doubt. Eloisa, are you happy? if you are, give me the

only comfort of which my despair is susceptible; if you are not, be

compassionate enough to tell me so; my misery then will be less

durable.

The more I reflect on the confession you propose to make, the less I

am inclined to consent to it, and the same motive which always

deprived me of resolution to deny your requests, renders me inexorable

in this particular. It is a subject of the last importance, and I

conjure you to weigh my reasons with attention. First, your excessive

delicacy seems to lead you into a mistake, and I do not see on what

foundation the most rigid virtue can exact such a confession from you.

No engagement whatever can have any retro-active effect. We cannot

bind ourselves with respect to time past, nor promise what is not in

our power to perform! how can you be obliged to give your husband an

account of the use you formerly made of your liberty, or how can you

be responsible to him for a fidelity which you never promised to him?

Do not deceive yourself, Eloisa; it is not to your husband, it is to

your friend, that you have violated your engagement. Before we were

separated by your father’s tyranny, heaven and nature had formed us

for each other. By entering into other connections, you have been

guilty of a crime, which love and honour can never forgive; and it is

I who have a right to reclaim the prize, which M. Wolmar has ravished

from my arms.

If, under any circumstances, duty can exact such a confession, it is

when the danger of a relapse obliges a prudent woman to take

precautions for her security. But your letter has given me more light

into your real sentiments than you imagine. In reading it, I felt in

my own heart, how much yours, upon a near approach, nay even in the

bosom of love, would have abhorred a criminal connection, the horror

of which was only diminished by its distance.

As duty and honour do not require such confidence, prudence and reason

forbid it; for it is running a needless risk of forfeiting every

thing that is dear in wedlock, the attachment of a husband, mutual

confidence, and the peace of the family. Have you thoroughly weighed

the consequences of such a step? are you sufficiently acquainted with

your husband, to be certain of the effect it will produce in his

disposition? do you know how many men there are, who, from such a

confession, would conceive an immoderate jealousy, and an invincible

contempt, and would probably be provoked, even to attempt your life?

in such a nice examination, we ought to attend to time, place, and the

difference of characters. In the country where I reside at present,

such a confidence would be attended with no danger; and they who make

so light of conjugal fidelity, are not people to be violently affected

by any frailty of conduct prior to the engagement. Not to mention

reasons which sometimes render those confessions indispensable, and

which cannot be applied to your case, I knew some women of tolerable

estimation, who, with very little risk, have made a merit of that kind

of sincerity, in order perhaps by that sacrifice, to obtain a

confidence which they might afterwards abuse at will. But in those

countries where the sanctity of marriage is more respected, in those

countries where that sacred tie forms a solid union, and where

husbands have a real attachment to their wives, they require a more

severe account of their conduct; they expect that their hearts should

never have felt any tender affections but for themselves; usurping a

right which they have not, they unreasonably expect their wives to

have been theirs, even before they belonged to them, and they are as

unwilling to excuse an abuse of liberty, as a real infidelity.

Believe me, virtuous Eloisa, and distrust this fruitless and

unnecessary zeal. Keep this dangerous secret, which nothing can oblige

you to reveal; the discovery of which might utterly ruin you, without

being of any advantage to your husband. If he is worthy of such a

confession, it will disturb his peace of mind; and you will have the

mortification of having afflicted him without reason; if he is

unworthy, why will you give him a pretence for using you ill? How do

you know whether your virtue, which has defended you from the assaults

of your heart, will likewise support you against the influence of

domestic troubles daily reviving? Do not voluntarily increase your

misfortunes, lest they become too powerful for your resistance, and

you should at length relapse by means of your scruples into a worse

condition, than that from which you have with so much difficulty

disengaged yourself. Prudence is the basis of every virtue; consult

that, I intreat you, in this most important crisis of your life; and

if the fatal secret oppresses you so violently, wait at least, before

you unbosom yourself, till time and a length of years, shall have made

you more perfectly acquainted with your husband: stay till his heart,

now affected by the power of your beauty, shall be susceptible of

those more lasting impressions, which the charms of your disposition

cannot fail to make, and till he is become habitually sensible of your

perfections. After all, if these reasons, powerful as they are, should

not convince you, yet do not refuse to listen to the voice which

utters them. O Eloisa, hearken to a man who is yet, in some degree,

susceptible of virtue, and who has a right to expect some concession

from you at least, in return for the sacrifice he has made to you to-

day.

I must conclude this letter. I find that I cannot forbear resuming a

strain, to which you must no longer give ear. Eloisa, I must part with

you! young as I am, am I already destined to renounce felicity? O

time, never to be recalled! time irrevocably past, source of ever-

lasting sorrows! pleasures, transports, delightful ecstasies,

delicious moments, celestial raptures! my love, my only love, the

honour and delight of my soul! Farewell for ever.

Letter CXIII. From Eloisa.

You ask me, whether I am happy? The question affects me, and by your

manner of asking it, you facilitate my answer; for so far from wishing

to banish you from my memory as you desire me, I confess that I should

not be happy was your affection for me to cease: yet at present I am

happy in most respects, and nothing but your felicity is wanting to

compleat mine. If, in my last, I avoided making any mention of Mr.

Wolmar, it was out of tenderness to you. I was too well acquainted

with your sensibility of temper, not to be under apprehensions of

irritating your pain; but your solicitude with regard to my felicity,

obliging me to mention him on whom it depends, I cannot speak of him

without doing justice to his worth, as becomes his wife, and a friend

to truth.

Mr. Wolmar is near fifty years of age; but by means of an uniform

regular course of life, and a serenity not ruffled by any violent

passions, he has preserved such a healthy constitution, and such a

florid complexion, that he scarce appears to be forty, and he bears no

symptoms of age, but prudence and experience. His countenance is noble

and engaging, his address open and unaffected, his manner rather

sincere than courteous, he speaks little and with great judgment, but

without any affectation of being concise and sententious. His

behaviour is the same to every one, he neither courts nor shuns any

individual, and he never gives any preference but what reason

justifies.

In spite of his natural indifference, his heart, seconding my father’s

inclinations, entertained a liking for me, and for the first time

formed a tender attachment. This moderate and lasting affection has

been governed by such strict rules of decorum, and observed such a

constant uniformity, that he was under no necessity of altering his

manners on changing his condition, and, without violating conjugal

decorum, his behaviour to me now is the time as it was before

marriage. I never saw him either gay or melancholy, but always

contented; he never talks to me of himself, and seldom of me; he is

not in continual search after me, but he does not seem displeased that

I should seek his company, and he seems to part from me unwillingly.

He is serious without disposing others to be grave; on the contrary,

his serenity of manners seems an invitation to me to be sprightly; and

as the pleasures I relish are the only pleasures of which he is

susceptible, an endeavour to amuse myself is among the duties I owe to

him. In one word, he wishes to see me happy; he has not told me so,

but his conduct declares it; and to wish the happiness of a wife,

is to make her really happy.

With all the attention with which I have been able to observe him, I

cannot discover any particular passion to which he is attached, except

his affection for me; it is however so even and temperate, that one

would conclude he had power to limit the degree of his passion, and

that he had determined not to love beyond the bounds of discretion. He

is in reality what Lord B---- is in his own imagination; in this

respect I find him greatly preferable to those passionate lovers, of

whom we are so fond; for the heart deceives us a thousand ways, and

acts from a suspicious principle; but reason always proposes a just

end; the rules of duty which it enjoins are sure, evident and

practicable; and whenever our reason is led astray we enter into idle

speculations, which were never intended to be objects of her

examination.

Mr. Wolmar’s chief delight is observation. He loves to judge of men’s

characters and actions. He generally forms his judgment with perfect

impartiality and profound penetration. If an enemy was to do him an

injury, he would discuss every motive and expedient with as much

composure, as if he was transacting any indifferent concern. I do not

know by what means he has heard of you, but he has often spoken of

you, with great esteem, to me; and I am sure he is incapable of

disguise. I have imagined sometimes that he took particular notice of

me during these conversations; but in all probability, the observation

I apprehended, was nothing but the secret reproach of an alarmed

conscience. However it be, in this respect I did my duty; neither fear

nor shame occasioned me to shew an unjust reserve; and I did you

justice before him, as I now do him justice before you.

I forgot to tell you concerning our income, and the management of it.

The wreck of Mr. Wolmar’s inheritance, with the addition from my

father, who has only reserved a pension for himself, makes up a

handsome and moderate fortune, which Mr. Wolmar uses with generosity

and discretion, by maintaining in his family, not an inconvenient and

vain display of luxury, [46] but plenty, with the real conveniences of

life; and by distributing necessaries among his indigent neighbours.

The economy he has established in his houshold, is the image of that

order which reigns in his own breast; and his little family seems to

be a model of that regularity, which is observable in the government

of the world. You neither discover that inflexible formality which is

rather inconvenient than useful, and which no one but he who exerts it

can endure; nor do you perceive that mistaken confusion, which, by

being encumbered with superfluities, renders every thing useless. The

master’s hand is seen throughout, without being felt, and he made his

first arrangement with so much discretion, that every thing now goes

on by itself; and regularity is preserved, without any abridgment of

liberty.

This, my worthy friend, is a succinct but faithful account of Mr.

Wolmar’s character, as far as I have been able to discover it since I

lived with him. Such as he appeared to me the first day, such he

seemed the last, without any alteration; which induces me to hope that

I know him thoroughly, and that I have no farther discoveries to make;

for I cannot conceive any change in his behaviour which will not be to

his disadvantage.

From this account, you may anticipate the answer to your question, and

you must think despicably of me not to suppose me happy, when I have

so much reason to be so. What led me into a mistake, and what perhaps

still misleads you, is the opinion, that love is necessary to make the

married state happy. My good friend, this is a vulgar error; honour,

virtue a certain conformity, not so much of age and condition as of

temper and inclination, are the requisites in the conjugal state:

nevertheless it must not be inferred from hence that this union does

not produce an affectionate attachment, which, though it does not

amount to love, is not less agreeable, and is much more permanent.

Love is attended with a continual inquietude of jealousy, or the dread

of separation, by no means suitable with a married life, which should

be a state of peace and tranquillity. The intent of matrimony is not

for man and wife to be always taken up with each other, but jointly to

discharge the duties of civil society, to govern their family with

prudence, and educate their children with discretion. Lovers attend to

nothing but each other, they are incessantly engaged with each other;

and all that they regard, is how to shew their mutual affection. But

this is not enough for a married pair, who have so many other objects

to engage their attention. There is no passion whatever which exposes

us to such delusion, as that of love. We take its violence for a

symptom of its duration; the heart over-burthened with such an

agreeable sensation, extends itself to futurity; and while the heat of

love continues, we flatter ourselves that it will never cool. But, on

the contrary, it is consumed by its own ardour; it glows in youth, it

grows faint with decaying beauty, it is utterly extinguished by the

frost of age; and since the beginning of the world, there never was an

instance of two lovers who sighed for each other, when they became

grey-headed. We may be assured that, sooner or later, adoration will

cease; then the idol which we worshipped being demolished, we

reciprocally see each other in a true light. We look with surprise,

for the object on which we doated; not being able to discover it more.

We are displeased with that which remains in its stead, and which our

imagination often disfigures, as much as it embellished it before;

there are few people, says Rochefoucauld, who are not ashamed of

having loved each other, when their affection is extinguished. How

much is it to be dreaded therefore, lest these two lively sensations

should be succeeded by an irksome state of mind, lest their decline

instead of stopping at indifference, should even reach absolute

disgust; lest, in short, being entirely satiated, they, who were too

passionately fond of each other as lovers, should come to hate each

other as husband and wife! My dear friend, you always appeared amiable

in my eyes, too fatally so for my innocence and repose, but I never

yet saw you but in the character of a lover, and how do I know in what

light you would have appeared, when your passion was no more? I must

confess, that when love expired, it would still have left you in

possession of virtue; but is that alone sufficient to make an union

happy, which the heart ought to cement? and how many virtuous men have

made intolerable husbands? In all these respects, you may say the same

of me.

As to Mr. Wolmar, no delusion is the foundation of our mutual liking;

we see each other in a true light; the sentiment which unites us is

not the blind transport of passionate desire; but a constant and

invariable attachment between two rational people, who being destined

to pass the remainder of their lives together, are content with their

lot, and endeavour to make themselves mutually agreeable. It seems as

if we could not have suited each other better, had we been formed on

purpose for our union. Had his heart been as tender as mine, it is

impossible but so much sensibility on each side must sometimes have

clashed, and occasioned disagreements. If I was as composed as he,

there would be too much indifference between us, and our union would

be less pleasing and agreeable. If he did not love me, we should be

uneasy together; if his love for me was too passionate, he would be

troublesome to me. We are each of us exactly made for the other; he

instructs me, I enliven him; the value of both is increased by our

union, and we seem destined to form but one soul between us; to which

he gives intelligence, and I direct the will. Even his advanced age

redounds to our common advantage; for with the passion which agitated

me, it is certain that had he been younger, I should have married him

with more unwillingness, and my extreme reluctance would probably have

prevented the happy revolution I have experienced.

My worthy friend, heaven directs the good intention of parents, and

rewards the docility of children. God forbid that I should wish to

insult your affliction. Nothing but a strong desire of giving you the

firmest assurance with respect to my present condition, could induce

me to add what I am going to mention. If, with the sentiments I

formerly entertained for you, with the knowledge I have since

acquired, I was once more my own mistress, and at liberty to chuse a

husband, I call that Being, who has vouchsafed to enlighten me, and

who reads the bottom of my heart, to witness my sincerity when I

declare that I should make choice, not of you, but Mr. Wolmar.

Perhaps it may be necessary, to compleat your cure, that I should

inform you of what farther remains in my mind. Mr. Wolmar is much

older than me. If, to punish my failings, heaven should deprive me of

a worthy husband, whom I so little deserved, it is my firm resolution

never to espouse another. If he has not had the good fortune to meet

with a chaste virgin, at least he will leave behind him a continent

widow. You know me too well, to imagine that, after I have made this

declaration, I shall ever recede from it.

What I have said to remove your doubts, may, in some measure, serve to

resolve your objections against the confession which I think it my

duty to make to my husband. He is too discreet to punish me for a

mortifying step which repentance alone may atone for, and I am not

more incapable of the artifice common to the women you speak of, than

he is of harbouring such a suspicion. With respect to the reason you

assign why such a confession is needless, it is certainly sophistical;

for, though we can be under no obligation to a husband, as such,

before marriage, yet that does not authorise one to pass upon him, for

what one really is not. I perceived this before I married him, and

tho’ the oath which my father extorted from me prevented me from

discharging my duty in this respect, I am not the less blameable,

since it is a crime to take an unjust oath, and a farther crime to

keep it. But I had another reason, which my heart dared not avow, and

which made my guilt greater still. Thank heaven, that reason subsists

no longer.

A consideration more just, and of greater weight with me, is the

danger of unnecessarily disturbing the peace of a worthy man, who

derives his happiness from the esteem he bears to his wife. It

certainly is not now in his power to break the tie which binds us

together, nor in mine to have been more worthy of his choice.

Therefore, by an indiscreet confidence, I run the risk of afflicting

him without any advantage, and without reaping any other benefit from

my sincerity, than that of discharging my mind of a cruel secret which

oppresses me heavily. I am sensible that I shall be more composed when

I have made the discovery; but perhaps he would be less happy, and to

prefer my own peace to his, would be a bad method of making reparation

for my faults.

What then shall I do in this dilemma? Till heaven shall better

instruct me in my duty, I will follow your friendly advice; I will be

silent; conceal my failings from my husband, and endeavour to repair

them by a conduct, which may hereafter secure me a pardon.

To begin this necessary reformation, you must consent, my dear friend,

that from this time, all correspondence between us shall cease. If Mr.

Wolmar had received my confession, he might have determined how far we

ought to gratify the sensations of friendship, and give innocent

proofs of our mutual attachment; but since I dare not consult him in

this particular, I have learned to my cost, how far habits the most

justifiable in appearance, are capable of leading us astray. It is

time to grow discreet. Notwithstanding I think my heart securely

fortified, yet I will no longer venture to be judge in my own cause,

nor now am I a wife, will I gave way to the same presumption which

betrayed me when I was a maid. This is the last letter you will ever

receive from me. I intreat you never to write to me again.

Nevertheless, as I shall always continue to interest myself with the

most tender concern for your welfare, and as my sentiment in this

respect is as pure as the light, I shall be glad to hear of you

occasionally, and to find you in possession of that happiness you

deserve. You may write to Mr. Orbe from time to time when you have any

thing interesting to communicate. I hope that the integrity of your

soul will be expressed in your letters. Besides, my cousin is too

virtuous and discreet, to shew me any part which is not fit for my

perusal, and would not fail to suppress the correspondence, if you

were capable of abusing it.

Farewell, my dear and worthy friend; if I thought that fortune could

make you happy, I should desire you to go in pursuit of her; but

perhaps you have reason to despise her, being master of such

accomplishments as will enable you to thrive without her assistance. I

would rather desire you to seek happiness, which is the fortune of the

wise; we have ever experienced that there is no felicity without

virtue but examine carefully whether the word virtue, taken in too

abstracted a sense, has not more pomp than solidity in it, and whether

it is not a term of parade, more calculated to dazzle others, than to

satisfy ourselves. I shudder when I reflect that they who secretly

meditated adultery, should dare to talk of virtue! do you know in what

sense we understood this respectable epithet, which we abused while we

were engaged in a criminal commerce? it was the impetuous passion with

which we were mutually inflamed, that disguised its transports under

this sacred enthusiasm, in order to render them more dear to us, and

to hold us longer in delusion. We were formed, I dare believe, to

practise and cherish real virtue, but we were misguided in our pursuit

it, and we pursued a vain phantom. It is time to recover from this

delusion; it is time to return from a deviation which has carried us

too far astray. My dear friend, your return to wisdom will not be so

difficult as you conceive. You have a guide within yourself, whose

directions you have disregarded, but never entirely rejected. Your

mind is sound, it is attached to what is right, and if just principles

sometimes forsake you, it is because you do not use your utmost

efforts to maintain them. Examine your conscience thoroughly, see

whether you will not discover some neglected principle, which might

have served to put your actions under better regulations, to have made

them more consistent with each other, and with one common object.

Believe me, it is not sufficient that virtue is the basis of your

conduct, unless that basis itself is fixed on a firm foundation. Call

to your mind those Indians, who imagine the world is supported by a

great elephant, that elephant by a tortoise, and when you ask them on

what the tortoise rests, they can answer you no farther.

I conjure you to regard the remonstrances of friendship, and to chuse

a more certain road to happiness than that which has so long misguided

us. I shall incessantly pray to heaven to grant us pure felicity, and

I shall never be satisfied till we both enjoy it. And, if our hearts,

spite of our endeavours, recall the errors of our youth, let the

reformation they produced at least warrant the recollection, that we

may say, with the ancient philosopher----Alas! we should have

perished, if we had not been undone.

Here ends the tedious sermon I have preached to you. I shall have

enough to do hereafter to preach to myself. Farewell, my amiable

friend, farewell for ever! so inflexible duty decrees: but be assured

that the heart of Eloisa can never forget what was so dear to her----

my God! what am I doing? the condition of the paper will tell you. Ah!

is it not excusable to dissolve in tenderness, when we take the last

farewell of a friend?

Letter CXIV. To Lord B----.

Yes, my Lord, I confess it; the weight of life is too heavy for my

soul. I have long endured it as a burthen; I have lost every thing

which could make it dear to me, and nothing remains but irksomeness

and vexation. I am told however, that I am not at liberty to dispose

of my life, without the permission of that Being from whom I received

it. I am sensible likewise, that you have a right over it by more

titles than one. Your care has twice preserved it, and your goodness

is its constant security. I will never dispose of it, till I am

certain that I may do it without a crime, and till I have not the

least hope of employing it for your service.

You told me that I should be of use to you; why did you deceive me?

Since we have been in _London_, so far from thinking of employing me

in your concerns, you have been kind enough to make me your only

concern. How superfluous is your obliging solicitude! My lord, you

know I abhor a crime, even worse than I detest life; I adore the

supreme Being.----I owe every thing to you. I have an affection for

you, you are the only person on earth to whom I am attached.

Friendship and duty may chain a wretch to this earth: sophistry and

vain pretences will never detain him. Enlighten my understanding,

speak to my heart; I am ready to hear you, but remember, that despair

is not to be imposed upon.

You would have me apply to the test of reason: I will; let us reason.

You desire me to deliberate in proportion to the importance of the

question in debate; I agree to it. Let us investigate truth with

temper and moderation. Let us discuss this general proposition with

the same indifference we would treat any other. Robeck wrote an

apology for suicide before he put an end to his life. I will not,

after his example, write a book on the subject, neither am I well

satisfied with that which he has penned, but I hope in this

discussion, at least to imitate his moderation.

I have for a long time meditated on this awful subject. You must be

sensible that I have; for you know my destiny, and yet I am alive. The

more I reflect, the more I am convinced that the question may be

reduced to this fundamental proposition. Every man has a right by

nature, to pursue what he thinks good, and avoid what he thinks evil,

in all respects which are not injurious to others. When our life

therefore becomes a misery to ourselves, and is of advantage to no

one, we are at liberty to put an end to our being. If there is any

such thing as a clear and self-evident principle, certainly this is

one, and if this is subverted, there is scarce an action in life,

which may not be made criminal.

Let us hear what the philosophers say on this subject. First, they

consider life as something which is not our own, because we hold it as

a gift; but because it has been given to us, it is for that reason our

own. Has not God given these sophists two arms? nevertheless when they

are under apprehensions of a mortification, they do not scruple to

amputate one, or both if there is occasion. By a parity of reasoning,

we may convince those who believe in the immortality of the soul; for

if I sacrifice my arm to the preservation of something more precious,

which is my body, I have the same right to sacrifice my body to the

preservation of something more valuable, which is the happiness of my

existence. If all the gifts which heaven has bestowed, are naturally

designed for our good, they are certainly too apt to change their

nature; and Providence has endowed us with reason, that we may discern

the difference. If this rule did not authorize us to chuse the one

and reject the other, to what use would it serve among mankind?

But they turn this weak objection into a thousand shapes. They

consider a man living upon earth, as a soldier placed on duty. God,

say they, has fixed you in this world, why do you quit your station

without his leave. But you, who argue thus, has he not stationed you

in the town where you was born, why therefore do you quit it without

his leave? is not misery, of itself, a sufficient permission? whatever

station Providence has assigned me, whether it be in a regiment, or on

the earth at large, he intended me to stay there while I found my

situation agreeable, and to leave it when it became intolerable. This

is the voice of nature, and the voice of God. I agree that we must

wait for an order; but when I die a natural death, God does not order

me to quit life, he takes it from me: it is by rendering life

insupportable, that he orders me to quit it. In the first case, I

resist with all my force; in the second, I have the merit of

obedience.

Can you conceive that there are some people so absurd as to arraign

suicide as a kind of rebellion against Providence, by an attempt to

fly from his laws? but we do not put an end to our being, in order to

withdraw ourselves from his commands, but to execute them. What! does

the power of God extend no farther than my body? is there a spot in

the universe, is there any being in the universe which is not subject

to his power, and will that power have less immediate influence over

me, when my being is refined and thereby becomes less compound, and of

nearer resemblance to the divine essence? no, his justice and goodness

are the foundation of my hopes, and if I thought that death would

withdraw me from his power I would give up my resolution to die.

This is one of the quibbles of the Phaedo, which, in other respects,

abounds with sublime truths. If your slave destroys himself says

_Socrates_ to _Cebes_, would you not punish him, for having unjustly

deprived you of your property: prithee, good Socrates, do we not

belong to God after we are dead? The case you put, is not applicable;

you ought to argue thus: if you incumber your slave with a habit which

confines him from discharging his duty properly, will you punish him

for quitting it in order to render you better service? the grand error

lies in making life of too much importance; as if our existence

depended upon it, and that death was a total annihilation. Our life is

of no consequence in the sight of God; it is of no importance in the

eyes of reason, neither ought to be of any in our sight, and when we

quit our body, we only lay aside an inconvenient habit. Is this

circumstance so painful, to be the occasion of so much disturbance? my

lord, these declaimers are not in earnest. Their arguments are absurd

and cruel, for they aggravate the supposed crime, as if it put a

period to existence, and they punish it, as if that existence was

eternal.

With respect to Plato’s Phaedo, which has furnished them with the only

specious argument that has ever been advanced, the question is

discussed there in a very light and desultory manner. Socrates being

condemned, by an unjust judgement, to lose his life in a few hours,

had no occasion to enter into an accurate inquiry whether he was at

liberty to dispose of it himself. Supposing him really to have been

the author of those discourses which Plato ascribes to him, yet

believe me, my lord, he would have meditated with more attention on

the subject, had he been in circumstances which required him to reduce

his speculations to practice;----and a strong proof that no objection

can be drawn from that immortal work against the right of disposing of

our own lives is, that Cato read it twice through the very night that

he destroyed himself.

The same sophisters make it a question whether life can ever be an

evil? but when we consider the multitude of errors, torments and vices

with which it abounds, one would rather be inclined to doubt whether

it can ever be a blessing. Guilt incessantly besieges the most

virtuous of mankind. Every moment he lives, he is in danger of falling

a prey to the wicked, or of being wicked himself. To struggle, and to

endure, is his lot in this world; that of the dishonest man is to do

evil, and to suffer. In every other particular they differ, and only

agree in sharing the miseries of life in common. If you required

authorities and facts, I could cite you the oracles of old, the

answers of the sages; and produce instances where acts of virtue have

been recompensed with death. But let us leave these considerations, my

lord; it is to you whom I address myself, and I ask you what is the

chief attention of a wise man in this life, but, if I may be allowed

the expression, to collect himself inwardly, and endeavour, even while

he lives, to be dead to every object of sense? The only way by which

wisdom directs us to avoid the miseries of human nature, is it not to

detach ourselves from all earthly objects, from every thing that is

gross in our composition, to retire within ourselves, and to raise our

thoughts to sublime contemplations? If therefore our misfortunes are

derived from our passions and our errors, with what eagerness should

we wish for a state which will deliver us both from the one and the

other? what is the fate of those sons of sensuality, who indiscreetly

multiply their torments by their pleasures? they in fact destroy their

existence, by extending their connections in this life; they increase

the weight of their crimes by their numerous attachments; they relish

no enjoyments but what are succeeded by a thousand bitter wants; the

more lively their sensibility, the more acute their sufferings; the

stronger they are attached to life, the more wretched they become.

But admitting it, in general, a benefit to mankind to crawl upon the

earth with gloomy sadness; I do not mean to intimate that the human

race ought with one common consent to destroy themselves, and make the

world one immense grave. But there are miserable beings, who are too

much exalted to be governed by vulgar opinion; to them, despair and

grievous torments are the passports of nature. It would be as

ridiculous to suppose that life can be a blessing to such men, as it

was absurd in the sophister Posidonius to deny that it was an evil, at

the same time that he endured all the torments of the gout. While life

is agreeable to us, we earnestly wish to prolong it, and nothing but a

sense of extreme misery can extinguish the desire of existence; for we

naturally conceive a violent dread of death, and this dread conceals

the miseries of human nature from our sight. We drag a painful and

melancholy life, for a long time before we can resolve to quit it; but

when once life becomes so insupportable as to overcome the horror of

death, then existence is evidently a great evil, and we cannot

disengage ourselves from it too soon. Therefore, though we cannot

exactly ascertain the point at which it ceases to be a blessing, yet

at least we are certain that it is an evil long before it appears to

be such, and with every sensible man the right of quitting life, is by

a great deal precedent to the temptation.

This is not all. After they have denied that life can be an evil, in

order to bar our right of making away with ourselves; they confess

immediately afterwards that it is an evil, by reproaching us with want

of courage to support it. According to them, it is cowardice to

withdraw ourselves from pain and trouble, and there are none but

dastards who destroy themselves. O Rome, thou victrix of the world,

what a race of cowards did thy empire produce! let Arria, Eponina,

Lucretia, be of the number; they were women. But Brutus, but Cassius,

and thou great and divine Cato, who didst share with the gods the

adoration of an astonished world, thou whose sacred and august

presence animated the Romans with holy zeal, and made tyrants tremble,

little did thy proud admirers imagine that paltry rhetoricians immured

in the dusty corner of a college, would ever attempt to prove that

thou wert a coward, for having preferred death to a shameful

existence.

O the dignity and energy of your modern writers! how sublime, how

intrepid you are with your pens? but tell me thou great and valiant

hero, who dost so courageously decline the battle, in order to endure

the pain of living somewhat longer; when a spark of fire lights upon

your hand, why do you withdraw it in such haste? how! are you such a

coward that you dare not bear the scorching of fire? nothing, you say,

can oblige you to endure the burning spark; and what obliges me to

endure life? was the creation of a man of more difficulty to

Providence, than that of a straw, and is not both one and the other

equally the work of his hands?

Without doubt, it is an evidence of great fortitude to bear with

firmness the misery which we cannot shun; none but a fool however,

will voluntarily endure evils which he can avoid without a crime, and

it is very often a great crime to suffer pain unnecessarily. He who

has not resolution to deliver himself from a miserable being by a

speedy death, is like one who would rather suffer a wound to mortify,

than trust to the surgeon’s knife for his cure. Come, thou worthy----

cut off this leg, which endangers my life. I will see it done without

shrinking, and will give that hero leave to call me coward, who

suffers his leg to mortify, because he does not dare to undergo the

same operation.

I acknowledge that there are duties owing to others, the nature of

which will not allow every man to dispose of his life; but in return,

how many are there which give him a right to dispose of it? let a

magistrate on whom the welfare of a nation depends, let a father of a

family who is bound to procure subsistence for his children, let a

debtor who might ruin his creditors, let these at all events discharge

their duty; admitting a thousand other civil and domestic relations to

oblige an honest and unfortunate man to support the misery of life, to

avoid the greater evil of doing injustice, is it therefore, under

circumstances totally different, incumbent on us to preserve a life

oppressed with a swarm of miseries, when it can be of no service but

to him who has not courage to die? “Kill me, my child, says the

decrepit savage to his son who carries him on his shoulders, and bends

under his weight; the enemy is at hand; go to battle with thy

brethren, go and preserve thy children, and do not suffer thy helpless

father to fall alive into the hands of those whose relations he has

mangled.” Though hunger, sickness and poverty, those domestic plagues,

more dreadful than savage enemies, may allow a wretched cripple to

confuse, in a sick bed, the provisions of a family which can scarce

subsist itself; yet he who has no connections, whom heaven has reduced

to the necessity of living alone, whose wretched existence can produce

no good, why should not he, at least, have the right of quitting a

station where his complaints are troublesome, and his sufferings of no

benefit.

Weigh these considerations, my lord; collect these arguments, and you

will find that they may be reduced to the most simple of nature’s

rights, of which no man of sense yet ever entertained a doubt. In

fact, why should we be allowed to cure ourselves of the gout, and not

to get rid of the misery of life? do not both evils proceed from the

same hand? to what purpose is it to say, that death is painful? are

drugs agreeable to be taken? no, nature revolts against both. Let them

prove therefore that it is more justifiable to cure a transient

disorder by the application of remedies, than to free ourselves from

an incurable evil by putting an end to life; and let them shew how it

can be less criminal to use the bark for a fever, than to take opium

for the stone. If we consider the object in view, it is in both cases

to free ourselves from painful sensations; if we regard the means,

both one and the other are equally natural; if we consider the

repugnance of our nature, it operates equally on both sides; if we

attend to the will of Providence, can we struggle against any evil, of

which he is not the author? can we deliver ourselves from any torment

which his hand has not inflicted? what are the bounds which limit his

power, and when is resistance lawful? are we then to make no

alteration in the condition of things, because every thing is in the

state he appointed? must we do nothing in this life, for fear of

infringing his laws, or is it in our power to break them if we would?

no, my lord, the occupation of man is more great and noble. God did

not give him life, that he should remain supinely in a state of

constant inactivity. But he gave him freedom to act, conscience to

will, and reason to chuse what is good. He has constituted him sole

judge of all his actions. He has engraved this precept in his heart,

do whatever you conceive to be for your own good, provided you thereby

do injury to no one. If my sensations tell me that death is eligible,

I resist his orders by an obstinate resolution to live, for by making

death desirable, he directs me to put an end to my being.

My lord, I appeal to your wisdom and candour; what more infallible

maxims can reason deduce from religion, with respect to suicide. If

Christians have adopted contrary tenets, they are neither drawn from

the principles of religion, nor from the only sure guide, the

scriptures, but borrowed from the pagan philosophers. Lactantius and

Augustine, the first who propagated this new doctrine, of which Jesus

Christ and his apostles take no notice, ground their arguments

entirely on the reasoning of Phaedo, which I have already

contraverted; so that the believers, who, in this respect, think they

are supported by the authority of the gospel, are in fact only

countenanced by the authority of Plato. In truth, where do we find

throughout the whole bible any law against suicide, or so much as a

bare disapprobation of it; and is it not very unaccountable, that

among the instances produced of persons who devoted themselves to

death, we do not find the least word of improbation against examples

of this kind? nay, what is more; the instance of Samson’s voluntary

death is authorized by a miracle, by which he revenges himself of his

enemies. Would this miracle have been displayed to justify a crime,

and would this man who lost his strength; by suffering himself to be

seduced by the allurements of a woman, have recovered it to commit an

authorized crime, as if God himself would practise deceit on men?

Thou shalt do no murder, says the decalogue? what are we to infer from

this? if this commandment is to be taken literally, we must not

destroy malefactors, nor our enemies: and Moses, who put so many

people to death, was a bad interpreter of his own precept. If there

are any exceptions, certainly the first must be in favour of suicide,

because it is exempt from any degree of violence and injustice; the

two only circumstances which can make homicide criminal; and because

nature, moreover, has in this respect, thrown sufficient obstacles in

the way.

But still, they tell us, we must patiently endure the evils which God

inflicts; and make a merit of our sufferings. This application however

of the maxims of Christianity is very ill calculated to satisfy our

judgment. Man is subject to a thousand troubles, his life is a

complication of evils, and he seems to have been born only to suffer.

Reason directs him to shun as many of these evils as he can avoid; and

religion, which is never in contradiction to reason, approves of his

endeavours. But how inconsiderable is the account of these evils, in

comparison with those he is obliged to endure against his will? It is

with respect to these, that a merciful God allows man to claim the

merit of resistance; he receives the tribute he has been pleased to

impose, as a voluntary homage, and he places our resignation in this

life to our profit in the next. True repentance is derived from

nature; if man endures patiently whatever he is obliged to suffer, he

does, in this respect, all that God requires of him; and if any one is

so inflated with pride, as to attempt more, he is a madman, who ought

to be confined, or an impostor, who ought to be punished. Let us

therefore, without scruple, fly from all the evils we can avoid; there

will still be too many left for us to endure. Let us, without remorse,

quit life itself when it becomes a torment to us, since it is in our

own power to do it; and that in so doing, we neither offend God nor

man. If we would offer a sacrifice to the supreme Being, is it nothing

to undergo death? let us devote to God that which he demands by the

voice of reason, and into his hands let us peaceably surrender our

souls.

Such are the liberal precepts which good sense dictates to every man,

and which religion authorises. [47] Let us apply these precepts to

ourselves. You have condescended to disclose your mind to me; I am

acquainted with your uneasiness; you do not endure less than myself;

your troubles, like mine, are incurable; and they are the more

remediless, as the laws of honour are more immutable than those of

fortune. You bear them, I must confess, with fortitude. Virtue

supports you; advance but one step farther, and she disengages you.

You intreat me to suffer; my lord! I dare importune you to put an end

to your sufferings; and I leave you to judge which of us is most dear

to the other.

Why should we delay doing that, which we must do at last? shall we

wait till old age and decrepit baseness attach us to life, after they

have robbed it of its charms, and till we are doomed to drag an infirm

and decrepit body with labour, ignominy, and pain. We are at an age

when the soul has vigour to disengage itself with ease from its

shackles, and when a man knows how to die as he ought; when farther

advanced in years, he suffers himself to be torn from life, which he

quits with groans. Let us take advantage of this time when the tedium

of life makes death desirable; and let us tremble for fear it should

come in all its horrors, at the moment when we could wish to avoid it.

I remember the time, when I prayed to heaven only for a single hour of

life, and when I should have died in despair, if it had not been

granted. Ah! what a pain it is to burst asunder the ties which attach

our hearts to this world, and how advisable it is to quit life the

moment the connection is broken! I am sensible, my lord, that we are

both worthy of a purer mansion; virtue points it out, and destiny

invites us to seek it. May the friendship which unites us, preserve

our union to the latest hour. O what a pleasure for two sincere

friends voluntarily to end their days in each other’s arms, to

intermingle their latest breath, and at the same instant to give up

the soul which they shared in common! What pain, what regret can

infect their last moments? what do they quit by taking leave of the

world? They go together; they quit nothing.

Letter CXV. Answer.

Thou art distracted, my friend, by a blind passion; be more discreet;

do not give council, while you stand in need of advice. I have known

greater evils than yours. I am armed with fortitude of mind; I am an

English man, and not afraid to die; for I know how to live and suffer,

as becomes a man. I have seen death near at hand, and have viewed it

with too much indifference to go in search of it.

It is true, I thought you might be of use to me; my affection stood in

need of yours: your endeavours might have been serviceable to me; your

understanding might have enlightened me in the most important concern

of my life; if I do not avail myself of it, who are you to impute it

to? where is it? what is become of it? what are you capable of? of

what use can you be in the condition you are in? what service can I

expect from you? a senseless grief renders you stupid and unconcerned.

Thou art no man; thou art nothing; and if I did not consider you might

be, in your present state I cannot conceive any being more abject.

There is need of no other proof than your letter itself. Formerly I

could discover in you good sense and truth. Your sentiments were just,

your reflections proper, and I liked you not only from judgment but

choice; for I considered your influence as an additional motive to

excite me to study of wisdom. But what do I perceive now in the

arguments of your letter, with which you appear to be to highly

satisfied? A wretched and perpetual sophistry, which, in the erroneous

deviations of your reason, shew the disorder of your mind; and which I

would not stoop to refute, if I did not commiserate your delirium.

To subvert all your reasoning with one word, I would only ask you a

single question. You who believe in the existence of a God, in the

immortality of the soul, and in the free-will of man; you surely

cannot suppose that an intelligent being is embodied, and stationed on

the earth by accident only, to exist, to suffer, and to die. It is

certainly most probable that the life of man is not without some

design, some end, some moral object. I intreat you to give me a direct

answer to this point; after which we will deliberately examine your

letter, and you will blush to have written it.

But let us wave all general maxims, about which we often hold violent

disputes, without adopting any of them in practice; for in their

application, we always find some particular circumstances, which make

such an alteration in the state of things, that every one thinks

himself dispensed from submitting to the rules, which he prescribes to

others; and it is well known, that every man who establishes general

principles, deems them obligatory on all the world, himself excepted.

Once more let us speak to you in particular.

You believe that you have a right to put an end to your being. Your

proof is of a very singular nature; “because I am disposed to die, say

you, I have a right to destroy myself.” This is certainly a very

convenient argument for villains of all kinds: they ought to be very

thankful to you, for the arms with which you have furnished them;

there can be no crimes, which, according to your arguments, may not be

justified by the temptation to perpetrate them, and as soon as the

impetuosity of passion shall prevail over the horror of guilt, their

disposition to do evil will be considered as a right to commit it.

Is it lawful for you therefore to quit life? I should be glad to know

whether you have yet begun to live? what! was you placed here on earth

to do nothing in this world? did not heaven when it gave you

existence, give you some task or employment? If you have accomplished

your day’s work before evening, rest yourself for the remainder of the

day, you have a right to do it; but let us see your work. What answer

are you prepared to make the supreme judge, when he demands an account

of your time? Tell me, what can you say to him----I have seduced a

virtuous girl: I have forsaken a friend in his distress. Thou unhappy

wretch! point out to me that just man who can boast that he has lived

long enough; let me learn from him in what manner I ought to have

spent my days, to be at liberty to quit life.

You enumerate the evils of human nature. You are not ashamed to

exhaust common place topics, which have been hackney’d over a hundred

times; and you conclude that life is an evil. But search, examine into

the order of things; and see whether you can find any good which is

not intermingled with evil. Does it therefore follow that there is no

good in the universe, and can you confound what is in its own nature

evil, with that which is only an evil accidentally? You have confessed

yourself, that the transitory and passive life of man is of no

consequence, and only bears respect to matter, from which he will soon

be disencumbered; but his active and moral life, which ought to have

most influence over his nature, consists in the exercise of free-will.

Life is an evil to a wicked man in prosperity, and a blessing to an

honest man in distress: for it is not its casual modification, but its

relation to some final object, which makes it either good or bad.

After all, what are these cruel torments which force you to abandon

life? do you imagine that under your affected impartiality in the

enumeration of the evils of this life, I did not discover that you was

ashamed to speak of your own? Trust me, and do not at once abandon

every virtue. Preserve at least your wonted sincerity, and speak thus

openly to your friend; I have lost all hope of seducing a modest

woman, I am obliged therefore to be a man of virtue; I had much rather

die.”

You are weary of living; and you tell me, that life is an evil. Sooner

or later you will receive consolation, and then you will say life is a

blessing. You will speak with more truth, though not with better

reason; for nothing will have altered but yourself. Begin the

alteration then from this day, and since all the evil you lament is

in the disposition of your own mind, correct your irregular

appetites, and do not set your house on fire, to avoid the trouble of

putting it in order.

I endure misery, say you; is it in my power to avoid suffering? But

this is changing the state of the question for the subject of enquiry

is, not whether you suffer, but whether your life is an evil? Let us

proceed. You are wretched, you naturally endeavour to extricate

yourself from misery. Let us see whether, for that purpose, it is

necessary to die.

Let us for a moment examine the natural tendency of the afflictions of

the mind, as in direct opposition to the evils of the body, the two

substances being of contrary natures. The latter become worse and more

inveterate the longer they continue, and at length utterly destroy

this mortal machine. The former, on the contrary, being only external

and transitory modifications of an immortal and uncompounded essence,

are insensibly effaced, and leave the mind in its original form, which

is not susceptible of alteration. Grief, disquietude, regret, and

despair, are evils of short duration which never take root in the

mind, and experience always falsifies that bitter reflection, which

makes us imagine our misery will have no end. I will go farther; I

cannot imagine that the vices which contaminate us, are more inherent

in our nature, than the troubles we endure; I not only believe that

they perish with the body which gives them birth, but I think, beyond

all doubt, that a longer life would be sufficient to reform mankind,

and that many ages of youth would teach us that nothing is preferable

to virtue.

However this may be, as the greatest part of our physical evils are

incessantly increasing, the acute pains of the body, when they are

incurable, may justify a man’s destroying himself; for all his

faculties being distracted with pain, and the evil being without

remedy, he has no longer any use either of his will or of his reason;

he ceases to be a man before he is dead, and does nothing more in

taking away his life, than quit a body which incumbers him, and in

which his soul is no longer resident.

But it is otherwise with the afflictions of the mind; which, let them

be ever so acute, always carry their remedy with them. In fact, what

is it that makes any evil intolerable? nothing but its duration. The

operations of surgery are generally much more painful, than the

disorders they cure; but the pain occasioned by the latter is lasting,

that of the operation is momentary, and therefore preferable. What

occasion is there therefore for any operation to remove troubles which

die of course by their duration, the only circumstance which could

render them insupportable? Is it reasonable to apply such desperate

remedies to evils which expire of themselves? To a man who values

himself on his fortitude, and who estimates years at their real value,

of two ways by which he may extricate himself from the same troubles,

which will appear preferable, death or time? Have patience, and you

will be cured. What would you desire more?

Oh! you will say, it doubles my afflictions, to reflect that they will

cease at last! this is the vain sophistry of grief! an apothegm void

of reason, of propriety, and perhaps of sincerity. What an absurd

motive of despair is the hope of terminating misery! [48] Even

allowing this fantastical reflection, who would not chuse to increase

the present pain for a moment, under the assurance of putting an end

to it, as we scarify a wound in order to heal it? and admitting any

charm in grief, to make us in love with suffering, when we release

ourselves from it by putting an end to our being, do we not at that

instant incur all that we apprehend hereafter?

Reflect thoroughly, young man; what are ten, twenty, thirty years, in

competition with immorality? pain and pleasure pass like a shadow;

life slides away in an instant; it is nothing of itself; its value

depends on the use we make of it. The good that we have done is all

that remains, and it is that alone which marks its importance.

Therefore do not say any more that your existence is an evil, since it

depends upon yourself to make it a blessing; and if it is an evil to

have lived, this is an additional reason for prolonging life. Do not

pretend neither to say any more that you are at liberty to die; for it

is as much as to say that you have power to alter your nature, that

you have a right to revolt against the Author of your being, and to

frustrate the end of your existence. But when you add, that your death

does injury to no one, do you recollect that you make this declaration

to your friend?

Your death does injury to no one? I understand you! You think the loss

I shall sustain by your death of no importance, you deem my affliction

of no consequence. I will urge to you no more the rights of friendship

which you despise, but are there not obligations still more dear, [49]

which ought to induce you to preserve your life? If there is a person

in the world who loved you to that degree as to be unwilling to

survive you, and whose happiness depends on yours, do you think that

you have no obligations to her? will not the execution of your wicked

design disturb the peace of a mind, which has been, with such

difficulty, restored to its former innocence? are not you afraid to

add fresh torments to a heart of such sensibility? are not you

apprehensive lest your death should be attended with a loss more

fatal, which would deprive the world and virtue itself of its

brightest ornament? and if she should survive you, are not you afraid

to rouse up remorse in her bosom, which is more grievous to support

than life itself? Thou ungrateful friend, thou indelicate lover! wilt

thou always be taken up wholly with thyself? wilt thou always think on

thy own troubles alone? hast thou no regard for the happiness of one

who was so dear to thee? and cannot you resolve to live for her, who

was willing to die with you?

You talk of the duties of a magistrate, and of a father of a family;

and because you are not under those circumstances, you think yourself

absolutely free. And are you then under no obligations to society, to

whom you are indebted for your preservation, your talents, your

understanding: do you owe nothing to your native country, and to those

wretches who may need your assistance? O what an accurate calculation

you make! among the obligations you have enumerated, you have only

omitted those of a man and of a citizen. Where is the virtuous

patriot, who refused to enlist under a foreign prince, because his

blood ought not to be spilt but in the service of his country; and who

now, in a fit of despair, is ready to shed it against the express

prohibition of the laws? The laws, the laws, young man! did any wise

man ever despise them? Socrates, though innocent, out of regard to

them, refused to quit his prison. You do not scruple to violate them

by quitting life unjustly; and you ask, what injury do I?

You endeavour to justify yourself by example. You presume to mention

the Romans: you talk of the Romans! it becomes you indeed to cite

those illustrious names. Tell me, did Brutus die a lover in despair,

and did Cato tear out his entrails for his mistress? Thou weak and

abject man, what resemblance is there between Cato and thee? shew me

the common standard between that sublime soul and thine. Ah vain

wretch, hold thy peace! I am afraid to profane his name by a

vindication of his conduct. At that august and sacred name, every

friend to virtue should bow to the ground, and honour the memory of

the greatest hero in silence.

How ill you have selected your examples, and how meanly you judge of

the Romans, if you imagine that they thought themselves at liberty to

quit life so soon as it become a burthen to them. Recur to the

excellent days of that republic, and see whether you will find a

single citizen of virtue, who thus freed himself from the discharge of

his duty, even after the most cruel misfortunes. When Regulus was on

his return to Carthage, did he prevent the torments which he knew were

preparing for him, by destroying himself? What would not Posthumius

have given, when obliged to pass under the yoke at Caudium, had this

resource been justifiable? how much did even the senate admire that

effort of courage, which enabled the consul Varro to survive his

defeat? For what reason did so many generals voluntarily surrender

themselves to their enemies, they to whom ignominy was so dreadful,

and who were so little afraid of dying? It was because they considered

their blood, their life, and their latest breath, as devoted to their

country; and neither shame nor misfortune could dissuade them from

this sacred duty. But when the laws were subverted, and the state

became a prey to tyranny, the citizens resumed their natural liberty,

and the right they had over their own lives. When Rome was no more, it

was lawful for the Romans to give up their lives; they had discharged

their duties on earth, they had no longer any country to defend, they

were therefore at liberty to dispose of their lives, and to obtain

that freedom for themselves, which they could not recover for their

country. After having spent their days in the service of expiring

Rome, and in fighting for the defence of its laws, they died great and

virtuous as they had lived, and their death was an additional tribute

to the glory of the Roman name, since none of them beheld a sight

above all others most dishonourable, that of a true citizen stooping

to an usurper.

But thou, what art thou? what has thou done? dost thou think to excuse

thyself on account of thy obscurity? does thy weakness exempt thee

from thy duty, and because thou hast neither rank nor distinction in

thy country, art thou less subject to the laws? It becomes you vastly

to presume to talk of dying, while you owe the service of your life to

your equals? Know that a death such as you meditate, is shameful and

surreptitious. It is a theft committed on mankind in general. Before

you quit life, return the benefits you have received from every

individual. But, say you, I have no attachments. I am useless in the

world. O thou young philosopher! art thou ignorant that thou canst not

move a single step without finding some duty to fulfil; and that every

man is useful to society, even by means of his existence alone.

Hear me, thou rash young man! thou art dear to me. I commiserate thy

errors. If the least sense of virtue still remains in thy breast,

attend, and let me teach thee to be reconciled to life. Whenever thou

art tempted to quit it, say to thyself----“Let me at least do one good

action before I die.” Then go in search for one in a state of

indigence whom thou may’st relieve; for one under misfortunes, whom

thou may’st comfort; for one under oppression, whom thou may’st

defend. Introduce to me those unhappy wretches whom my rank keeps at a

distance. Do not be afraid of misusing my purse, or my credit: make

free with them; distribute my fortune, make me rich. If this

consideration restrains you to day, it will restrain you to-morrow; if

to-morrow, it will restrain you all your life. If it has no power to

restrain you, die! you are below my care.

Letter CXVI. From Lord B----.

I cannot, my dear friend, embrace you to-day as I was in hopes I

should, being detained two days longer at Kensington. It is the way of

the court to be very busy in doing nothing, and all affairs run in a

constant succession without being dispatched. The business which has

confined me here eight days, might have been concluded in two hours;

but as the chief concern of the ministry is to preserve an air of

business, they waste more time in putting me off, than it would cost

them to dispatch me. My impatience, which is rather too evident, does

not contribute to shorten the delay. You know that the court is not

suited to my turn; I find it more intolerable since we have lived

together, and I had rather a hundred times share your melancholy, than

be pestered with the knaves which abound in this country.

Nevertheless, in conversing with these busy sluggards, a thought

struck me with regard to you, and I only wait your consent to dispose

of you to advantage. I perceive that in struggling with your

affliction, you suffer both from your uneasiness of mind, and from

your resistance. If you are determined to live and overcome it, you

have formed this resolution less in conformity to the dictates of

reason and honour, than in compliance with your friends. But this is

not enough. You must recover the relish of life to discharge its

duties as you ought; for with so much indifference about every thing,

you will succeed in nothing. We may both of us talk as we will; but

reason alone will never restore you to your reason. It is necessity

that a multiplicity of new and striking objects should in some measure

withdraw you from that attention which your mind fixes solely on one

object of its affections. To recover yourself, you must be detached

from inward reflection, and nothing but the agitation of an active

life, can restore you to serenity.

An opportunity offers for this purpose, which is not to be

disregarded; a great and noble enterprise is on foot, and such an one

as has not been equalled for ages. It depends on you to be a spectator

and assistant in it. You will see the grandest sight which the eye of

man ever beheld, and your turn for observation will be abundantly

gratified. Your appointment will be honourable, and, with the talents

you are master of, will only require courage and good health. You will

find it attended with more danger than confinement, which will make it

more agreeable to you; and, in few words, your engagement will not be

for any long time. I cannot give you farther information at present;

because this scheme, which is almost ripe for discovery, is

nevertheless a secret with which I am not yet acquainted in all its

particulars. I will only add, that if you decline this lucky and

extraordinary opportunity, you will probably never recover it again,

and will regret it as long as you live.

I have ordered my servant, who is the bearer of this letter, to find

you out wherever you are, and not to return without a line; for the

affair requires dispatch, and I must give an answer before I leave

this place.

Letter CXVII. Answer.

Do, my lord; dispose of me; I will agree to whatever you propose. Till

I am worthy to serve you; at least I claim the merit of obeying you.

Letter CXVIII. From Lord B----.

Since you approve of the thought I suggested, I will not delay a

minute to acquaint you that every thing is concluded, and to explain

to you the nature of the engagement I have entered into, in pursuance

of the authority you gave me to make the agreement on your behalf.

You know that a squadron of five men of war is equipped at Plymouth,

and that they are ready to set sail. The commodore is Mr. George

Anson, a brave and experienced officer, and an old friend of mine. It

is destined for the South-sea, whither it is to sail through the

straits of Le Maire, and to come back by the East-Indies. You see

therefore that the object is no less than to make the tour of the

world, an expedition which, it is imagined, will take up three years.

I could have entered you as a volunteer; but to give you more

importance among the crew, I have obtained the addition of a title for

you, and you stand on the list in the capacity of engineer of the land

forces: this will be more suitable to you, because, having followed

the bent of your genius from your first outset in the world, I know

you made it your early study.

I propose to return to London tomorrow, [50] to present you to Mr.

Anson within two days. In the mean time, take care to get your

equipage ready, and provide yourself with books and instruments; for

the embarkation is ready, and only waits for sailing orders. My dear

friend, I hope that God will bring you back from this long voyage, in

full health of mind and body; and that at your return, we shall meet

never to part again.

Letter CXIX. To Mrs. Orbe

My dear and lovely cousin, I am preparing to make the tour of the

world; I am going into another hemisphere, in pursuit of that peace

which I could not enjoy in this. Fool that I am! I am going to wander

over the universe, without being able to find one place where my heart

can rest. I am going to find a retreat from the world, where I may be

at a distance from you. But it becomes me to regard the will of a

friend, a benefactor, a father. Without the smallest hopes of a cure,

at least I will take pains for it; Eloisa and virtue require the

sacrifice. In three hours time I shall be at the mercy of the winds;

in three days, I shall lose sight of Europe; in three months, I shall

be in unknown seas, raging with perpetual tempests; in three years

perhaps... How dreadful is the thought of never seeing you more! alas!

the greatest danger is in my own breast; for whatever may be my fate,

I am resolved, I swear, that you shall see me worthy to appear in your

sight, or you shall never behold me more.

Lord B----, who is on his return to Rome, will deliver this letter in

his way, and acquaint you with all particulars concerning me. You are

acquainted with his disposition, and you will easily guess at those

circumstances which he does not chuse to communicate. You was once no

stranger to mine; therefore you may likewise form some judgment of

those things which I do not care to relate myself.

Your friend, I hear, has the happiness to be a mother as well as

yourself. Ought she then to be? ... O inexorable heaven! ... O _my_

mother, why did heaven in its wrath grant you a son? ...

I must conclude; I feel that I must. Farewell, ye pure and celestial

souls! Farewell ye tender and inseparable friends, the best women on

earth! Each of you is the only object worthy of the other’s

affections. May you mutually contribute to each other’s happiness.

Deign now and then to call to mind the memory of an unfortunate

wretch, who only existed to share with you every sentiment of his

soul, and who ceased to live, the moment he was divided from you. If

ever----... I hear the signal, and the shouts of the sailors. The wind

blows strong, and the sails are spread. I must on board: I must be

gone. Thou vast and immense sea, which perhaps wilt bury me beneath

thy waves! O that upon thy swelling surge I could recover that calm

which has forsaken my troubled soul!