XCII. The Answer…

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?

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Volume III