CXXXI. Mrs. Wolmar to Mrs. Orbe…

CXXXI. Mrs. Wolmar to Mrs. Orbe

It is decreed, my dear friend, that you are on all occasions to be my protectress against myself, and that after having delivered me from the snares which my affections laid for me, you are yet to rescue me from those which reason spreads to entrap me. After so many cruel instances, I have learned to guard against mistakes, as much as against my passions, which are frequently the cause of them. Why had I not the same precaution always! If in time past, I had relied less on the light of my own understanding, I should have had less reason to blush at my sentiments.

Do not be alarmed at this preamble. I should be unworthy your friendship, if I was still under a necessity of consulting you upon dismal subjects. Guilt was always a stranger to my heart, and I dare believe it to be more distant from me now than ever. Therefore, Clara, attend to me patiently, and believe that I shall never need your advice in difficulties which honour alone can resolve.

During these six years which I have lived with Mr. Wolmar in the most perfect union which can subsist between a married couple, you know that he never talked to me either about his family or himself, and that having received him from a father as solicitous for his daughter’s happiness as jealous of the honour of his family, I never expressed any eagerness to know more of his concerns, than he thought proper to communicate. Satisfied with being indebted to him for my honour, my repose, my reason, my children, and all that can render me estimable in my own eyes, besides the life of him who gave me being, I was convinced that the particulars concerning him, to which I was a stranger, would not falsify what I knew of him, and there was no occasion for my knowing more, in order to love, esteem, and honour him as much as possible.

This morning at breakfast he proposed our taking a little walk before the heat came on; then under a pretence of not going through the country in morning dishabille, as he said, he led us into the woods, and exactly into that wood, where all the misfortunes of my life commenced. As I approached that fatal spot, I felt a violent palpitation of heart, and should have refused to have gone in, if shame had not checked me, and if the recollection of a word which dropped the other day in elysium, had not made me dread the interpretations which might have been passed on such a refusal. I do not know whether the philosopher was more composed; but some time after having cast my eyes upon him by chance, I found his countenance pale and altered, and I cannot express to you the uneasiness it gave me.

On entering into the wood I perceived my husband cast a glance towards me and smile. He sat down between us, and after a moment’s pause, taking us both by the hand, my dear children, said he, I begin to perceive that my schemes will not be fruitless, and that we three may be connected by a lasting attachment, capable of promoting our common good, and procuring me some comfort to alleviate the troubles of approaching old age: but I am better acquainted with you two, than you are with me; it is but just to make every thing equal among us, and though I have nothing very interesting to impart, yet as you have no secrets hidden from me, I will have none concealed from you.

He then revealed to us the mystery of his birth, which had hitherto been known to no one but my father. When you are acquainted with it, you will imagine what great temper and moderation a man must be master of, who was able to conceal such a secret from his wife during six years; but it is no pain to him to keep such a secret, and he thinks too slightly of it, to be obliged to exert any vast efforts to conceal it.

I will not detain you, said he, with relating the occurrences of my life. It is of less importance to you to be acquainted with my adventures than with my character. The former are simple in their nature like the latter, and when you know what I am, you will easily imagine what I was capable of doing. My mind is naturally calm, and my affections temperate. I am one of those men, whom people think they reproach when they call them insensible; that is, when they upbraid them with having no passion, which may impel them to swerve from the true direction of human nature. Being but little susceptible of pleasure or grief, I receive but faint impressions from those interesting sentiments of humanity, which make the affections of others our own. If I feel uneasiness when I see the worthy in distress, it is not without reason that my compassion is moved, for when I see the wicked suffer, I have no pity for them. My only active principle is a natural love of order, and the concurrence of the accidents of fortune with the conduct of mankind well combined together, pleases me exactly like beautiful symmetry in a picture, or like a piece well represented on the stage. If I have any ruling passion, it is that of observation: I love to read the hearts of mankind. As my own seldom misleads me, as I make my observations with a disinterested and dispassionate temper, and as I have acquired some sagacity by long experience, I am seldom deceived in my judgments; this advantage therefore is the only recompense which self-love receives from my constant studies: for I am not fond of acting a part, but only of observing others play theirs. Society is agreeable to me for the sake of contemplation, and not as a member of it. If I could alter the nature of my being and become a living eye, I would willingly make the exchange. Therefore my indifference about mankind does not make me independent of them; without being solicitous to be seen, I want to see them, and though they are not dear, they are necessary, to me.

The two first characters in society which I had an opportunity of observing were courtiers and valets; two orders of men who differ more in appearance than fact, but so little worthy of being attended to, and so easily read, that I was tired of them at first sight. By quitting the court, where every thing is presently seen, I secured myself, without knowing it, from the danger which threatened me, and which I should not have escaped. I changed my name, and having a desire to be acquainted with military men, I solicited admission into the service of a foreign prince; it was there that I had the happiness of being useful to your father, who was impelled by despair for having killed his friend, to expose himself rashly and contrary to his duty. The grateful and susceptible heart of a brave officer began then to give me a better opinion of human nature. He attached himself to me with that zealous friendship which it was impossible for me not to return, and from that time we formed connections which have every day grown stronger. I discovered, in this new state of my mind, that interest is not always, as I had supposed, the sole motive which influences human conduct, and that among the crowd of prejudices which are opposite to virtue, there are some likewise which are favourable to her. I found that the general character of mankind was founded on a kind of self-love indifferent in itself, and either good or bad according to the accidents which modify it, and which depend on customs, laws, rank, fortune, and every circumstance relative to human policy. I therefore indulged my inclination, and despising the vain notions of worldly condition, I successively threw myself into all the different situations in life, which might enable me to compare them together, and know one by the other. I perceived, as you have observed in one of your letters, said he to St. Preux, that we see nothing if we rest satisfied with looking on, that we ought to act ourselves in order to judge of men’s actions, and I made myself an actor to qualify myself for a spectator. We can always lower ourselves with ease; and I stooped to a variety of situations, which no man of my station ever condescended to. I even became a peasant, and when Eloisa made me her gardener, she did not find me such a novice in the business, as she might have expected.

Besides gaining a thorough knowledge of mankind, which indolent philosophy only attains in appearance, I found another advantage which I never expected. This was, the opportunity it afforded me of improving, by an active life, that love of order I derived from nature, and of acquiring a new relish for virtue by the pleasure of contributing towards it. This sentiment made me less speculative, attached me somewhat more to myself, and from a natural consequence of this progress, I perceived that I was alone. Solitude, which was always tiresome to me, became hideous, and I could not hope to escape it long. Though I did not grow less dispassionate, I found the want of some connection; the idea of decay, without any one to comfort me, afflicted me by anticipation, and for the first time in my life, I experienced melancholy and uneasiness. I communicated my troubles to the Baron D’Etange. You must not, said he, grow an old bachelor. I myself, after having lived independent as it were in a state of matrimony, find that I have a desire of returning to the duties of a husband and a father, and I am going to repose myself in the midst of my family. It depends on yourself to make my family your own, and to supply the place of the son whom I have lost. I have an only daughter to marry: she is not destitute of merit; she has a sensibility of mind, and the love of her duty makes her love every thing relative to it. She is neither a beauty, nor a prodigy of understanding; but come and see her, and believe me that if she does not affect you, no woman will ever make an impression on you. I came, I saw you, Eloisa, and I found that your father had reported modestly of you. Your transports, the tears of joy you shed when you embraced him, gave me the first, or rather the only emotion I ever experienced in my life. If the impression was slight, it was the only one I felt, and our sensations are strong only in proportion to those which oppose them. Three years absence made no change in my inclinations. I was no stranger to the state of yours in my return, and on this occasion I must make you a return for the confession which has cost you so dear.” Judge, my dear Clara, with what extraordinary surprize, I learnt that all my secrets had been discovered to him before our marriage and that he had wedded me, knowing me to be the property of another.

This conduct, continued Mr. Wolmar, was unpardonable. I offended against delicacy; I sinned against prudence; I exposed your honour and my own; I should have been apprehensive of plunging you and myself into irretrievable calamities; but I loved you, and I loved nothing but you. Every thing else was indifferent to me. How is it possible to restrain a passion, be it ever so weak, when it has no counterpoise. This is the inconvenience of calm and dispassionate tempers. Every thing goes right while their insensibility secures them from temptations; but if one happens to touch them, they are conquered as soon as they are attacked, and reason, which governs while she sways alone, has no power to resist the slightest effort. I was tempted but once, and I gave way to it. If the intoxication of any other passion had rendered me wavering, I should have fallen, every false step I took; none but spirited souls are able to struggle and conquer. All great efforts, all sublime actions are their province; cool reason never achieved any thing illustrious, and we can only triumph over our passions by opposing one against another. When virtue gains the ascendancy, she reigns alone, and keeps all in due poise; this forms the true philosopher, who is as much exposed to the assaults of passion as another, but who alone is capable of subduing them by their own force, as a pilot steers through adverse winds.

You find that I do not attempt to extenuate my fault; had it been one, I should infallibly have committed it; but I knew you, Eloisa, and was guilty of none when I married you. I perceived that all my prospect of happiness depended on you alone, and that if any one was capable of making you happy, it was myself. I knew that peace and innocence were essential to your mind, that the affection with which it was pre- engaged could not afford them, and that nothing could banish love but the horror of guilt. I saw that your soul laboured under an oppression which it could not shake off but by some new struggle, and that to make you sensible how valuable you still were, was the only way to render you truly estimable.

Your heart was formed for love; I therefore slighted the disproportion of age, which excluded me from a right of pretending to the affection, which he who was the object of it could not enjoy, and which it was impossible to obtain for any other. On the contrary, finding my life half spent, and that I had been susceptible but of a single impression, I concluded that it would be lasting, and I pleased myself with the thoughts of preserving it the rest of my days. In all my tedious searches, I found nothing so estimable as yourself, I thought that what you could not effect, no one in the world could accomplish; I ventured to rely on your virtue, and I married you. The secrecy you observed did not surprize me; I knew the reason, and from your prudent conduct, I guessed how long it would last. From a regard to you, I copied your reserve, and I would not deprive you of the honour of one day making me a confession, which, I plainly perceived, was at your tongue’s end every minute. I have not been deceived in any particular; you have fully answered all I expected from you. When I made choice of a wife, I desired to find in her an amiable, discreet and happy companion. The first two requisites have been obtained. I hope, my dear, that we shall not be disappointed of the third.

At these words, in spite of all my endeavours not to interrupt him but by my tears, I could not forbear throwing myself round his neck, and crying out; O my dear husband! O thou best and most amiable of men! Tell me what is wanting to compleat my happiness, but to promote your felicity, and to be more deserving... You are as happy as you can be, said he, interrupting me; you deserve to be so; but it is time to enjoy that felicity in peace, which has hitherto cost you such vast pains. If your fidelity had been all I required, that would have been ensured the moment you made me the promise; I wanted moreover to make it easy and agreeable to you, and we have both laboured to this end in concert, without communicating our views to each other. Eloisa, we have succeeded; better than you imagine perhaps. The only fault I find in you is, that you do not resume that confidence which you have a right to repose in yourself, and that you undervalue your own worth. Extreme diffidence is as dangerous as excessive confidence. As that rashness which prompts us to attempts beyond our strength renders our power ineffectual, so that timidity which prevents us from relying on ourselves, renders it useless. True prudence consists in being thoroughly acquainted with the measure of our own power, and acting up to it. You have acquired an increase of strength by changing your condition. You are no longer that unfortunate girl who bewailed the weakness she indulged; you are the most virtuous of women, you are bound by no laws but those of honour and duty, and the only fault that can now be imputed to you, is that you retain too lively a sense of your former indiscretion. Instead of taking reproachful precautions against yourself, learn to depend upon your self, and your confidence will increase your strength. Banish that injurious diffidence, and think yourself happy in having made choice of an honest man at an age which is liable to imposition, and in having entertained a lover formerly, whom you may now enjoy as a friend, even under your husband’s eye. I was no sooner made acquainted with your connections, than I judged of you by each other. I perceived what enthusiastic delusion led you astray; it never operates but on susceptible minds; it sometimes ruins them, but it is by a charm which has power to seduce them alone. I judged that the same turn of mind which formed your attachment would break it as soon as it became criminal, and that vice might find an entrance, but never take root in such hearts as yours.

I conceived moreover that the connection between you ought not to be broken; that there were so many laudable circumstances attending your mutual attachment, that it ought rather to be rectified than destroyed; and that neither of the two could forget the other, without diminishing their own worth. I knew that great struggles only served to inflame strong passions, and that if violent efforts exercised the mind, they occasioned such torments as by their continuance might subdue it. I took advantage of Eloisa’s gentleness, to moderate the severity of her reflections. I nourished her friendship for you, said he to St. Preux; I banished all immoderate passion, and I believe that I have preserved you a greater share of her affections, than she would have left you, had I abandoned her entirely to herself.

My success encouraged me, and I determined to attempt your cure as I had accomplished hers; for I had an esteem for you, and notwithstanding the prejudices of vice, I have always observed that every good end is to be obtained from susceptible minds by means of confidence and sincerity. I saw you, you did not deceive me; you will not deceive me; and though you are not yet what you ought to be, I find you more improved than you imagine, and I am better satisfied with you than you are with yourself. I know that my conduct has an extravagant appearance, and is repugnant to the common received principles. But maxims become less general, in proportion as we are better acquainted with the human heart: and Eloisa’s husband ought not to act like men in common. My dear children, said he, with a tone the more affecting as it came from a dispassionate man; remain what you are, and we shall all be happy. Danger consists chiefly in opinion; be not afraid of yourselves, and you will have nothing to apprehend; only think on the present, and I will answer for the future. I cannot communicate any thing farther to day, but if my schemes succeed, and my hopes do not betray me, our destiny will be better fulfilled, and you two will be much happier than if you had enjoyed each other.

As we rose, he embraced us, and would have us likewise embrace each other, on that spot. On that very spot where formerly... Clara, O my dear Clara, how dearly have you ever loved me! I made no resistance. Alas! How indiscreet would it have been to have made any! This kiss was nothing like that which rendered the grove terrible to me. I silently congratulated myself, and I found that my heart was more changed than I had hitherto ventured to imagine.

As we were walking towards home, my husband, taking me by the hand, stopt me, and shewing me the wood we had just left, he said to me smiling; Eloisa, be no longer afraid of this asylum; it has not been lately profaned. You will not believe me, cousin, but I swear that he has some supernatural gift of reading one’s inmost thoughts: may heaven continue it to him! Having such reason to despise myself, it is certainly to this art that I am indebted for his indulgence.

You do not see yet any occasion I have for your advice; patience, my angel! I am coming to that point; but the conversation which I have related, was necessary to clear up what follows.

On our return, my husband, who has long been expected at Etange, told me that he proposed going thither to-morrow, that he should see you in his way, and that he should stay there five or six days. Without saying all I thought concerning such an ill-timed journey, I told him that I imagined the necessity was not so indispensable as to oblige Mr. Wolmar to leave his guest, whom he had himself invited to his house. Would you have me, he replied, use ceremony with him to remind him that he is not at home? I am like the Valaisians for hospitality. I hope he will find their sincerity here, and allow us to use their freedom. Perceiving that he would not understand me, I took another method, and endeavoured to persuade our guest to take the journey with him. You will find a spot, said I, which has its beauties, and such as you are fond of; you will visit my patrimony and that of my ancestors; the interest you take in every thing which concerns me, will not allow me to suppose that such a sight can be indifferent to you. My mouth was open to add that the castle was like that of Lord B----, who... but luckily I had time to bite my tongue. He answered me coolly that I was in the right, and that he would do as I pleased. But Mr. Wolmar, who seemed determined to drive me to an extremity, replied that he should do what was most agreeable to himself. Which do you like best, to go or to stay? To stay, said he, without hesitating. Well, stay then, rejoined my husband, taking him by the hand: you are a sincere and honest man, and I am well pleased with that declaration. There was no room for much altercation between my husband and me, in the hearing of this third person. I was silent, but could not conceal my uneasiness so well, but my husband perceived it. What! said he, with an air of discontent, St. Preux being at a little distance from us, shall I have pleaded your cause against yourself in vain, and will Mrs. Wolmar remain satisfied with a virtue which depends on opportunity? For my part, I am more nice; I will be indebted for the fidelity of my wife, to her affection, not to chance; and it is not enough that she is constant, it wounds my delicacy to think that she should doubt her constancy.

At length, he took us into his closet, where I was extremely surprized to see him take from a drawer, along with the copies of some of our friend’s correspondences which I delivered to him, the very original letters which I thought I had seen burned by B---- in my mother’s room. Here, said he to me, shewing them to us, are the pledges of my security; if they deceive me, it would be a folly to depend on any thing which concerns human nature. I consign my wife and my honour in charge to her, who, when single and seduced, preferred an act of benevolence, to a secure and private rendezvous. I trust Eloisa, now that she is a wife and a mother, to him who, when he had it in his power to gratify his desires, yet knew how to respect Eloisa when single and a fond girl. If either of you think so meanly of yourselves, as to suppose that I am in the wrong, say so, and I retract this instant. Cousin, do you think that one could easily venture to make answer to such a speech?

I nevertheless sought an opportunity in the afternoon of speaking with my husband in private, and without entering into reasons which I was not at liberty to urge, I only intreated him to put off his journey for two days. My request was granted immediately; and I employ the time, in sending you this express and waiting for your answer, to know how I am to act.

I know that I need but desire my husband not to go at all, and he who never denied me any thing, will not refuse me so slight a favour. But I perceive, my dear, that he takes a pleasure in the confidence he reposes in me, and I am afraid of forfeiting some share of his esteem, if he should suppose that I have occasion for more reserve than he allows me. I know likewise, that I need but speak a word to St. Preux, and that he will accompany my husband without hesitation; but what will my husband think of the change, and can I take such a step without preserving an air of authority over St. Preux, which might seem to entitle him to some privileges in his turn? Besides, I am afraid, lest he should conclude from this precaution that I find it absolutely necessary, and this step which at first sight appears most easy, is the most dangerous perhaps at the bottom. Upon the whole however I am not ignorant that no consideration should be put in competition with a real danger, but does this danger exist in fact? This is the very doubt which you must resolve for me.

The more I examine the present state of my mind, the more I find to encourage me. My heart is spotless, my conscience calm, I have no symptoms of fear or uneasiness and with respect to every thing which passes within me, my sincerity before my husband costs me no trouble. Not but that certain involuntary recollections sometimes occasion tender emotions from which I had rather be exempt; but these recollections are so far from being produced by the sight of him who was the original cause of them, that they seem to be less frequent since his return, and however agreeable it is to me to see him, yet, I know not from what strange humour, it is more agreeable to me to think of him. In a word, I find that I do not even require the aid of virtue in order to be composed in his presence, and, exclusive of the horror of guilt, it would be very difficult to revive those sentiments which virtue has extinguished.

But is it sufficient, my dear, that my heart encourages me, when reason ought to alarm me? I have forfeited the right of depending on my own strength. Who will answer that my confidence, even now, is not an illusion of vice? How shall I rely on those sentiments which have so often deceived me? Does not guilt always spring from that pride which prompts us to despise temptation; and when we defy those dangers which have occasioned our fall, does it not shew a disposition to yield again to temptation?

Weigh all these circumstances, my dear Clara, you will find that though they may be trifling in themselves, they are of sufficient importance to merit attention, when you consider the object they concern. Deliver me from the uncertainty into which they have thrown me. Shew me how I must behave in this critical conjuncture; for my past errors have affected my judgment, and rendered me diffident in deciding upon any thing. Whatever you may think of yourself, your mind, I am certain, is tranquil and composed; objects present themselves to you such as they are; but in mine, which is agitated like a troubled sea, they are confounded and disfigured. I no longer dare to depend upon any thing I see, or any thing I feel, and notwithstanding so many years repentance, I perceive, with concern, that the weight of past failings is a burthen we must bear to the end of our lives.

CXXXII. Answer

Poor Eloisa! With so much reason to live at ease, what torments you continually create! All thy misfortunes come from thyself, O Israel! If you adhered to your own maxims; if, in point of sentiment, you only hearkened to the voice within you, and your heart did but silence your reason, you would then without scruple trust to that security it inspires, and you would not constrain yourself against the testimony of your own heart, to dread a danger which can arise only from thence.

I understand you, I perfectly understand you, Eloisa; being more secure in yourself than you pretend to be, you have a mind to humble yourself on account of your past failings, under a pretence of preventing new ones; and your scruples are not so much precautions against the future, as a penance you impose upon yourself to atone for the indiscretion which ruined you formerly. You compare the times; do you consider? Compare situations likewise, and remember that I then reproved you for your confidence, as I now reprove you for your diffidence.

You are mistaken, my dear; but nature does not alter so soon. If we can forget our situation for want of reflection, we see it in its true light when we take pains to consider of it, and we can no more conceal our virtues than our vices from ourselves. Your gentleness and devotion have given you a turn for humility. Mistrust that dangerous virtue which only excites self-love by making it centre in one point, and be assured that the noble sincerity of an upright mind, is greatly preferable to the pride of humility. If moderation is necessary in wisdom, it is requisite likewise in those precautions it suggests, lest a solicitude which is reproachful to virtue should debase the mind, and, by keeping us in constant alarm, render a chimerical danger a real one. Don’t you perceive that after we have had a fall, we should hold ourselves upright, and that by leaning too much towards the side opposite to that on which we fell, we are in danger of falling again? Cousin, you loved like Eloisa. Now, like her, you are an extravagant devotee; he even said that you may be more successful in the latter than you were in the former! In truth, if I was less acquainted with your natural timidity, your apprehensions would be sufficient to terrify me in my turn, and if I was so scrupulous, I might, from being alarmed for you, begin to tremble for myself.

Consider farther, my dear friend; you whose system of morality is as easy and natural as it is pure and honest, do not make constructions which are harsh and foreign to your character, with respect to your maxims concerning the separation of the sexes. I agree with you that they ought not to live together, nor after the same manner; but consider whether this important rule does not admit of many distinctions in point of practice; examine whether it ought to be applied indiscriminately, and without exception to married as well as to single women, to society in general as well as to particular connections, to business as well as to amusements, and whether that honour and decency which inspire these maxims, ought not sometimes to regulate them? In well governed countries, where the natural relations of things are attended to in matrimony, you would admit of assemblies where young persons of both sexes, might see, be acquainted, and associate with each other; but you prohibit them, with good reason, from holding any private intercourse. But is not the case quite different with regard to married women and the mothers of families, who can have no interest, that is justifiable, in exhibiting themselves in public; who are confined within doors by their domestic concerns, and who should not be refused to do any thing at home which is becoming the mistress of a family? I should not like to see you in the cellars presenting the wine for the merchants to taste, nor to see you leave your children to settle accounts with a banker; but if an honest man should come to visit your husband, or to transact some business with him, will you refuse to entertain his guest in his absence; and to do him the honours of the house for fear of being left tete a tete with him? Trace this principle to its source, and it will explain all your maxims. Why do we suppose that women ought to live retired and apart from the men? Shall we do such injustice to our sex as to account for it upon principles drawn from our weakness, and that it is only to avoid the danger of temptations? No, my dear, these unworthy apprehensions do not become an honest woman, and the mother of a family who is continually surrounded with objects which nourish in her the sentiments of honour, and who is devoted to the most respectable duties of human nature. It is nature herself that divides us from the men, by prescribing to us different occupations; it is that amiable and timorous modesty, which, without being immediately attentive to chastity, is nevertheless its surest guardian; it is that cautious and affecting reserve, which at one and the same time cherishing both desire and respect in the hearts of men, serves as a kind of coquetry to virtue. This is the reason why even husbands themselves are not excepted out of this rule. This is the reason why the most discreet women generally maintain the greatest ascendancy over their husbands; because, by the help of this prudent and discreet reserve, without shewing any caprice or non-compliance, they know, even in the embraces of the most tender union, how to keep them at a distance, and prevent their being cloyed with them. You will agree with me that your maxims are too general not to admit of exceptions, and that not being founded on any rigorous duty, the same principle of decorum which established them, may sometimes justify our dispensing with them.

The circumspection which you ground on your past failings, is injurious to your present condition; I will never pardon this unnecessary caution which your heart dictates, and I can scarce forgive it in your reason. How was it possible that the rampart which protects your person, could not secure you from such an ignominious apprehension? How could my cousin, my sister, my friend, my Eloisa, confound the indiscretions of a girl of too much sensibility, with the infidelity of a guilty wife? Look around you, you will see nothing but what contributes to raise and support your mind. Your husband who has such confidence in you, and whose esteem it becomes you to justify; your children whom you would train to virtue, and who will one day deem it an honour that you was their mother; your venerable father who is so dear to you, who enjoys your felicity, and who derives more lustre from you than from his ancestors; your friend whose fate depends on yours, and to whom you must be accountable for a reformation to which she has contributed; her daughter, to whom you ought to set an example of those virtues which you would excite in her; your philosopher, who is a hundred times fonder of your virtues, than of your person, and who respects you still more than you apprehend; lastly, yourself, who are sensible what painful efforts your discretion has cost you, and who will surely never forfeit the fruit of so much trouble in a single moment; how many motives capable of inspiring you with courage, conspire to make you ashamed of having ventured to mistrust yourself! But in order to answer for my Eloisa, what occasion have I to consider what she is? It is enough that I know what she was, during the indiscretions which she bewails. Ah! if your heart had ever been capable of infidelity, I would allow you to be continually apprehensive: but at the very time when you imagined that you viewed it at a distance, you may conceive the horror its real existence would have occasioned you, by what you felt at that time, when but to imagine it, had been to have committed it.

I recollect with what astonishment we learnt that there was a nation where the wellness of a fond maid is considered as an inexpiable crime, though the adultery of a married woman is there softened by the gentle term of gallantry, and where married women publicly make themselves amends for the short-lived restraint they undergo while single. I know what maxims, in this respect, prevail in high life, where virtue passes for nothing, where every thing is empty appearance, where crimes are effaced by the difficulty of proving them, or where the proof itself becomes ridiculous against custom. But you, Eloisa, you who glowed with a pure and constant passion, who was guilty only in the eyes of men, and between heaven and earth was open to no reproach! You, who made yourself respected in the midst of your indiscretions; you, who being abandoned to fruitless regret, obliged us even to adore those virtues which you had forfeited; you, who disdained to endure self-contempt, when every thing seemed to plead in your excuse, can you be apprehensive of guilt, after having paid so dearly for your weakness? Will you dare to be afraid that you have less power now, than you had in those days which cost you so many tears? No, my dear, so far from being alarmed at your former indiscretions, they ought to inspire you with courage; so severe a repentance does not lead to remorse, and whoever is so susceptible of shame, will never bid defiance to infamy.

If ever a weak mind had supports against its weakness, they are such as uphold you; if ever a vigorous mind was capable of supporting itself, what prop can yours require? Tell me, what reasonable grounds there can be for your apprehensions? All your life has been a continual struggle, in which, even after your defeat, honour and duty never ceased opposition, and at length came off victorious. Ah! Eloisa! shall I believe that, after so much pain and torment, after twelve years passed in tears, and six spent gloriously, that you still dread a trial of eight days? In few words, deal sincerely with yourself; if there really is any danger, save your person, and blush at the condition of your heart; if there is no danger, it is an offence to your reason, it is a dishonour to your virtue to be apprehensive of perils which can never affect it. Do you not know that there are some scandalous temptations which never approach noble minds; that it is even shameful to be under a necessity of subduing them, and that to take precautions against them, is not so much to humble, as to debase ourselves?

I do not presume to give you my arguments as unanswerable, but only to convince you that yours may be controverted, and that is sufficient to warrant my advice. Do not depend on yourself, for you do not know how to do yourself justice, nor on me; who even in your indiscretions never considered any thing but your heart and always adored you; but refer to your husband who sees you such as you are, and judges of you, exactly according to your real worth. Being, like all people of sensibility, ready to judge ill of those who appear insensible, I mistrusted his power of penetration into the secrets of susceptible minds, but since the arrival of our traveller, I find by his letters that he reads yours perfectly well, and that there is not a single emotion which escapes his observation. I find his remarks so just and acute, that I have almost changed my opinion to the other extreme; and I shall readily believe that your dispassionate people, who consult their eyes more than their hearts, judge better of other men’s passions, than your impetuous lively and vain persons like myself, who always begin by supposing themselves in another’s place, and can never see any thing but what they feel. However it be, Mr. Wolmar is thoroughly acquainted with you, he esteems you, he loves you, and his destiny is blended with yours. What does he require, but that you would leave to him the entire direction of your conduct, with which you are afraid to trust yourself? Perhaps finding old age coming on, he is desirous, by some trials on which he may depend, to prevent those uneasy jealousies, which an old husband generally feels who is married to a young wife; perhaps the design he has in view requires that you should live in a state of familiarity with your friend, without alarming either your husband or yourself; perhaps he only means to give you a testimony of confidence and esteem, worthy of that which he entertains for you. You should never oppose such sentiments, as if the weight of them was too much for you to endure; and for my part, I think, that you cannot act more agreeably to the dictates of prudence and modesty, than by relying entirely on his tenderness and understanding.

Could you, without offending Mr. Wolmar, punish yourself for a vanity you never had, and prevent a danger which no longer exists? Remain alone with the philosopher, use all the superfluous precautions against him, which would formerly have been of such service to you; maintain the same reserve as if you still mistrusted your own heart and his, as well as your own virtue. Avoid all pathetic conversation, all tender recollection of time past; break off or prevent long tete a tete interviews; be constantly surrounded by your children; do not stay long with him in a room, in elysium, or in the grove notwithstanding the profanation. Above all things, use these precautions in so natural a manner, that they may seem to be the effect of chance, and that he may never once suspect that you are afraid of him. You love to go upon the water; but you deprive yourself of the pleasure on account of your husband who is afraid of that element, and of your children whom you do not chuse to venture there. Take the advantage of this absence, to entertain yourself with this recreation, and leave your children to the care of Fanny. By this means you may securely devote yourself to the sweet familiarity of friendship, and quietly enjoy a long tete a tete under the protection of the watermen, who see without understanding, and from whom we cannot go far without thinking what we are about.

A thought strikes me which many people would laugh at, but which will be agreeable to you, I am sure; that is to keep an exact journal in your husband’s absence, to shew him on his return, and to think on this journal, with regard to every circumstance which is to be set down in it. In truth, I do not believe that such an expedient would be of service to many women; but a sincere mind, incapable of deceit, has many resources against vice, which others stand in need of. We ought to despise nothing which tends to preserve a purity of manners, and it is by means of trifling precautions, that great virtues are secured.

Upon the whole, as your husband is to see me in his way, he will tell me, I hope, the true reasons of his journey, and if I do not find them substantial, I will persuade him from proceeding any farther, or at all events, I will do what he has refused to do: upon this you may depend. In the mean time, I think I have said enough to fortify you against a trial of eight days. Go, Eloisa, I know you too well not to answer for you as much, nay more than I could for myself. You will always be what you ought to be, and what you desire to be. If you do but rely on the integrity of your own mind, you will run no risk whatever; for I have no faith in these unforeseen defects; it is in vain to disguise voluntary failings by the idle appellation of weaknesses; no woman was ever yet overcome who had not an inclination to surrender; and if I thought that such a fate could attend you, believe me, trust to the tenderness of my friendship, rely on all the sentiments which would arise in the heart of your poor Clara, I should be too sensibly interested in your protection, to abandon you entirely to yourself.

As to what Mr. Wolmar declared to you concerning the intelligence he received before your marriage, I am not much surprized at it; you know I always suspected it; and I will tell you, moreover, that my suspicions are not confined to the indiscretions of B----. I could never suppose that a man of truth and integrity like your father, and who had some suspicions at least himself, would resolve to impose upon his son-in-law and his friend. If he engaged you so strictly to secrecy, it was because the mode of discovery would come from him in a very different manner to what it would have proceeded from you, and because he was willing no doubt to give it a turn less likely to disgust Mr. Wolmar, than that which he very well knew you would not fail to give it yourself. But I must dismiss your messenger, we will chat about there matters more at our leisure about a month hence.

Farewell, my dearest cousin, I have preached long enough to the preacher; resume your old occupation.----I find myself quite uneasy that I cannot be with you yet. I disorder all my affairs, by hurrying to dispatch them, and I scarce know what to do. Ah Chaillot, Chaillot... If I was less giddy...but I always hope that I shall----

P. S. A propos; I forgot to make my compliments to your highness. Tell me, I beseech you, is the gentleman your husband Atteman, Knes, or Boyard? [63] O poor child! You, who have so often lamented being born a gentlewoman, are in high luck to become the wife of a prince! Between ourselves nevertheless you discover apprehensions which are somewhat vulgar for a woman of such high quality. Do not you know, that little scruples belong to mean people; and that a child of a good family, who should pretend to be his father’s son, would be laughed at.

CXXXIII. Mr. Wolmar to Mrs. Orbe

I am going to Etange, my sweet cousin, and I proposed to call upon you in my way; but a delay of which you are the cause obliges me to make more haste, and I had rather lie at Lausanne as I come back, that I may pass a few hours the more with you. Besides I want to consult you with regard to many particulars, which it is proper to communicate before hand that you may have time to consider of them before you give me your opinion.

I would not explain my scheme to you in relation to the young man, till his presence had confirmed the good opinion I had conceived of him. I think I may now depend upon him sufficiently to acquaint you, between ourselves, that my design is to entrust him with the education of my children. I am not ignorant that those important concerns are the principal duty of a parent; but when it will be time to exert them, I shall be too old to discharge them, and being naturally calm and speculative by constitution, I should never have been sufficiently active to govern the spirit of youth. Besides for a reason you know, [64] Eloisa would be concerned to see me assume an office, in which I should never acquit myself to her liking. I have a thousand reasons besides; your sex is not equal to these duties; their mother shall confine herself to the education of her Henrietta; to your share I allot the management of the houshold upon the plan already established, and of which you approve; and it shall be my business to behold three worthy people concurring to promote the happiness of the family, and to enjoy that repose in my old age, for which I shall be indebted to their labours.

I have always found, that my wife was extremely averse from trusting her children to the care of mercenaries, and I could not discommend her scruples. The respectable capacity of a preceptor requires so many talents which are not to be paid for, so many virtues which have no piece set upon them, that it is in vain to think of procuring one by means of money. It is from a man of genius only that we can expect the talents of a preceptor; it is from the heart of an affectionate friend alone that we can hope to meet with the zeal of a parent; and genius is not to be sold any more than attachment.

All the requisite qualities seem to be united in your friend; and if I am well acquainted with his disposition, I do not think he would desire greater happiness, than to make those beloved children contribute to their mother’s felicity. The only obstacle I can foresee is his affection for Lord B----, which will not allow him to disengage himself from so dear a friend, to whom he has such great obligations, at least if his Lordship does not require it himself. We expect to see this extraordinary man very soon; and as you have a great ascendancy over him, if he answers the idea you have given me of him, I may commit the business, so far as it relates to him, to your management.

You have now, my dear cousin, the clue of my whole conduct, which, without this explanation, must have appeared very extraordinary, and which, I hope, will hereafter meet with Eloisa’s approbation and yours. The advantage of having such a wife as I have, made me try many expedients which would have been impracticable with another. Though I leave her, in full confidence, with her old lover, under no other guard than her own virtue, it would be madness to establish that lover in my family, before I was certain that he ceased to be such; and how could I be assured of it, if I had a wife on whom I had less dependence?

I have often observed you smile at my remarks on love; but now I think I can mortify you. I have made a discovery which neither you nor any other woman, with all the subtlety they attribute to your sex, would ever have made; the proof of which you will nevertheless perceive at first sight, and you will allow it to be equal to demonstration, when I explain to you the principles on which I ground it. Was I to tell you that my young couple are more fond than ever, this undoubtedly would not appear wonderful to you. Was I to assure you on the contrary, that they are perfectly cured; you know the power of reason and virtue, and therefore you would not look upon that neither as a vast miracle: but if I tell you, that both these opposites are true at the same time; that they love each other with more ardor than ever, and that nothing subsists between them but a virtuous, attachment; that they are always lovers, and yet never more than friends: this, I imagine is what you would least expect, what you will have more difficulty to conceive, and what nevertheless precisely corresponds with truth.

This is the riddle, which makes those frequent contradictions, which you must have observed in them, both in their conversation and in their letters. What you wrote to Eloisa concerning the picture, has served more than any thing to explain the mystery, and I find that they are always sincere, even in contradicting themselves continually. When I say they, I speak particularly of the young man; for as to your friend, one can only speak of her by conjecture. A veil of wisdom and honour makes so many folds about her heart, that it is impenetrable to human eyes, even to her own. The only circumstance which leads me to imagine that she has still some distrust to overcome is, that she is continually considering with herself what she should do if she was perfectly cured; and she examines herself with so much accuracy, that if she was really cured, she would not do it so well.

As to your friend, who, though virtuously inclined, is less apprehensive of his present feelings, I find that he still retains all the affections of his youth; but I perceive them without having any reason to be offended at them. It is not Eloisa Wolmar he is fond of, but Eloisa Etange; he does not hate me as the possessor of the object I love, but as the ravisher of her whom he doated on. His friend’s wife is not his mistress, the mother of two children is not her who was formerly his scholar. It is true she is very like that person, and often puts him in mind of her. He loves her in the time past. This is the true explanation of the riddle. Deprive him of his memory, and you destroy his love.

This is not an idle subtlety, my pretty cousin, but a solid observation, which, if extended to other affections, may admit of a more general application, than one would imagine. I even think that, it would not be difficult to explain it by your own ideas. The time, when you parted the two lovers, was when their passion was at the highest degree of impetuosity. Perhaps, if they had continued much longer together, they would gradually have grown cool; but their imagination, being strongly affected, constantly presented each to the other in the light in which they appeared at the time of their separation. The young man, not perceiving those alterations which the progress of time made in his mistress, loved her such as he had seen her formerly, not such as she was then. [65] To compleat his happiness, it would not have been enough to have given him possession of her, unless she could have been given to him at the same age; and under the same circumstances she was in, when their loves commenced. The least alteration in these particulars would have lessened so much of the felicity he proposed to himself; she is grown handsomer, but she is altered, her improvement, in that sense, turns to her prejudice; for it is of his former mistress, not of any other, that he is enamoured.

What deceives him, is, that he confounds the times, and often reproaches himself on account of a passion which he thinks present, and which in fact is nothing more than the effect of too tender a recollection; but I do not know, whether it will not be better to accomplish his cure, than to undeceive him. Perhaps, in this respect, we may reap more advantage from his mistake, than from his better judgment. To discover to him the true state of his affections, would be to apprize him of the death of the object he loved; this might be an affliction dangerous to him, inasmuch as a state of melancholy is always favourable to love.

Freed from the scruples which restrain him, he would probably be more inclined to indulge recollections which he ought to stifle; he would converse with less reserve, and the traces of Eloisa are not so effaced in Mrs. Wolmar, but upon examination he might find them again. I have thought, that instead of undeceiving him with respect to his opinion of the progress he has made, and which encourages him to pursue it to the end, we should rather endeavour to banish the remembrance of those times which he ought to forget, by skilfully substituting other ideas in the room of those he is so fond of. You, who contributed to give them birth, may contribute more than any one to efface them: but I shall wait till we are all together, that I may tell you in your ear what you shall do for this purpose; a charge, which if I am not mistaken, will not be very burthensome to me. In the mean time, I endeavour to make the objects of his dread familiar to him, by presenting them to him in such a manner, that he may no longer think them dangerous. He is impetuous, but tractable and easily managed. I avail myself of this advantage to give a turn to his imagination. In the room of his mistress, I compel him always to look at the wife of his friend, and the mother of my children; I efface one picture by another, and hide the past with the present. We always ride a startish horse up to the object which frights him, that he may not be frightened at it again. We should act in the same manner with those young people, whose imaginations are on fire even after their affections are grown cold, and whose fancy presents monsters at a distance, which disappear as they draw nearer.

I think I am well acquainted with the strength of both, and I do not expose them to a trial which they cannot support: for wisdom does not consist in using all kinds of precautions indiscriminately, but in choosing those which are really useful, and in neglecting such as are superfluous. The eight days, during which I leave them together, will perhaps be sufficient for them to discover the true state of their minds, and to know in what relation they really stand to each other. The oftener they perceive themselves in private with each other, the sooner they will find out their mistake, by comparing their present sensations with those they felt formerly, when they were in the same situation. Besides, it is of importance that they should use themselves to endure, without danger, that state of familiarity, in which they must necessarily live together, if my schemes take place. I find by Eloisa’s conduct, that you have given her advice, which she could not refuse taking, without wronging herself. What pleasure I should take in giving her this proof that I am sensible of her real worth, if she was a woman with whom a husband might make a merit of such confidence! But if she gains nothing over her affections, her virtue will still be the same; it will cost her dearer, and she will not triumph the less. Whereas if she is still in danger of feeling any inward uneasiness, it can arise only from some moving conversation, which she must be too sensible before hand will awaken recollection, and which she will therefore always avoid. Thus, you see, you must not in this instance judge of my conduct by common maxims, but from the motives which actuate me, and from the singular disposition of her towards whom I shall regulate my behaviour.

Farewell, my dear cousin, till my return. Though I have not entered into these explanations with Eloisa, I do not desire you to keep them secret from her. It is a maxim with me, never to make secrets among my friends; therefore I commit these to your discretion; make that use of them which your prudence and friendship will direct. I know you will do nothing, but what is best and most proper.

CXXIV. To Lord B

Mr. Wolmar set out yesterday for Etange, and you can scarce conceive in what a melancholy state his departure has left me. I think the absence of his wife would not have affected me so much as his. I find myself under greater restraint, than even when he is present; a mournful silence takes possession of my heart; its murmurs are stifled by a secret dread; and, being less tormented with desires than apprehensions, I experience all the horrors of guilt, without being exposed to the temptations of it.

Can you imagine, my Lord, where my mind gains confidence, and loses these unworthy dreads? In the presence of Mrs. Wolmar. As soon as I approach her, the sight of her pacifies my inquietude; her looks purify my heart. Such is the ascendency of hers, that it always seems to inspire others with a sense of her innocence, and to confer that composure which is the effect of it. Unluckily for me, her system of life does not allow her to devote the whole day to the society of her friends; and in those moments which I am obliged to pass out of her company, I should suffer less, if I was farther distant from her.

What contributes to feed the melancholy which oppresses me, is a reflection which she made yesterday after her husband’s departure. Though till that moment she kept up her spirits tolerably, yet for a long time her eyes followed him with an air of tenderness, which I then imagined was only occasioned by the departure of that happy husband; but I found by her conversation, that the emotion was to be imputed to another cause, which was a secret to me. You see, said she, in what manner we live together, and you may judge whether he is dear to me. Do not imagine; however, that the sentiment which attaches me to him, though as tender and as powerful as that of love, is likewise susceptible of its weakness. If an interruption of the agreeable habit of living together is painful to us, we are consoled by the firm hope of resuming the same habit again. A fate of such permanence admits few vicissitudes which we have reason to dread; and in an absence of a few days, the pain of so short an interval does not affect me so strongly, as the pleasure of seeing an end to it. The affliction, which you read in my eyes, proceeds from a more weighty cause, and though it is relative to Mr. Wolmar, it is not occasioned by his departure.

My dear friend, she continued, with an affecting tone, there is no true happiness on earth. My husband is one of the most worthy and affectionate of men; the duty which incites us is cemented by mutual inclination; he has no desires but mine; I have children which give, and promise pleasure hereafter to their mother; there cannot be a more affectionate, virtuous, and amiable friend, than her whom my heart doats on, and with whom I shall pass my days; you yourself contribute to my felicity, by having so well justified my esteem and affection for you; a long and expensive law-suit, which is nearly finished, will soon bring the best of fathers to my arms; every thing prospers with us; peace and order reign throughout the family; our servants are zealous and faithful; our neighbours express every kind of attachment to us; we enjoy the good will of the public. Blest with every thing which heaven, fortune, and men can bestow, all things conspire to my happiness. A secret uneasiness, one trouble only, poisons all, and I am not happy. She uttered these last words with a sigh, which pierced my soul, and which I had no share in raising. She is not happy, said I, sighing in my turn, and I am no longer an obstacle to her felicity!

That melancholy thought disordered my ideas in a moment, and disturbed the repose which I began to taste. Unable to endure the intolerable state of doubt into which her conversation had thrown me, I importuned her so eagerly to disclose her whole mind to me, that at length she deposited the fatal secret with me, and allows me to communicate it to you. But this is the hour of recreation, Mrs. Wolmar is come out of the nursery to walk with her children, she has just told me as much. I attend her, my Lord; I leave you for the present; and I shall resume, in my next, the subject I am now obliged to quit.

CXXXV. Mrs. Wolmar to her Husband

I expect you next Tuesday according to your appointment, and you will find every thing disposed agreeable to your desire. Call on Mrs. Orbe in your way back; she will tell you what has passed during your absence; I had rather you should learn it from her than from me.

I thought, Mr. Wolmar, I had deserved your esteem; but your conduct is not the more prudent, and you sport most cruelly with your wife’s virtue.

CXXXVI. To Lord B

I must give you an account, my Lord, of a danger we have incurred within these few days, and from whence we are happily delivered at the expense of a little terror and fatigue. This relation very well deserves a letter by itself; when you read it, you will perceive the motives which engage me to write.

You know that Mrs. Wolmar’s house is not far from the lake, and that she is fond of the water. It is three days since her husband’s absence has left us without employment; and the pleasantness of the evening made us form a scheme for one of these parties the next day. Soon as the sun was up, we went to the river’s side; we took a boat with nets for fishing, three rowers, and a servant, and we embarked with some provisions for dinner. I took a fowling-piece to knock down some besolets, [66] but was ashamed to kill birds out of wantonness, and only for the pleasure of doing mischief. I amused myself therefore in observing the siflets, the crenets, [67] and I fired but once at a grebe, at a great distance, which I missed.

We passed an hour or two in fishing within 500 paces of the shore. We had good success, but Eloisa had them all thrown into the water again, except a trout which had received a blow from the oar. The animals, said she, are in pain; let us deliver them; let us enjoy the pleasure they will feel on escaping from danger. This operation, however, was performed slowly, and against the grain, not without some representations against it; and I found that our gentry would have had a much better relish for the fish they had catched, than for the moral which saved their lives.

We then launched farther into the lake; soon after, with all the vivacity of a young man, which it is time for me to check, undertaking to manage the master oar, I rowed the boat into the middle of the lake, so that we were soon above a league from shore. Then I explained to Eloisa every part of that superb horizon which environed us. I shewed her at a distance the mouth of the Rhone, whose impetuous current stops on a sudden within a quarter of a league, as if it was afraid to sully the chrystal azure of the lake with its muddy waters. I made her observe the redans of the mountains, whose correspondent angles, running parallel, formed a bed in the space between, fit to receive the river which occupied it. As we got farther from shore, I had great pleasure in making her take notice of the rich and delightful banks of the Pays de Vaud, where the vast number of towns, the prodigious throng of people, with the beautiful and verdant hills all around, formed a most ravishing landscape: where every spot of ground, being cultivated and equally fertile, supplies the husbandman, the shepherd, and the vinedresser with the certain fruits of their labours, which are not devoured by the greedy publican. Afterwards I pointed out Chablais, a country not less favoured by nature, and which nevertheless affords nothing but a spectacle of wretchedness; I made her perceive the manifest distinction between the different effects of the two governments, with respect to the riches, number and happiness, of the inhabitants. It is thus, said I, that the earth expands her fruitful bosom, and lavishes treasures among those happy people who cultivate it for themselves. She seems to smile and be enlivened, at the sweet aspect of liberty; she loves to nourish mankind. On the contrary, the mournful ruins, the heath and brambles which cover a half desert country, proclaim from afar that it is under the dominion of an absent proprietor, and that it yields with reluctance a scanty produce to slaves who reap no advantage from it.

While we were agreeably amusing ourselves with viewing the neighbouring coasts, a gale arising, which drove us aslant towards the opposite shore, began to blow very high, and when we thought to tack about, the resistance was so strong that it was impossible for our slight boat to overcome it. The waves soon began to grow dreadful; we endeavoured to make for the coast of Savoy, and tried to land at the village of Meillerie which was over against us, and the only place almost where the shore affords a convenient landing. But the wind, changing and blowing stronger, rendered all the endeavours of the watermen ineffectual, and discovered to us a range of steep rocks somewhat lower, where there was no shelter.

We all tugged at our oars, and at that instant I had the mortification to perceive Eloisa grow sick, and see her weak and fainting at the bottom of the boat. Happily she had been used to the water, and her sickness did not last long. In the mean time, our efforts increased with our danger; the heat of the sun, the fatigue, and profuse sweating, took away our breaths, and made us excessively faint. Then summoning all her courage, Eloisa revived our spirits by her compassionate kindness; she wiped the sweat from off each of our faces; and mixing some wine and water, for fear of intoxication, she presented it alternately to those who were most exhausted. No, your lovely friend never appeared with such lustre as at that moment, when the heat and the agitation of her spirits gave an additional glow to her complexion; and what greatly improved her charms, was that you might plainly perceive, by the tenderness of her behaviour, that her solicitude proceeded less from apprehensions for herself than compassion for us. At one time, two planks having started by a shock which dipt us all, she concluded that the boat was split, and in the exclamation of that affectionate mother, I heard these words distinctly: O my children, must I never see you more! As for my self, whose imagination always exceeds the danger, though I knew the utmost of our perilous condition, yet I expected every minute to see the boat swallowed up, that delicate beauty struggling in the midst of the waves, and the roses upon her cheeks chilled by the cold hand of death.

At length, by dint of labour, we reached Meillerie; and after having struggled above an hour within ten paces of the shore, we at last compassed our landing. When we had landed, all our fatigues were forgotten. Eloisa took upon herself to recompense the trouble which every one had taken; and as in the height of danger her concern was for us, she seemed now on shore to imagine that we had saved nobody but her.

We dined with that appetite, which is the gift of hard labour. The trout was served up: Eloisa, who was extremely fond of it, eat but little; and I perceived, that to make the watermen amends for the regret which the late sacrifice cost them, she did not chuse that I should eat much myself. My Lord, you have observed a thousand times that her amiable disposition is to be seen in trifles as well as in matters of consequence.

After dinner, the water being still rough, and the boat wanting to be refitted, I proposed taking a walk. Eloisa objected to the wind and sun, and took notice of my being fatigued. I had my views, and I obviated all her objections. I have been accustomed, said I, to violent exercise from my infancy: far from hurting my health, they strengthen my constitution; and my late voyage has still made me more robust. As to the sun and wind, you have your straw hat, and we will get under the wind and in the woods; we need only climb among the rocks, and you who are not fond of a flat, will willingly bear the fatigue. She consented, and we set out while our people were at dinner.

You know, that when I was banished from Valais, I came, about ten years ago, to Meillerie, to wait for leave to return. It was there I passed those melancholy but pleasing days, solely intent upon her; and it was from thence I wrote her that letter, with which she was so strongly affected. I always wished to re-visit that lovely retreat, which served me as an asylum in the midst of ice, and where my heart loved to converse, in idea, with the object of all others most dear to its affections. An opportunity of visiting this beloved spot in a more agreeable season, and in company with her whose image formerly dwelt there with me, was the secret motive of my walk. I took a pleasure in pointing out to her those old memorials of such a constant and unfortunate passion.

We got thither after an hour’s walk through cool and winding paths, which ascending insensibly, between the trees and the rocks, were no otherwise inconvenient than by being tedious. As we drew near, and I recollected former tokens, I found myself a little disordered; but I overcame it, I concealed my uneasiness, and we reached the place. This solitary spot formed a wild and desert nook, but full of those sorts of beauties, which are only agreeable to susceptible minds, and appear horrible to others. A torrent, occasioned by the melting of the snow, rolled in a muddy stream within twenty paces of us, and carried dirt, sand, and stones along with it, not without considerable noise. Behind us, a chain of inaccessible rocks divided the place where we stood from that part of the Alps which they call the Ice-houses, because from the beginning of the world, they have been covered with vast mountains of ice, which are continually increasing. [68] Forests of gloomy fir-trees afforded us a melancholy shade on the right. On the left was a large wood of oak beyond which the torrent issued, and beneath that vast body of water, which the lake forms in the bay of the Alps, parted us from the rich coast of the Pays de Vaud, crowning the whole landscape with the top of the majestic Jura.

In the midst of these noble and superb objects, the little spot where we were, displayed all the charms of an agreeable and rural retreat; small floods of water filtered through the rocks, and flowed along the verdure in chrystal streams. Some wild fruit trees leaned their heads over ours; the cool and moist earth was covered with grass and flowers. Comparing this agreeable retreat with the objects which surrounded us, one would have thought that this desert spot was designed as an asylum for two lovers, who alone had escaped the general wreck of nature.

When we had reached this corner, and I had attentively examined it for some time, Now, said I to Eloisa, looking at her with eyes swimming in tears, is your heart perfectly still in this place, and do you feel no secret emotion at the sight of a spot which is full of you? Immediately, without waiting for her answer, I led her towards the rock, and shewed her where her cypher was engraved in a thousand places, with several verses in Petrarch and Tasso relative to the state I was in when I engraved them. On seeing them again at such a distance of time, I found how powerfully the review of these objects renewed my former violent sensations. I addressed her with some degree of impetuosity: O Eloisa, the everlasting delight of my soul! This is the spot, where the most constant lover in the world formerly sighed for thee. This is the retreat, where thy beloved image made all the scene of his felicity, and prepared him for that happiness which you yourself afterwards dispensed. No fruit or shade were then to be found here: these compartments were not then furnished with verdure or flowers; the course of these streams did not then make these separations, these birds did not chirp then, the voracious sparhawk, the dismal crow, and the dreadful eagle alone made these caverns echo with their cries; huge lumps of ice hung from these rocks; festoons of snow were all the ornaments which bedecked these trees; every thing here bore marks of the rigour of winter and hoary frost; the ardor of my affection alone made this place supportable, and I spent whole days here wrapt in thought of thee. Here is the stone where I used to sit, to reflect on your happy abode at a distance; on this I penned that letter which moved your heart; these sharp flints served me as graving tools to cut out your name; here I crossed that frozen torrent to regain one of your letters which the wind carried off; there I came to review and give a thousand kisses to the last you ever wrote to me; this is the brink where, with a gloomy and greedy eye, I measured the depth of this abyss: in short, it was here that, before my sad departure, I came to bewail you as dead, and swore never to survive you. O thou lovely fair one, too constantly adored, thou for whom alone I was born! Must I revisit this spot with you by my side, and must I regret the time I spent here in bewailing your absence?... I was proceeding further; but Eloisa perceiving me draw near the brink, was affrighted, and seizing my hand pressed it without speaking, a word, looked tenderly upon me, and could scarce suppress a rising sigh; soon after turning from me and taking me by the arm, Let us be gone, my friend, said she, with a tone of emotion, the air of this place is not good for me. I went with her sighing, but without making her any answer; and I quitted that melancholy spot for ever, with as much regret, as I would have taken leave of Eloisa herself.

We came back gently to the harbour after some few deviations, and parted. She chose to be alone, and I continued walking without knowing whither I went. At my return, the boat not being yet ready, nor the water smooth, we made a melancholy supper, with down-cast eyes; and pensive looks, eating little and talking still less. After supper, we sat on the strand, waiting an opportunity to go off. The moon shone on a sudden, the water became smoother, and Eloisa proposed our departure. I handed her into the boat, and when I sat down by her, I never thought of quitting her hand. We kept a profound silence. The equal and measured sound of the oars threw me into a reverie. The lively chirping of the snipes, [69] recalling to my mind the pleasures of a past period, made me dull. By degrees I found the melancholy which oppressed me increase. A serene sky, the mild reflection of the moon, the silver froth of the water which sparkled around us, the concurrence of agreeable sensations; even the presence of the beloved object herself, could not banish bitter reflections from my mind.

I began with recollecting a walk of the same kind which we took together, during the rapture of our early loves. All the pleasing sensations which then affected me, were present to my mind, to torment me the more; all the adventures of our youth, our studies, our entertainments, our letters, our assignations, our pleasures,

_E tanta fede, e si dolci memorie, E si lungo costume!_

This croud of little objects, which recalled the image of my past happiness, all pressed upon me and rushed into my memory, to increase my present wretchedness. It is past, said I to myself, those times, those happy times will be no more; they are gone for ever! Alas! they will never return; and yet we live, and we are together, and our hearts are still united! I seemed as if I could have endured her death or her absence with more patience; and thought that I had suffered less all the time I was parted from her. When I bewailed her at a distance, the hope of seeing her again was comfort to my soul; I flattered myself that the sight of her would banish all my sorrows in an instant, at least I could conceive it possible to be in a more cruel situation than my own. But to be by her side; to see her, to touch her, to talk to her, to love her, to adore her, and, whilst I almost enjoyed her again, to find her lost to me for ever; this is what threw me into such fits of fury and rage, as by degrees agitated me even to despair. My mind soon began to conceive deadly projects, and in a transport, which I yet tremble to think of, I was violently tempted to throw her with myself into the waves, and to end my days and tedious torments in her arms. This horrid temptation grew so strong at last, that I was obliged suddenly to quit her hand and walk to the other end of the boat.

There my lively emotions began to take another turn; a more gentle sensation by degrees stole upon my mind, and tenderness overcame despair; I began to shed floods of tears, and that condition, compared to the state I had just been in, was not unattended with pleasure. I wept heartily for a long time, and found myself easier. When I was tolerably composed, I returned to Eloisa, and took her by the hand again. She held her handkerchief in her hand, which I found wet. Ah! said I to her softly, I find that our hearts have not ceased to sympathize! True, said she, in a broken accent, but may it be the last time they ever correspond in this manner! We then began to talk about indifferent matters, and after an hour’s rowing, we arrived without any other accident. When we came in, I perceived that her eyes were red and much swelled; and she must have discovered that mine were not in a better condition. After the fatigue of this day, she stood in great need of rest: she withdrew, and I went to bed.

Such, my friend, is the journal of the day, in which, without exception, I experienced the most lively emotions I ever felt. I hope they will prove a crisis, which will entirely restore me to myself. Moreover I must tell you that this adventure has convinced me more than all the power of argument, of the free-will of man, and the merit of virtue. How many people yield to weak temptations? As for Eloisa, my eyes beheld, and my heart felt her emotions: she underwent the most violent struggle that day that ever human nature sustained; nevertheless she conquered. O my Lord, when, seduced by your mistress, you had power at once to triumph over her desires and your own, was you not more than man? But for your example I had, perhaps, been lost. The recollection of your virtue, renewed my own a hundred times in that perilous day.

CXXXV. [70] From Lord B

Awake, my friend, and emerge from childhood. Let not your reason slumber to the end of your life. The hours glide imperceptibly away, and ’tis now high time for you to grow wise. At thirty years of age surely a man should begin to reflect. Reflect, therefore, and be a man, at least once before you die.

Your heart, my dear friend, has long imposed on your understanding. You strove to philosophize before you were capable of it, mistaking your feelings for reason, and judging of things by the impressions they made on you, which has always kept you ignorant of their real state. A good heart, I will own, is indispensably necessary to the knowledge of truth: he who feels nothing can learn nothing; he may float from error to error in a sea of scepticism, but his discoveries will be vain, and his information fruitless, being ignorant of the relation of things to man, on which all true science depends. It were to stop half-way, however, in our pursuits after knowledge, not to enquire also into the relation of things to each other, in order to be better able to judge of their connection with ourselves. To know the nature and operation of our passions is to know little, if we know not, at the same time, how to judge of and estimate their objects. This latter knowledge is to be acquired only in the tranquility of studious retirement. The youth of the philosopher is the time for experiment, his passions being the instrument of his inquiries; but after having applied himself long enough to the perception of external objects, he retires within himself to consider, to compare, to know them. To this task you ought to apply yourself sooner than any other person in the world. All the pleasures and pains, of which a susceptible mind is capable, you have felt; all that a man can see, you have seen. In the space of twelve years you have exhausted all those sensations, which might have served you during a long life, and have acquired even in youth the extensive experience of age. The first observations you were led to make, were on simple, unpolished villagers, on persons almost such as they came out of the hand of nature; just as if they had been presented to you for the ground-work of your piece, or as proper objects by which to compare every other. Banished next to the metropolis of one of the most celebrated people in the universe, you leaped, as one may say, from one extremity to the other, your genius supplying all the intermediate degrees. Then visiting the only nation of men, which remains among the various herds that are scattered over the face of the earth, you had an opportunity of seeing a well governed society, or at least a society under a good government; you had there an opportunity of observing how far the public voice is the foundation of liberty. You have travelled thro’ all climates, and have visited all countries beneath the sun. Add to this a sight still more worthy admiration, that which you enjoy in the presence of a sublime and refined soul, triumphant over its passion, and ruling over itself. The first object of your affections is that which is now daily before you, your admiration of which is but the better founded for your having seen and contemplated so many others. There is now nothing more worth your attention or concern. The only object of your future contemplation should be yourself, that of your future enjoyment the fruits of your knowledge. You have lived enough for this life; think now of living for that which is to come, and which will last for ever.

Your passions, by which you were so long enslaved, did not deprive you of your virtue. This is all your boast, and doubtless you have reason to glory in it; yet be not too proud. Your very fortitude is the effect of your weakness. Do you know how it came that you grew enamoured of virtue? It was because virtue always appeared to your imagination in the amiable form of that lovely woman, by whom she is so truly represented, and whose image you will always adore. But will you never love her for her own sake? Will you never, like Eloisa, court virtue of your own accord? Vain and indolent enthusiast! Will you content yourself with barely admiring her virtues, without attempting to imitate them? You speak, in rapture, of the manner in which she discharges the important duties of wife and mother; but when will you discharge those of a man and a friend, by her example? Shall a woman be able to triumph over herself, and a philosopher find it so difficult to conquer his passions? Will you continue to be always a mere prater, like the rest of them, and be content to write good books, instead of doing good actions? [71] Take care, my friend; I still perceive an air of softness and effeminacy in your writing, which displeases me, as I think it rather the effect of an unextinguished passion than peculiar to your character. I hate imbecility in any one, and cannot bear the thoughts of it in my friend. There is no such thing as virtue without fortitude, for pusillanimity is the certain attendant on vice. How dare you rely on your own strength, who have no courage? Believe me, were Eloisa as weak as you, the very first opportunity would debase you into an infamous adulterer. While you remain alone with her, therefore, learn to know her worth, and blush at your own demerit.

I hope soon to be able to see you at Clarens: you know the motives of my desiring to see Italy again. Twelve years of mistakes and troubles have rendered me suspicious of myself; to resist my inclinations, however, my own abilities might suffice; but to give the preference of one to the other, to know which I should indulge, requires the assistance of a friend: nor shall I take less pleasure in being obliged to him on this occasion, than I have done in obliging him in others. Between friends, their obligations, as well as their affections, should be reciprocal. Do not deceive yourself, however; before I put any confidence in you, I shall enquire whether you are worthy of it, and if you deserve to return me the services you have formerly received. Your heart I know, and am satisfied with its integrity; but this is not all: it is your judgment I shall have occasion for, to direct me in making a choice which should be governed entirely by reason, and in which mine may be partial. I am not apprehensive of danger from those passions, which, making open war upon us, give us warning to put ourselves upon our defence; and, whatever be their effect, leave us still conscious of our errors. We cannot so properly be said to be overcome by these, as to give way to them. I am more fearful of delusion than constraint, and of being involuntarily induced to do what my reason condemns. We have no need of foreign assistance to suppress our inclinations; but the assistance of a friend may be necessary to point out which it is most prudent to indulge: in this case it is that the friendship of a wise man may be useful, by his viewing, in a different light, those objects with which it is our interest to be intimately acquainted. Examine yourself, therefore, and tell me whether, vainly repining at your fate, you will continue for ever useless to yourself and others, or if, resuming the command over yourself, you will at last become capable of advising and assisting your friend.

My affairs will not detain me in London more than a fortnight longer, when I shall set out for our army in Flanders, where I intend to stay about the same time; so that you must not expect to see me before the end of next month or the beginning of October. In the mean time, write no more to me at London, but direct your letters to the army, agreeable to the inclosed address. When you write, proceed also in your descriptions; for, notwithstanding the censure I pass on your letters, they both affect and instruct me; giving me, at the same time, the most flattering ideas of a life of peace and retirement, agreeable to my temper and age. In particular, I charge you to ease my mind of the disquietude you have excited concerning Mrs. Wolmar. If she be dissatisfied, who on earth can hope for happiness? After the relation you have given me, I cannot conceive what can be wanting to compleat her felicity.

CXXXVI. To Lord B

Yes, my Lord, I can with transport assure you, the affair of Meillerie was the crisis of my folly and misfortunes. My conversation with Mr. Wolmar, made me perfectly acquainted with the true state of my heart. That heart, too weak I confess, is nevertheless cured of its passion as much as it possibly can be; and I prefer my present state of silent regret to that of being perpetually fearful of falling into guilt. Since the return of this worthy friend, I no longer hesitate to give him that title which you have rendered so valuable. It is the least I can bestow on every one who assists me in returning to the paths of virtue. My heart is now become as peaceful as the mansion I inhabit. I begin to be at ease in my residence; to live as if I was at home; and, if I do not take upon me altogether the tone and authority of master, I feel yet a greater pleasure in supposing myself a brother of the family. There is something so delightful in the simplicity and equality, which reign in this retirement, that I cannot help being affected with tenderness and respect. Thus I spend my days in tranquillity, amidst practical philosophy and susceptible virtue. In company with this happy couple, their situation insensibly affects me, and raises my heart by degrees into unison with theirs.

What a delightful retreat! What a charming habitation! A continuance in this place renders it even yet more delightful; and though it appear not very striking at first sight, it is impossible not to be pleased with it, when it is once known. The pleasure Mrs. Wolmar takes in discharging the noblest duties, in making all who approach her virtuous and happy, communicates itself to all those who are the objects of her care, to her husband, her children, her guests, her domestics. No tumultuous scenes of noisy mirth, no loud peals of laughter, are heard in this peaceful mansion; but, in their stead, you always meet with contented hearts and chearful countenances. If at any time you see a tear, it is the tear of susceptibility and joy. Troubles, cares and sorrow intrude not here, any more than vice and remorse, of which they are the fruits.

As to Eloisa, it is certain that, excepting the secret cause of uneasiness, with which I acquainted you in my last, [72] every thing conspires to make her happy. And yet, with so many reasons to be so, a thousand other women would think themselves miserable in the same situation. Her uniform and retired manner of living would be to them insupportable; they would think the noise of children insufferable; they would be fatigued to death with the care of their family; they would not be able to bear the country; the esteem and prudence of a husband, not over tender, would hardly recompense them for his indifference and age; his presence, and even his regard for them, would be burthensome. They would either find means to send him abroad, that they might live more at their liberty; or would leave him to himself; despising the peaceful pleasures of their situation, and seeking more dangerous ones elsewhere, they would never be at ease in their own house, unless when they came as visitors. It requires a sound mind to be able to enjoy the pleasures of retirement; the virtuous only being capable of amusing themselves with their family concerns, and of voluntarily secluding themselves from the world: if there be on earth any such thing as happiness, they undoubtedly enjoy it in such a state. But the means of happiness are nothing to those who know not how to make use of them; and we never know in what true happiness consists, till we have acquired a taste for its enjoyment.

If I were desired to speak with precision, as to the reason why the inhabitants of this place are happy, I should think I could not answer with greater propriety than to say, it is because they here know how to live; not in the sense in which these words would be taken in France, where it would be understood that they had adopted certain customs and manners in vogue: No; but they have adopted such manners as are most agreeable to human life, and the purposes for which man came into the world; to that life you mention, of which you have set me an example, which extends beyond itself, and is not given up for lost even in the hour of death.

Eloisa has a father who is anxious for the honour and interests of his family: she has children for whose subsistence it is necessary to provide. This ought to be the chief care of man in a state of society; and was therefore the first in which Eloisa and her husband united. When they began house-keeping, they examined into the state of their fortunes; not considering so much whether they were proportioned to their rank, as to their wants; and seeing they were sufficient for the provision of an honourable family, they had not so bad an opinion of their children, as to be fearful, lest the patrimony they had to leave would not content them. They applied themselves therefore rather to improve their present, than acquire a larger fortune: they placed their money rather safely than profitably; and, instead of purchasing new estates, set about increasing the value of that which they already had; leaving their own example in this point, as the only treasure by which they would desire to see the inheritance of their offspring increased.

It is true, that an estate which is not augmented, is liable to many accidents by which it will naturally diminish: but if this were a sufficient motive to begin increasing, when would it cease to be a pretext for a constant augmentation? Must it be divided among several children? Be it so; must they be all idle? Will not the industry of each be a supplement to his share? and ought it not to be considered in the partition? It is thus that insatiable avarice makes its way under the mask of prudence, and leads to vice under the cloak of its own security. It is in vain, says Mr. Wolmar, to attempt to give to human affairs that stability, which is not in their nature. Prudence itself requires that we should leave many things to chance; and, if our lives and fortunes depend so much on accident, what a folly is it to make ourselves really unhappy, in order to prevent doubtful evils, or avoid inevitable dangers? The only precaution he took was, to live one whole year on his principal, in order to have so much before hand to receive of the interest, so that he had always the yearly product of his estate at command. He chose rather to diminish his capital than to be perpetually under the necessity of dunning for his rents; the consequence of which has been in the end advantageous to him, as it prevented him from borrowing and other ruinous expedients, to which many people are obliged to have recourse on every unforeseen accident. Thus good management supplies the place of parsimony, and he is in fact a gainer by what he has spent.

The master of this house possesses but a moderate fortune, according to the estimation of the world; but in reality I hardly know any body more opulent. There is indeed no such thing as absolute wealth: that term signifying only the relation between the wants and possessions of those who are rich. One man is rich, though possessing only an acre of land; another is a beggar in the midst of heaps of gold. Luxury and caprice have no bounds, and make more persons poor than real wants. But the proportion, between their wants and their abilities of supplying them, is here established on a sure foundation, namely, the perfect harmony subsisting between the husband and wife: the former taking upon him the charge of collecting the rents and profits of his estate, and the latter, that of regulating their expenses; and on this harmony depends their wealth.

I was at first struck with a peculiarity in the economy of this house, where there appeared so much ease, freedom and gaiety, in the midst of order and diligence; the great fault of well regulated houses being that they always wear an air of gloominess and restraint. The extreme solicitude also of the heads of the family looks too much like avarice. Every thing about them seems constrained, and there appears something servile in their punctuality, which renders it intolerable. The domestics do their duty indeed, but then they do it with an air of discontent and mistrust The guests, it is true, are well-received; but they dare not make use of a freedom cautiously bestowed, and are always afraid of doing something that will be reckoned a breach of regularity. Such slavish fathers of families cannot be said to live for themselves, but for their children; without considering that they are not only fathers but men, and that they ought to set their children an example how to live prudent and happy. More judicious maxims are adopted here. Mr. Wolmar thinks one of the principal duties of a father of a family is to make his house, in the first place, agreeable, that his children may delight in their home, and that seeing their father happy, they may be tempted to tread in his footsteps. Another of his maxims, and which he often repeats, is that the gloomy and sordid lives of fathers and mothers are almost always the first cause of the ill-conduct of children.

As to Eloisa, who never had any other guide, and who needed no better, than her own heart, she obeys, without scruple, its dictates; being then certain of doing right. Can a mind so susceptible as hers be insensible to pleasure? On the contrary she delights in every amusement, nor refuses to join in any diversion that promises to be agreeable; but her pleasures are the pleasures of Eloisa. She neglects neither her own convenience nor the satisfaction of those who are dear to her. She esteems nothing superfluous that may contribute to the happiness of a sensible mind; but censures every thing as such that serves only to make a figure in the eyes of others; so that you will find in this house all the gratifications which luxury and pleasure can bestow, without refinement or effeminacy. With respect to magnificence and pomp, you will see no more of it than she was obliged to submit to, in order to please her father; her own taste, however, prevails even here, which consists in giving to every thing less brilliancy and shew, than grace and elegance. When I talk to her of the methods which are daily invented at Paris and London, to hang the coaches easier; she does not disapprove of that; but, when I tell her of the great expense they are at in the varnishing of them, she can hardly believe or comprehend me; she asks me, if such fine varnish makes the coaches more commodious. Indeed she scruples not to say, that I exaggerate a good deal on the scandalous paintings with which they now adorn their equipages, instead of the coats of arms formerly used; as if it were more eligible to be known to the world for a man of licentious manners, than as a man of family. But she was particularly shocked when I told her that the ladies had introduced, and kept up, this custom, and that their chariots were distinguishable from those of the gentlemen only, by paintings more lascivious and immodest. I was obliged to recount to her an expression of your noble friend’s, on this subject, which she could hardly digest. I was with him one day to look at a vis-a-vis, which happened to be in this taste. But he no sooner cast his eye on the panels than he turned away from it, telling the owner that he should offer carriages of that kind to wanton women of quality; for that no modest man could make use of them.

As the first step to virtue is to forbear doing ill, so the first step to happiness is to be free from pain. These two maxims, which, well understood, would render precepts of morality in a great degree useless, are favourite ones with Mrs. Wolmar. She is extremely affected by the misfortunes of others; and it would be as difficult for her to be happy with wretched objects about her, as it would be for an innocent man to preserve his virtue and live in the midst of vice. She has none of that barbarous pity, which is satisfied with turning away its eye from the miserable objects it might relieve. On the contrary, she makes it her business to seek out such objects: it is the existence, and not the presence, of the unhappy which gives her affliction. It is not sufficient for her to be ignorant that there are any such; it is necessary to her quiet that she should be assured there are none miserable; at least within her sphere of charity: for it would be unreasonable to extend her concern beyond her own neighbourhood, and to make her happiness depend upon the welfare of all mankind. She takes care to inform herself of the necessities of all that live near her, and interests herself in their relief as if their wants were her own. She knows every one personally, includes them all, as it were, in her family, and spares no pains to banish, or alleviate, those misfortunes and afflictions to which human life is subject.

I am desirous, my Lord, of profiting by your instructions; but you must forgive me a piece of enthusiasm, of which I am no longer ashamed, and with which you yourself are affected. There will never be another Eloisa in the world. Providence takes a particular interest in every thing that regards her, nor leaves any thing to the consequence of accident. Heaven seems to have sent her upon earth, to serve at once as an example of that excellence of which human nature is capable, and of that happiness it may enjoy in the obscurity of private life, without having recourse either to those public virtues which sometimes raise humanity above itself, or to those honours with which the breath of popular applause rewards them. Her fault, if love be a fault, has served only to display her fortitude and virtue. Her relations, her friends, her servants, all happily situated, were formed to respect her and be respected by her. Her country is the only one upon earth where she ought to have been born; to be happy herself, it was necessary for her to live among a happy people. If, to her misfortune, she had been born among those unhappy wretches, who groan beneath the load of oppression, and struggle in vain against the iron hand of cruelty, every complaint of the oppressed had poisoned the sweets of her life; the common ruin had been hers, and her benevolent heart had made her feel incessantly those evils she could not have redressed.

Instead of that, every thing here animates and supports the native goodness of her disposition. She has no public calamities to afflict her. She sees not around her the frightful pictures of indigence and despair. The villagers in easy circumstances, have more need of her advice than her bounty. [73] But, if there be found among them an orphan, too young to earn his subsistence; an obscure widow who pines in secret indigence; a childless father, whose arms, enfeebled by age, cannot supply him with the means of life; she is not afraid that her bounty will increase the public charge, by encouraging idleness or knavery. The happiness she herself feels, multiplies and extends itself all around her. Every house she enters soon becomes a copy of her own: nor are convenience and order only copied from her example, but harmony and goodness become equally the objects of domestic management. When she goes abroad, she sees none but agreeable objects about her; and when she returns home she is saluted by others still more engaging. Her heart is delighted by every prospect that meets her eyes; and little susceptible as it is of self-love, it is led to love itself in the effects of its own benevolence. No, my Lord, I repeat it again; nothing that regards Eloisa can be indifferent to the cause of virtue. Her charms, her talents, her taste, her errors, her afflictions, her abode, her friends, her family, her pains, her pleasures, every thing, in short, that compleats her destiny, compose a life without example; such as few women would chuse to imitate, and yet such as all, in spite of themselves, must admire.

What pleases me most, in the solicitude which prevails here regarding the happiness of others is, that their benevolence is always exerted with prudence, and is never abused. We do not always succeed in our benevolent intentions; but, on the contrary, some people imagine they are doing great services, who are, in reality, doing great injuries; and, with a view to a little manifest good, are guilty of much unforeseen evil. Mrs. Wolmar indeed possesses, in an eminent degree, a qualification very rare, even among women of the best character; I mean an exquisite discernment in the distribution of her favours, and that as well in the choice of means to render them really useful, as of the persons on whom they are bestowed. For her conduct in this point, she has laid down certain rules to which she invariably adheres. She knows how to grant, or refuse, every thing that is asked of her, without betraying the least weakness in her compliance, or caprice in her denial. Whoever hath committed one infamous or wicked action, hath nothing to hope for from her but justice, and her pardon, if he has offended her; but never that favour and protection, which she can bestow on a worthier object. I heard her once refuse a favour, which depended on herself only, to a man of this stamp. “I wish you happy,” said she to him coldly, “but I shall not contribute any thing to make you so, lest I should put it in your power to injure others. There are too many honest people in the world, who require relief, for me to think of assisting you.” It is true this piece of just severity cost her dear, and it is but seldom she has occasion to exercise it. Her maxim is, to look upon all those as deserving people, of whose demerits she is not fully convinced; and there are few persons weak and wicked enough not to evade the full proofs of their guilt. She has none of that indolent charity of the wealthy, who give money to the miserable, to be excused from attending to their distress; and know how to answer their petitions only by giving alms. Her purse is not inexhaustible, and since she is become the mother of a family, she regulates it with more economy. Of all the kinds of relief we may afford to the unhappy, the giving alms is certainly that which costs us least trouble; but it is also the most transitory and least serviceable to the object relieved: Eloisa does not seek to get rid of such objects, but to be useful to them.

Neither does she grant her recommendation, or exert her good offices, without first knowing whether the use intended to be made of her interest be just and reasonable. Her protection is never refused to any one, who really stands in need of, and deserves to obtain it: but for those who desire to raise themselves through fickleness or ambition only, she can very seldom be prevailed upon to give herself any trouble. The natural business of man is to cultivate the earth, and subsist on its produce. The peaceful inhabitant of the country needs only to know in what happiness consists, to be happy. All the real pleasures of humanity are within his reach; he feels only those pains which are inseparable from it, those pains which whoever seeks to remove will only change for others more severe. [74] His situation is the only necessary, the only useful one in life. He is never unhappy, but when others tyrannize over him, or seduce him by their vices. In agriculture and husbandry consists the real prosperity of a country, the greatness and strength which a people derive from themselves, that which depends, not on other nations, which is not obliged to attack others for its own preservation, but is productive of the surest means of its own defence. In making an estimate of the strength of a nation, a superficial observer would visit the court, the prince, his posts, his troops, his magazines and his fortified towns; but the true politician would take a survey of the country, and visit the cottages of the husbandmen. The former would only see what is already executed, but the latter what was capable of being put into execution.

On this principle they proceed here, and yet more so at Etange: they contribute as much as possible to make the peasants happy in their condition, without ever assisting them to change it. The better, as well as the poorer, sort of people are equally desirous of sending their children to the cities, the one that they may study and become gentlemen, the others that they may find employment, and so ease their parents of the charge of maintaining them. The young people, on their part, have curiosity, and are generally fond of roving: the girls aspire to the dress and finery of the citizens; and the boys, most of them go into foreign service, thinking it better to return with the haughty and mean air of mercenaries, and a ridiculous contempt of their former condition, than with that love for their country and liberty which honourably distinguished their progenitors. It is the care of this benevolent family to remonstrate against these mistaken prejudices, to represent to the peasants the danger of their children’s principles; the ill consequences of sending them from home, and the continual risks they run of losing their life, fortune and morals, where a thousand are ruined for one who does well. If after all they continue obstinate, they are left at their own indiscretion, to run into vice and misery; and the care, which was thrown away on them is turned upon those who have listened to reason. This is exerted in teaching them to honour their native condition, by seeming to honour it ourselves: we do not converse with peasants, indeed, in the stile of courts; but we treat them with a grave and distant familiarity, which, without raising any one out of his station, teaches them to respect ours. There is not one honest labourer in the village, who does not rise greatly in his own estimation, when an opportunity offers of our shewing the difference of our behaviour to him, and to such petty visitants, who come home to make a figure, for a day or two, and to obscure their relations. Mr. Wolmar and the Baron, when he is here, seldom fail of being present at the exercises and reviews of the militia of the village and parts adjacent: their presence has a great effect on the youth of the country, who are naturally of a martial and spirited temper, and are extremely delighted to see themselves honoured with the presence of veteran officers. They are still prouder of their own merit, when they see soldiers retired from foreign service less expert than themselves: yet this they often do; for, do what you will, five pence a day, and the fear of being caned, will never produce that emulation which may be excited in a free man under arms, by the presence of his relations, his neighbours, his friends, his mistress, and the honour of his country.

Mrs. Wolmar’s great maxim is, therefore, never to encourage any one to change his condition, but to contribute all in her power to make every one happy in his present station; being particularly solicitous to present the happiest of all situations, that of a peasant in a free state, from being despised in favour of other employments.

I remember, I one day made an objection on this subject founded on the different talents which nature seems to have bestowed on mankind, in order to fit them for different occupations, without any regard to their birth. This she obviated, however, by observing that there were two more material things to be consulted, before talents: these were virtue and happiness. Man, said she, is too noble a being to be made a mere tool of for the use of others: he ought not to be employed in what he is fit for, without consulting how far such employment is fit for him; for we are not made for our stations, but our stations for us. In the right distribution of things therefore, we should not adapt men to circumstances, but circumstances to men; we should not seek that employment for which a man is best adapted, but that which is best adapted to make him virtuous and happy. For it can never be right to destroy one human soul for the temporal advantage of others, nor to make any man a villain for the use of honest people. Now, out of a thousand persons, who leave their native villages, there are not ten of them but what are spoiled by going to town, and become even more profligate than those who initiate them into vice. Those, who succeed and make their fortunes, frequently compass it by base and dishonest means; while the unsuccessful, instead of returning to their former occupation, rather chuse to turn beggars and thieves. But, supposing that one out of the thousand resist the contagion of example, and perseveres in the sentiments of honesty, do you think that upon the whole, his life is as happy as it might have been in the tranquil obscurity of his first condition.

It is no easy matter to discover the talents with which nature hath severally endowed us. On the contrary, it is very difficult to distinguish those of young persons the best educated and most attentively observed: how then shall a peasant, meanly bred, presume to judge of his own? There is nothing so equivocal as the genius frequently attributed to youth; the spirit of imitation has often a greater share in it than natural ability, and very often it depends more on accident than a determined inclination; nor does even inclination itself always determine the capacity. Real talents, or true genius, are attended with a certain simplicity of disposition, which makes it less restless and enterprising, less ready to thrust itself forward than a superficial and false one; which is nevertheless generally mistaken for the true, and consists only in a vain desire of making a figure without talents to support it. One of these geniuses hears the drum beat, and is immediately in idea a general; another sees a palace building, and directly commences architect. Thus Gustin, my gardener, from seeing some of my works, must needs learn to draw. I sent him to Lausanne to a master, and he imagines himself already a fine painter. The opportunity, and the desire of preferment, generally determine mens’ profession. But it is not enough to be sensible of the bent of our genius, unless we are willing to pursue it. Will a prince turn coachman, because he is expert at driving a set of horses? Will a duke turn cook, because he is ingenious at inventing ragouts? Our talents all tend to preferment; no one pretends to those which would fit him for an inferior station: do you think this is agreeable to the order of nature? Suppose every one sensible of his own talents, and as willing to employ them, how is it possible? How could they surmount so many obstacles? How could they overcome so many unworthy competitors? He, who finds in himself the want of abilities, would call in subtilty and intrigue to his aid; and thereby frequently becomes an overmatch for others of greater capacity and sincerity. Have you not told me yourself a hundred times, that the many establishments in favour of the arts have only been of prejudice to them? In multiplying indiscreetly the number of professors and academicians, true merit is lost in the crowd; and the honours, due to the most ingenious, are always bestowed on the most intriguing. Did there exist, indeed, a society, wherein the rank and employment of its respective members were exactly calculated to their talents and personal merit, every one might there aspire to the place he should be most fit for; but it is necessary to conduct ourselves by other rules, and give up that of abilities, in societies where the vilest of all talents is the only one that leads to fortune.

I will add further, continued she, that I cannot be persuaded of the utility of having so many different talents displayed. It seems necessary, the number of persons so qualified should be exactly proportioned to the wants of society; now if those only were appointed to cultivate the earth, who should have eminent talents for agriculture; or if all those were taken from that employment, who might be found more proper for some other, there would not remain a sufficient number of labourers to furnish the common necessaries of life. I am apt to think, therefore, that great talents in men are like great virtues in drugs, which nature has provided to cure our maladies, though its intention certainly was that we should never stand in need of them. In the vegetable creation there are plants which are poisonous: in the brutal animals that would tear us to pieces; and among mankind there are those who possess talents no less destructive to their species. Besides, if every thing were to be put to that use for which its qualities seem best adapted, it might be productive of more harm than good in the world. There are thousands of simple honest people, who have no occasion for a diversity of great talents; supporting themselves better by their simplicity, than others with all their ingenuity. But, in proportion as their morals are corrupted, their talents are displayed, as if to serve as a supplement to the virtues they have lost, and to oblige the vicious to be useful, in spite of themselves.

Another subject, on which we differed, was the relieving of beggars. As we live near a public road, great numbers are constantly passing by; and it is the custom of the house to give to every one that asks. I represented to her, that this practice was not only throwing that money away, which might be charitably bestowed on persons in real want; but that it tended to multiply beggars and vagabonds, who take pleasure in that idle life, and, by rendering themselves a burthen to society, deprive it of their labour.

I see very well, says she, you have imbibed prejudices, by living in great cities, and some of those maxims by which your complaisant reasoners love to flatter the hard-heartedness of the wealthy: you make use of their very expressions. Do you think to degrade a poor wretch below a human being, by giving him the contemptuous name of beggar? Compassionate as you really are, how could you prevail on yourself to make use of it? Repeat it no more, my friend, it does not come well from your lips: believe me, it is more dishonourable for the cruel man by whom it is used, than for the unhappy wretch who bears it. I will not pretend to decide whether those, who thus inveigh against the giving alms, are right or wrong; but this I know, that Mr. Wolmar, whose good sense is not inferior to that of your philosophers, and who has frequently told me of the arguments they use to suppress their natural compassion and sensibility, has always appeared to despise them, and has never disapproved of my conduct. His own argument is simple. We permit, says he, and even support at a great expense, a multitude of useless professions; many of which serve only to spoil and corrupt our manners. Now, to look upon the profession of a beggar as a trade, so far are we from having any reason to fear the like corruption of manners from the exercise of it, that, on the contrary, it serves to excite in us those sentiments of humanity, which ought to unite all mankind. Again, if we look upon begging as a talent, why should I not reward the eloquence of a beggar, who has art enough to excite my compassion, and induce me to relieve him, as well as I do a comedian, who on the stage makes me shed a few fruitless tears? If the one makes me admire the good actions of others, the other induces me to do a good action myself: all, that we feel at the representation of a tragedy, goes off as soon as we come out of the playhouse; but the remembrance of the unhappy object we have relieved gives continual pleasure. A great number of beggars may be burthensome to a state: but of how many professions, which are tolerated and encouraged, may we not say the same? It belongs to the legislature and administration to take care there should be no beggars; but, in order to make them lay down their trade, [75] is it necessary to make all other ranks of people inhuman and unnatural? For my part, continued Eloisa, without knowing what the poor may be to the state, I know they are all my brethren, and that I cannot, without thinking myself inexcusable, refuse them the small relief they ask of me. The greater part of them, I own, are vagabonds; but I know too much of life, to be ignorant how many misfortunes may reduce an honest man to such a situation; and how can I be sure, that an unhappy stranger, who comes, in the name of God, to implore my assistance, and to beg a poor morsel of bread, is not such an honest man, ready to perish for want, and whom my refusal may drive to despair? The alms I distribute at the door are of no great value. A half-penny and a piece of bread are refused to nobody; and twice the proportion is always given to such as are maimed or otherwise evidently incapable of labour. Should they meet with the same relief at every house, which can afford it, it would be sufficient to support them on their journey; and that is all a needy traveller has a right to expect. But, supposing this was not enough to yield them any real help, it is at least a proof that we take some part in their distress; a sort of salutation that softens the rigour of refusing them more. A half-penny and a morsel of bread cost little more, and are a more civil answer, than a mere God help you; which is too often the only thing bestowed, as if the gifts of providence were not placed in the hands of men, or that heaven had any other store on earth than what is laid up in the coffers of the rich. In short, whatever we ought to think of such unfortunate wretches, and though nothing should in justice be given to common beggars, we ought at least, out of respect to ourselves, to take some notice of suffering humanity, and not harden our hearts at the sight of the miserable.

This is my behaviour to those, who, without any other subterfuge or pretext, come openly a begging. With respect to such as pretend to be workmen, and complain for want of employment, we have here tools of almost every kind for them, and we set them to work. By this means we assist them and put their industry to the proof; a circumstance which is now so well known that the lazy cheat never comes again to the gate.

It is thus, my Lord, this angelic creature always deduces something from her own virtues, to combat those vain subtilties, by which people of cruel dispositions palliate their vices. The solicitude and pains she takes to relieve the poor, are also ranked among her amusements, and take up great part of the time she can spare from her most important duties. After having performed her duty to others, she then thinks of herself; and the means she takes to render life agreeable may be reckoned among her virtues: so commendable are her constant motives of action, that moderation and good sense are always mixed with her pleasures! She is ambitious to please her husband, who always delights in seeing her chearful and gay: she is desirous of instilling into her children a taste for innocent pleasures, wherein moderation order and simplicity prevail, and secure the heart from the violence of impetuous passions. She amuses herself, therefore, to divert them, as the dove softens the grain to nourish the young ones.

Eloisa’s mind and body are equally sensible. The same delicacy prevails as well in her senses as her sentiments. She was formed to know and taste every pleasure. Virtue having been long esteemed by her as the most refined of all delights, in the peaceful enjoyment of that supreme pleasure, she debars herself of none that are consistent with it; but then her method of enjoyment resembles the austerity of self- denial: not indeed of that afflicting and painful self-denial, which is hurtful to nature, and which its author rejects as ridiculous homage; but of that slight and moderate restraint, by which the empire of reason is preserved; and which serves as a whet to pleasure by preventing disgust. She will have it, that every thing which pleases the sense, and is not necessary to life, changes its nature, whenever it becomes habitual; that it ceases to be pleasant in becoming needful; that we thus by habit lay ourselves at once under a needless restraint and deprive ourselves of a real pleasure; and that the art of satisfying our desires lies not in indulging, but in suppressing, them. The method she takes to enhance the pleasures of the least amusement, is to deny herself the use of it twenty times for once that she enjoys it. Thus her mind preserves its first vigour; her taste is not spoiled by use; she has no need to excite it by excess; and I have often seen her take exquisite delight in a childish diversion, which would have been insipid to any other person on earth.

A still nobler object, which she proposes to herself from the exercise of this virtue, is that of remaining always mistress of herself, and thereby to accustom her passions to obedience, and to subject her inclinations to rule. This is a new way to be happy; for it is certain that we enjoy nothing with so little inquietude, as what we can part from without pain; and if the philosopher be happy, it is because he is the man from whom fortune can take the least.

But what appears to me the most singular in her moderation, is that she pursues it for the very same reasons which hurry the voluptuous into excess. Life is indeed short, says she, which is a reason for enjoying it to the end, and managing its duration in such a manner as to make the most of it. If one day’s indulgence and satiety deprives us of a whole year’s taste for enjoyment, it is bad philosophy to pursue our desires so far as they may be ready to lead us, without considering whether we may not out-live our faculties, and our hearts be exhausted before our time. I see that your common epicures, in order to let slip no opportunity of enjoyment, lose all; and, perpetually anxious in the midst of pleasures, can find no enjoyment in any. They lavish away the time of which they think they are economists, and ruin themselves, like misers, by not knowing how to give any thing away. For my part, I hold the opposite maxim; and should prefer, in this case, rather too much severity than relaxation. It sometimes happens that I break up a party of pleasure, for no other reason than that it is too agreeable; and, by repeating it another time, have the satisfaction of enjoying it twice.

Upon such principles are the sweets of life, and the pleasures of mere amusement, regulated here. Amidst her various application to the several branches of her domestic employment, Eloisa takes particular care that the kitchen is not neglected. Her table is spread with abundance; but it is not the destructive abundance of fantastic luxury: all the viands are common, but excellent, in their kind; the cookery is simple, but exquisite. All that consists in appearance only, whose nicety depends on the fashion, all your delicate and far- fetched dishes, whose scarcity is their only value, are banished from the table of Eloisa. Among the most delicious also of those which are admitted, they daily abstain from some; which they reserve in order to give an air of festivity to those meals for which they were intended, and which are thereby rendered more agreeable, without being more costly. But of what kind, think you, are these dishes which are so carefully husbanded? Choice game? Sea-fish? Foreign produce? No. Something better than all that. They are perhaps a particular choice salad of the country; fine greens of our own gardens; fish of the lake, dressed in a peculiar manner; cheese from the mountains; a German party, or game caught by some of the domestics. The table is served in a modest and rural but agreeable manner, chearfulness and gratitude crowning the whole. Your gilt covers, round which the guests sit starving with hunger; your pompous glasses, stuck out with flowers for the desert, are never introduced here, to take up the place intended for victuals; we are entirely ignorant of the art of satisfying hunger by the eye. But then no where do they so well know how to add welcome to good chear, to eat a good deal without eating too much, to drink chearfully without intoxication, to sit so long at table without being tired, and to rise from it without disgust. On the first floor there is a little dining room, different from that in which we usually dine, which is on the ground floor. This room is built in the corner of the house, and has windows in two aspects: those on one side over-look the garden, beyond which we have a prospect of the lake between the trees: on the other side, we have a fine view of a spacious vineyard, that begins to display the golden harvest which we shall reap in about two months. This room is small, but ornamented with every thing that can render it pleasant and agreeable. It is here Eloisa gives her little entertainments to her father, to her husband, to her cousin, to me, to herself, and sometimes to her children. When she orders the table to be spread there, we know immediately the design; and Mr. Wolmar has given it the name of the Saloon of Apollo: but this Saloon differs no less from that of Lucullus, in the choice of the persons entertained, than in that of the entertainment. Common guests are not admitted into it; we never dine there, when there are any strangers: it is the inviolable asylum of mutual confidence, friendship and liberty. The society of hearts is there joined to the social bond of the table; the entrance into it is a kind of initiation into the mysteries of a cordial intimacy; nor do any persons ever meet there but such as wish never to be separated. We wait impatiently for you, my Lord, who are to dine the very first day in the Apollo.

For my part, I was not at first admitted to that honour, which was reserved for me till after my return from Mrs. Orbe’s. Not that I imagined they could add any thing to the obliging reception I met with on my arrival; but the supper, made for me there, gave me other ideas. It is impossible to describe the delightful mixture of familiarity, chearfulness, and social ease, which I then experienced, and had never before tasted in my whole life. I found myself more at liberty without being told to assume it, and we seemed even to understand one another much better than before. The absence of the domestics, who were dismissed from their attendance, removed that reserve which I still felt at heart; and it was then that I first, at the instance of Eloisa, resumed the custom I had laid aside for many years, of drinking wine after meals.

I was enraptured at this repast, and wished that all our meals might have been made in the same manner. I knew nothing of this delightful room, said I to Mrs. Wolmar; why don’t you always eat here? See, replied she, how pretty it is! Would it not be a pity to spoil it? This answer seemed too much out of character for me not to suspect she had some farther meaning. But why, added I, have you not the same conveniences below, that the servants might be sent away, and leave us to talk more at liberty? That, replied she, would be too agreeable, and the trouble of being always at ease is the greatest in the world. I immediately comprehended her system by this, and concluded that her art of managing her pleasures consisted in being sparing of them.

I think she dresses herself with more care than formerly; the only piece of vanity I ever reproached her for, being that of neglecting her dress. The haughty fair one had her reasons, and left me no pretext to disown her power. But, do all she could, my enchantment was too strong for me to think it natural; I was too obstinate in attributing her negligence to art. Not that the power of her charms is diminished; but she now disdains to exert it; and I should be apt to say, she affected a greater neatness in her dress that she might appear only a pretty woman, had I not discovered the reason for her present solicitude in this point. During the first two or three days I was mistaken; for, not reflecting that she was dressed in the same manner at my arrival, which was unexpected, I thought she had done it out of respect to me. I was undeceived, however, in the absence of Mr. Wolmar. For the next day she was not attired with that elegance, which so eminently distinguished her the preceding evening, nor with that affecting and voluptuous simplicity which formerly enchanted me; but with a certain modesty that speaks through the eyes to the heart, that inspires respect only, and to which beauty itself but gives additional authority. The dignity of wife and mother appeared in all her charms; the timid and affectionate looks she cast on me, were now mixed with an air of gravity and grandeur, which seemed to cast a veil over her features. In the mean time, she betrayed not the least alteration in her behaviour; her equality of temper, her candor knew nothing of affectation. She practiced only a talent natural to her sex, to change sometimes our sentiments and ideas of them, by a different dress, by a cap of this form, or a gown of that colour. The day on which she expected her husband’s return, she again found the art of adorning her natural charms without hiding them; she came from her toilet indeed a dazzling beauty, and I saw she was not less capable to outshine the most splendid dress, than to adorn the most simple. I could not help being vexed, when I reflected on the cause of her preparation.

This taste for ornament extends itself, from the mistress of the house, through all the family. The master, the children, the servants, the equipage, the building, the garden, the furniture, are all set off and kept in such order as shews what they are capable of, though magnificence is despised:----I do not mean true magnificence, and which consists less in the expense, than in the good order and noble disposition of things. [76]

For my own part, I must confess it appears to me a more grand and noble sight, to see a small number of people happy in themselves and in each other, in a plain modest family, than to see the most splendid palace filled with tumult and discord, and every one of its inhabitants taking advantage of the general disorder, and building up their own fortunes and happiness on the ruin of another. A well- governed private family forms a single object, agreeable and delightful to contemplate; whereas, in a riotous palace, we see only a confused assemblage of various objects, whose connection and dependence are merely apparent. At first sight, indeed, they seem operating to one end; but in examining them nearer, we are soon undeceived.

To consult only our most natural impressions, it should seem that, to despise luxury and parade, we need less of moderation than of taste. Symmetry and regularity are pleasing to every one. The picture of ease and happiness must affect every heart; but a vain pomp, which relates neither to regularity nor happiness, and has only the desire of making a figure in the eyes of others for its object, however favourable an idea it may excite in us of the person who displays it, can give little pleasure to the spectator. But what is taste? Does not a hundred times more taste appear in the order and construction of plain and simple things, than in those which are over-loaded with finery? What is convenience? Is any thing in the world more inconvenient than pomp and pageantry? [77] What is grandeur? It is precisely the contrary. When I see the intention of an architect to build a large palace, I immediately ask myself why it is not larger? Why does not the man, who keeps fifty servants, if he aims at grandeur, keep an hundred? That fine silver plate, why is it not gold? The man who gilds his chariot, why does he not also gild the ceiling of his apartment? If his ceilings are gilt, why does not gild the roof too? He, who was desirous of building an high tower, was right in his intention to raise it up to heaven; otherwise it was to no purpose to build, as the point where he might at last stop, would only serve to shew, at the greater distance, his want of ability. O man! vain and feeble creature! Shew me thy power, and I will shew thee thy misery!

A regularity in the disposal of things, every one of which is of real use, and all confined to the necessaries of life, not only presents an agreeable prospect but as it pleases the eye, at the same time gives content to the heart. For a man views them always in a pleasing light, as relating to and sufficient for himself. The picture of his own wants or weakness does not appear, nor does the chearful prospect affect him with sorrowful reflections. I defy any sensible man to contemplate, for an hour, the palace of a prince, and the pomp which reigns there, without falling into melancholy reflections, and bemoaning the lot of humanity. On the contrary, the prospect of this house, with the uniform and simple life of its inhabitants, diffuse over the mind of the spectator a secret pleasure, which is perpetually increasing. A small number of good-natured people, united by their mutual wants and reciprocal benevolence, concur by their different employments in promoting the same end; every one, finding in his situation all that is requisite to contentment, and not desiring to change it, applies himself as if he thought to stay here all his life; the only ambition among them being that of properly discharging their respective duties. There is so much moderation in those who command, and so much zeal in those who obey, that equals might agree to distribute the same employments among them, without any one having reason to complain of his lot. No one envies that of another; no one thinks of augmenting his fortune, but by adding to the common good: the master and mistress estimating their own happiness by that of their domestics and the people about them. One finds here nothing to add or diminish, because here is nothing, but what is useful, and that indeed is all that is to be found; insomuch that nothing is wanted which may not be had, and of that there is always a sufficiency. Suppose, now, to all this were added, lace, pictures, lustres, gilding; in a moment you would impoverish the scene. In seeing so much abundance in things necessary, and no mark of superfluity, one is now apt to think, that if those things were the objects of choice, which are not here, they would be had in the same abundance. In seeing also so plentiful a provision made for the poor, one is led to say, This house cannot contain its wealth. This seems to me to be true magnificence.

Such marks of opulence, however, surprized me, when I first heard what fortune must support it. You are ruining yourselves, said I to Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar; it is impossible so moderate a revenue can supply so much expense. They laughed at me, and soon convinced me, that, without retrenching any of their family expenses, they could, if they pleased, lay up money and increase their estate, instead of diminishing it. Our grand secret, to grow rich, said they, is to have as little to do with money as possible, and to avoid, as much as may be, those intermediate exchanges, which are made between the harvest and the consumption. None of those exchanges are made without some loss; and such losses, if multiplied, would reduce a very good estate to little or nothing, as by means of brokerage a valuable gold box may fetch in a sale the price only of a trifling toy. The expense of transporting our produce is avoided, by making use of some part on the spot, and that of exchange, by using others in their natural state. And as for the indispensable necessity of converting those in which we abound for such as we want, instead of making pecuniary bargains, we endeavour to make real exchanges, in which the convenience of both parties supplies the place of profit.

I conceive, answered I, the advantages of this method; but it does not appear to me without inconvenience. For, besides the trouble to which it must subject you, the profit must be rather apparent than real, and what you lose in the management of your own estate, probably over- balances the profits the farmers would make of you. The peasants are better economists, both in the expenses of cultivation, and in gathering their produce, than you can be. That, replied, Mr. Wolmar, is a mistake; the peasant thinks less of augmenting the produce than of sparing his expenses, because the cost is more difficult for him to raise than the profits are useful. The tenant’s view is not so much to increase the value of the land, as to lay out but little on it; and if he depends on any certain gain, it is less by improving the soil, than exhausting it. The best that can happen, is, that instead of exhausting, he quite neglects it. Thus, for the sake of a little ready money, gathered in with ease, an indolent proprietor prepares for himself, or his children, great losses, much trouble, and sometimes the ruin of his patrimony.

I do not deny, continued Mr. Wolmar, that I am at a much greater expense in the cultivation of my land, than a farmer would be; but then I myself reap the profit of his labour, and the culture being much better than his, my crop is proportionably larger: so that, though I am at a greater expense, I am still, upon the whole, a gainer. Besides, this excess of expense is only apparent, and is, in reality, productive of great economy; for, were we to let out our lands for others to cultivate, we should be ourselves idle: we must live in town, where the necessaries of life are dear; we must have amusements, that would cost us much more than those we take here. The business, which you call a trouble, is at once our duty and our delight; and, thanks to the regulation it is under, is never troublesome: on the contrary, it serves to employ us, instead of those destructive schemes of pleasure, which people in town run into, and which a country life prevents, whilst that which contributes to our happiness becomes our amusement.

Look round you, continued he, and you will see nothing but what is useful; yet all these things cost little, and save a world of unnecessary expense. Our table is furnished with nothing but viands of our own growth; our dress and furniture are almost all composed of the manufactures of the country: nothing is despised with us because it is common, nor held in esteem because it is scarce. As every thing, that comes from abroad, is liable to be disguised and adulterated, we confine ourselves, as well through nicety as moderation, to the choice of the best home commodities, the quality of which is less dubious. Our viands are plain, but choice; and nothing is wanting to make ours a sumptuous table, but the transporting it a hundred leagues off; in which case every thing would be delicate, every thing would be rare, and even our trouts of the lake would be thought infinitely better, were they to be eaten at Paris.

We observe the same rule in the choice of our apparel, which you see is not neglected; but its elegance is the only thing we study, and not its cost, and much less its fashion. There is a wide difference between the price of opinion and real value. The latter, however, is all that Eloisa regards; in choosing a gown, she enquires not so much whether the pattern be old or new, as whether the stuff be good and becoming. The novelty of it is even sometimes the cause of her rejecting it, especially when it enhances the price, by giving it an imaginary value.

You should further consider, that the effect of every thing here arises less from itself than from its use, and its dependencies; insomuch that out of parts of little value, Eloisa has compounded a whole of great value. Taste delights in creating and stamping upon things a value of its own: as the laws of fashion are inconstant and destructive, hers is economical and lasting.

What true taste once approves must be always good, and though it be seldom in the mode, it is, on the other hand, never improper. Thus, in her modest simplicity, she deduces, from the use and fitness of things, such sure and unalterable rules, as will stand their ground when the vanity of fashions is no more. The abundance of mere necessaries can never degenerate into abuse; for what is necessary has its natural bounds, and our real wants know no excess. One may lay out the price of twenty suits of cloaths in buying one, and eat up at a meal the income of a whole year; but we cannot wear two suits at one time, nor dine twice the same day. Thus the caprice of opinion is boundless, whereas nature confines us on all sides; and he, who, with a moderate fortune, contents himself with living well, will run no risk of ruin.

Hence, you see, continued the prudent Wolmar, in what manner a little economy and industry may lift us out of the reach of fortune. It depends only on ourselves to increase ours, without changing our manner of living; for we advance nothing but with a view of profit, and whatever we expend puts us soon in a condition to expend much more.

And yet, my Lord, nothing of all this appears at first sight: the general air of affluence, and profusion, hides that order and regularity to which it is owing. One must be here some time to perceive those sumptuary laws, which are productive of so much ease and pleasure; and it is with difficulty that one at first comprehends how they enjoy what they spare. On reflection, however, one’s satisfaction increases, because it is plain that the source is inexhaustible, and that the art of enjoying life serves at the same time to prolong it. How can any one be weary of a state so conformable to that of nature? How can he waste his inheritance by improving it every day? How ruin his fortune, by spending only his income? When one year provides for the next, what can disturb the peace of the present? The fruits of their past labour support their present abundance, and those of their present labour provide a future plenty: they enjoy at once what is expended and what is received, and both past and future times unite in the security of the present.

I have looked into all the particulars of domestic management, and find the same spirit extend itself throughout the whole. All their lace and embroidery are worked in the house; all their cloth is spun at home, or by poor women supported by their charity. Their wool is sent to the manufactories of the country, from whence they receive cloth, in exchange, for cloathing the servants. Their wine, oil, and bread, are all made at home; and they have woods, of which they cut down regularly what is necessary for firing. The butcher is paid in cattle, the grocer in corn, for the nourishment of his family; the wages of the workmen and the servants are paid out of the produce of the lands they cultivate; the rent of their houses in town serves to furnish those they inhabit in the country; the interest of their money in the public funds furnishes a subsistence for the masters, and also the little plate they have occasion for. The sale of the corn and wine, which remain, furnishes a fund for extraordinary expenses; a fund which Eloisa’s prudence will never permit to be exhausted, and which her charity will not suffer to increase. She allows for matters of mere amusement the profits, only, of the labour done in the house, of the grubbing up uncultivated land, of planting trees, &c. Thus the produce and the labour always compensating each other, the balance cannot be disturbed; and it is impossible, from the nature of things, it should be destroyed.

Add to this, that the abstinence, which Eloisa imposes on herself, through that voluptuous temperance I have mentioned, is at once productive of new means of pleasure, and new resources of economy. For example, she is very fond of coffee, and, when her mother was living, drank it every day. But she has left off that practice, in order to heighten her taste for it, now drinking it only when she has company, or in her favourite dining room, in order to give her entertainments the air of a treat. This is a little indulgence which is the more agreeable, as it costs her little, and at the same time restrains and regulates her appetite. On the contrary, she studies to discover and gratify the taste of her father and husband with an unwearied attention; a charming prodigality which makes them like every thing so much the more, for the pleasure they see she takes in providing it. They both love to sit a little after meals, in the manner of the Swiss; on which occasions, particularly after supper, she never fails to treat them with a bottle of wine more old and delicate than common. I was at first deceived by the fine names she gave to her wines, which, in sac, I found to be extremely good; and, drinking them as wines of the growth of the countries whose names they bore, I took Eloisa to task for so manifest a breach of her own maxims; but she laughed at me and put me in mind of a passage in Plutarch, where Flaminius compares the Asiatic troops of Antiochus, distinguished by a thousand barbarous names, to the several ragouts under which a friend of his had disguised one and the same kind of meat. It is just so, said she, with these foreign wines. The Lisbon, the Sherry, the Malaga, the Champagne, the Syracuse, which you have drank here with so much pleasure, are all, in fact, no other than wines of this country, and you see from hence the vineyard that produced them. If they are inferior in quality to the celebrated wines, whose names they bear, they are also without their inconveniences; and as one is certain of the materials of which they are composed, they may be drank with less danger. I have reason to believe, continued she, that my father and husband like them as well as more scarce and costly wines. Eloisa’s wines, indeed, says Mr. Wolmar to me, have a taste which pleases us better than any others, and that arises from the pleasure she takes in preparing them. Ah! returned she, then they will be always exquisite.

You will judge whether, amidst such a variety of business, that indolence and want of employment, which make company, visitings, and such formal society necessary, can find any place here. We visit our neighbours, indeed, just enough to keep up an agreeable acquaintance, but too little to be slaves to each other’s company. Our guests are always welcome, but are never invited or intreated. The rule here is to see just so much company as to prevent the losing a taste for retirement; rural occupation supplying the place of amusements: and to him, who finds an agreeable and peaceful society in his own family, all other company is insipid. The manner, however, in which we pass our time, is too simple and uniform to tempt many people, but it is the disposition of those, who have adopted it, that makes it delightful. How can persons of a sound mind be wearied with discharging the most endearing and pleasing duties of humanity, and with rendering each other’s lives mutually happy? Satisfied every night with the transactions of the day, Eloisa wishes for nothing different on the morrow. Her constant morning prayer is, that the present day may prove like the past. She is engaged perpetually in the same round of business, because no alteration would give her more pleasure. Thus, without doubt, she enjoys all the happiness of which human life is capable: for is not our being pleased with the continuation of our lot a certain sign that we are happy? One seldom sees in this place those knots of idle people, which are usually called good company; but then one beholds those who interest our affections infinitely more, such as peaceable peasants, without art, and without politeness; but honest, simple, and contented in their station: old officers retired from the service; merchants wearied with application to business, and tired of growing rich; prudent mothers of families, who bring their children to the school of modesty and good manners: such is the company Eloisa assembles about her. To these her husband sometimes adds some of those adventurers, reformed by age and experience, who, having purchased wisdom at their own cost, return, without reluctance, to cultivate their paternal soil, which they wish they had never left. When any one relates at table the occurrences of their lives, they consist not of the marvellous adventures of the wealthy Sindbad, recounting, in the midst of eastern pomp and effeminacy, how he acquired his vast wealth. Their tales are the simple narratives of men of sense, who, from the caprice of fortune, and the injustice of mankind, are disgusted with the vain pursuit of imaginary happiness, and have acquired a taste for the objects of true felicity.

Would you believe that even the conversation of peasants hath its charms for these elevated minds, of whom the philosopher himself might be glad to profit in wisdom? The judicious Wolmar discovers in their rural simplicity more characteristical distinction, more men that think for themselves, than under the uniform mask worn in great cities, where every one appears what other people are, rather than what he is himself. The affectionate Eloisa finds their hearts susceptible of the smallest offers of kindness, and that they esteem themselves happy in the interest she takes in their happiness. Neither their hearts nor understandings are formed by art; they have not learned to model themselves after the fashion, and are less the creatures of men than those of nature.

Mr. Wolmar often picks up, in his rounds, some honest old peasant, whose experience and understanding give him great pleasure. He brings him home to Eloisa, by whom he is received in a manner which denotes, not her politeness, or the dignity of her station, but the benevolence and humanity of her character. The good man is kept to dinner; Eloisa placing him next herself, obligingly helping him, and asking kindly after his family and affairs. She smiles not at his embarrassment, nor takes notice of the rusticity of his manners; but by the ease of her own behaviour frees him from all restraint, maintaining throughout that tender and affectionate respect, which is due to an infirm old age, honoured by an irreproachable life. The venerable old man is enraptured, and, in the fullness of heart, seems to experience again the vivacity of youth. In drinking healths to a young and beautiful lady, his half-frozen blood grows warm; and he begins to talk of former times, the days of his youth, his amours, the campaigns he has made, the battles he has been in, of the magnanimity and feats of his fellow soldiers, of his return to his native country, of his wife, his children, his rural employments, the inconveniencies he has remarked, and the remedies he thinks may be applied to remove them: during which long detail, he often lets fall some excellent, moral, or useful lesson in agriculture, the dictates of age and experience; but be there even nothing in what he says, so long as he takes a pleasure in saying it, Eloisa would take pleasure in hearing.

After dinner she retires into her own apartment, to fetch some little present for the wife or daughter of the good old man. This is presented to him by the children, who in return receive some trifle of him, with which she had secretly provided him for that purpose. Thus she initiates them betimes, to that intimate and pleasing benevolence, which knits the bond of society between persons of different conditions. The children are accordingly accustomed to respect old age, to esteem simplicity of manners, and to distinguish merit in all ranks of people. The young peasants, on the other hand, seeing their fathers thus entertained at a gentleman’s house, and admitted to the master’s table, take no offence at being themselves excluded; they think such exclusion not owing to their rank, but their age; they don’t say, We are too poor, but, we are too young to be thus treated. Thus the honour done to their aged parents, and their hope of one day enjoying the same distinction, make them amends for being debarred from it at present, and excite them to become worthy of it. At his return home to his cottage, their delighted guest impatiently produces the presents he has brought his wife and children, who are over-joyed at the honour done them; the good old man, at the same time, eagerly relating to them the reception he met with, the dainties he has eaten, the wines he has tasted, the obliging discourse and conversation, the affability of the gentlefolks, and the assiduity of the servants; in the recital of all which, he enjoys it a second time, and the whole family partake of the honour done to their head. They join in concert to bless that illustrious house, which affords at once an example to the rich and an asylum for the poor, and whose generous inhabitants disdain not the indigent, but do honour to grey hairs. Such is the incense that is pleasing to benevolent minds; and, if there be any prayers to which heaven lends a gracious ear, they are certainly, not those which are offered up by meanness and flattery, in the hearing of the person prayed for, but such as the grateful and simple heart dictates in secret, beneath its own roof.

It is thus, that agreeable and affectionate sentiments give charms to a life, insipid to indifferent minds: it is thus, that business, labour, and retirement, become amusing by the art of managing them. A sound mind knows how to take delight in vulgar employments, as a healthful body relishes the most simple aliments. All those indolent people, who are diverted with so much difficulty, owe their disgust to their vices, and lose their taste for pleasure only with that of their duty. As to Eloisa, it is directly contrary; the employment, which a certain languor of mind made her formerly neglect, becomes now interesting from the motive that excites to it: One must be totally insensible to be always without vivacity. She formerly sought solitude and retirement, in order to indulge her reflections on the object of her passion; at present she has acquired new activity, by having formed new and different connections. She is not one of those indolent mothers of a family, who are contented to study their duty when they should discharge it, and lose their time in inquiring after the business of others, which they should employ in dispatching their own. Eloisa practises at present what she learnt long ago. Her time for reading and study has given place to that of action. As she rises an hour later than her husband, so she goes an hour later to bed. This hour is the only time she employs in study; for the day is not too long for the various business in which she is engaged.

This, my Lord, is what I had to say to you concerning the economy of this house and of the retired life of those who govern it. Contented in their station, they peaceably enjoy its conveniences; satisfied with their fortune, they seek not to augment it for their children; but to leave them, with the inheritance they themselves received, an estate in good condition, affectionate servants, a taste for employment, order, moderation, and for every thing that can render delightful and agreeable to men of sense the enjoyment of a moderate fortune, as prudently preserved as honestly acquired.

CXXXVII. To Lord B

We have had visitors for some days past. They left us yesterday, and we renewed that agreeable society subsisting between us three, which is by so much the more delightful, as there is nothing, even in the bottom of our hearts, that we desire to hide from each other. What a pleasure do I take, in resuming a new being, which renders me worthy of your confidence. At every mark of esteem which I receive from Eloisa and her husband, I say to myself, with an air of self- sufficiency, At length I may venture to appear before Lord B----. It is with your assistance, it is under your eyes, that I hope to do honour to my present situation by my past follies. If an extinguished passion casts the mind into a state of dejection, a passion subdued adds to the consciousness of victory, a new elevation of sentiment, a more lively attachment to all that is sublime and beautiful. Shall I lose the fruit of a sacrifice, which hath cost me so dear? No, my Lord; I feel that, animated by your example, my heart is going to profit by all those arduous sentiments it has conquered. I feel, that it was necessary for me to be what I was, in order for me to become what I am.

After having thrown away six days, in frivolous conversation with persons indifferent to us, we passed yesterday morning, after the manner of the English, in company and silence; tasting at once the pleasure of being together and the sweetness of self-recollection. How small a part of mankind know any thing of the pleasures of this situation! I never saw a person in France who had the least idea of it. The conversation of friends, say they, can never be exhausted. It is true, the tongue may easily find words for common attachments: but friendship, my Lord, friendship! thou animating celestial sentiment! what language is worthy of thee? What tongue presumes to be thy interpreter? Can any thing spoken to a friend equal what is felt in his company? Good God I how many things are conveyed by a squeeze of the hand, by an animating look, by an eager embrace, by a sigh that rises from the bottom of the heart! And how cold in comparison is the first word which is spoken after that! I shall never forget the evenings I passed at Besancon, those delightful moments sacred to silence and friendship. Never, Oh B----! Thou noblest of men! sublimest of friends! No, never have I undervalued what you then did for me; never have my lips presumed to mention it. It is certain, that this state of contemplation affords the greatest delight to susceptible minds. But I have always observed, that impertinent visitors prevent one from enjoying it, and that friends ought to be by themselves, to be at liberty to say nothing. At such a time one should be, if one may use the expression, collected in each other; the least avocation is destructive, the least constraint is insupportable. It is then so sweet to pronounce the dictates of the heart without restraint. It seems as if one dared to think freely only of what one can as freely speak; it seems as if the presence of a stranger restrained the sentiment, and compressed those hearts, which could so fully dictate themselves alone.

Two hours passed away in this silent extasy, more delightful, a thousand times, than the frigid repose of the deities of Epicurus. After breakfast, the children came, as usual, into the apartment of Eloisa; who, instead of retiring and shutting herself up with them in the work-room, according to custom, kept them with her, as if to make them some amends for the time they had lost without seeing us:----and we none of us parted till dinner. Harriot, who begins to know how to handle her needle, sat at work before Fanny, who was weaving lace, and rested her cushion on the back of her little chair. The two boys were busy at a table turning over the leaves of a book of prints, the subject of which the eldest explained to the younger; Harriot, who knew the whole by heart, being attentive to, and correcting him when wrong: and sometimes, pretending to be ignorant what figures they were at, she made it a pretence to rise, and go backwards and forwards from the chair to the table. During these little lessons, which were given and taken with little pains and less restraint, the younger boy was playing with some counters which he had secreted under the book. Mrs. Wolmar was at work on some embroidery near the window opposite the children, and her husband and I were still sitting at the tea-table, reading the Gazette, to which she gave but little attention. But when we came to the article, which mentions the illness of the king of France, and the singular attachment of his people, unequalled by any thing but that of the Romans for Germanicus, she made some reflections on the disposition of that affectionate and benevolent nation, whom all the world hate, whilst they have no hatred to any one; adding, that she envied only a sovereign the power of making himself beloved. To this her husband replied, You have no need to envy a sovereign, who have so long had us all for your subjects. On which she turned her head, and cast a look on him so affecting and tender, that it struck me prodigiously. She said nothing indeed; for what could she say equal to such a look? Our eyes met: and I could perceive, by the manner in which her husband pressed my hand, that the same emotion had affected us all three, and that the delightful influence of her expansive heart diffused itself around, and triumphed over insensibility itself.

We were thus disposed when that silent scene began, of which I just now spoke: you may judge, that it was not the consequence of coldness or chagrin. It was first interrupted by the little management of the children; who, nevertheless, as soon as we left off speaking, moderated their prattle, as if afraid of disturbing the general silence. The little teacher was the first that lowered her voice, made signs to the others, and ran about on tip toe, while their play became the more diverting by this light constraint. This scene, which seemed to present itself in order to prolong our tenderness, produced its natural effect.

Ammutiscon le lingue, e parlan l’alme.

How many things may be said without opening one’s lips! How warm the sentiments that may be communicated, without the cold interposition of speech! Eloisa insensibly permitted her attention to be engaged by the same object. Her eyes were fixed on the three children; and her heart, ravished with the most enchanting extasy, animated her charming features with all the affecting sweetness of maternal tenderness.

Thus given up to this double contemplation, Wolmar and I were indulging our reveries, when the children put an end to them. The eldest, who was diverting himself with the prints, seeing the counters prevented his brother from being attentive, took an opportunity, when he had piled them up, to give them a knock and throw them down on the floor. Marcellin fell a crying; and Eloisa, without troubling herself to quiet him, bid Fanny pick up the counters. The child was immediately hushed; the counters were nevertheless not brought him, nor did he begin to cry again as I expected. This circumstance, which however was nothing in itself, recalled to my mind a great many others, to which I had given no attention; and when I think of them, I don’t remember ever to have seen children, with so little speaking to, give so little trouble. They hardly ever are out of their mother’s sight, and yet one can hardly perceive they are in company. They are lively and playful, as children of their age should be, but never clamorous or teizing; they are already discreet, before they know what discretion is. But what surprizes me most, is, that all this appears to be brought about of itself; and that, with such an affectionate tenderness for her children, Eloisa seems to give herself so little concern about them. In fact, one never sees her very earnest to make them speak or hold their tongues, to make them do this or let that alone. She never disputes with them; she never contradicts them in their amusements: so that one would be apt to think she contented herself with seeing and loving them; and that when they have passed the day with her, she had discharged the whole duty of a mother towards them.

But, though this peaceable tranquility appears more agreeable in contemplation than the restless solicitude of other mothers, yet I was not a little surprized at an apparent indolence, so little agreeable to her character. I would have had her even a little discontented, amidst so many reasons to the contrary; so well doth a superfluous activity become maternal affection! I would willingly have attributed the goodness of the children to the care of the mother; and should have been glad to have observed more faults in them, that I might have seen her more solicitous to correct them.

Having busied myself with these reflections a long time in silence, I at last determined to communicate them to her. I see, said I, one day, that heaven rewards virtuous mothers, in the good disposition of their children; but the best disposition must be cultivated. Their education ought to begin from the time of their birth. Can there be a time more proper to form their minds, than when they have received no impression that need to be effaced? If you give them up to themselves in their infancy, at what age do you expect them to be docile? While you have nothing else to teach them, you ought to teach them obedience. Why, returned she, do my children disobey me? That were difficult, said I, as you lay no commands upon them. On this she looked at her husband and laughed; then, taking me by the hand, she led me into the closet, that we might converse without being heard by the children.

Here, explaining her maxims at leisure, she discovered to me, under that air of negligence, the most vigilant attention of maternal tenderness. I was a long time, said she, of your opinion with regard to the premature instruction of children; and while I expected my first child, was anxious concerning the obligations I should soon have to discharge. I used often to speak to Mr. Wolmar on that subject. What better guide could I take than so sensible an observer, in whom the interest of a father was united to the indifference of a philosopher? He fulfilled, and indeed surpassed my expectations. He soon made me sensible, that the first and most important part of education, precisely that which all the world neglects, [78] is that of preparing a child to receive instruction.

The common error of parents, who pique themselves on their own knowledge, is to suppose their children capable of reasoning as soon as they are born, and to talk to them as if they were grown persons before they can speak. Reason is the instrument they use, whereas every other means ought first to be used in order to form that reason; for it is certain, that, of all the knowledge which men acquire, or are capable of acquiring, the art of reasoning is the last and most difficult to learn. By talking to them, at so early an age, in a language they do not understand, they learn to be satisfied with mere words; to talk to others in the same manner; to contradict every thing that is said to them; to think themselves as wise as their teachers: and all that one thinks to obtain by reasonable motives, is in fact acquired only by those of fear or vanity.

The most consummate patience would be wearied out, by endeavouring to educate a child in this manner: and thus it is that, fatigued and disgusted with the perpetual importunity of their children, their parents, unable to support the noise and disorder they themselves have given rise to, are obliged to part with them, and to deliver them over to the care of a master; as if one could expect in a preceptor more patience and good-nature than in a father.

Nature, continued Eloisa, would have children be children before they are men. If we attempt to pervert that order, we produce only forward fruit, which has neither maturity nor flavour, and will soon decay; we raise young professors and old children. Infancy has a manner of perceiving, thinking and feeling, peculiar to itself. Nothing is more absurd than to think of substituting ours in its stead; and I would as soon expect a child of mine to be five foot high, as to have a mature judgment, at ten years old.

The understanding does not begin to form itself till after some years, and when the corporeal organs have acquired a certain confidence. The design of nature is therefore evidently to strengthen the body, before the mind is exercised. Children are always in motion; rest and reflection is inconsistent with their age; a studious and sedentary life would prevent their growth and injure their health; neither their body nor mind can support restraint. Shut up perpetually in a room with their books, they lose their vigour, become delicate, feeble, sickly, rather stupid than reasonable; and their minds suffer, during their whole lives, for the weakness of their bodies.

But, supposing such premature instruction were as profitable as it is really hurtful to their understandings, a very great inconvenience would attend the application of it to all indiscriminately, without regard to the particular genius of each. For, besides the constitution common to its species, every child at its birth possesses a peculiar temperament, which determines its genius and character; and which it is improper either to pervert or restrain; the business of education being only to model and bring it to perfection. All these characters are, according to Mr. Wolmar, good in themselves: for nature, says he, makes no mistakes. [79] All the vices imputed to malignity of disposition are only the effect of the bad form it hath received. According to him, there is not a villain upon earth, whose natural propensity, well directed, might not have been productive of great virtues; nor is there a wrong-head in being, that might not have been of use to himself and society, had his natural talents taken a certain bias; just as deformed and monstrous images are rendered beautiful and proportionable, by placing them in a proper point of view. Every thing, says he, tends to the common good in the universal system of nature. Every man has his place assigned in the best order and arrangement of things; the business is to find out that place, and not to disturb such order. What must be the consequence then of an education begun in the cradle, and carried on always in the same manner, without regard to the vast diversity of temperaments and genius in mankind? Useless or hurtful instructions would be given to the greater part, while at the same time they are deprived of such as would be most useful and convenient; nature would be confined on every side, and the greatest qualities of the mind defaced, in order to substitute in their place mean and little ones, of no utility. By using indiscriminately the same means with different talents, the one serves to deface the other, and all are confounded together. Thus, after a great deal of pains thrown away in spoiling the natural endowments of children, we presently see those transitory and frivolous ones of education decay and vanish, while those of nature, being totally obscured, appear no more: and thus we lose at once what we have pulled down, and what we have raised up. In a word, in return for so much pains indiscreetly taken, all these little prodigies become wits without sense, and men, without merit, remarkable only for their weakness and insignificancy.

I understand your maxims, said I to Eloisa; but I know not how to reconcile them with your own opinion on the little advantage arising from the display of the genius and natural talents of individuals, either respecting their own happiness or the real interests of society. Would it not be infinitely better to form a perfect model of a man of sense and virtue, and then to form every child by education after such a model, by animating one, retraining another, by regulating its passions, improving its understanding, and thus correcting nature?----Correcting nature! says Mr. Wolmar, interrupting me, that is a very fine expression; but before you make use of it, pray reply to what Eloisa has already advanced.

The most significant reply, as I thought, was to deny the principle on which her arguments were founded; which I accordingly did. You suppose, said I, that the diversity of temperament and genius, which distinguish individuals, is the immediate work of nature; whereas nothing is less evident. For, if our minds are naturally different, they must be unequal; and if nature has made them unequal, it must be by endowing some, in preference to others, with a more refined perception, a greater memory, or a greater capacity of attention. Now, as to perception and memory, it is proved by experience, that their different degrees of extent or perfection are not the standard of genius and abilities; and as to a capacity of attention, it depends solely on the force of the passions by which we are animated; and it is also proved that all mankind are by nature susceptible of passions, strong enough to excite in them that degree of attention necessary to a superiority of genius.

If a diversity of genius, therefore, instead of being derived from nature, be the effect of education; that is to say, of the different ideas and sentiments, which objects excite in us during our infancy, of the various circumstances in which we are engaged, and of all the impressions we receive; so far should we be from waiting to know the character of a child before we give it education, that we should, on the contrary, be in haste to form its character by giving it a proper education.

To this he replied, that it was not his way to deny the existence of any thing, because he could not explain it. Look, says he, upon those two dogs in the court-yard. They are of the same litter; they have been fed and trained together; have never been parted; and yet one of them is a brisk, lively, good-natured, docible cur; while the other is lumpish, heavy, cross-grained, and incapable of learning any thing. Now their difference of temperament, only, can have produced in them that of character, as the difference of our interior organization produces in us that of our minds: in every other circumstance they have been alike.----Alike! interrupted I; what a vast difference may there not have been, though unobserved by you? How many minute objects may not have acted on the one, and not on the other! How many little circumstances may not have differently affected them, which you have not perceived! Very pretty indeed, says he; so, I find you reason like the astrologers; who, when two men are mentioned of different fortune yet born under the same aspect, deny the identity of circumstances. On the contrary, they maintain, that, on account of the rapidity of the heavenly motions, there must have been an immense distance between the themes, in the horoscope, of the one and the other; and that, if the precise moment of their births had been carefully noted, the objection had been converted into a proof.

But, pray, let us leave these subtilties, and confine ourselves to observation. This may teach us, indeed, that there are characters which are known almost at the birth, and children that may be studied at the breast of their nurses: but these are of a particular class, and receive their education in beginning to live. As for others, who are later known, to attempt to form their genius before their characters are distinguished, is to run a risk of spoiling what is good in their natural dispositions, and substituting what is worse in its place. Did not your master Plato maintain, that all the art of man, that all philosophy could not extract from the human mind what nature had not implanted there; as all the operations in chemistry are incapable of extracting from any mixture more gold than is already contained in it? This is not true of our sentiments or our ideas; but it is true of our disposition or capacity of acquiring them. To change the genius, one must be able to change the interior organization of the body; to change a character, one must be capable of changing the temperament on which it depends. Have you ever heard of a passionate man’s becoming patient and temperate, or of a frigid methodical genius having acquired a spirited imagination? For my own part, I think it would be just as easy to make a fair man brown, or a blockhead a man of sense. ’Tis in vain then to attempt to model different minds by one common standard. One may restrain, but we can never change them: one may hinder men from appearing what they are, but can never make them really otherwise; and, though they disguise their sentiments in the ordinary commerce of life, you will see them reassume their real characters on every important occasion. Besides, our business is not to change the character, and alter the natural disposition of the mind, but, on the contrary, to improve and prevent its degenerating; for by these means it is, that a man becomes what he is capable of being, and that the work of nature is compleatd by education. Now, before any character can be cultivated, it is necessary that it should be studied; that we should patiently wait its opening; that we should furnish occasions for it to display itself; and that we should forbear doing any thing, rather than doing wrong. To one genius it is necessary to give wings, and to another shackles; one should be spurred forward, another reined in; one should be encouraged, another intimidated; sometimes it should be checked, and at others assisted. One man is formed to extend human knowledge to the highest degree; to another it is even dangerous to learn to read. Let us wait for the opening of reason; it is that which displays the character, and gives it its true form: it is by that also it is cultivated, and there is no such thing as education before the understanding is ripe for instruction.

As to the maxims of Eloisa, which you think opposite to this doctrine, I see nothing in them contradictory to it: on the contrary, I find them, for my own part, perfectly compatible. Every man at his birth brings into the world with him, a genius, talents and character peculiar to himself. Those, who are destined to live a life of simplicity in the country, have no need to display their talents in order to be happy: their unexerted faculties are like the gold mines of the Valais, which the public good will not permit to be opened. But in a more polished society, where the head is of more use than the hands, it is necessary that all the talents nature hath bestowed on men should be exerted; that they should be directed to that quarter, in which they can proceed the furthest; and above all, that their natural propensity should be encouraged by every thing which can make it useful. In the first case, the good of the species only is consulted; every one acts in the same manner; example is their only rule of action; habit their only talent; and no one exerts any other genius than that which is common to all: Whereas in the second case we consult the interest and capacity of individuals; if one man possess any talent superior to another, it is cultivated and pursued as far as it will reach; and if a man be possessed of adequate abilities, he may become the greatest of his species. These maxims are so little contradictory, that they have been put in practice in all ages. Instruct not therefore the children of the peasant, nor of the citizen, for you know not as yet what instruction is proper for them. In every case let the body be formed, till the judgment begins to appear: then is the time for cultivation.

All this would seem very well, said I, if I did not see one inconvenience, very prejudicial to the advantages you promise yourself from this method; and this is, that children, thus left to themselves, will get many bad habits, which can be prevented only by teaching them good ones. You may see such children readily contract all the bad practices they perceive in others, because such examples are easily followed, and never imitate the good ones, which would cost them more trouble. Accustomed to have every thing, and to do as they please on every occasion, they become mutinous, obstinate and intractable.---- But, interrupted Mr. Wolmar, it appears to me that you have remarked the contrary in ours, and that this remark has given rise to this conversation. I must confess, answered I, this is the very thing which surprizes me. What can she have done to make them so tractable? What method hath she taken to bring it about? What has she substituted instead of the yoke of discipline? A yoke much more inflexible, returned he immediately, that of necessity: but, in giving you an account of her conduct, you will be better able to comprehend her views. He then engaged Eloisa to explain her method of education; which, after a short pause, she did in the following manner.

“Happy, my dear friend, are those who are well-born! I lay not so great a stress as Mr. Wolmar does on my own endeavours. I doubt much, notwithstanding his maxims, that a good man can ever be made out of a child of a bad disposition and character. Convinced, nevertheless, of the excellence of his method, I endeavoured to regulate my conduct, in the government of my family, in every respect agreeable to him. My first hope is, that I shall never have a child of a vicious disposition; my second, that I shall be able to educate those God has given me, under the direction of their father, in such a manner, that they may one day have the happiness of possessing his virtues. To this end I have endeavoured to adopt his rules by giving them a principle less philosophical, and more agreeable to maternal affection; namely to make my children happy. This was the first prayer of my heart after I was a mother, and all the business of my life is to effect it. From the first time I held my eldest son in my arms, I have reflected that the state of infancy is almost a fourth part of the longest life; that men seldom pass through the other three fourths; and that it is a piece of cruel prudence to make that first part uneasy, in order to secure the happiness of the rest, which may never come. I reflected, that during the weakness of infancy, nature had oppressed children in so many different ways, that it would be barbarous to add to that oppression the empire of our caprices, by depriving them of a liberty so very much confined, and which they were so little capable of abusing. I resolved, therefore, to lay mine under as little constraint as possible; to leave them to the free exertion of all their little powers; and to suppress in them none of the emotions of nature. By these means I have already gained two great advantages; the one, that of preventing their opening minds from knowing any thing of falsehood, vanity, anger, envy, and in a word of all those vices which are the consequences of subjection, and which one is obliged to have recourse to, when we would have children do what nature does not teach: the other is, that they are more at liberty to grow and gather strength, by the continual exercise which instinct directs them to. Accustomed, like the children of peasants, to expose themselves to the heat and cold, they grow as hardy; are equally capable of bearing the inclemencies of the weather; and become more robust as living more at their ease. This is the way to provide against the age of maturity, and the accidents of humanity. I have already told you, that I dislike that destructive pusillanimity, which, by dint of solicitude and care, enervates a child, torments it by constant restraint, confines it by a thousand vain precautions, and, in short, exposes it during its whole life to those inevitable dangers it is thus protected from but for a moment; and thus, in order to avoid catching a few colds while children, men lay up for themselves consumptions, pleurisies, and a world of other diseases.

What makes children, left thus to themselves, acquire the ill habits you speak of, is that, not contented with their own liberty, they endeavour to command others; which is owing to the absurd indulgence of too many fond mothers, who are to be pleased only by indulging all the fantastical desires of their children. I flatter myself, my friend, that you have seen in mine nothing like the desire of command and authority, even over the lowest domestic; and that you have seen me countenance as little the false complaisance and ceremony used to them. It is in this point, that I think I have taken a new and more certain method to make my children at once free, easy, obliging and tractable and that on a principle the most simple in the world, which is, by convincing them they are but children.

To consider the state of infancy in itself, is there a being in the universe more helpless or miserable; that lies more at the mercy of every thing about it; that has more need of pity and protection, than an infant? Does it not seem, that, on this account, the first noise which nature directs it to make is that of crying and complaint? Does it not seem, that nature gives it an affecting and tender appearance, in order to engage every one who approaches it, to assist its weakness, and relieve its wants? What, therefore, can be more offensive, or contrary to order, than to see a child pert and imperious, commanding every one about him, and assuming impudently the tone of a master over those who, should they abandon him, would leave him to perish? Or can any thing be more absurd than to see parents approve such behaviour, and encourage their children to tyrannise over their nurses, till they are big enough to tyrannise over the parents themselves?

As to my part, I have spared no pains to prevent my son’s acquiring the dangerous idea of command and servitude, and have never given him room to think himself attended more out of duty than pity. This point is, perhaps, the most difficult and important in education; nor can I well explain it, without entering into all those precautions which I have been obliged to take, to suppress in him that instinctive knowledge, which is so ready to distinguish the mercenary service of domestics from the tenderness of maternal solicitude.

One of my principal methods has been, as I have just observed, to convince him of the impossibility of his subsisting at his age, without our assistance. After which I had no great difficulty to shew him, that, in receiving assistance from others, we lay ourselves under obligations to them, and are in a state of dependence; and that the servants have a real superiority over him, because he cannot do without them, while he, on the contrary, can do them no service: so that instead of being vain of their attendance, he looks upon it with a sort of humiliation, as a mark of his weakness, and ardently wishes for the time, when he shall be big and strong enough to have the honour of serving himself.”

These notions, I said, would be difficult to establish in families, where the father and mother themselves are waited on like children; but in this, where every person has some employment allotted him, even from the master and mistress to the lowest domestic; where the intercourse between them apparently consists only of reciprocal services, I do not think it impossible: but I am at a loss to conceive how children, accustomed to have their real wants so readily satisfied, can be prevented from expecting the same gratification of their imaginary wants or humours; or how it is that they do not sometimes suffer from the humour of a servant, who may treat their real wants as imaginary ones.

“Oh, my friend, replied Mrs. Wolmar, an ignorant woman may frighten herself at any thing, or nothing. But the real wants of children, as well as grown persons, are very few; we ought rather to regard the duration of our ease than the gratifications of a single moment. Do you think, that a child, who lies under no restraint, can suffer so much from the humour of a governess, under the eye of its mother, as to hurt it? You imagine inconveniencies, which arise from vices already contracted, without reflecting that my care has been to prevent such vices from being contracted at all. Women naturally love children; and no misunderstanding would arise between them, except from the desire of one to subject the other to their caprices. Now that cannot happen here, neither on the part of the child, of whom nothing is required, nor on that of the governess, whom the child has no notion of commanding. I have in this acted directly contrary to other mothers, who in appearance would have their children obey the domestics, and in reality require the servants to obey the children: here neither of them command nor obey; but the child never meets with more complaisance, from any person, than he shews for them. Hence, perceiving that he has no authority over the people about him, he becomes tractable and obliging; in seeking to gain the esteem of others, he contracts an affection for them in turn: this is the infallible effect of self-love; and from this reciprocal affection, arising from the notion of equality, naturally result those virtues, which are constantly preached to children, without any effect.

I have thought, that the most essential part in the education of children, and which is seldom regarded in the best families, is to make them sensible of their inability, weakness and dependence, and, as my husband called it, the heavy yoke of that necessity which nature has imposed on our species; and that, not only in order to shew them how much is done to alleviate the burthen of that yoke, but especially to instruct them betimes in what rank providence has placed them, that they may not presume too far above themselves, or be ignorant of the reciprocal duties of humanity.

Young people, who from their cradle have been brought up in ease and effeminacy, who have been caressed by every one, indulged in all their caprices, and have been used to obtain easily every thing they desired; enter upon the world with many impertinent prejudices, of which they are generally cured by frequent mortifications, affronts and chagrin. Now I would willingly spare my children this second kind of education, by giving them, at first, a just notion of things. I had indeed once-resolved to indulge my eldest son in every thing he wanted, from a persuasion that the first impulses of nature must be good and salutary: but I was not long in discovering, that children, conceiving from such treatment that they have a right to be obeyed, depart from a state of nature almost as soon as born; contracting our vices from our example, and theirs by our indiscretion. I saw, that if I indulged him in all his humours, they would only increase by such indulgence; that it was necessary to stop at some point, and that contradiction would be but the more mortifying, as he should be less accustomed to it: but that it might be less painful to him, I began to use him to it by degrees; and in order to prevent his tears and lamentations, I made every denial irrecoverable. It is true, I contradict him as little as possible, and never without due consideration. Whatever is given or permitted him, is done unconditionally and at the first instance; and in this we are indulgent enough: but he never gets any thing by importunity, neither his tears nor intreaties being of any effect. Of this he is now so well convinced, that he makes no use of them; he goes his way on the first word, and frets himself no more at seeing a box of sweetmeats taken away from him, than at seeing a bird fly away, which he would be glad to catch; there appearing to him the same impossibility of having the one as the other; and so far from beating the chairs and tables, that he dares not lift his hand against those who oppose him. In every thing that displeases him, he feels the weight of necessity, the effect of his own weakness, but never----excuse me a moment, says she, seeing I was going to reply; I foresee your objection and am coming to it immediately.

The great cause of the ill humour of children is the care which is taken either to quiet or to aggravate them. They will sometimes cry for an hour, for no other reason in the world than because they perceive we would not have them. So long as we take notice of their crying, so long have they a reason for continuing to cry; but they will soon give over of themselves, when they see no notice is taken of them: for, old or young, nobody loves to throw away his trouble. This is exactly the case with my eldest boy, who was once the most peeviest little bawler, stunning the whole house with his cries; whereas now you can hardly hear there is a child in the house. He cries, indeed, when he is in pain; but then it is the voice of nature, which should never be restrained; and he is again hushed as soon as ever the pain is over. For this reason I pay great attention to his tears, as I am certain he never sheds them for nothing: and hence I have gained the advantage of being certain when he is in pain and when not; when he is well and when sick; an advantage which is lost with those who cry out of mere humour, and only in order to be appeased. I must confess, however, that this management is not to be expected from nurses and governesses: for, as nothing is more tiresome than to hear a child cry, and as these good women think of nothing but the time present, they do not foresee, that by quieting it to day, it will cry the more tomorrow. But what is still worse, this indulgence produces an obstinacy which is of more consequence as the child grows up. The very cause that makes it a squawler at three years of age, will make it stubborn and refractory at twelve, quarrelsome at twenty, imperious and insolent at thirty, and insupportable all its life.

I come now to your objection, added she, smiling. In every indulgence granted to children, they can easily see our desire to please them, and therefore they should be taught to suppose we have reason for refusing or complying with their requests. This is another advantage gained by making use of authority, rather than persuasion, on every necessary occasion. For, as it is impossible they can always be blind to our motives, it is natural for them to imagine that we have some reason for contradicting them, of which they are ignorant. On the contrary, when we have once submitted to their judgment, they will pretend to judge of every thing; and thus become cunning, deceitful, fruitful in shifts and chicanery, endeavouring to silence those who are weak enough to argue with them: for, when one is obliged to give them an account of things above their comprehension, they attribute the most prudent conduct to caprice, because they are incapable of understanding it. In a word, the only way to render children docile and capable of reasoning, is not to reason with them at all; but to convince them, that it is above their childish capacities; for they will always suppose the argument in their favour, unless you can give them good cause to think otherwise. They know very well that we are unwilling to displease them, when they are certain of our affection; and children are seldom mistaken in this particular: therefore, if I deny any thing to my children, I never reason with them; I never tell them why I do so or so; but I endeavour, as much as possible, that they should find it out; and that even after the affair is over. By these means they are accustomed to think that I never deny them any thing without a sufficient reason, though they cannot always see it.

On the same principle it is, that I never suffer my children to join in the conversation of grown persons, or foolishly imagine themselves upon an equality with them, because they are permitted to prattle. I would have them give a short and modest answer, when they are spoke to, but never to speak of their own head, or ask impertinent questions of persons so much older than themselves, to whom they ought to shew more respect.”

These, interrupted I, are very rigid rules, for so indulgent a mother as Eloisa. Pythagoras himself was not more severe with his disciples. You are not only afraid to treat them like men, but seem to be fearful lest they should too soon cease to be children. By what means can they acquire knowledge more certain and agreeably, than by asking questions of those who know better than themselves? What would the Parisian ladies think of your maxims, whose children are never thought to prattle too much or too long: they judge of their future understanding, by the nonsense and impertinence they utter when young? That may not be amiss, Mr. Wolmar will tell me, in a country where the merit of the people lies in chattering, and a man has no business to think, if he can but talk. But I cannot understand how Eloisa, who is so desirous of making the lives of her children happy, can reconcile that happiness with so much restraint; nor amidst so much confinement, what becomes of the liberty with which she pretends to indulge them.

“What, says she, with impatience, do we restrain their liberty, by preventing them from trespassing on ours? And cannot they be happy, truly, without a whole company’s sitting silent to admire their puerilities? To prevent the growth of their vanity is a surer means to effect their happiness: for the vanity of mankind is the source of their greatest misfortunes, and there is no person so great or so admired, whose vanity has not given him much more pain than pleasure. [80]

What can a child think of himself, when he sees a circle of sensible people listening to, admiring, and waiting impatiently for, his wit, and breaking out in raptures at every impertinent expression? Such false applause is enough to turn the heart of a grown person; judge then what effect it must have upon that of a child. It is with the prattle of children, as with the predictions in the Almanac. It would be strange, if amidst such a number of idle words, chance did not now and then jumble some of them into sense. Imagine the effect which such flattering exclamations must have on a simple mother, already too much flattered by her own heart. Think not, however that I am proof against this error, because I expose it. No, I see the fault, and yet am guilty of it. But, if I sometimes admire the repartees of my son, I do it at least in secret. He will not learn to become a vain prater, by hearing me applaud him; nor will flatterers have the pleasure, in making me repeat them, of laughing at any weakness.

I remember one day, having company, I went out to give some necessary orders, and on my return found four or five great blockheads busy at play with my boy; they came immediately to tell me, with great rapture, the many pretty things he had been saying to them, and with which they seemed quite charmed. Gentlemen, said I, coldly, I doubt not but you know how to make puppets say very fine things; but I hope my children will one day be men, when they will be able to act and talk of themselves; I shall then be always glad to hear what they have said and done well. Seeing this manner of paying their court did not take, they since play with my children, but not as with Punchinello; and to say the truth, they are evidently better, since they have been less admired.

As to their asking questions, I do not prohibit it indiscriminately. I am the first to tell them to ask, softly, of their father or me, what they desire to know. But I do not permit them to break in upon a serious conversation, to trouble every body with the first piece of impertinence that comes into their heads. The art of asking questions is not quite so easy as may be imagined. It is rather that of a master, than of a scholar. The wise know and enquire, says the Indian proverb, but the ignorant know not even what to enquire after. For want of such previous instruction, children, when at liberty to ask questions as they please, never ask any but such as are frivolous and answer no purpose, or such difficult ones whose solution is beyond their comprehension. Thus, generally speaking, they learn more by the questions which are asked of them, than from those which they ask of others.

But were this method, of permitting them to ask questions, as useful as it is pretended to be, is not the first and most important science to them, that of being modest and discreet? and is there any other that should be preferred to this? Of what use then is an unlimited freedom of speech to children, before the age at which it is proper for them to speak? Or the right of impertinently obliging persons to answer their childish questions? These little chattering querists ask questions, not so much for the sake of instruction, as to engage one’s notice. This indulgence, therefore, is not so much the way to instruct them, as to render them conceited and vain; an inconvenience much greater, in my opinion, than the advantage they gain by it: for ignorance will by degrees diminish, but vanity will always increase.

The worst that can happen from too long a reserve, will be, that my son, when he comes to years of discretion, will be less fluent in speech, and may want that volubility of tongue, and multiplicity of words, which he might otherwise have acquired: but when we consider how much the custom of passing away life in idle prattle, impoverishes the understanding, this happy sterility of words appears rather an advantage than otherwise. Shall the organ of truth, the most worthy organ of man, the only one whose use distinguishes him from the brutes, shall this be prostituted to no better purposes than those, which are answered as well by the inarticulate sounds of other animals? He degrades himself even below them, when he speaks and says nothing; a man should preserve his dignity, as such, even in his lightest amusements. If it be thought polite to stun the company with idle prate, I think it a much greater instance of true politeness to let others speak before us; to pay a greater deference to what is said, than to what we say ourselves; and to let them see we respect them too much, to think they can be entertained by our nonsense. The good opinion of the world, that which makes us courted and caressed by others, is not obtained so much by displaying our own talents, as by giving others an opportunity of displaying theirs, and by placing our own modesty as a foil to their vanity. You need not be afraid that a man of sense, who is silent only from reserve and discretion, should ever be taken for a fool. It is impossible in any country whatever, that a man should be characterised by what he has not said, or that he should be despised for being silent.

On the contrary, it may be generally observed, that people of few words impose silence on others who pay an extraordinary attention to what they say, which gives them every advantage of conversation. It is so difficult for the most sensible man to retain his presence of mind, during the hurry of a long discourse; so seldom that something does not escape him, that he afterwards repents of, that it is no wonder if he chuses to suppress what is pertinent, to avoid the risk of talking nonsense.

But there is a great difference between six years of age and twenty; my son will not be always a child, and in proportion as his understanding ripens, his father designs it shall be exercised. As to my part, my task does not extend so far. I may nurse children, but I have not the presumption to think of making them men. I hope, says she, looking at her husband, this will be the employment of more able heads. I am a woman and a mother, and know my place and my duty; and hence, I say again, it is not my duty to educate my sons, but to prepare them for being educated.

Nor do I any thing more in this than pursue the system of Mr. Wolmar, in every particular; which, the farther I proceed, the more reason I find to pronounce excellent and just. Observe my children, particularly the eldest; have you ever seen children more happy, more chearful, or less troublesome? You see them jump, and laugh, and run about all day, without incommoding any one. What pleasure, what independence, is their age capable of, which they do not enjoy, or which they abuse? They are under as little restraint in my presence, as when I am absent. On the contrary, they seem always at more liberty under the eye of their mother, than elsewhere; and, though I am the author of all the severity they undergo, they find me always more indulgent than any body else: for I cannot support the thought of their not loving me better than any other person in the world. The only rules imposed on them in our company, are those of liberty itself, viz they must lay the company under no greater restraint, than they themselves are under; they must not cry louder than we talk; and as they are not obliged to concern themselves with us, they are not to expect our notice. Now, if ever they trespass against such equitable rules as these, all their punishment is, to be immediately sent away; and I make this a punishment, by contriving to render every other place disagreeable to them. Setting this restriction aside, they are, in a manner, quite unrestrained; we never oblige them to learn any thing; never tire them with fruitless corrections; never reprimand them for trifles; the only lessons which are given them being those of practice. Every person in the house, having my directions, is so discreet and careful in this business, that they leave me nothing to wish for; and, if any defect should arise, my own assiduity would easily repair it.

Yesterday, for example, the eldest boy, having taken a drum from his brother, set him a crying. Fanny said nothing to him, at the time; but about an hour after, when she saw him in the height of his amusement, she in her turn took it from him, which set him a crying also. What, said she, do you cry for? You took it just now, by force, from your brother, and now I take it from you; what have you to complain of? Am not I stronger than you? She then began to beat the drum, as if she took pleasure in it. So far all went well, till sometime after, she was going to give the drum to the younger, but I prevented her, as this was not acting naturally, and might create envy between the brothers. In losing the drum, the youngest submitted to the hard law of necessity; the elder, in having it taken from him, was sensible of his injustice: both knew their own weakness, and were in a moment reconciled.”

A plan, so new, and so contrary to received opinions, at first surprized me. By dint of explanation, however, they at length represented it in an admirable light, and I was made sensible that the path of nature is the best. The only inconvenience, which I find in this method, and which appeared to me very great, was to neglect the only faculty which children possess in perfection, and which is only debilitated by their growing into years. Methinks, according to their own system of education, that the weaker the understanding, the more one ought to exercise and strengthen the memory, which is then so proper to be exercised. It is that, said I, which ought to supply the place of reason; it is enriched by judgment. [81] The mind becomes heavy and dull by inaction. The seed takes no root in a soil badly prepared, and it is a strange manner of preparing children to become reasonable, by beginning to make them stupid. How! stupid! cried Mrs. Wolmar immediately. Do you confound two qualities so different, and almost contrary, as memory and judgment? As if an ill-digested and unconnected lumber of things, in a weak head, did not do more harm than good to the understanding. I confess, that, of all the faculties of the human mind, the memory is the first which opens itself, and is the most convenient to be cultivated in children: but which, in your opinion, should be preferred, that which is most easy for them to learn, or that which is most important for them to know? Consider the use which is generally made of this aptitude, the eternal constraint to which they are subject in order to display their memory, and then compare its utility to what they are made to suffer. Why should a child be compelled to study languages he will never talk, and that even before he has learnt his own tongue? Why should he be forced incessantly to make and repeat verses he does not understand, and whose harmony all lies at the end of his fingers; or be perplexed to death with circles and triangles, of which he has no idea; or why burthened with an infinity of names of towns and rivers, which he constantly mistakes, and learns anew every day? Is this to cultivate the memory to the improvement of the understanding, or is all such frivolous acquisition worth one of those many tears it costs him? Were all this, however, merely useless, I should not so much complain of it; but is it not pernicious to accustom a child to be satisfied with mere words? Must not such a heap of crude and indigested terms and notions be injurious to the formation of those primary ideas with which the human understanding ought first to be furnished? And would it not be better to have no memory at all, than to have it stuffed with such a heap of literary lumber, to the exclusion of necessary knowledge!

If nature has given to the brain of children that softness of texture, which renders it proper to receive every impression, it is not fit for us to imprint the names of sovereigns, dates, terms of art, and other insignificant words of no meaning to them while young, nor of any use to them as they grow old: but it is our duty to trace out betimes all those ideas which are relative to the state and condition of humanity, those which relate to their duty and happiness, that they may serve to conduct them through life in a manner agreeable to their being and faculties. The memory of a child may be exercised, without poring over books. Every thing he sees, every thing he hears, catches his attention, and is stored up in his memory: he keeps a journal of the actions and conversation of men, and from every scene that presents itself, deduces something to enrich his memory. It is in the choice of objects, in the care to shew him such only as he ought to know, and to hide from him those of which he ought to be ignorant, that the true art of cultivating the memory consists.

You must not think, however, continued Eloisa, that we entirely neglect that care on which you think so much depends. A mother, if she is the least vigilant, holds in her hands the reins over the passions of her children. There are ways and means to excite in them a desire of instruction; and so far as they are compatible with the freedom of the child, and tend not to sow in him the seeds of vice, I readily employ them, without being chagrined if they are not attended with success: for there is always time enough for knowledge, but not a moment should be lost in forming the disposition. Mr. Wolmar lays, indeed, so great a stress on the first dawnings of reason, that he maintains, though his son should be totally ignorant at twelve years old, he might know not a whit the less at fifteen; without considering that nothing is less necessary than for a man to be a scholar, and nothing more so than for him to be just and prudent. You know that our eldest reads already tolerably well. I will tell you how he became fond of it; I had formed a design to repeat to him, from time to time, some fable out of la Fontaine, and had already begun, when he asked me one day, seriously, if ravens could talk. I saw immediately the difficulty of making him sensible of the difference between fable and falsehood, and laying aside la Fontaine, got off as well as I could, being from that moment convinced that fables were only proper for grown persons, and that simple truth only should be repeated to children. In the room of la Fontaine, therefore, I substituted a collection of little interesting and instructive histories, taken mostly from the bible; and, finding he grew attentive to these tales, I composed others as entertaining as possible, and applicable to present circumstances. These I wrote out fair, in a fine book ornamented with prints, which I kept locked up, except at the times of reading. I read also but seldom, and never long at a time, repeating often the same story, and commenting a little, before I passed on to another. When I observed him particularly intent, I pretended to recollect some orders necessary to be given, and left the story unfinished just in the most interesting part, laying the book down negligently, and leaving it behind me. I was no sooner gone than he would take it up, and go to his Fanny or somebody else, begging them to read the remainder of the tale; but as nobody was at his command, and every one had his instructions, he was frequently refused. One would give him a flat denial, another had something else to do, a third muttered it out very low and badly, and a fourth would leave it in the middle, just as I had done before. When we saw him heartily wearied out with so much dependence, somebody intimated to him, to learn to read himself, and then he need not ask any body, but might turn it over at pleasure. He was greatly delighted with the scheme; but, where should he find any one obliging enough to instruct him? This was a new difficulty, which we took care, however, not to make too great. In spite of this precaution, he was tired out three or four times; but of this I took no other notice, than to endeavour to make my little histories the more amusing, which brought him again to the charge with so much ardour, that though it is not six months since he began to learn, he will be very soon able to read the whole collection, without any assistance.

It is in this manner I endeavour to excite his zeal and inclination, to attain such knowledge as requires application and patience; but though he learns to read, he gets no such knowledge from books, for there is no such in the books he reads, nor is the application to it proper for children. I am desirous also of furnishing their heads with ideas, and not with words; for which reason I never set them to get any thing by heart.

Never! said I, interrupting her, that is saying a great deal. Surely you have taught him his prayers and his catechism! There you are mistaken, she replied. As to the article of prayers, I say mine, every morning and evening, aloud in the nursery, which is sufficient to teach them, without obliging them to learn. As to their catechism, they know not what it is. What! Eloisa! your children never learn their catechism! No, my friend, my children do not learn their catechism. Indeed! said I, quite surprized, so pious a mother!----I really do not comprehend you. Pray what is the reason they do not learn it? The reason is, said she, that I would have them some time or other believe it: I would have them be Christians. I understand you, I replied; you would not have their faith consist in mere words; you would have them believe, as well as know, the articles of their religion; and you judge very prudently that it is impossible for a man to believe what he does not understand. You are very difficult, said Mr. Wolmar, smiling; pray, were you a Christian by chance? I endeavour to be one, answered I, resolutely. I believe all that I understand of the Christian religion, and respect the rest, without rejecting it. Eloisa made me a sign of approbation, and we resumed the former subject of conversation; when, after explaining herself on several other subjects, and convincing me of her active and indefatigable maternal zeal, she concluded by observing, that her method exactly answered the two objects she proposed, namely, the permitting the natural disposition and character of her children to discover themselves, and empowering herself to study and examine it.

My children, continued she, lie under no manner of restraint, and yet cannot abuse their liberty. Their disposition can neither be depraved nor perverted; their bodies are left to grow, and their judgments to ripen at ease and leisure: subjection debases not their minds nor does flattery excite their self-love; they think themselves neither powerful men nor enslaved animals, but children happy and free. To guard them from vices, not in their nature, they have in my opinion, a better preservative than lectures which they would not understand, or of which they would soon be tired. This consists in the good behaviour of those about them; in the good conversation they hear, which is so natural to them all, that they stand in no need of instruction; it consists in the peace and unity of which they are witnesses; in the harmony which is constantly observed, and in the conduct and conversation of every one around them. Nursed hitherto in natural simplicity, whence should they derive those vices, of which they have never seen the example? Whence those passions they have no opportunity to feel, those prejudices which nothing they observe can impress? You see they betray no bad inclination; they have adopted no erroneous notions. Their ignorance is not opinionated, their desires are not obstinate; their propensity to evil is prevented, nature is justified, and every thing serves to convince me, that the faults we accuse her of, are not those of nature but our own.

It is thus that, given up to the indulgence of their own inclinations, without disguise or alteration, our children do not take an external and artificial form, but preserve exactly that of their original character. It is thus that character daily unfolds itself to observation, and gives us an opportunity to study the workings of nature, even to her most secret principles. Sure of never being reprimanded or punished, they are ignorant of lying or concealing any thing from us; and in whatever they say, whether before us or among themselves, they discover, without restraint, whatever lies at the bottom of their hearts. Being left at full liberty to prattle all day long to each other, they are under no restraint before me. I never check them, enjoin them to silence, or indeed pretend to take notice of what they say, while they talk sometimes very blameably, though I seem to know nothing of the matter. At the same time, however, I listen to them with attention, and keep an exact account of all they say and do; for these are the natural productions of the soil which we are to cultivate. A naughty word in their mouths is a plant or seed foreign to the soil, sown by the vagrant wind: should I cut it off by a reprimand, it would not fail ere long to shoot forth again. Instead of that, therefore, I look carefully to find its root, and pluck it up. I am only, said she, smiling, the servant of the gardener; I only weed the garden, by taking away the vicious plants: it is for him to cultivate the good ones.

It must be confessed also that with all the pains I may take, I ought to be well seconded to succeed, and that such success depends on a concurrence of circumstances, which is perhaps to be met with no where but here. The knowledge and discretion of a sensible father are required, to distinguish and point out in the midst of established prejudices, the true art of governing children from the time of their birth; his patience is required to carry it into execution, without ever contradicting his precepts by his practice; it is necessary that one’s children should be happy in their birth, and that nature should have made them amiable; it is necessary to have none but sensible and well disposed servants about one, who will not fail to enter into the design of their matter. One brutal or servile domestic would be enough to spoil all. In short, when one thinks how many adventitious circumstances may injure the best designs, and spoil the best- concerted projects, one ought to be thankful to Providence for every thing that succeeds, and to confess that wisdom depends greatly on good fortune. Say rather, I replied, that good fortune depends on prudence. Don’t you see that the concurrence of circumstances, on which you felicitate yourself, is your own doing, and that every one who approaches you is, in a manner, compelled to resemble you? O ye mothers of families! when you complain that your views, your endeavours, are not seconded, how little do you know your own power! Be but what you ought, and you will surmount all obstacles; you will oblige every one about you to discharge their duty, if you but discharge yours. Are not your rights those of nature? In spite of the maxims or practice of vice, these will be always respected by the human heart. Do you but aspire to be women and mothers, and the most gentle empire on earth will be also the most respectable.

In the close of our conversation Eloisa remarked that her task was become much easier since the arrival of Harriot. It is certain, said she, I should have had less trouble if I would have excited a spirit of emulation between the brothers. But this step appeared to me too dangerous; I chose, therefore, rather to take more pains, and to run less risk. Harriot has made up for this; for, being of a different sex, their elder, fondly beloved by both, and very sensible for her age, I make a kind of governess of her, and with the more success, as her lessons are less suspected to be such.

As to herself, her education falls under my care; but the principles on which I proceed are so different, as to deserve particular explanation. Thus much, at least, I can say of her already, that it will be difficult to improve on the talents nature has given her, and that her merit is equal to her mother’s, if her mother could possible have an equal.

We now, my Lord, expect you every day here, so that this should be my last letter. But I understand the reason of your stay with the army, and tremble for the consequence. Eloisa is no less uneasy, and desires you will oftener let her hear from you; conjuring you, at the same time, to think how much you endanger the peace of your friends, by exposing your person. For my part, I have nothing to say to you on this subject. Discharge your duty; the advice of pusillanimity is as foreign from my heart as from yours. I know too well, my dear B----, the only catastrophe worthy of you, is, to lose your life in the service and for the honour of your country; but ought you not to give some account of your days to him, who has preserved his only for your sake?

Volume IV

Letter CXL. From Lord B---- to Mrs. Orbe.

I find, by your two last letters, that a former one is missing, apparently the first you wrote me from the army, and in which you accounted for Mrs. Wolmar’s secret uneasiness. Not having received that letter, I imagine it was in the mail of one of our couriers, who was taken; you will, therefore, my friend, be pleased to re- communicate its contents. I am at a loss to conjecture what they were, and am uneasy about them. For again, I say, if happiness and peace dwell not in Eloisa’s mind, I know not where they will find an asylum on earth. You may make her easy, as to the dangers she imagines we are here exposed to; we have to do with an enemy too expert to suffer us to pursue him. With a handful of men, he baffles our attempts, and deprives us of all opportunity to attack him. As we are very sanguine, however; we may probably raise difficulties which the best generals would not be able to surmount, and at length oblige the French to fight us. I foresee our first success will cost us dear, and that the victory we gained at Dettingen will make us lose one in Flanders. We make head against a very able commander. Nor is this all; he possesses the love and confidence of his troops, and the French soldiers, when they have a good opinion of their leader, are invincible. [82] On the contrary, they are good for so little when they are commanded by courtiers they despise, that frequently their enemies need only to watch the intrigues of the cabinet, and seize a proper opportunity, to vanquish with certainty the bravest people on the continent: this they very well know. The duke of Marlborough, taking notice of the good look and martial air of a French soldier, taken prisoner at the battle of Blenheim, told him, if the French army had been composed of fifty thousand such men as he, it would not have been so easily beaten; Zounds sir, replied the grenadier, there are men enough in it like me, but it wants such a man as you; now such a man at present commands the French troops, and is on our side wanting; but we have courage, and trouble ourselves little about that. At all events, however, I intend to see their operations for the remainder of the campaign, and am resolved not to leave the army till it goes into winter-quarters. We shall all be gainers by such a delay, the season being too far advanced for us to think of crossing the mountains this year. I shall spend the winter with you, and not go to Italy till the beginning of the spring. Tell Mr. and Mrs. Wolmar I have thus changed my design, that I may have more time to contemplate that affecting picture you so pathetically describe, and that I may have also the opportunity to see Mrs. Orbe settled with them. Continue, my dear sir, to write with your usual punctuality, and you will do me a greater pleasure than ever: my equipage having been taken by the enemy, I have no books; but amuse myself in reading over your letters.