CLVII. Answer…

CLVII. Answer

From Eloisa! a letter from her after seven years silence! yes it is her writing. I see, I feel it: can my eyes be a stranger to characters which my heart can never forget? and do you still remember my name? do you still know how to write it? does not your hand tremble as your pen forms the letters? Ah Eloisa! whither have you hurried my wandering thoughts? the form, the fold, the seal, the superscription of your letter call to my mind those very different epistles which love used to dictate. In this the heart and hand seem to be in opposition to each other. Ought the same hand writing to be employed in committing to paper sentiments so very different?

You will be apt to judge that my thinking so much of your former letters, too evidently confirms what you have suggested in your last. But you are mistaken. I plainly perceive that I am changed, and that you are no longer the same; and what proves it to me the most is that except your beauty and goodness, every thing I see in you now is a new subject of admiration. This remark may anticipate your assurance. I rely not on my own strength, but on the sentiment which makes it unnecessary. Inspired with every thing which I ought to honour in her whom I have ceased to adore, I know into what degree of respect my former homage ought to be converted. Penetrated with the most lively gratitude, it is true, I love you as much as ever; but I esteem and honour you most for the recovery of my reason.

Ever since the discerning and judicious Wolmar has discovered my real sentiments, I have acquired a better knowledge of myself, and am less alarmed at my weakness. Let it deceive my imagination as it will, the delusion will be still agreeable; it is sufficient that it can no longer offend you, and that my ideal errors serve in the end to preserve me from real danger.

Believe me, Eloisa, there are impressions which neither time, circumstance, nor reason can efface. The wound may heal, but the scar will remain, an honorable mark that preserves the heart from any other wound. Love and inconstancy are incompatible; when a lover is fickle he ceases to be a lover. For my part, I am no longer a lover; but, in ceasing to adore you as such, I remain under your protection. I am no longer apprehensive of danger from you, but then you prevent my apprehensions from others. No, respectable Eloisa, you shall never see in me any other than a friend to your person and a lover only of your virtues: but our love, our first, our matchless love shall never be rooted out of my heart. The remembrance of the flower of my age shall never be thus tarnished: for, were I to live whole centuries, those happy hours of my youth will never return, nor be banished from my memory. We may, it is true, be no longer the same; but I shall never forget what we have been.

Let us come now to your cousin. I cannot help confessing, my dear friend, that since I have no longer dared to contemplate your charms, I have become more sensible to hers. What eyes could be perpetually straying from beauty to beauty without fixing their admiration on either? mine have lately gazed on hers perhaps with too much pleasure; and I must own that her charms, before imprinted on my heart, have during my absence made a deeper impression. The sanctuary of my heart is shut up; but her image is in the temple. I gradually become to her what I might have been at first, had I never beheld you; and it was in your power only to make me sensible of the difference between what I feel for her and the love I had for you. My senses, released from that terrible passion, embrace the delightful sentiments of friendship. But must love be the result of this union? Ah Eloisa! what difference! where is the enthusiasm? the adoration? where are those divine transports, those distractions, a hundred times more sublime, more delightful, more forcible than reason itself? a slight warmth, a momentary delirium, seize me, affect me a while and then vanish. In your cousin and me I see two friends who have a tender regard for each other and confess it. But have lovers a regard for each other? no, you, and I are two words prohibited in the lover’s language. Two lovers are not two persons, but one.

Is my heart then really at ease? how can it be so? she is charming, she is both your friend and mine: I am attached to her by gratitude, and think of her in the most delightful moments of reflection. How many obligations are hence conferred on a susceptible mind, and how is it possible to separate the tenderest sentiments from those to which she has such an undoubted right! Alas! it is decreed that between you and her, my heart will never enjoy one peaceful moment!

O women, women! dear and fatal objects! whom nature has made beautiful for our torment, who punish us when we brave your power, who pursue when we dread your charms; whose love and hate are equally destructive; and whom we can neither approach nor fly with impunity! beauty, charm, sympathy! inconceivable Being, or chimera! source of pain and pleasure! beauty more terrible to mortals than the element to which the birth of your Goddess is ascribed: it is you who create those tempests which are so destructive to mankind. How, dearly, Eloisa! how dearly, Clara! do I purchase your cruel friendship!

I have lived in a tempest and it is you who have always raised it: but how different are the agitations which you separately excite! different as the waves of the lake of Geneva from those of the main ocean. The first are short and quick, and by their constant agitation are often fatal to the small barks that ride without making way on their surface: but on the ocean, calm and mild in appearance, we find ourselves mounted aloft and softly borne forward to a vast distance on waves, whose motions are slow and almost imperceptible. We think we scarce move from the place, and arrive at the farthest parts of the earth.

Such is in fact the difference between the effects which your charms and hers have on my heart. That first unequalled passion, which determined the destiny of my life, and which nothing could conquer but itself, had its birth before I was sensible of its generation; it hurried me on before I knew where I was, and involved me in irrevocable ruin before I believed myself led astray. While the wind was fair, my labouring bark was every moment alternately roaring into the clouds and plunging into the deep: but I am now becalmed and know no longer where I am. On the contrary, I see, I feel too well how much her presence affects me, and conceive my danger greater than it really is. I experience some slight raptures, which are no sooner felt than gone. I am one moment transported with passion and the next peaceful and calm: in vain is the vessel beaten about by the waves, while there is no wind to fill its sails: my heart, contented with her real charms, does not exaggerate them: she appears more beautiful to my eyes than to my imagination; and I am more afraid of her when present than absent. Your charms have, on the contrary, had always a very different effect; but at Clarens I alternately experience both.

Since I left it, indeed, the image of our cousin presents itself sometimes more powerfully to my imagination. Unhappily, however, it never appears alone: it affects me not with love, but with disquietude.

These are in reality my sentiments with regard both to the one and the other. All the rest of your sex are nothing to me; the pangs I have so long suffered have banished them entirely from my remembrance;

E fornito ’l mio tempo a mezzo gli anni.

Adversity has supplied the place of fortitude, to enable me to conquer nature and triumph over temptation. People in distress have few desires, you have taught me to vanquish by resisting them. An unhappy passion is an instrument of wisdom. My heart is become, if I may so express myself, the organ of all my wants, for when that is at ease I want nothing. Let not you or your cousin disturb its tranquillity, and it will for the future be always at ease.

In this situation, what have I to fear from my self? and by what cruel precaution would you rob me of happiness, in order to prevent my being exposed to lose it? how capricious is it to have made me fight and conquer, to rob me afterwards of the reward of my victory? do you not condemn those who brave unnecessary danger? why then did you recall me at so great a hazard, to run so many risks? or, why would you banish me when I am so worthy to remain? Ought you to have permitted your husband to take the trouble he has done for nothing? why did you not prevent his taking the pains which you were determined to render fruitless? why did you not say to him, leave the poor Wretch at the other end of the world, or I shall certainly transport him again? alas! the more afraid you are of me the sooner you ought to recall me home. It is not in your presence I am in danger, but in your absence; and I dread the power of your charms only where you are not. When the formidable Eloisa pursues me, I fly for refuge to Mrs. Wolmar, and I am secure. Whither shall I fly if you deprive me of the asylum I find in her? all times and places are dangerous while she is absent; for in every place I find either Clara or Eloisa. In reflecting on the time past, in meditating on the present, the one and the other alternately agitate my heart, and thus my restless imagination becomes tranquil only in your presence, and it is with you only I find security against myself. How shall I explain to you the change I perceive in approaching you? you have always exerted the same sovereign power; but its effects are now different from what they were: in suppressing the transports you once inspired, your empire is more noble and sublime; a peaceful serenity has succeeded to the storm of the passions: my heart, modelled by yours, loves in the same manner and becomes tranquil by your example. But in this transitory repose I enjoy only a short truce with the passions; and, though I am exalted to the perfection of angels in your presence, I no sooner forsake you than I fall into my native meanness. Yes, Eloisa, I am apt sometimes to think I have two souls, and that the good one is deposited in your hands. Ah! why do you seek to separate me from it?

But you are fearful of the consequences of youthful desires, extinguished only by trouble and adversity. You are afraid for the young women who are in your house and under your protection. You are afraid of that which the prudent Wolmar was not afraid of. How mortifying to me are such apprehensions! do you then esteem your friend less than the meanest of your servants? I can, however, forgive your thinking ill of me; but never your not paying yourself that respect which is so justly your due. No, Eloisa, the flame with which I once burnt has purified my heart; and I am no longer actuated like other men. After what I have been, should I so debase myself though but for a moment, I would hide myself in the remotest corner of the earth, and should never think myself too far removed from Eloisa.

What! could I disturb that peaceful order and domestic tranquillity, in which I take so much pleasure? could I sully that sweet retreat of innocence and peace, wherein I have dwelt with so much honour? could I be so base as----no, the most debauched, the most abandoned, of men would be affected with so charming a picture. He could not fail of being enamoured with virtue in this asylum. So far from carrying thither his licentious manners, he would betake himself thither to cast them off. Could I then, Eloisa, be capable of what you insinuate? and that under your own eyes? no, my dear friend, open your doors to me without scruple; your mansion is to me the temple of virtue; its sacred image strikes me in every part of it, and binds me to its service. I am not indeed an angel; but I shall dwell in the habitation of angels, and will imitate their example. Those who would not wish to resemble them, will never seek their company.

You see it is with difficulty I come to the chief object of your last letter; that which I should have first and most maturely considered, and which only should now engage my thoughts, if I could pretend to the happiness proposed to me. O Eloisa, benevolent and incomparable friend! in offering me thus your other half, the most valuable present in the universe next to yourself, you do more for me if possible than ever you have done before. A blind ungovernable passion might have prevailed on you to give me yourself; but to give me your friend is the sincerest proof of your esteem. From this moment I begin to think myself, indeed, a man of real merit, since I am thus distinguished. But how cruel, at the same time, is this proof of it. In accepting your offer I should bely my heart, and to deserve must refuse it. You know me, and may judge.

It is not enough that your charming cousin should engage my affections; I know she should be loved as you are. But will it, can it be? or does it depend on me to do her that justice, in this particular, which is her due? alas! if you intended ever to unite me to her, why did you not leave me a heart to give her; a heart which she might have inspired with new sentiments, and which in turn might have offered her the first fruits of love! I ought to have a heart at ease and at liberty, such as was that of the prudent and worthy Orbe, to love her only as he did. I ought to be as deserving as he was, in order to succeed him: otherwise the comparison between her former and present situation will only serve to render the latter less supportable, the cold and divided love of a second husband, so far from consoling her for the loss of the first, will but make her regret him the more. By her union with me, she will only convert a tender grateful friend into a common husband. What will she gain by such an exchange? She will be doubly a loser by it; her susceptible mind will severely feel its loss; and how shall I support a continual sadness, of which I am the cause, and which I cannot remove? in such a situation alas! her grief would be first fatal to me. No, Eloisa, I can never be happy at the expense of her ease. I love her too well to marry her.

Be happy! no, can I be happy without making her so? can either of the parties be separately happy or miserable in marriage? are not their pleasures and pains, common to both? and does not the chagrin which one gives to the other always rebound on the person who caused it? I should be made miserable by her afflictions, without being made happy by her goodness. Beauty, fortune, merit, love, all might conspire to ensure my felicity! but my heart, my froward heart, would counterwork them all; would poison the source of my delights, and make me miserable in the very midst of happiness.

In my present situation, I take pleasure in her company: but if I attempt to augment that pleasure by a closer union, I shall deprive myself of the most agreeable moments of my life. Her turn for humour and gaiety may give an amorous cast to her friendship, but this is only whilst there are witnesses to her favours. I may also feel too lively an emotion for her; but it is only when by your presence you have banished every tender sentiment for Eloisa. When she and I are by ourselves, it is you only who render our conversation agreeable. The more our attachment increases, the more we think on the source from which it sprung; the ties of friendship are drawn closer, and we love each other but to talk of you. Hence arise a thousand pleasing reflections, pleasing to Clara and more so to me, all which a closer union would infallibly destroy. Will not such reflections, in that case too delightful, be a kind of infidelity to her? and with what face can I make a beloved and respectable wife the confident of those infidelities of which my heart, in spite of me, would be guilty? this heart could no longer transfuse itself into hers. No longer daring to talk of you, I should soon forbear to speak at all. Honour and duty imposing on me a new reserve, would thus estrange from me the wife of my bosom, and I should have no longer a guide or a counsellor to direct my steps or correct my errors. Is this the homage she has a right to expect from me? is this that tribute of gratitude and tenderness which I ought to pay to her? is it thus that I am to make her and myself happy?

Is it possible that Eloisa, can have forgotten our mutual vows? for my part, I never can forget them. I have lost all, except my sincerity, and that I will preserve inviolate to my last hour. As I could not live for you, I will die unmarried. Nay, had I not already made such a promise to myself, I would do it now. For though it be a duty to marry, it is yet a more indispensable one not to make any person unhappy; and all the sentiments such a contract would now excite in me, would be mixed with the constant regret of that which I once vainly hoped for: a regret which would at once be my torment, and that of her who should be unfortunate enough to be my wife. I should require of her those days of bliss which I expected with you. How should I support the comparison! what woman in the world could bear that? ah, no, I could never endure the thoughts of being at once deprived of you, and destined to be the husband of another.

Seek not then, my dear friend, to shake those resolutions on which depends the repose of my life: seek not to recall me out of that state of annihilation into which I am fallen; lest, in bringing me back to a sense of my existence, my wounds should bleed afresh, and I should again sink under a load of misfortunes. Since my return I perceived how deeply I became interested in whatever concerned your charming friend; but I was not alarmed at it, as I knew the situation of my heart would never permit me to be too solicitous. Indeed I was not displeased with an emotion, which, while it added softness to the attachment I always had for Clara, would assist in diverting my thoughts from a more dangerous object, and enable me to support your presence with greater confidence. This emotion has something in it of the pleasure of love without any of its pains. The calm delight I take in seeing her is not disturbed by the restless desire of possessing her: contented to pass my whole life in the manner I passed the last winter, I find between you both that peaceful and agreeable situation, [98] which tempers the austerity of virtue and renders its lessons amiable. If a vain transport affects me for a moment, every thing conspires to suppress it; and I have too effectually vanquished those infinitely more impetuous and dangerous emotions to fear any that can assail me now. I honour your friend no less than I love her, and that is saying every thing. But should I consult only my own interest, the rights of the tenderest friendship are too valuable, to risk their loss, by endeavouring to extend them; and I need not even think of the respect which is her due to prevent my ever saying a single word in private conversation which would require interpretation, or which she ought not to understand. She may perhaps have sometimes remarked a little too much solicitude in my behaviour towards her but she has surely never observed in my heart any desire to express it. Such as I was for six months past, such would I be with regard to her, as long as I live. I know none who approach you, so perfect as she is; but were she even more perfect than yourself, I feel that after having been your lover I should never have become hers.

But before I conclude this letter, I must give you my opinion of yours. Yes, Eloisa, with all your prudence and virtue, I can discover in it the scruples of a timorous mind, which thinks it a duty to frighten itself; and conceives its security lies in being afraid. This extreme timidity is as dangerous as excessive confidence. In constantly representing to us imaginary monsters, it wastes our strength in combating chimeras; and by terrifying us without cause, makes us less on our guard against, as well as less capable of discerning, real dangers. Read over again, now and then, the letter which Lord B----, wrote to you last year, on the subject of your husband; you will find in it some good advice that may be of service to you in many respects. I do not discommend your devotion, it is affecting, amiable, and like yourself; it is such as even your husband should be pleased with. But take care lest timidity and precaution lead you to quietism, and lest by representing to yourself danger on every side, you are induced at length to confide in nothing. Don’t you know, my dear friend, that a state of virtue is a state of warfare. Let us employ our thoughts less on the dangers which threaten us, than on ourselves; that we may be always prepared to withstand temptation. If to run in the way of temptation is to deserve to fall, to shun it with too much solicitude is often to fly from the opportunities of discharging the noblest duties; it is not good to be always thinking of temptations, even with a view to avoid them. I shall never seek temptation: but, in whatever situation Providence may place me for the future, the eight months I passed at Clarens will be my security; nor shall I be afraid that any one will rob me of the prize you taught me to deserve. I shall never be weaker than I have been, nor shall ever have greater temptations to resist. I have left the bitterness of remorse and I have tasted the sweets of victory, after all which I need not hesitate a moment in making my choice; every circumstance of my past life, even my errors, being a security for my future behaviour.

I shall not pretend to enter with you into any new or profound disquisitions, concerning the order of the universe, and the government of those beings, of which it is composed: it will be sufficient for me to say, that in matters so far above human comprehension there is no other way of rightly judging of things invisible, but by induction from those which are visible; and that all analogy makes for those general laws which you seem to reject. The most rational ideas we can form of the supreme Being confirm this opinion: for, although omnipotence lies under no necessity of adopting methods to abridge his labour, it is nevertheless worthy of supreme wisdom to prefer the most simple modes of action, that there may be nothing useless either in cause or effect. In the formation of man he endowed him with all the necessary faculties to accomplish what should be required of him, and when we ask of him the power to do good, we ask nothing of him, but what he has already given us. He has given us understanding to know what is good, a heart to love [99] and liberty to make choice of it. Therefore, in these sublime gifts consists divine grace; and as we have all received it, we are all accountable for its effects.

I have heard, in my time, a good deal of arguments against the free agency of man, and despise all its sophistry. A casuist may take what pains he will to prove that I am no free agent, my innate sense of freedom constantly destroys his arguments: for whatever choice I make after deliberation, I feel plainly that it depended only on myself to have made the contrary. Indeed all the scholastic subtilties I have heard on this head are futile and frivolous; because they prove too much, are equally used to oppose truth and falsehood; and, whether man be a free agent or not, serve equally to prove one or the other. With these kind of reasoners, the Deity himself is not a free agent, and the word liberty is in fact a term of no meaning. They triumph, not in having solved the difficulty, but in having substituted a chimera in its room. They begin by supposing that every intelligent being is merely passive, and from that supposition deduce consequences to prove its inactivity: a very convenient method of argumentation truly! if they accuse their adversaries of reasoning in this manner, they do us injustice. We do not suppose ourselves free and active beings; we feel that we are so. It belongs to them to shew not only that this sentiment may deceive us, but that it really does so. [100] The bishop of Cloyne has demonstrated that, without any diversity in appearances, body or matter may have no absolute existence; but is this enough to induce us to affirm that it absolutely has no existence? In all this, the mere phenomenon would cost more trouble than the reality; and I will always hold by that which appears the most simple.

I don’t believe therefore, that after having provided in every shape for the wants of man in his formation, God interests himself in an extraordinary manner for one person more than another. Those who abuse the common aids of Providence are unworthy such assistance, and those who made good use of them have no occasion for any other. Such a partiality appears to me injurious to divine justice. You will say, this severe and discouraging doctrine may be deduced from the holy scripture. Be it so. Is it not my first duty to honour my Creator? In whatever veneration then I hold the sacred text, I hold its author in a still greater; and I could sooner be induced to believe the bible corrupted or unintelligible, than that God can be malevolent or unjust. St. Paul would not have the vessel say to the potter who formed it, why hast thou framed me thus? this is very well, if the potter should apply it only to such services as he constructed it to perform but if he should censure this vessel as being inadequate to the purpose for which it was constructed; has it not a right to ask, why hast thou made me thus?

But does it follow from hence that prayer is useless? God forbid that I should deprive myself of that resource. Every act of the understanding which raises us to God carries us above ourselves; in imploring his assistance we learn to experience it. It is not his immediate act that operates on us, it is we that improve ourselves by raising our thoughts in prayer to him. [101] All that we ask aright, he bestows; and, as you observe, we acquire strength in confessing our weakness. But if we abuse this ordinance and turn mystics, instead of raising ourselves to God, we are lost in our own wild imaginations; in seeking grace, we renounce reason; in order to obtain of heaven one blessing, we trample under foot another; and in obstinately persisting, that heaven should enlighten our hearts, we extinguish the light of our understandings. But who are we that should insist on the deity’s performing miracles, when we please, in our favour?

You know very well, there is no good thing that may not be carried into a blameable excess; even devotion itself, when it degenerates into the madness of enthusiasm. Yours is too pure ever to arrive at this excess; but you have reason to be on your guard against a less degree of it. I have heard you often censure the ecstasies of the pietists; but do you know from whence they arise? from allotting a longer time to prayer than is consistent with the weakness of human nature. Hence the spirits are exhausted, the imagination takes fire, they see visions, they become inspired and prophetical; nor is it then in the power of the understanding to stop the progress of fanaticism.

Now, you shut yourself frequently in your closet, and are constant in prayer. You do not indeed as yet converse with pietists, [102] but you read their books. Not that I ever censured your taste for the writings of the worthy Fenelon: but what have you to do with those of his disciple? You read Muralt. I indeed read him too: but I make choice of his letters, you of his divine instinct. But remark his end, lament the extravagant errors of that sensible man, and think of yourself. At present a pious, a true Christian, beware Eloisa of becoming a mere devotee.

I receive your counsel, my dear friend, with the docility of a child, and give you mine with the zeal of a father. Since virtue, instead of dissolving our attachments, has rendered them indissoluble, the same lessons may be of use to both, as the same interests connect us. Never shall our hearts speak to each other, never shall our eyes meet without presenting to both a respectable object which shall mutually elevate our sentiments, the perfection of the one reciprocally assisting the other.

But though our deliberations may be common to both, the conclusion is not; it is yours alone to decide. Cease not, then, you who have ever been mistress of my destiny, cease not to be so still. Weigh my arguments, and pronounce sentence: whatever you order me to do, I will submit to your direction, and will at least deserve the continuance of it. Should you think it improper for me to see you personally again, you will yet be always present to my mind, and preside over my actions. Should you deprive me of the honour of educating your offspring, you will not deprive me of the virtues which you have inspired. These are the offspring of your mind, which mine adopts as its own, and will never bear to have them torn from it.

Speak to me, Eloisa, freely. As I have now been explicit to what I think and feel on this occasion, tell me what I must do. You know how far my destiny is connected with that of my illustrious friend. I have not consulted him on this occasion; I have neither shewn him this letter nor yours. If he should know that you disapprove his project, or rather, that of your husband, he will reject it himself; and I am far from designing to deduce from thence any objection to your scruples; he only ought to be ignorant of them till you have finally determined. In the mean time, I shall find some means or other to delay our departure, in which, though they may surprize him a little, I know he will acquiesce. For my own part, I had rather never see you more, than to see you only just to bid you again adieu: and to live with you as a stranger, would be a state of mortification which I have not deserved.

CLVIII. From Mrs. Wolmar

How does your headstrong imagination affright and bewilder itself! and at what, pray? truly at the sincerest proofs of my friendship and esteem which you ever experienced: at the peaceful reflections which my solicitude for your real happiness inspired; at the most obliging, the most advantageous, and the most honourable proposal that was ever made you; at my desire, perhaps an indiscreet one, of uniting you by indissoluble ties to our family; at the desire of making a relation, a kinsman of an ingrate, who affects to believe I want to discard him as a friend. To remove your present uneasiness, you need only take what I write in the most natural sense the words will bear. But you have long delighted in tormenting yourself with false constructions. Your letters are like your life, sublime and mean, masterly and puerile. Ah, my dear philosopher! will you never cease to be a child?

Where, pray, have you learnt that I intended to impose on you new laws, to break with you, and send you back to the farthest part of the world? do you really find this to be the tenor of my letter? in anticipating the pleasure of living with you, I was fearful of those inconveniencies, which I conceived might possibly arise; therefore endeavoured to remove them, by making your fortune more equal to your merit and the regard I had for you. This is my whole crime; is there anything in it at which you have reason to be alarmed?

Indeed, my friend, you are in the wrong; for you are not ignorant how dear you are to me, and how easy it is for you to obtain your wish without seeking occasion to torment others or yourself.

You may be assured that, if your residence here is agreeable to you, it will be equally so to me; and that nothing Mr. Wolmar has done for me gives me greater satisfaction than the care he has taken to establish you in this house. I agree to it with pleasure, and know we shall be useful to each other. More ready to listen to good advice than to suggest it to ourselves, we have both occasion for a guide? who can be more sensible of the danger of going astray than he whose return has cost him so dear? what object can better represent that danger? after having broken through such connections as once subsisted between us, the remembrance of them should influence us to do nothing unworthy of the virtuous motives which induced us to break them. Yes, I shall always think myself obliged to make you the witness of every action of my life, and to communicate to you every sentiment with which my heart is inspired. Ah! my friend! I may be weak before the rest of the world, but I can answer for myself in your company.

It is in this delicacy, which always survives true love, and not in Mr. Wolmar’s subtle distinctions, that we are to look for the cause of that elevation of soul, that innate fortitude we experience. Such an explication is at least more natural, and does more honour to our hearts, than his, and has a greater tendency to encourage us to virtue, which alone is sufficient to give it the preference. Hence you may be assured, that, so far am I from being in such a whimsical disposition as you imagine, that I am just the reverse. In so much that, if the project of your returning to reside here must be given up, I shall esteem such an event as a great misfortune to you, to me, to my children, and even to my husband; on whose account alone you know I have many reasons for desiring your presence. But to speak only of my own particular inclination: you remember your first arrival. Did I shew less pleasure at seeing you than you felt in seeing me? has it ever appeared to you that your stay at Clarens gave me the least trouble or uneasiness? did you think I betrayed the least pleasure at your departure? must I go farther and speak to you with my usual freedom? I will frankly confess to you then, that the six last months we passed together were the happiest of my life, and that in that short space of time I tasted all the happiness of which my sensibility has furnished me the idea.

Never shall I forget one day, in particular, of the past winter, when, after having been reading the journal of your voyages and that of your friend’s adventures, we supped in the Apollo. It was then that, reflecting on the felicity with which Providence had blessed me in this world, I looked round and saw all my friends about me; my father, my husband, my children, my cousin, Lord B----, and you, without counting Fanny, who did not cast the least blemish on the scene. This little saloon, said I to myself, contains all that is dear to my heart, and perhaps all that is desirable in this world. I am here surrounded by everything that interests me. The whole universe to me is in this little spot. I enjoy at once the regard I have for my friends, that which they have for me, and that which they have for each other: their mutual goodwill either comes from or relates to me: I see nothing but what seems to extend my being, and nothing to divide it. I exist in a manner in all those who are about me: my imagination can extend no farther. I have nothing more to desire: to reflect and to be happy is with me the same thing; I live at once in all that I love, I am replete with happiness and satisfied with life: come death when thou wilt! I no longer dread thy power: the measure of my life is full, and I have nothing new to experience worth enjoyment. The greater pleasure I enjoyed in your company, the more agreeable is it to me to reflect on it, and the more disquietude also hath every thing given me that might disturb it. We will for a moment lay aside that timid morality and pretended devotion, with which you reproach me. You must confess at least that the social pleasures we tasted sprung from that openness of heart, by which every thought, every sentiment, of the one was communicated to the other, and from which every one, conscious of being what he ought, appeared such as he really was. Let us suppose now any secret intrigue, any connection necessary to be concealed, any motive of reserve and secrecy intruding on our harmony; that moment the reciprocal pleasure we felt in seeing each other would vanish. Shyness and restraint would ensue; we should no sooner meet together than we should wish to part; and at length circumspection and decorum would bring on distrust and distaste. It is impossible long to love those of whom we are afraid or suspicious. They soon become troublesome----Eloisa troublesome!----troublesome to her friend! no, no, that cannot be; there can be no evils in nature, but such as it is possible to support.

In thus freely telling you my scruples, I do not pretend, however, to make you change your resolutions; but to induce you to reconsider the motives on which they are founded; lest, in taking a step, all the consequences of which you may not foresee, you might have reason to repent at a time, when you will not dare retract it. As to Mr. Wolmar’s having no fears, it was not his place to fear, but yours. No one is so proper a judge of what is to be feared of you, as yourself. Consider the matter well then; and, if nothing is in reality to be feared, tell me so, and I shall think of it no more: for I know your sincerity, and never can distrust your intentions. Your heart may be capable of an accidental error; but can never be guilty of a premeditated crime, and this it is that makes the distinction between a weak man and a wicked one.

Besides, though my objections had really more weight than I am inclined to think they have, why must things be viewed in their most disadvantageous light. Surely there can be no necessity for such extreme precautionary measures. It cannot be requisite that you should break through all your projects, and fly from us for ever. Though a child in years, you are possessed of all the experience of age. The tranquillity of mind which succeeds the noble passion, is a sensation which increases by fruition. A susceptible heart may dread a state of repose, to which it has been unaccustomed; but a little time is sufficient to reconcile us to our peaceful situation, and in a little time more we give it the preference. For my part, I foresee the hour of your security to be nearer than you yourself imagine. Extremes, you know, never last long; you have loved too much not to become in time indifferent: the cinder which is cast from the furnace can never be lighted again, but before it becomes such the coal must be totally burnt out. Be vigilant but for a few years more, and you will then have nothing to fear, your acceptance of my proposal would at once have removed all danger; but, independent of that view, such an attachment has charms enough to be desired for its own sake; and if your delicacy prevents you from closing with my proposals, I have no need to be informed how much such a restraint must cost you. At the same time, however, I am afraid that the pretences which impose on your reason, are many of them frivolous: I am afraid, that in piquing yourself on the fulfilling of engagements which no longer exist, you only make a false shew of virtue, in a constancy, for which you are by no means to be commended, and which is at present entirely misplaced. I have already told you, that I think the observance of a rash and criminal vow is an additional crime. If yours were not so at first, it is become so now; and that is sufficient to annul it. The promise which no man ought to break, is that of being always a man of virtue and resolute in the discharge of his duty; to change when that is changed, is not levity, but constancy. And at all times as virtue requires you to do, and you will never break your word. But if there be among your scruples any solid objection, we will examine it at leisure. In the mean time, I am not very sorry that you did not embrace my scheme with the same avidity as I formed it; that my blunder, if it be one, may give you less pain. I had meditated this project during the absence of my cousin, with whom, however, I have since had some general conversation on the subject of a second marriage, and find her so averse to it, that, in spite of the regard which I know she has for you, I am afraid I must exert a greater authority than becomes me, to overcome her reluctance; for this is a point in which friendship ought to respect the bent of the inclinations.

I will own nevertheless that I still abide by my design; it would be so agreeable to us all, would so honourably extricate you from your present precarious situation in life; would so unite all our interests, and makes so natural an obligation of that friendship which is so delightful to all, that I cannot think of giving it up entirely. No, my friend, you can never be too nearly allied to me; it is not even enough that you might be my cousin; I could wish you were my brother.

Whatever may be the consequence of these notions, do more justice to my sentiments for you. Make use without reserve of my friendship, my confidence and my esteem. Remember I shall not prescribe any rules to you; nor do I think I have any reason to do it. Deny me not however the privilege of giving you advice, but imagine not I lay you under any commands. If you think you can securely reside at Clarens, come hither; stay here: you cannot give me greater pleasure. But, if you think a few years longer absence necessary to cure the suspicious remains of impetuous youth, write to me often in your absence; come and see us as often as you will, and let us cultivate a correspondence founded on the most cordial intimacy.

What pains will not such consolation alleviate? what absence will not be supportable under the pleasing hope of at last closing our days together! I will do yet more; I am ready to put one of my children under your care; I shall think him safer in your hands than my own; and, when you bring him back, I know not which of you will give me the greater pleasure by your return. On the other hand, if you become entirely reasonable, banish your chimerical notions, and are willing to deserve my cousin, come, pay her your best respects and make her happy. Come then, and surmount every obstacle that opposes your success and make a conquest of her heart: such assistance as my friendship can give shall not on my part be wanting. Come, and make each other happy, and nothing more will be wanting to render me compleatly so. But, whatever resolution you take, after having maturely considered the matter, speak confidently, and affront your friend no more by your groundless suspicions.

Let me not however, in thinking so much of you, forget myself. My turn to be heard must come at last; for you as with your friends in a dispute, as with your adversaries at chess; you defend yourself by attacking them. You excuse your being a philosopher by accusing me of being a devotee. I am then, in your opinion a devotee, or ready to become one: well be it so. Contemptible denominations never change the nature of things. If devotion is commendable, why am I to blame in being devout? But, perhaps that epithet is too low for you. The dignity of the philosopher disdains the worship of the vulgar: it would serve God in a more sublime manner, and raise even to heaven itself its pretensions and its pride. Poor philosophers!----but to return to myself.

I have, from my childhood, respected virtue, and have always cultivated my reason. I endeavoured to regulate my conduct by human understanding and sentiment, and have been ill conducted. Before you deprive me of the guide I have chosen, give me another on which I may depend. I thought myself as wise as other people, and yet a thousand others have lived more prudently than I; they must therefore have had resources which I had not. Why is it that I; knowing myself well born, have had reason to conceal my life and conversation from the world? why did I hate the sin which I committed even in spite of myself? I thought I knew my own strength, I relied on it, and was deceived. All the resistance which was in my own power, I think, I made; and yet I fell----how must those have done who have escaped? they must have had a better support.

From their example I was induced to seek the same support, and have found in it a peculiar advantage which I did not expect. During the reign of the passions, they themselves contribute to the continuance of the anxieties they at first occasion; they retain hope always by the tide of desire, and hence we are enabled to support the absence of felicity: If our expectations are disappointed, hope supplies its place; and the agreeable delusion lasts as long as the passion which gave it birth. Thus, in a situation of this kind, passion supports itself, and the very solicitude it causes is a chimerical pleasure which is substituted for real enjoyment. Nay more: those who have no desires must be very unhappy; they are deprived, if I may be allowed the expression, of all they possess. We enjoy less that which we obtain than that which we hope for, and are seldom happy but in expectation. In fact, man, made to desire every thing and obtain little, of boundless avarice yet narrow capacity, has received of heaven a consolatory aid, which brings to him in idea every thing he desires, displays it to his imagination, represents it to his view, and in one sense makes it his own; but to render such imaginary property still more flattering and agreeable, it is even modified to his passion. But this shadow vanishes the moment the real object appears; the imagination can no longer magnify that which we actually possess, the charms of illusion cease, where those of enjoyment begin. The world of fancy, therefore, the land of chimeras, is the only world worthy to be inhabited; and such is the inanity of human enjoyments that, except that Being which is self existent; there is nothing delightful but that which has no existence at all.

If this effect does not always follow in the particular objects of our passions, it is infallible in the common sentiment which includes the whole. To live without pain is incompatible with our state of mortality: it would be in fact to die. He who has every thing in his power, if a creature, must be miserable, as he would be deprived of the pleasure of desiring; than which every other want would be more supportable. [103]

This is indeed what I have in part experienced since my marriage and your return. Every thing around me gives me cause of content, and yet I am not contented. A secret languor steals into the bottom of my heart; I find it puffed up and void, as you formerly said was the case with yours; all my attachments are not sufficient to fill it. This disquietude I confess is strange: but it is nevertheless true. O my friend! I am indeed too happy: my happiness is a burthen to me. Can you think of a remedy for this disgust? for my part, I must own that a sentiment so unreasonable and so involuntary, has in a great measure diminished the value of life, and I cannot imagine what blessings it can bestow which I want, or with which I should be satisfied. Can any woman be more susceptible than I am? can she love her father, her husband, her children, her friends, her relations better than I do? can she be more generally beloved? can she lead a life more agreeable to her taste? or can she be more at liberty to exchange it for any other? can she enjoy better health? can she have more expedients to divert her, or stronger ties to bind her to the world? and yet notwithstanding all this, I am constantly uneasy: my heart yearns for something of which it is entirely ignorant.

Therefore finding nothing on this globe capable of giving it satisfaction, my desiring soul seeks an object in another world; in elevating itself to the source of sentiment and existence, its languor vanishes: it is reanimated, it acquires new strength and new life. It thence obtains a new existence, independent of corporeal passions, or rather it exists no longer in me, but in the immensity of the supreme Being; and, disencumbered for a while from its terrestrial shackles, returns to them again with patience, consoled with the expectation of futurity.

You smile at all this, my good friend; I understand you. I have indeed pronounced my own condemnation, having formerly censured the heart, which I now approve. To this I have only one word to answer; and that is, I then spoke without experience. I do not pretend to justify it in every shape. I don’t pretend to say, this visionary taste is prudent, I only say, it is a delightful supplement to that sense of happiness which in other things exhausts itself by enjoyment. If it be productive of evil, doubtless it ought to be rejected; if it deceives the heart by false pleasure, it ought also on that account to be rejected. But after all, which has the greater incentive to virtue, the philosopher with his sublime maxims, or the Christian with his humble simplicity? who is most happy even in this world, the sage with his profound understanding, or the enthusiast with his rapture of devotion? what business have I to think or imagine, when my faculties are all in a manner alienated? will you say intoxication has its pleasures? be it so, and be mine esteemed such if you will. Either leave me in this agreeable delirium, or shew me a more delightful situation.

I have condemned indeed the ecstasies of the mystics, and condemn them still, when they serve to detach us from our duty; and, by raising in us a disgust against an active life by the charms of contemplation, seduce us into that state of quietism which you imagine me so near; and from which I believe myself nevertheless to be as far distant as yourself. I know very well that to serve God is not to pass our lives on our knees in prayer; that it is to discharge on earth those obligations which our duty requires; it is to do, with a view to please him, every thing which the situation in which he hath placed us demands.

_Il cor gradisce; E serve a lui chi’l suo dover compisce._

We ought first to perform the duties of our station, and then pray when we have time. This is the rule I have endeavoured to follow: I don’t make that self examination, with which you reproach me, a task, but a recreation. I don’t see why, among the pleasures that are within my reach, I should be forbidden the most affecting and the most innocent of all.

I have examined myself with more severity, since the receipt of your letter. I have enquired into the effects which that pious inclination, that so much displeases you, produces in my mind; and I can safely say, I see nothing that should give me reason to fear, at least so soon as you imagine, the evils of excessive and superfluous devotion.

In the first place, I have not so fervent a longing after this exercise as to give me pain when I am deprived of an opportunity, nor am I out of humour at every avocation from it. It never interrupts my thoughts in the business of the day, nor gives me any disgust or impatience in the discharge of my duty. If retirement be sometimes necessary, it is when I have felt some disagreeable emotion, and am better in my closet than elsewhere. It is there that, entering into the examination of myself, I recover my temper and ease. If any care troubles me, if any pain affects me, it is there I go and lay them down. Every pain, every trouble vanishes before a greater object. In reflecting on all the bounties of providence towards me, I am ashamed to be sensible of such trifling ills, and to forget its greater mercies. I require neither frequent nor long intervals of solitude. When I am affected by involuntary sadness, the shedding a few tears before him who is the comforter of hearts, relieves mine in an instant. My reflections are never bitter nor grievous; even my repentance is free from dread: my errors give me less cause of fear than of shame; I regret that I have committed them, but I feel no remorse, nor dread of their effects. The God I serve is a merciful Being; a Father, whose goodness only affects me, and surpasses all his other attributes. His power astonishes me; his immensity confounds my ideas; his justice----but he has made man weak; and though he be just, he is merciful. An avenging God is the God of the wicked. I can neither fear him on my own account, nor pray for his vengeance to be exerted against any other. It is the God of peace, the God of goodness whom I adore. I know, I feel, I am the work of his hands, and trust to see him at the last day such as he has manifested himself to my heart, during my life.

It is impossible for me to tell you how many pleasing ideas hence render my days agreeable, and give joy to my heart. In leaving my closet in such a disposition, I feel myself more light and gay. Every care vanishes, every embarrassment is removed; nothing rough or disagreeable appears; but all is smooth and flowing: every thing wears a pleasant countenance; it costs me no pains to be in good humour; I love those better whom I loved before, and am still more agreeable to them; even my husband is more pleased with the disposition which is the effect of such rational devotion. Devotion, he says, is the opium of the soul. When taken in small quantities, it enlivens, it animates, it supports it: a stronger dose lulls it to sleep, enrages or destroys it. I hope I shall never proceed to such extremes.

You see I am not so much offended at the title of devotee, as perhaps you intended; but then I do not value it at the rate you imagine: yet I would not have the term devotion applied to an affected external deportment, and to a sort of employment which dispenses with every other. Thus that Mrs. Guyon you mention, had in my opinion done better to have carefully discharged her duty as mistress of her family, to have educated her children in the Christian faith; and to have governed her servants prudently, than to compose books of devotion, dispute with bishops, and at last be imprisoned in the Bastille for her unintelligible reveries.

I approve just as little of that mystical and metaphorical language, which feeds the heart with chimeras, and in the place of spiritual love, substitutes sentiments too nearly allied to carnal affections, and too apt to excite them. The more susceptible the heart, or lively the imagination, the more we ought to be on our guard against those images by which they may be affected; for how can we see the relations of the mystical object if we do not at the same time see the sensual; and how can a modest woman have the assurance to contemplate those objects in her imagination, which she would blush to look on?

But what sets me most against these devotees by profession, is that affectation of manners which renders them insensible to humanity; that excessive pride which makes them look down with pity on the rest of mankind. If ever they condescend to stoop from their imaginary elevation to do an act of charity, it is always done in a manner extremely mortifying to the object: their pity is so cruel and insulting, their justice is so rigid, their charity so severe, their zeal so bitter, their contempt so much like hatred, that even the insensibility of the rest of the world is less cruel than their pity. Their love for heaven serves them as an excuse for loving nobody on earth; they have even no affection for one another; nor is there an instance of sincere friendship to be found among people of extreme devotion. The more detached they affect to be from the world, the more they expect from it; and one would think their devotion to God is exerted only that they may have a pretext to exercise his authority over the rest of his creatures.

I have such an aversion for all abuses of this kind as should naturally be my security: if nevertheless I am doomed to fall, it will not be voluntarily, and I hope, from the friendship of those who are about me, that it will not be without warning. I must own, I now think that it was possible for my former inquietude concerning my husband, to have effected such a change. Happily, the prudent letter of my Lord B----, to which you very reasonably refer me, together with his sensible and consolatory conversation, as well as yours, have entirely dissipated my fears and changed my principles. I now see plainly that an intolerant spirit must by degrees become obdurate. For what charity can be long preserved for those who we think must inevitably be damned? to love them would be to hate God for punishing them. To act then on principles of humanity, we must take upon ourselves to condemn actions only, and not men. Let us not assume the horrible function of devils. Let us not so lightly throw open the gates of hell for our fellow creatures. Alas! if all those are destined to be eternally miserable who deceive themselves, where is the mortal who can avoid it?

O my friends! of what a load have you eased my heart? In teaching me that an error in judgment is no crime, you have delivered me from a thousand tormenting scruples. I leave to others the subtle interpretation of dogmas which I do not comprehend, and content myself with those glaring truths which strike and at once convince me; those practical truths which instruct me in my duty. As to any thing farther, I abide by the rule of your old answer to Mr. Wolmar. A man is not master of his own sentiments to believe or disbelieve what he pleases. Can it be a crime for one not to be a logician? no, it is not the business of conscience to instruct us in the truth of things, but in the maxims of our duty. It does not teach us to reason well, but to act aright. In what can my husband be criminal before God? does he turn his eye from the contemplation of the deity? God himself hath hid his face from his view. He does not shun the truth; the truth avoids him. He is not actuated by pride; he does not seek to convert any one to his own opinion. He is glad they are of a different one. He approves of our sentiments, he wishes he had the same, but cannot. He is deprived of our consolations and our hopes. He acts uprightly without even expecting a recompense: he is in fact more virtuous, more disinterested than we. He is indeed truly to be pitied! but wherefore should he be punished? no: goodness, sincerity, honesty, virtue, these are what heaven requires, and what it will undoubtedly reward: these constitute the true service which the deity requires, and that service Mr. Wolmar most uniformly performs. If God judges of our faith by our words, to be truly virtuous is to believe in him. A true Christian is a virtuous man: the real infidels are the vicious.

Be not surprized, therefore, my dear friend, that I do not dispute with you many particulars of your letter, concerning which we are not of the same opinion. I know too well what you are, to be in pain about what you believe. What do all those idle questions about free agency concern me? whether I myself have the power to do good, or can obtain it by prayer, if in the end I am enabled to do it, does it not amount to the same thing? whether I acquire what is wanting by asking for it, or the deity grants it to my prayers, if it be necessary to ask in order to have it, is not this a sufficient explanation? happy enough to agree about the principal articles of our faith, why need we enquire farther? ought we to be desirous of penetrating into the bottomless abyss of metaphysics, and, in disputing about the divine essence, throw away the short time which is allotted us here to revere and honour the deity? we are ignorant what he is; but we know that he exists, and that is sufficient: he manifests himself in his works, we feel him constantly within us. We may dispute, but cannot sincerely disbelieve his existence. He has given us that degree of sensibility which enables us to perceive, to embrace him; let us pity those to whom he has not imparted such a portion of susceptibility, without flattering ourselves that we shall be able to make them sensible of what they cannot see. Let us respect his decrees in silence and do our duty: this is the best method to make proselytes.

Do you know any man of better sense or a more enlightened understanding than Mr. Wolmar? do you know any one more sincere, more upright, more just, less subject to the control of his passions; who will be a greater gainer by divine justice or the soul’s immortality? Do you know any man more nervous, more sublime, more convincing in a dispute than Lord B----? is there any person by his virtue more worthy of entering on the defence of the cause of God, more certain of his existence, more sincerely penetrated with the idea of divine majesty, more zealous for his glory and more capable of supporting it? yet you have been a witness of what passed during three months at Clarens: you have seen two men, having the highest esteem and respect for each other, and equally disdainful of the pedantry and quirk of scholastic logic, pass a whole winter in prudent and peaceful as well as lively and profound argumentations, with a view to convert each other; you have seen them attack and defend themselves and take every advantage of which human understanding is capable; and that on a subject wherein both, being equally interested, desired nothing so earnestly as to be of one mind.

What was the consequence? their mutual esteem is augmented, and yet both retain their former sentiments: if such an example does not for ever cure a prudent man of the rage of dispute, the love of truth I am sure never will.

For my part, I have thrown aside, and that for ever, such an useless weapon; and am determined never to mention a single word more to my husband about religion, unless it be to give a reason for mine. Not that a notion of divine toleration has rendered me indifferent to his. I must confess that, though I am become tranquil about his future state, I do not find I am the less zealous for his conversion. I would lay down my life to see him once convinced of the truth of divine revelation, if not for the sake of his future happiness, at least for his happiness in this life. For of how many pleasures is he not on this account deprived? what sentiments can give him comfort in his afflictions? what spectator excites him to those good deeds he performs in secret? what reward does he hope for from his virtue? how can he look upon death? no, I hope he will not meet it in this terrible situation. There remains but one expedient more for me to try to prevent it; and to that I consecrate the remainder of my life. This is not to convince, but to affect him; to set him a prevailing example, and to make religion so amiable that he shall not be able to resist her charms. Ah! my friend! what a forcible argument against infidelity is the life of a true Christian? do you believe there is a being on earth proof against it? this is the task I impose on myself for the future; assist me to perform it. Mr. Wolmar is cold, but not insensible. What a picture might we lay open to his heart? his friends, his children, his wife all uniting to his edification! When without preaching about God in our discourses, we shall demonstrate him by those actions which he inspires, by those virtues of which he is the author, by the pleasure we take in his service: when he shall see a sketch of paradise in his own house; when an hundred times a day he shall be compelled to cry out: “human nature is of itself incapable of this; something divine must prevail here.”

If my enterprise pleases you, if you find yourself worthy to concur in it, come and let us pass our days together, and never part more till death. If the project displeases or frightens you, listen to the dictates of your conscience; that will teach you your duty. I have no more to say. Agreeable to what Lord B---- intimates, I shall expect you both towards the latter end of next month. You will hardly know your apartment again; but in the alteration made in it you will discover the care of a good friend, who took a pleasure in ornamenting it for you. You will find there, also, a small assortment of books, which she bought for you at Geneva, of a better taste than the Adonis; not, but that for the jest’s sake you will find that too. You must however be discreet; for, as she would not have you know this is her doing, I hasten to finish my letter before she comes to forbid my speaking of it. Adieu, my dear friend; our party of pleasure to the castle of Chillon will take place tomorrow without you. It will not be the better for that. The bailiff has invited us with our children, which leaves me no excuse: but I know not why, and yet I cannot help wishing we were safe returned.

CLIX. From Fanny Anet

Oh sir! O my benefactor! what tidings do they order me to write to you! Madam----my poor mistress----good God! methinks I see already how frightened you are! but you cannot see the affliction we are all in here.----But I have not a moment to lose----I must tell you.----I must run----Oh that I had already told you all!----what will become of you, when you know our misfortune! The whole family went out yesterday to dine at Chillon. The baron, who was going into Savoy to spend some days at the castle of Blonay, went away after dinner.

The company attended him a little way, and afterwards walked along the dyke. Mrs. Orbe and the bailiff’s lady went before with my master; my mistress followed, having hold by one hand of Harriot and by the other of Marcellin. I came after with the eldest. His honour, the bailiff, who had staid behind to speak to some body, came up; and joining the company, offered my mistress his arm; which, in order to accept of, she sent Marcellin to me. I ran forward to meet him while the child did the same towards me; but, in running, his foot slipped and he fell unhappily into the water. I screamed out, when my mistress, turning her head and seeing the child in the water, flew back in an instant and threw herself in after him.

Unhappy that I am! why did I not throw myself in too! better had I been drowned on the spot! with difficulty I kept the eldest from leaping after its mother; who kept struggling with the other in her arms.----No boat, nor people were at hand, so that some time past before they could be got out of the water----the child soon recovered, but as for the mother----the fright, the fall, the condition she was in----ah none knows better than I the danger of such a fall! She was taken out and remained a good while insensible. The moment she came to herself, she enquired eagerly after the child----heavens! with what transport did she embrace him! I thought she was quite well again; but her spirits lasted her but for a moment: she insisted on being brought home, but fainted away several times during the journey. By some orders she gave me, I saw she believed she should not recover. Her fears were alas! too true! she will never recover. Mrs. Orbe is a good deal more altered than she. They are all distracted; I am the most sensible in the whole house----Why should I be uneasy? ah! my good mistress, if I love you, I shall never have occasion for another.---- Oh my dear sir! may heaven enable you to support this trial! adieu! the physician is this moment coming out of the chamber. I must run to meet him----if he gives me hopes, I will let you know it. If I say nothing, you will know too well the cause.

CLX. From Mrs. Orbe

Imprudent, unfortunate man! unhappy dreamer! you will now indeed never see her more----the veil----Eloisa is no more.----

She has herself written to you, I refer you to her letter: respect, I charge you, her last request. Great and many are the obligations you have to discharge on this side the grave.----

CLXI. From Mr. Wolmar

I was unwilling to interrupt the first transports of your grief: my writing to you would but have aggravated your sorrow, as I was no better qualified to relate than you to read our sad tale. At present, possibly, such a relation may not be disagreeable to both. As nothing remains but the remembrance of her, my heart takes a delight in recalling every token of that remembrance to my mind. You will have some consolation in shedding tears to her memory; but of that grand relief of the unfortunate I am constitutionally deprived, and am therefore more unhappy than you.

It is not, however, of her illness, but of herself, I would write. Another might have thrown herself into the water to save her child. Such an accident, her fever, her death are natural; and may be common to other mortals: but the employment of her last moments, her conversation, her sentiments, her fortitude, all these are peculiar to Eloisa. She was no less singular in the hour of death than she had been during the whole course of her life; and as I was the sole witness to many particulars, you can learn them from me alone.

You already know that her fright, her agitation, the fall, and the water she had imbibed, thew her into fainting fits, from which she did not recover till after she was brought home. On being carried into the house, she asked again for the child; the child was brought; and, seeing him walk about and return her caresses, she became apparently easy, and consented to take a little rest. Her sleep was but short, and as the physician was not yet come, she made us sit round on the bed; that is, Fanny, her cousin and me. She talked to us about her children, of the great diligence and care which her plan of education required, and of the danger of a moment’s neglect. Without making her illness of any great importance, she foresaw, she said, that it would prevent her for some time from discharging her part of that duty, and charged us to divide it amongst us.

She enlarged on her own projects, on yours, on the most proper means to carry them into execution; on the observations she had made as to what would promote or injure them; and, in a word, on every thing which might enable us to supply her place, in the discharge of the duties of a mother, so long as she might be prevented from it herself. I thought so much precaution unnecessary for one who imagined she should be prevented from exercising such employment only for a few days: but what added to my apprehensions was to hear her enter into a long and particular charge respecting Harriot. As to her sons, she contented herself with what concerned their education in the earliest infancy, as if relying on another for the care of their youth.

But in speaking of Harriot, she went farther, extending her remarks even to her coming-of-age; and, being sensible that nothing could supply the place of those reflections which her own experience dictated, she gave us a clear: and methodical abstract of the plan of education she had laid down, recommending it to the mother in the most lively and affecting manner.

All these exhortations, respecting the education of young persons and the duty of mothers, mixt with frequent applications to herself, could not fail to render the conversation extremely interesting: I saw indeed that it affected her too much. In the mean time, her cousin held one of her hands, pressing it every now and then to her lips, and bathing it with tears, at every reply: Fanny was not less moved; and as for Eloisa herself, I observed the big tears swell out of her eyes and steal down her cheeks; but she was afraid to let us see she wept, lest it should alarm us. But I then saw, that she knew her life was drawing towards its final period. My only hope was that her fears might deceive her, and represent the danger greater than it really was. Unhappily, however, I knew her too well to build much upon such a deception. I endeavoured several times to stop her, and at last begged of her not to waste her spirits by talking so much at once on a subject which might be continued at our leisure. Ah! my dear, replied she, don’t you know that nothing hurts a woman so much as silence? and, since I find myself a little feverish, I may as well employ my discourse about useful matters as prattle away the time about trifles.

The arrival of the physician put the whole house into a confusion, which it is impossible to describe. All the domestics were gathered about the door of the chamber, where they waited with their arms folded and anxious looks, to know his opinion of their mistress’s situation, as if their own destiny were depending. This sight threw poor Mrs. Orbe into such an agony of grief, that I began to be afraid for her senses. Under different pretences, therefore, I dismissed them, that their presence might no longer affect her. The physician gave us indeed a little hope, but in such vague terms that it served to convince me there was none. Eloisa was also reserved on account of her cousin. When the doctor left the chamber I followed him, which Clara was also going to do; but Eloisa detained her, and gave me a wink which I understood, and therefore immediately told the physician, that if there were any real danger he should as carefully conceal it from Mrs. Orbe as from the patient, lest her despair should render her incapable of attending her friend. He told me the case was indeed dangerous, but that four and twenty hours being hardly elapsed since the accident, it required more time to form a certain judgment; that the succeeding night might determine the fate of the patient; but that he could not positively pronounce any thing till the third day. Fanny alone was by, on his saying this, on whom we prevailed with some difficulty to stifle her emotions, and agreed upon what was proper to tell Mrs. Orbe and the rest of the family.

Toward the evening, Eloisa prevailed with her cousin, who had sat up with her the preceding night, and was desirous of continuing her vigilance, to go to bed for some hours. In the mean time, the patient being informed that she was to be bled in the foot, and that the physician was prescribing for her, she sent for him to her bedside and addressed him thus.

“Mr. Bouffon, when it is necessary to flatter a timid patient as to the danger of his case, the precaution is humane, and I approve of it; but it is a piece of cruelty to lavish equally on all, the disagreeable remedies which to many may be superfluous. Prescribe for me every thing that you think will be really useful, and I will punctually follow your prescriptions. But as to those of mere experiment, I beg you will excuse me: it is my body and not my mind which is disordered; and I am not afraid to end my days, but to misspend those which remain. The last moments of life are too precious to be thrown away. If you cannot prolong mine, therefore, I beg you will at least not shorten them, by preventing me from employing them as I ought. Either recover me entirely, or leave me; I can die alone.” Thus, my friend, did this woman, so mild and timid on ordinary occasions, know how to exert herself in a resolute and serious manner at this important crisis.

The night was cruel and decisive. Suffocation, oppression, fainting, her skin dry and burning. An ardent fever tormented her, during the continuance of which she was heard frequently to call out Marcellin, as if to prevent his running into the water, and to pronounce also another name, formerly repeated on a like occasion. The next day the physician told me plainly, that he did not think she could live three days. I alone was made privy to this afflicting piece of information, and the most terrible hour of my life was that wherein I kept it a secret in my breast, without knowing what use to make of it. I strayed out alone into the garden, musing on the measures I ought to take; not without many afflicting reflections on the misfortune of being reduced in the last stage of life to that solitude, of which I was sufficiently tired, even before I had experienced a more agreeable one.

I had promised Eloisa the night before, to tell her faithfully the opinion of the physician, and she had engaged me by every prevailing argument to keep my word. I felt that engagement on my conscience: but what to do, I was greatly at a loss! Shall I, said I to myself, in order to discharge an useless and chimerical duty, afflict her soul with the news, and lengthen the pangs of death? to tell her the hour of her dissolution, is it not in fact to anticipate the fatal moment? in so short an interval what will become of the desires, the hopes, the elements of life? shall I kill my Eloisa?

Thus meditating on what I should do, I walked on with long and hasty strides, and in an agitation of mind I had never before experienced. It was not in my power to shake off the painful anxiety; it remained an insupportable weight on my spirits. At length I was determined by a sudden thought.

For whose sake, said I, do I deliberate? for hers, or for mine? on whose principles do I reason? is it on her system or my own? What demonstration have I of the truth? In support of her system she also has nothing but opinion; but that opinion carries with it the force of evidence, and is in her eyes a demonstration. What right have I, in a matter which relates chiefly to her, to prefer my opinion, which I acknowledge to be doubtful, to hers which she thinks demonstrated? let us compare the consequences of both. According to hers, her disposition in the last hour of her life will decide her fate to all eternity. According to mine, all that I can do for her will be a matter of indifference in three days. According to my system, she will be then insensible to every thing: but if she be in the right, what a difference will there be! eternal happiness or misery! Perhaps----that word is terrible----wretch! risk thy own soul and not hers.

This was the first doubt I ever had concerning that scepticism you have so often attacked; but it was not the last. This doubt however freed me from the other. I immediately resolved; and for fear my mind should change, ran directly to Eloisa’s chamber; where, after dismissing every body from their attendance, I sat down by her bedside. I did not make use of those trifling precautions which are necessary with little minds. I was indeed for some time silent; but she looked at me and seemed to read my thoughts. Then, holding out her hand, do you think, said she, you bring me news? no, my dear friend, I know it already; the cold hand of death is upon me; we must part for ever.

She proceeded, and continued with me a long conversation, of which I may one day give you an account; and during which she engraved her testament on my heart. If I had indeed been ignorant of her disposition before, her temper of mind at this time would sufficiently have informed me.

She asked me, if her danger was known in the house. I told her, every one was greatly apprehensive; but that they knew nothing for certain; and that the physician had acquainted me only with his opinion. On this she conjured me carefully to keep it a secret for the remainder of the day. Clara, continued she, will not be able to support this stroke, unless it comes from my hand. I shall take upon me that affecting office tonight. It is chiefly for this reason that I desired to have the advice of a physician, that I might not subject her unnecessarily, and merely on my own suggestions to so cruel a trial. Take care that she may know nothing of it before the time, or you will certainly risk the loss of a friend, and your children that of a mother.

She then asked me after her father. I owned that I had sent an express to him: but took care to conceal from her, that the messenger, instead of contenting himself with delivering my letter, as I had ordered him, blundered out a story, from which my old friend, falsely collecting that his daughter was drowned, fell down stairs in a swoon and hurt himself; so that he kept his bed at Blonay. The hopes of seeing her father, affected her very sensibly, and the certainty I had of the vanity of such hope, had no small share in my uneasiness.

The paroxysms of the preceding night had rendered her extremely weak: nor did this long conversation at all increase her strength. In this feeble situation, therefore, she strove to get a little sleep in the day time; nor did I know, till two days after, that she did not sleep the whole time. The family continued in great anxiety; every one waiting in mournful silence for each other to remove their uneasiness, yet, without daring to ask any questions for fear of being told more than they wished to know. If there were any good news, they said to themselves, every one would be eager enough to tell it; and the bad we shall know but too soon. In this terrible suspense they were satisfied so long as they heard of no alteration for the worse. Amidst this dreadful silence, Mrs. Orbe only was active and talkative. As soon as she came out of Eloisa’s chamber, instead of going to rest, she ran up and down the house, asking what the doctor said to the one, and to the other. She had sat up all the preceding night, and could not be ignorant of what she had seen; but she strove even to impose on herself and to distrust the evidence of her senses. Those she interrogated always giving her favourable answers, encouraged her to ask others, which she continued to do with such an air of solicitude and poignant distress, that whoever had known the truth could not have been prevailed upon to tell it her.

In the presence of Eloisa she concealed her anxiety, and indeed the affecting object which she had before her eyes was sufficiently afflicting to suppress her vivacity. She was above all things solicitous to hide her fears from Eloisa; but she could very ill conceal them. Her trouble even appeared in her affectation to hide it. Eloisa, on her part also, spared no pains to deceive her cousin, as to the true state of her case. Without making light of her illness, she affected to speak of it as a thing that was already past, seeming uneasy only at the time necessary to restore her. How greatly did I suffer to see them mutually striving to comfort each other, while I knew that neither of them entertained that hope in their own breasts, with which each endeavoured to inspire the other.

Mrs. Orbe had sat up the two preceding nights and had not been undressed for three days. Eloisa proposed, therefore, that she should retire to her own bed: but she refused. Well, then, said Eloisa, let a little bed be made up for you in my chamber; if, added she, as if she had just thought of it, you will not take part of mine? come, my dear, says she, what say you? I am not worse, and, if you have no objection you shall sleep with me. This proposal was accepted. For my part, they turned me out of the room, and really I stood in need of rest.

I rose early the next morning; and, being anxious for what might have passed in the night, as soon as I heard them stirring, I went into her chamber. From the situation in which Mrs. Orbe appeared the preceding evening, I expected to find her extremely agitated. In entering the room, however, I saw her sitting on the settee, spiritless and pale, or rather of a livid complexion: her eyes heavy and dead; yet, she appeared calm and tranquil, but spoke little; as for Eloisa, she appeared less feeble than over night; the tone of her voice was strong, and her gesture animated; she seemed indeed to have borrowed the vivacity of her cousin. I could easily perceive, however, that this promising appearance was in a great measure the effect of her fever; but I remarked also in her looks that something had given her a secret joy which contributed to it not a little; but of which I could not discover the cause. The physician confirmed his former opinion, the patient continued also in the same sentiments, and there remained no hope.

Being obliged to leave her for some time, I observed, in coming again into her apartment, that every thing appeared in great order. She had caused flower-pots to be placed on the chimney piece; her curtains were half open and tied back; the air of the room was changed, a grateful odour every where diffusing itself, so that no one would have taken it for the bed chamber of the sick. The same taste and elegance appeared also in her deshabille; all which gave her rather the air of a woman of quality, waiting to receive company, than of a country lady who was preparing for her last moments. She saw my surprise, smiled at it, and guessing my sentiments was going to speak to me, when the children were brought into the room. These now engaged her attention; and you may judge whether, finding herself ready to part from them for ever, her caresses were cold or moderate. I even took notice that she turned oftener, and with more warmth, to him who was the cause of her death, as if he was become more dear to her on that account.

These embraces, sighs and transports were all mysterious to the poor children. They loved her indeed tenderly; but it was with that tenderness peculiar to their age. They comprehended nothing of her condition, of the repetition of her caresses, of her regret at never seeing them more: as they saw us sorrowful and affected, they wept; but knew nothing more. We may teach children to repeat the word death; but we cannot give them any idea of it: they neither fear it for themselves or others; they fear to suffer pain, but not to die. When the excess of pain drew complaints from their poor mother, they pierced the air with their cries; but when we talked to them of losing her, they seemed stupid and comprehended nothing. Harriot alone, being a little older than the others, and of a sex in which understanding and sentiment appear earlier than in the other, seemed troubled and frightened to see her little mamma in bed, whom she used always to see stirring about with her children. I remember that, on this occasion, Eloisa made a reflection quite in character, on the ridiculous vanity of Vespasian, who kept his bed so long as he was able to do any thing, and rose when he could do no more. [104] I know not, says she, if it be necessary that an emperor should die out of his bed? but this I know that the mother of a family should never take to her bed, unless to die.

After having wept over the children, and taken every one of them apart, particularly Harriot, whom she kept sometime, and who lamented and sobbed grievously. She called them all three together; gave them her blessing, and, pointing to Mrs. Orbe, go, my children, said she, go, and throw yourselves at the feet of your mother: this is she whom Providence has given you, depriving you of nothing in taking me. Immediately they all ran to her, threw themselves on their knees, and, laying hold of her hands, called her their good mamma, their second mother. Clara stooped forward to embrace them, but strove in vain to speak; she could only utter a few broken and imperfect exclamations, amidst sighs and sobs that stifled her voice. Judge if Eloisa was not moved! the scene indeed became too affecting: for which reason I interrupted it.

As soon as it was over, we sat down again round the bed; and, though the vivacity of Eloisa was a little suppressed by the foregoing scene, she preserved the same air of content in her looks; she talked on every subject with all that attention and regard which bespeaks a mind at ease; nothing escaped her; she was as intent on the conversation as if she had nothing else to think of. She proposed that we should dine in her chamber, that she might have as much of our company as possible for the short time she had to live: you may believe this proposal was not on our part rejected.

The dinner was served up without noise, confusion or disorder, but with as much regularity as if it had been in the Apollo. Fanny and the children dined with us. Eloisa, taking notice that every one wanted an appetite, had the art to prevail on us to eat of almost every thing; one time by pretending to instruct the cook, at another by asking whether she might not venture to taste this or that, and then by recommending it to us to take care of our health, without which we should not be capable of doing her the service her illness required. In short, no mistress of a family, however solicitous to do the honours of her house, could in full health have shewn, even to strangers, more obliging, or more amiable marks of her kindness, than those which dying Eloisa expressed for her family. Nothing of what I expected happened, nothing of what really happened ever entered my head. In short I was lost in astonishment.

After dinner, word was brought up that the clergyman was come. He came as a friend to the family, as he often favoured us with a visit. Though I had not sent for him, as Eloisa did not request it, I must confess to you, I was pleased to hear he was come, and imagine the most zealous believer could not on the same occasion have welcomed him with greater pleasure. His presence indeed promised the removal of many of my doubts, and some relief from my perplexity.

You will recollect the motives for my telling her of her approaching end. By the effect which, according to my notions, such a shocking piece of information should have had on her, how could I conceive that which it really had? how could I imagine that a woman, so devout as not to pass a day, when in health, without meditation, who made the exercise of prayer her delight and amusement, should at such a time as this, when she had but two days to live; when she was just ready to appear before her awful judge, instead of making peace with God and her conscience, amuse herself in ornamenting her chamber, chatting with her friends, and diverting them at their meals, without ever dropping a word concerning God’s grace, or her own salvation? what could I think of her, and her real sentiments? how could I reconcile her conduct with the notions I had entertained of her piety? how could I reconcile the use she made of her last moments to what she had said to the physician, of their great importance? all this appeared to me an inexplicable enigma; for though I did not expect to find her practising all the hypocritical airs of the devotees, it seemed to me, however, high time to think of what she judged of so much importance, and that it should suffer no delay. If one is devout amidst the noise and hurry of life, how can one be otherwise at the moment we are going to quit it, and when there remains no longer time to think of another?

These reflections led me farther than I thought I ever should proceed. I began to be uneasy lest my opinions, indiscreetly maintained, might at length have gained too much upon her belief. I had not adopted hers, and yet I was not willing that she should have renounced them. Had I been sick, I should certainly have died in my own way of thinking, but I was desirous that she should die also in hers. These contradictory notions will appear to you very extravagant; I myself do not find them very reasonable: they were, however, such as really suggested themselves, at that time. I do not undertake to justify, I only relate them.

At length the time drew near, when my doubts were to be cleared up: for it was easy to see that, sooner or later, the minister would turn the conversation on the object of his duty; and though Eloisa had been capable of disguising her sentiments, it would be too difficult for her to do it in such a manner that a person, attentive and prepossessed as I was, should not see through the disguise.

It soon after happened as I expected. To pass over, however, the commonplace compliments with which this worthy clergyman introduced the subject, as well as the affecting manner in which he represented the happiness of crowning a well-spent life by a Christian exit; he added, that he had indeed remembered her to have maintained opinions, on some points, different from those of the church, or such as may be most reasonably deduced from the sacred writings; but that, as she had never persisted in defending them, he hoped she would die, as she had lived, in the communion of the faithful, and acquiesce in all the particulars of their common confession.

As Eloisa’s answer removed at once all my doubts, and differed a good deal from the commonplace discourses on such occasions, I shall give it you almost word for word; for I listened to it very attentively, and committed it to paper immediately after.

“Permit me, sir, said she, to begin by thanking you for all the care you have taken to conduct me in the paths of virtue and Christianity, and for that complacency with which you have borne with my errors when I have gone astray. Filled with a due respect for your zeal, as well as gratitude for all your goodness, I declare with pleasure that it is to you I am indebted for all my good resolutions, and that you have always directed me to do what was right, and to believe what was true.

“I have lived and I die in the protestant communion, whose maxims are deduced from scripture and reason; concerning which my heart hath always confirmed what my lips uttered; and though I may not have had always that docility in regard to your precepts which perhaps I ought, it has arisen from my aversion to all kind of hypocrisy: that which I could not believe, I never could profess; I have always sincerely sought what was most conformable to truth, and the glory of my Creator. I may have been deceived in my research; I have not the vanity to think I have always been in the right. I may, indeed, have been constantly in the wrong; but my intention has been invariably good. This was as much as was in my own power. If God did not vouchsafe to enlighten my understanding farther, he is too merciful and just to demand of me an account of what he has not committed to my care.

“This, sir, is all I think necessary to say on the opinions I profess. As to the rest, let my present situation answer for me. With my head distracted by illness and subjected to the delirium of a fever, is it now a proper time to endeavour to reason better than I did when in health? when my understanding was unimpaired and as sound as I received it from my Maker,----if I was deceived then, am I less subject to be so now? and in my present weakness, does it depend on me to believe otherwise than I did when in full health and strength of body and mind? It is our reason which determines our belief, but mine has lost its best faculties; what dependence then could be made on the opinions I should now adopt without it? what now remains for me to do, is to appeal to what I believed before; for the uprightness of my intention is the same, though I have lost my judgment. If I am in an error, I am sorry for and detest it; and this is sufficient to set my heart at ease as to my belief.

“With respect to my preparation for death; that, sir, is made; badly indeed I own, but it is done in the best manner I could; and at least much better than I can do it now. I endeavoured to discharge that important part of my duty before I became incapable of it. I prayed in health;----when I was strong, I struggled with divine grace for favour; at present, now I am weak, I am resigned, and rely upon it. The best prayers of the sick, are patience and resignation. The preparation of death, is a good life; I know of no other. While I conversed with you, while I meditated by myself, while I endeavoured to discharge the duties which Providence ordained for me; it was then I was preparing myself for death: for meeting my God and judge at my last hour. It was then I adored him with all my faculties and powers; what more can I now do, when I have lost them? is my languid soul in a condition to raise itself to the Almighty? this remnant of a half extinguished life, absorbed in pain, is it worthy of being offered up to God? no, sir, he leaves it me to employ it for those he taught me to love, and from whom it is his sovereign will that I should now depart: I am going to leave them to go to him, it is therefore with them I should now concern myself; I shall soon have nothing to do but with him alone: the last pleasure I take on earth shall be in doing my last duty; is not that to serve him, and do his will; to discharge all those duties which humanity enjoins me before I throw it off entirely? what have I to do to calm troubles which I have not? my conscience is not troubled: if sometimes it has accused me, it has done it more when I was in health than at present. It tells me now that God is more merciful than I am criminal; and my confidence increases as I find I approach nearer to him. I do not present him with an imperfect, tardy, or forced repentance, which, dictated by fear, can never be truly sincere, and is only a snare by which the false penitent is deceived. I do not present him with the service of the remnant and latter end of my days, full of pain and sorrow, a prey to sickness, grief, anxiety, death; and which I would not dedicate to his service till I could do nothing else. No, I present before him my whole life, full indeed of errors and faults, but exempt from the remorse of the impious, and the crimes of the wicked.

“To what punishment can a just God condemn me? the reprobate, it is said, hate him. Must he not first make me not love him? no, I fear not to be found one of that number. O thou great eternal being! supreme intelligence! source of life and happiness! creator! preserver! father! lord of nature! God powerful and good, of whose existence I never doubted for a moment and under whose eye I have always delighted to live! I know, I rejoice that I am going to appear before thy throne. In a few days my soul, delivered from its earthly tabernacle, shall begin to pay thee more worthily that immortal homage which will constitute my happiness to all eternity. I look upon what I shall be, till that moment comes, as nothing. My body, indeed, still lives; but my intellectual life is at an end. I am at the end of my career, and am already judged from what is past. To suffer, to die, is all that I have now to do: and this is nature’s work. I have endeavoured to live in such a manner as to have no occasion to concern myself at death, and now it approaches, I see it without fear. Those who sleep on the bosom of a father, are in no fear of being awaked.”

This discourse, begun in a grave and slow voice, and ending in a more elevated and animated tone, made on everyone present, myself not excepted, an impression the more lively, as the eyes of her who pronounced it seemed to sparkle with a supernatural fire; rays of light seemed to encircle her brow; and, if there be any thing in this world which deserves the name of celestial, it was certainly the face of Eloisa, while she was thus speaking.

The minister himself was transported at what he heard; and, lifting up his hands and eyes to heaven, good God! said he, behold the worship that truly honours thee! deign to render it propitious; for how seldom do mortals offer thee the like! Madam, continued he, turning to Eloisa and approaching her bed, I thought to have instructed you, but have myself been instructed. I have nothing farther to say. You have that true faith, which knows how to love God. Bear with you that precious repose and testimony of a good conscience, and believe me it will not deceive you. I have seen many Christians in your situation, but never before saw any thing like this. What a difference between such a peaceful end, and that of those terrified sinners, who implore heaven with vain and idle prayers unworthy to be heard. Your death, madam, is as exemplary as your life: you have lived to exercise your charity to mankind, and die a martyr to maternal tenderness. Whether it please God to restore you to us, to serve us as an example, or whether he is pleased to call you to himself to crown your virtue with its due reward, may we all so long as we survive, live like you, and in the end follow your example in death; we shall then be certain of happiness in another life.

He offered now to take his leave; but Eloisa prevailed on him to stay. You are one of my friends, said she to him, and one of those I take the greatest pleasure to see; it is for those my last moments are so precious. We are going to part for too long a time, to part so soon now. He was well pleased to stay, and I went out and left them.

At my return, I found the conversation continued still on the same subject; but in a less interesting manner. The minister complained much of that false notion, which makes religion only of use to persons on their deathbed, and represents its ministers as men of ill omen. We are looked upon, says he, in common rather as the messengers of sorrow and death, than of the glad tidings of life and salvation: and that because, from the convenient opinion of the world that a quarter of an hour’s repentance is sufficient to efface fifty years of guilt, we are only welcome at such a time. We must be clothed in a mourning habit and affect a morose air, in short nothing is spared to render us dismal and terrifying. It is yet worse, in other religious professions. A dying roman-catholic is surrounded by objects the most terrifying, and is pestered with ceremonies that in a manner bury him alive. By the pains they take to keep the devils from him, he imagines he sees his chamber full of them; he dies a hundred times with fear before he expires, and it is in this state of horror the church delights to plunge the dying sinner, in order to make the greater advantage of his purse.

Thank God, said Eloisa, that we were not brought up in those venal religions, which murder people to inherit their wealth, and who, selling heaven to the rich, would extend even to the other world that unjust inequality which prevails in this. I do not at all doubt that such mournful ideas encourage infidelity, and create a natural aversion for that species of worship, which adopts them. I hope, continued she, looking steadfastly at me, that he who may educate our children will adopt very different maxims: and that he will not represent religion to them as a mournful exercise, by continually setting before them the prospect of death. If they learn once but to live well, they will of themselves know how to die.

In the continuation of this discourse, which became less affecting and more interrupted than I shall tell you, I fully comprehended the maxims of Eloisa, and the conduct at which I had been surprized. It appeared that, perceiving her situation quite desperate, she contrived only to remove that useless and mournful appearance which the fear of most persons when dying makes them put on. This she did either to divert our affliction, or to banish from her own view a spectacle so moving, and at the same time unnecessary. Death, said she, is of itself sufficiently painful! why must it be rendered hideous? the care which others throw away in endeavouring to prolong their lives, I will employ to enjoy mine to the last moment. Shall I make an hospital of my apartment, a scene of disgust and trouble, when my last care will be to assemble in it all those who are most dear to me? If I suffer the air to stagnate, I must banish my children or expose their health to danger. If I put on a frightful dress and appearance myself, I shall be known no longer; I shall be no longer the same person you will all remember to have loved, and will be able to bear me no more. I shall, even alive, have the frightful spectacle of horror before me, which I shall be to my friends when I am dead. Instead of this, I have discovered the art to extend my life without prolonging it. I exist, I love, am loved, and live till the last breath forsakes me. The moment of death is nothing: the natural evil is a trifle; and I have overcome all those of opinion.

This and a good deal of similar discourse passed between the patient, the minister, sometimes the doctor, Fanny, and me. Mrs. Orbe was present all the while but never joined in the conversation. Attentive to the wants of her friend, she was very assiduous to serve her, when she wanted any assistance; the rest of the time she remained immoveable and almost inanimate; she kept looking at her without speaking, and without understanding any thing of what was said.

As to myself; fearing that Eloisa would talk too much for her strength, I took the opportunity of the minister and physician’s talking to each other aside, to tell her, in her ear, that she talked a great deal for a sick person, and reasoned very profoundly for one who conceived herself incapable of reasoning. Yes, replied she, very low, I talk too much for a person that is sick, but not for one that is dying; I shall very soon have nothing more to say. With respect to argument, I reason no more now; I have done with it. I have often reflected on my last illness; I am now to profit by my reflection. I am no longer capable of reflecting nor resolving; I am now only able to talk of what I have before thought of, and to practice what I have formerly resolved.

The remainder of the day passed away in nearly the same tranquillity, and almost in the same manner as if no sick person was in the house. Eloisa, just as in full health, calm and resigned, talked with the same good sense and the same spirit; putting on, now and then, an air of serenity approaching even to sprightliness. In short, I continued to observe a certain appearance of joy in her eyes, which increased my uneasiness, and concerning which I was determined to come to an explanation.

I delayed it no longer than the same evening: when, seeing I had an inclination to be left alone with her, she told me I had prevented her, for that she had something to say to me. It is very well, replied I, but as I intimated my intention first, give me leave first to explain myself.

Then sitting down by her and looking at her attentively, my Eloisa, said I, my dear Eloisa, you have wounded my very soul. Yes, continued I, seeing her look upon me with some surprise, I have penetrated your sentiments; you are glad to die, you rejoice to leave me. Reflect on my behaviour to you since we have lived together: have I ever deserved on your part so cruel a desire? at that instant she clasped both my hands in hers, and with a voice that thrilled my soul, who? I! said she, I glad to leave you! Is it thus you penetrate my sentiments? Have you so soon forgot our conversation of yesterday? at least, interrupted I, you die content----I have seen----I see it. Hold, said she, it is indeed true, I die content; but it is content to die, as I have lived, worthy the name of your wife. Ask of me no more, for I can tell you no more: but here, continued she, taking a folded paper from under her pillow, here is what will unfold to you the mystery. This paper was a letter which I saw was directed to you. I give it to you open, added she, giving it into my hands, that after having read it you will determine within yourself, either to send or suppress it, according as you think best. I desire, however, you will not read it till I am no more; and I am certain you will grant that request.

This letter, my dear St. Preux, you will find inclosed. She who wrote it I well know is dead; but I can hardly bring myself to believe that she no longer exists.

She questioned me afterwards, expressing great uneasiness, about her father. Is it possible, said she, that he should know his daughter to be in danger and she not hear from him! has any misfortune happened to him? or has he ceased to love me? can it be that my father, so tender a father, should thus abandon his child? that he should let me die without seeing him; without receiving his last blessing; without embracing him in my last moments. Good God! how bitterly will he reproach himself, when he comes to find that he will see me no more! ----this reflection so extremely afflicted her, that I judged she would be less affected to know her father was ill than to suspect his indifference. I therefore determined to acquaint her with the truth, and in fact found her more easy than under her first suspicions. The thoughts of never seeing him again, however, much affected her. Alas! said she, what will become of him when I am gone? shall he live to survive his whole family! what a life of solitude will his be? It is impossible he should long survive! at this moment nature resumed its empire, and the horrors of approaching death were extremely perceptible. She sighed, clasped her hands, lifted up her eyes to heaven; and, I saw plainly, endeavoured to pray, with all that difficulty which she before observed, always attended the prayers of the sick.

When it was over, she turned to me, and, complaining that she felt herself very weak; told me, she foresaw this would be the last time we should have an opportunity of conversing together. I conjure you, therefore, continued she, by our sacred union, in the name of those dear infants the pledges of our love, harbour no longer such unjust suspicions of your wife. Can I rejoice to leave you? you, the business of whose life it has been to instruct and make me happy! you, who, of all the men in the world, were the most capable to make me so; you, with whom only perhaps I could have lived within the bounds of discretion and virtue! no! believe me, if I could set any value upon life, it would be that I might spend it with you.----These words, pronounced with great tenderness, affected me to that degree, that as I pressed her hands frequently with my lips I found them wet with my tears. I never before thought my eyes made for weeping. These tears were the first I ever shed since my birth, and shall be the last till the hour of my death. After having wept the last for Eloisa, there is nothing left on earth that can draw from me a tear.

This was a day of great fatigue for poor Eloisa. Her preparation of Mrs. Orbe in the preceding night, her interview with the children in the morning, that with the minister in the afternoon, together with the above conversation with me in the evening had quite exhausted her. She betook herself to rest, and slept better that night than on the preceding, whether on account of her lassitude, or that in fact her fever and paroxysms were less violent.

Early the next morning, word was brought me that a stranger, very indifferently dressed, desired very earnestly to speak particularly to Eloisa: and though he was informed of her situation, he still continued his importunity, saying, his business related to an act of great charity, that he knew Mrs. Wolmar very well, and that while she had life remaining, she would take pleasure in exerting her benevolence. As Eloisa had established it as an inviolable rule that no person, particularly such as appeared to be in distress, should be turned away, the servants brought me word of the man and his request: on which I ordered him in. His appearance was mean to the greatest degree, being clothed almost in rags, and having in his air and manner all the symptoms of indigence. I did not observe, however, any thing further either in his looks or discourse to make me suspicious of him; though he still persisted in his resolution of telling his business to none but Eloisa. I told him that if it related to any remedy he might be possessed of, to save her life, I would give him all the recompense he might expect from her, without troubling her in her present extremity. No, sir, replied he, poor as I am, I desire not your money. I demand only what belongs to me, what I esteem beyond all the treasures on earth, what I have lost by my own folly, and what Mrs. Wolmar alone, to whom I owe it, can a second time restore.

This discourse, though unintelligible, determined me, however, what to do. A designing knave might indeed have said as much, but he could never have said it in the same manner. He required that none of the servants should be present, a precaution which seemed mysterious and strange; I indulged him, and introduced him to Eloisa. He had said that he was known to Mrs. Orbe; he passed by her, however, without her taking notice of him, at which I was a little surprized. Eloisa recollected him immediately. Their meeting was extremely affecting. Clara, hearing a noise, came forward, and soon remembered her old acquaintance, nor without some tokens of joy: but these were soon checked by her affliction. One sentiment only engrossed her attention, and her heart was insensible to every thing else.

It is needless, I imagine, to tell you who this person was; a thousand ideas will rise up in your memory and suggest it. But whilst Eloisa was comforting him, however, she was seized with a violent stoppage of her breath, and became so ill that we thought she was going to expire. To prevent any further surprise or distraction, at a time when her relief only was to be thought on, I put the man into the closet, and bid him lock himself in. Fanny was then called up, and after some time Eloisa recovered from her fit; when, looking round and seeing us all in a consternation about her, she said, never mind, children, this is only an essay; it is nothing like so painful as one would think.

All was soon tranquil again; but the alarm was so great that I quite forgot the man in the closet, till Eloisa whispered me to know what was become of him. This was not, however, till dinner was served up and we were all sat down to table. I would have gone into the closet to speak to him, but he had locked the door on the inside as I had directed him; I was obliged, therefore, to have patience till after dinner.

During our repast, du Boffon, who dined with us, speaking of a young widow who was going to marry again, made some reflections on the misfortunes of widows in general; to which, I replied, the fortune of those was still harder who were widows while their husbands were living. That, indeed, sir, answered Fanny, who saw this discourse was directed to her, is too true, especially if such husbands are beloved. The conversation then turned upon hers; and, as she always spoke of him very affectionately, it was natural for her to do so now, at a time when the loss of her benefactress threatened to make that of her husband still more severe. This indeed she did in the most affecting terms, commending the natural goodness of his disposition, lamenting the bad examples by which he had been reduced, and so sincerely regretting his loss that, being sufficiently disposed before to sorrow, she burst out into a flood of tears. At this instant the closet door flew open, and the poor man, rushing out, threw himself at her feet, embraced her knees and mingled his tears with hers. She was holding a glass in her hand, which immediately fell to the ground; while the poor creature was so affected with joy and surprise that she had fallen into a fit, had not proper care been instantly taken to prevent it.

What followed is easily imagined. It was known in a moment over the whole house that Claud Anet was come. The husband of our good Fanny! what a festival! he was hardly got out of the chamber before he was stripped of his tatters and dressed in a decent manner. Had each of the servants had but two shirts a piece, Anet would soon have had as many as them all. They had indeed so far prevented me that, when I went out with a design to get him equipped, I was obliged to make use of my authority to make them take back the cloaths they had furnished him.

In the mean time Fanny would not leave her mistress. In order, however, to give her an opportunity of an hour or two’s conversation with her husband, we pretended the children wanted to take an airing, and sent them both to take care of them.

This scene did not disturb Eloisa so much as the preceding ones. There was nothing in it disagreeable, and it rather did her good than harm. Clara and I passed the afternoon with her by ourselves, and had two hours of calm uninterrupted conversation, which she rendered the most agreeable and interesting of any we had ever experienced in our lives.

She opened it with some observations on the affecting scene we had just beheld, and which recalled strongly to her mind the times of her early youth. Then, following the order of events, she made a short recapitulation of the incidents of her life, with a view to shew that, taking it for all in all, she had been fortunate and happy; that she had risen, gradually to the highest pinnacle of earthly happiness, and that the accident, which now cut her off in the middle of her days, seemed in all appearance, according to the natural course of things, to mark the point of separation between the good and evil of mortal life.

She expressed her gratitude to heaven in that it had been pleased to give her a susceptible and benevolent heart, a sound understanding and an agreeable person; in that it had been pleased to give her birth in a land of liberty, and not in a country of slaves; that she came of an honourable family and not of an ignoble or criminal race; that she was born to a moderate fortune, and not either to the superfluous riches of the great, which corrupt the mind, or to the indigence of the poor, which debases it. She felicitated herself that she was born of parents, both of them good and virtuous, replete with justice and honour, and who, tempering the faults of each other, had formed her judgment on theirs, without subjecting her to their foibles or prejudices. She boasted the advantages, she had enjoyed, of being educated in a rational and holy religion; which, so far from debasing, elevates and ennobles mankind; which, neither favouring impiety nor fanaticism, permits its professors to make use, at the same time, both of faith and reason, to be at once both devout and humane.

Then, pressing the hand of Clara, which she constantly held in hers, and looking at her with the most affecting tenderness, all these blessings, said she, I have enjoyed in common with others; but this one----this, heaven reserved for me alone: I am a woman, and yet have known a true friend. Heaven gave us birth at the same time; it gave us a similarity of inclinations which has subsisted to this hour: it formed our hearts one for the other; it united us in the cradle; I have been blest with her friendship during my life, and her kind hand will close my eyes in death. Find another example like this in the world, and I have no longer any thing to boast. What prudent advice hath she not given me? from what perils hath she not saved me? under what afflictions hath she not comforted me? what should I indeed have been without her? what should I not have been, had I listened more attentively to her counsel?

Clara, instead of replying, leaned her head on the breast of her friend, and would have stifled her sighs by her tears: but it was impossible. Eloisa embraced her with the most cordial affection, and for a long time a scene of tearless silence succeeded.

When they recovered themselves, Eloisa continued her discourse. These blessings, said she, were mixed, with their inconveniences; such is the lot of humanity! My heart was made for love; difficult as to personal merit, but indifferent to that of opinion, it was morally impossible that my father’s prejudices should ever agree with my inclinations. My heart required a lover of its own peculiar choice. Such a one offered himself, I made choice of him, or rather heaven so directed my choice, that though a slave to passion, I should not be abandoned to the horrors of my guilt, and that the love of virtue should still keep possession of my heart, even after I was criminal. He made use of the specious insinuating language of virtue, by which a thousand base men daily seduce our sex; but perhaps he only of all mankind, was sincere. Did I then know his heart? ah! no. I then knew no more of him than his professions, and yet I was seduced. I did that through despair which others have done through wantonness: I even threw myself, as my father reproached me, into his arms; and yet he loved and respected me: by that respect alone I began to know him truly. Every man capable of such behaviour must have a noble soul. Then, I might safely have trusted him; but I had done that before, and afterwards ventured to trust in my own strength, and so was deceived.

She then went on, to lavish encomiums on the merit of this unhappy lover; I will not say she did him more than justice, but the pleasure she took in it was very obvious. She even praised him at her own expense, and by endeavouring to be just to him, was unjust to herself. She went even so far as to maintain that he held adultery in greater horror than she did; forgetting that he himself had disproved any such suggestion.

All the other incidents of her life were related in the same spirit. The behaviour of Lord B----, her husband, her children, your return, our friendship, every thing was set in the most favourable light. She recapitulated even her misfortunes with pleasure, as accidents which had prevented greater misfortunes. She lost her mother at a time when that loss was peculiarly felt; but if heaven had been pleased to spare her, a disturbance, fatal to the peace of her family might have been the consequence. The assistance of her mother, feeble as it was, would have been sufficient to strengthen her resolution to resist the will of her father, whence family discord and scandal would have arisen, perhaps some disaster or dishonour, and perhaps still worse if her brother had lived. She had married a man, against her own inclination, whom she did not love; and yet she maintained, that she could not have been so happy with any other man, not even with the object of her passion. The death of Mr. Orbe had deprived her of a friend in the husband, but had restored to her a more amiable one in the wife. She even went so far as to include her uneasiness, her pains, in the number of blessings, as they had served to prevent her heart from being hardened against the sufferings of others. It is unknown, said she, the delight of bemoaning our own misfortunes or those of others. A susceptible mind finds a contentment in itself, independent of fortune. How deeply have I not sighed! how bitterly have I not wept! and yet, were I to pass my life again, the evil I have committed would be all that I would wish retrenched; that which I have suffered would be again agreeable. These, St. Preux, were her own words; when you have read her letter, they will perhaps seem more intelligible.

Thus, continued she, you see to what felicity I was arrived. I enjoyed a considerable share of happiness, and had still more in view. The increasing prosperity of my family, the virtuous education of my children, all that I held dear in the world assembled, or ready to be assembled around me. The time present and the future equally flattering, enjoyment and hope united to compleat my happiness. Thus raised to the pinnacle of earthly bliss, I could not but descend; as it came before it was expected, it would have taken its flight while I was delighted in the thoughts of its duration. What could Providence have done to have sustained me on the summit of felicity? a permanent situation is not the lot of mankind? no, when we have acquired every thing, we must lose something, though it were from no other cause than that the pleasure of enjoyment diminishes by possession. My father is already in the decline of life; my children of an age when life is very uncertain: how many losses might not hereafter assist me, without my having it in my power to repair, or console myself under, one! A mother’s affection constantly increases, whilst the tenderness of her offspring diminishes in proportion as they are absent, or reside at a distance from her. Mine, as they grow up, would be taken from me: they would live in the great world, and might neglect me. You intend to send one of them to Russia; how many tears would not his departure and absence cost me! all by degrees would be detached from me, and I should have nothing to supply their loss. How often should I find myself not in the situation in which I now am going to leave you! and after all, I must still die. Die perhaps the last of you all, alone and forsaken! the longer one lives, the more desirous we are of living, even when our enjoyments are at an end: hence I might survive till life became a burthen, and yet should fear to die; ’tis the ordinary consequence of old age. Instead of that, my last moments are now agreeable, and I have strength to resign myself to death, if death it may be called to leave behind us what we love. No, my friends, my children, think not that I shall leave you; I will remain with you; in leaving you thus united, my heart, my soul, will still reside among you. You will see me continually among you; you will perceive me perpetually near you----the time will also come when we shall be united again; nor shall the virtuous Wolmar himself escape me. My return to God speaks peace to my soul, and sweetens the bitter moment that approaches; it promises me for you also the same felicity. I have been happy, I am still happy, and am going to be so for ever; my happiness is determined, beyond the power of fortune, to all eternity.

Just then the minister entered. Eloisa was truly the object of his respect and esteem; nobody knowing better than he the liveliness and sincerity of her belief. He was but too much affected with the conversation he had held with her the day before, and above all with the serenity and fortitude he had observed in her. He had often seen persons die with ostentation, but never with such calmness. Perhaps also to the interest he took in her situation was added a little curiosity to see whether such her uncommon serenity would last to the end. Eloisa had no occasion to change the subject of discourse to render it more agreeable to the character of our visitor. As her conversation when in health was never on frivolous topics, so now she continued, on her sickbed, to talk over with the same tranquillity, such subjects as she thought most interesting to herself and her friends; speaking indifferently on matters by no means indifferent in themselves.

Thus, following the chain of her ideas relative to her notions of remaining with her friends, the discourse turned on the situation of the soul separated from the body: when she took occasion to admire the simplicity of such persons, who promised on their deathbeds to come back to their friends, and bring them news of the other world. This, continued she, is just as reasonable, as the stories of ghosts and apparitions, that are said to commit a thousand disorders, and torment credulous good women; as if departed spirits had lungs to scold and hands to fight with. [105] How is it possible for a pure spirit to act upon a soul inclosed in a body, and which, by virtue of its union with such body can perceive nothing but by means of the corporeal organs? this is not to be conceived. I must confess, however, I see nothing absurd in supposing that the soul when delivered from the body, should return, wander about, or perhaps reside near the persons of such as were dear to it in life: not indeed to inform them of its existence; it has no means of communicating such information; neither can it act on us, or perceive what we act, for want of the organs of sense necessary to that end; but methinks it might become acquainted with our thoughts and perceptions, by an immediate communication similar to that by which the Deity is privy to all our thoughts, and by which we reciprocally read the thoughts of each other, in coming face to face: [106] for, added she, turning to the minister, of what use can the senses be when there is nothing for them to do? the supreme Being is neither seen nor understood; he only makes himself felt, he speaks neither to the eyes nor the ears, but only to the heart.

I understood, by the answer of the pastor and from some signs which passed between them, that the resurrection of the body had been one of the points on which they had formerly disputed. I perceived also that I now began to give more attention to the articles of Eloisa’s religion, where her faith seemed to approach the bounds of reason.

She seemed to take so much pleasure in these notions that, had she not been predetermined to abide by her former opinions, it had been cruelty to endeavour to invalidate one that seemed so agreeable to her in her present condition. What an additional pleasure, said she, have I not an hundred times taken, in doing a good action, in the imagination that my good mother was present, and that she knew the heart and approved the intentions of her daughter! there is something so comfortable in the thoughts of living under the eyes of those who were dear to us, that with respect to ourselves, they can hardly be said to be deceased. You may judge whether Clara’s hand was not frequently pressed during this discourse.

The minister had replied hitherto with a good deal of complacency and moderation; he took care, however, not to forget his profession for a moment, but opposed her sentiments on the business of another life. He told her the immensity, glory and other attributes of God, would be the only objects which the souls of the blessed would be employed in contemplating: that such sublime contemplation, would efface every other idea, that we should see nothing, that we should remember nothing, even in heaven, but that after so ravishing a prospect, every thing earthly would be lost in oblivion.

That may well be, returned Eloisa; there is such an immense distance between the lowness of our thoughts and the divine essence, that we cannot judge what effect it may have on us, when we are in a situation to contemplate its beauty. But, as I have hitherto been able to reason only from my ideas, I must confess that I leave some persons so dear to me, that it would grieve me much to think I should never remember them more. One part of my happiness, say I, will consist in the testimony of a good conscience; I shall certainly remember then how I have acted on earth: if I remember this, I cannot forget those persons who were dear to me; who must be still so: to see [107] them no more then will be a pain to me, and pain enters not into the mansions of the blest. But if, after all, I am mistaken, says she, smiling, a mistake for a day or two will be soon at an end. I shall know, sir, in a short time, more on this subject than even yourself. In the mean time, this I am well assured of, that so long as I remember that I have lived on earth, so long shall I esteem those I loved there, among whom my worthy pastor will not have the lowest place.

In this manner passed the conversation all that day, during which Eloisa appeared to have more ease, more hope and assurance than ever, seeming, in the opinion of the minister, to enjoy a foretaste of that happiness she was going to partake among the blessed. Never did she appear more tender, more amiable, in a word, more herself than at this time; always sensible, sentimental, possessing the fortitude of the philosopher and the mildness of a Christian. Nothing of affectation, nothing assuming or sententious escaped her; her expression always dictated by her sentiments with the greatest simplicity of heart. If sometimes she stifled the complaints which her sufferings might have drawn from her, it was not through affectation of a stoical intrepidity; but to prevent those who were about her from being afflicted; and when the pangs of approaching death triumphed over her strength, she strove not to hide her sufferings, but permitted us to comfort her; and when she recovered from them a little, comforted us in her turn. In the intervals of her pain, she was chearful, but her chearfulness was extremely affecting; a smile sitting frequently on the lip while the eye ran over with tears. To what purpose is that terror which permits us not to enjoy what we are going speedily to lose? Eloisa was even more pleasing, more amiable than when in health; and the last day of her life was the most glorious of all.

Towards the evening she had another fit which, though not so severe as that in the morning, would not permit us to leave the children long with her. She, remarked, however, that Harriot looked changed, and though we accounted for it by saying she wept much and eat little, she said no, her illness was in the blood.

Finding herself better, she would have us sup in her own chamber; the doctor being still with her. Fanny also, whom we always used to send for when we chose she should dine or sup at our table, came up unsent for; which Eloisa perceiving, she smiled and said, yes, child, come, you shall sup with me tonight; you may have your husband longer than you will have your mistress. Then turning to me, she said, I shall have no need to recommend Claud Anet to your protection. No, replied I, whosoever you have honoured with your benevolence needs no other recommendation to me.

Eloisa, finding she could bear the light, had the table brought near the bed, and what is hardly to be conceived of one in her situation, she had an appetite. The physician who saw no danger in gratifying her, offered her a bit of chicken; which she refused, but desired a bit of fish, which she eat with a little bread, and said it was very good. While she was eating, you should have seen the looks of Mrs. Orbe; you should have seen, I say, for it is impossible to describe them. What she eat was so far from doing her harm, that she seemed the better for it during the remainder of the repast. She was even in such good humour as to take upon her to complain that we had been so long without wine. Bring, says she, a bottle of Spanish wine for these gentlemen. By the looks of the physician, she saw he expected to taste some genuine Spanish wine, and casting her eyes at Clara, smiled at the conceit. In the mean time Clara, without giving attention to that circumstance, looked with extreme concern, sometimes at Eloisa, and then on Fanny, of whom her eyes seemed to say, or ask something, which I could not understand.

The wine did not come so soon as was expected; the valet de chambre, who was entrusted with the key of the cellar, having taken it away through mistake. On enquiry, indeed, it was found that the provision intended for one day had lasted five, and that the key was gone without any body’s perceiving the want of it, notwithstanding the family had sat up several nights. The physician was amazed, and for my part, at a loss whether I should attribute this forgetfulness to the concern or the sobriety of the servants, I was ashamed to make use of ordinary precautions with such domestics, and therefore ordered the door of the cellar to be broke open, and that for the future every one might drink at their discretion.

At length a bottle was brought us, and the wine proved excellent; when the patient having a mind to taste it, desired some mixed with water; on which the doctor gave her a glass, and ordered her to drink it unmixed. Clara and Fanny now cast their eyes more frequently at each other, but with looks timid and constrained, as if they were fearful of saying too much.

Her fasting, weakness, and ordinary way of living made the wine have a great effect on Eloisa. She perceived it, and said she was intoxicated. After having deferred it so long, said she, it was hardly worth while to begin to make me tipsy now, for a drunken woman is a most odious sight. In fact she began to prattle sensibly however as usual, but with more vivacity than before. It was astonishing, nevertheless, that her colour was not heighten’d: her eyes sparkled only with a fire moderated by the languor of her illness; and excepting her paleness she looked to be in full health. Clara’s emotion became now extremely visible. She cast a timid look alternately on Eloisa, on me, on Fanny, and above all on the physician; these were all expressive of so many interrogatories which she was desirous but fearful to make. One would have thought every moment that she was going to speak, but that the fear of a disagreeable reply prevented her: indeed her disquietude appeared at length so great that it seemed oppressive.

Fanny, encouraged by all these signs and willing to relieve her, attempted to speak, but with a trembling voice, faltering out that her mistress seemed to have been in less pain to ay----that her last convulsion was not so strong as the preceding----that the evening seemed----and there she stopped. Clara, who trembled like a leaf while Fanny was speaking, now fixed her eyes on the physician, listening with all her attention and hardly venturing to breathe lest she should not perfectly understand what he was going to say.

A man must have been stupid not to have guessed the meaning of all this. Du Boffon got up, felt the pulse of the patient, and said, here is neither intoxication nor fever; the pulse promises well. Clara rose up in a moment, and, addressing the doctor with the utmost impatience, would have interrogated him more particularly, but her speech failed her. How sir! said she----the pulse! the fever! she could say no more; but her eyes sparkled with impatience, and not a muscle in her face but indicated the most disquieting curiosity.

The doctor, however, made no answer, but took up the patient’s hand again, examined her eyes and her tongue, and having stood silent a while, said, I understand you, madam; but it is impossible for me to say any thing positively at present, only this, that if the patient is in the same situation at this hour tomorrow morning I will answer for her life. The words had scarce dropt from his lips before Clara, rushing forward quick as lightening, overturned two chairs and almost the table to get at him, when she clung round his neck and kissed him a hundred times, sobbing and bathing his face with her tears. With the same impetuosity she took a ring of value from her finger, and put it forcibly on his, crying out, as well as she could, quite out of breath, O sir! if you do but restore her to us, it is not one life only you will be so happy as to save.

Eloisa saw and heard this, which greatly affected her; looking on her friend, therefore, she thus broke out in a sorrowful and moving tone, cruel Clara! how you make me regret the loss of life! are you resolved to make me die in despair? must you be a second time prepared? these few words were like a clap of thunder; they immediately extinguished her transports, but could not quite stifle her rekindled hopes.

The doctor’s reply to Mrs. Orbe was immediately known throughout the house, and the honest domestics already conceited their mistress half restored. They unanimously resolved, therefore, to make the doctor a present, on her recovery, to which each contributed three months wages, and the money was immediately put into the hands of Fanny; some borrowing of the others what they wanted to make up their quota of the sum. This agreement was made with so much eagerness and haste, that Eloisa heard in her bed the noise of their acclamations. Think, my friend, what an effect this must have had on the heart of a woman, who felt herself dying. She made a sign to me to come near, and whispered in my ear; see how they make me drink to the very bottom that bitter yet sweet cup of sensibility!

When it was time to retire, Mrs. Orbe, who still partook of her cousin’s bed, called her women, to sit up that night to relieve Fanny: the latter however objected to the proposal, and seemingly with greater earnestness than she would have done, had not her husband been come. Mrs. Orbe persisted notwithstanding in her design, and both of them passed the night together in the closet. I sat up in the next chamber, but the hopes which the domestics entertained had so animated their zeal, that neither persuasions nor threats could prevail on one of them to go to bed that night. Thus the whole house sat up all night under so much impatience, that there was not one of the family who would not have gladly given a whole year of his life to have had it nine o’clock in the morning.

I frequently heard them walking in her chamber, during the night, which did not disturb me; but toward the morning when things seem’d more quiet and still, I was alarmed at a low, indistinct noise that seemed to come from Eloisa’s room. I listened and thought I could now distinguish the groans of a person in extremity. I ran into the room, threw open the curtain, and there----O St. Preux! there I saw them both, those amiable friends, motionless, locked in each other’s embrace, the one fainted away and the other expiring. I cried out, and hastened to prevent or receive her last sigh; but it was too late; Eloisa was no more.

I can give you no account of what passed for some hours afterwards; being ignorant of what befell myself during that time. As soon as I was a little recovered from my first surprise, I enquired after Mrs. Orbe; and learnt that the servants were obliged to carry her into her own chamber, where at last they were forced to confine her to prevent her returning into that of Eloisa; which she had several times done, throwing herself on the body, embracing, chasing, and kissing it in a kind of phrenzy, and exclaiming aloud in a thousand passionate expressions of fruitless despair.

On entering her apartment, I found her absolutely frantic, neither seeing nor minding any thing, knowing nobody, but running about the room, and wringing her hands, sometimes muttering in a hollow voice some extravagant words, and at others sending forth such terrible shrieks as to make one shudder with horror. On the feet of the bed sat her woman, frightened out of her wits, not daring to breathe or stir, but seeking to hide herself and trembling every limb. In fact the convulsions, which at this time agitated the unhappy Clara, had something in them most terrifying. I made a sign that her woman should retire; fearing lest a single word of consolation, untimely offered, might have put her into an actual fury.

I did not attempt therefore to speak to her; as she could neither have listened to or understood me; but observing after some time that her strength was quite exhausted with fatigue, I placed her on a settee; then sitting down by her and holding her hands, I ordered the children to be brought in and called them round her. Unhappily the first she took notice of was him that was the innocent cause of her friend’s death. The sight of him I could see made her tremble; her countenance changed, she turned away her looks from him in a kind of horror, and struggled to get her hands loose to push him from her. I called him then to me. Unfortunate boy, said I, for having been too dear to the one, you are become hateful to the other: it is plain their hearts were not in every thing alike. She was extremely angry at what I said, and retorted it severely; it had nevertheless its effect in the impression it made on her. For she immediately took the child up in her arms, and attempted to kiss him, but could not, and set him down again immediately. She did not even look upon him with the same pleasure as on the other, and I am very glad it is not this boy which is intended for her daughter.

Ye susceptible minds! what would you have done in my situation? ye would have acted like Mrs. Orbe. After having taken care of the children, and of Clara, and given the necessary orders about the funeral, it was necessary for me to take my horse and be the sorrowful messenger of the heavy tidings to an unhappy father. I found him still in pain from his hurt, as well as greatly uneasy and troubled about the accident which had befallen his daughter. I left him overwhelmed with sorrow: with the sorrow of the aged, which breaks not out into external appearances, which excites neither transport nor exclamation, but preys inwardly and fatally on the heart. That he will never overcome his grief I am certain, and I can plainly foresee the last stroke that is wanting to compleat the misfortune of his friend. The next day I made all possible haste, in order to be at home early, and pay the last honours to the worthiest of women: but all was not yet over. She must be made to revive, to afflict me with the loss of her a second time.

As I drew near my house, I saw one of my people come running out to meet me, who cried out from as far as he could be heard; sir, sir, make haste, make haste, my mistress is not dead. I could not comprehend what he meant; but made all the haste I could, and found the courtyard full of people, crying for joy and calling out aloud for blessings on Mrs. Wolmar. I asked the reason of all this; every one was transported with joy, but no body could give me a reasonable answer; for as to my own people their heads were absolutely turned. I made the best of my way therefore to Eloisa’s apartment, where I found more than twenty persons on their knees round the bed, with their eyes attentively fixed on the corpse, which, to my great surprise, I saw dressed out and lying on the bed: my heart fluttered, and I examined into her situation. But alas! she was dead and cold! This moment of false hope, so soon and so cruelly extinguished, was the most afflicting moment of my whole life. I am not apt to be choleric, but I found myself on this occasion extremely angry, and resolved to come at the bottom of this extravagant scene. But all was so disguised, so altered, so changed; that I had the greatest difficulty in the world to come at the truth. At length, however, I unravelled the mystery, and thus it was. My father-in-law, being alarmed at the accident he had heard, and thinking he could spare his valet de chambre, had sent him over before my arrival to learn the situation of his daughter. This old servant, being fatigued with riding on horseback, had taken a boat, and, crossing the lake in the night, arrived at Clarens the very morning of the day in which I returned. On his arrival he saw the universal consternation the house was in; and, learning the cause, went sobbing up to Eloisa’s apartment; where, throwing himself on his knees by the bedside, he wept and contemplated the features of his departed mistress. Then giving vent to his sorrows, he cried out, ah! my good mistress! ah! why did it not please God to take me instead of you! me, that am old, that have no connections, that can be of no more service on the face of the earth! but to take you, in the flower of youth, the pride of your family, the blessing of your house, the hope of the unfortunate, alas! was I present at your birth, thus to behold you dead!----

In the midst of these and such like exclamations, which flowed from the goodness and sincerity of his heart, the weak old man, who kept his eyes still fixed on the corpse, imagined he saw it move: having once taken this into his head, he imagined farther that Eloisa turned her eyes, looked at him and made a sign to him with her head. Upon this he rose up in great transport and ran up and down the house, crying out his mistress was not dead, that she knew him, and that he was sure she was living and would recover. This was sufficient to call every body together, the servants, the neighbours, and the poor, who before made the air resound with their lamentations, now all as loudly cried out in transport; she is not dead! she lives! she lives! the noise spread and increased; the common people, all fond of the marvellous, readily propagated the news: every one easily believed what he wished might be true, and sought to give others pleasure by countenancing the general credulity. So that, in a short time, the deceased was reported not only to have made a motion with her head, but to have walked about, to have conversed, &c. more than twenty witnesses having had ocular proofs of circumstances that never happened or existed. No sooner were they possessed with the notion of her being alive, but a thousand efforts were made to restore her; they pressed in crowds about her bed, spoke to her, threw spirits in her face, felt for her pulse, and did every thing their foolish apprehensions suggested to recover her; till her women justly offended at seeing the body of her mistress surrounded by a number of men, got every body turned out of the room and soon convinced themselves how egregiously they had been deceived. Incapable, however, of resolving to put end to so agreeable an error, or perhaps still hoping for some miraculous event, they clothed the body with care, and though her wardrobe was left to them, they did not spare the richest apparel. After which laying her out on the bed, and leaving the curtains open, they returned to their tears amidst the public rejoicings of the multitude.

I arrived in the height of this phrenzy, but when I became acquainted with the cause, found it impossible to bring the crowd to reason; and that if I had shut up my doors and had ordered the immediate burial of the corpse, it might have occasioned some disturbance; or that I should have passed, at least, for a paricide of a husband who had buried his wife alive, and should have been held in detestation by the whole country. I resolved therefore to defer the funeral. After six and thirty hours however, I found by the extreme heat of the weather, the corpse began to change, and, though the face preserved its features and sweetness, there seemed even there some signs of alteration. I mentioned it to Mrs. Orbe, who sat in a continued stupor, at the head of the bed. Not that she was so happy as to be the dupe of so gross a delusion; but she pretended to be so, that she might continue in the chamber, and indulge her sorrows.

She understood my design, and silently withdrew. In a moment after, however, she returned, bringing in her hand that veil of gold tissue embroidered with pearls, which you brought her from the Indies: [108] when, coming up to the bed, she kissed the veil, and spreading it over the face of her deceased friend, she cried out with a shrill voice, “Accursed be that sacrilegious hand which shall presume to lift up this veil! accursed be that impious eye which shall dare to look on this disfigured face!” this action and imprecation had such an effect on the spectators, that, as if by a sudden inspiration, it was repeated by one and all from every quarter. Such an impression indeed did it make on our servants and the people in general, that the deceased being put into the coffin, dressed as she was, and with the greatest caution, was carried away and buried in the same attire, without any person daring to touch the veil that covered her face. [109]

Those are certainly the most unhappy who, beside the supporting their own sorrows, are under the necessity of consoling others. Yet this is my task with my father-in-law, with Mrs. Orbe, with friends, with relations, with my neighbours, and with my own houshold. I could yet support it well enough with all but my old friend and Mrs. Orbe: but you must be a witness to the affliction of the latter to judge how much it adds to mine. So far from taking my endeavours to comfort her in good part, she even reproaches me for them; my solicitude offends her, and the coldness of my affliction but aggravates hers; she would have my grief be as bitter and extravagant as hers, her barbarous affliction would gladly see the whole world in despair. Every thing she says, every thing she does looks like madness; I am obliged therefore to put up with every thing, and am resolved not to be offended. In serving her who was beloved by Eloisa, I conceive I do a greater honour to her memory than by fruitless tears and lamentations.

You will be able to judge, from one instance, of the rest of her behaviour. I thought I had gained my point, by engaging her to take care of herself, in order to be able to discharge those duties which her dying friend had imposed on her. Reduced very low by convulsions, abstinence and want of rest, she seemed at length resolved to attempt her usual method of living, and to come to table in the dining-room. The first time, however, I ordered the children to dine in the nursery, being unwilling to run the hazard of this essay in their presence: violent passions of every kind, being one of the most dangerous objects that can be shewn to children. For the passions when excessive have always something puerile and diverting to young minds, by which they are seduced to admire what they ought to dread.

On entering the dining-room, she cast her eye on the table and saw covers laid for two persons only; at which she flung herself into the first chair that stood next her, refusing to come to table. I imagined I knew the reason, and ordered a third plate to be set on the table, at the place where her cousin used generally to sit. She then permitted me to lead her to her seat without reluctance, placing herself with great caution, and disposing her gown as if she was afraid to incommode the empty chair. On putting the first spoonful of soup to her mouth, however, she withdrew it, and asked, with a peevish air, what business that plate had there when no body made use of it? I answered, she was in the right, and had it taken away. She then strove to eat, but could get nothing down; by degrees her stomach swelled, her breath grew short, and all at once she started up and returned to her own chamber, without saying a word, or hearing any thing that I said to her, obstinately refusing every thing but tea all that day.

The next day I had the same task to begin again. I now conceived the best way to bring her to reason was to humour her, and to endeavour to soften her despair by more tender sentiments. You know how much her daughter resembles Mrs. Wolmar; that she took a pleasure in heightening that resemblance, by dressing her in the same manner, having brought several cloaths for her from Geneva, in which she used to dress her like Eloisa. I ordered Harriot therefore to be dressed, as much in imitation of Eloisa as possible, and, after having given her lesson, placed her at table where Eloisa used to sit; three covers being laid as the day before.

Clara immediately comprehended my design, and was affected, giving me a tender and obliging look. This was the first time she seemed sensible of my assiduity, and I promised myself success from the expedient.

Harriot, proud to represent her little mamma, played her part extremely well; so well indeed that I observed the servants in waiting shed tears. She nevertheless always gave the name of mamma to her mother, and addressed her with proper respect. At length, encouraged by success and my approbation, she ventured to put her hand to the soup-spoon and cried, Clara, my dear, do you chuse any of this? the gesture, tone and manner, in which she spoke this, were so exactly like those of Eloisa, that it made her mother tremble. A moment after, however, she burst into a fit of laughter, and, offering her plate, replied; yes child give me a little, you are a charming creature. She then began to eat with an eagerness that surprized me. Looking at her with some attention, I saw something wild in her eyes, and a greater impatience in her action and manner than usual. I prevented her therefore from eating any more, and ’twas well I did so; for, an hour after she was taken extremely ill with a violent surfeit, which, had she continued to eat more, might have been fatal. From this time I resolved to try no more projects of this kind, as they might affect her imagination too much. Sorrow is more easily cured than madness; I thought it better therefore to let her suffer under the one a little longer, than run the hazard of driving her into the other.

This is the situation, my friend, in which we are at present. Since the baron’s return, indeed, Clara goes up every morning to his apartment, whether I am at home or abroad; where they generally pass an hour or two together. She begins also, to take a little more notice of the children. One of them has been sick; this accident has made her sensible that she has still something to lose, and has animated her zeal to the discharge of her duty. Yet, with all this, she is not yet sufficiently sorrowful; her tears have not yet begun to flow; we wait for you to draw them forth, for you to dry them up again. You cannot but understand me. Think of the last advice of Eloisa: it was indeed first suggested by me, and I now think it more than ever prudent and useful. Come and be reunited to all that remains of Eloisa. Her father, her friend, her husband, her children, all expect you, all desire your company, which cannot fail of being universally useful.

In a word, without farther explanations, come, partake and cure us of our sorrows; I shall perhaps be more obliged to you than to any other man in the world.

CLXII. From Eloisa

This letter was inclosed in the preceding.

Our projects are at an end. Circumstances, my good friend, are changed: let us bear it without murmuring; it is the will of consummate wisdom. We pleased ourselves with the thoughts of being reunited; such a reunion was not good for us. The goodness of Providence has prevented it, without doubt to prevent our misery.

Long have I indulged myself in the salutary delusion, that my passion was extinguished; the delusion is now vanished, when it can be no longer useful. You imagined me cured of my love; I thought so too. Let us thank heaven that the deception hath lasted as long as it could be of service to us. In vain, alas! I endeavoured to stifle that passion which inspired me with life; it was impossible, it was interwoven with my heart-strings. It now expands itself, when it is no longer to be dreaded; it supports me now my strength fails me; it chears my soul even in death. O my friend! I can now make this confession without fear or shame; this involuntary sentiment has been of no prejudice to my virtue, it has never sullied my innocence; I have done my duty in all things which were in my power. If my heart was yours, it was my punishment, and not my crime. My virtue is unblemished, and my love has left behind it no remorse.

I glory in my past life: but who could have answered for my future years? perhaps were I to live another day I should be culpable! what then might I not have been during whole years spent in your company? what dangers have I not run without knowing it? and to how much greater was I going to be exposed? every trial has indeed been made; but trials may be too often repeated. Have I not lived long enough to be happy and virtuous? in taking me hence, heaven deprives me of nothing which I ought to regret. I go, my friend, at a most favourable moment; satisfied with you and myself, I depart in peace.

I foresee, I feel your affliction; I know too well you will be left to mourn; the thoughts of your sorrow cause my greatest uneasiness: but reflect on the consolation I leave with you. The obligations left you to discharge on the part of her who was so dear to you, ought to make it your duty to take care of yourself for her sake. You are left in charge with her better half. You will lose no more of Eloisa than you have long been deprived of. Her better part remains with you. Come and join her family, in the midst of whom Eloisa’s heart will still be found. Let every one that was dear to her unite to give her a new being. Your business, your pleasures, your friendship shall be her own work. The bonds of your union shall give her new life, nor will she totally expire but with the last of her friends.

Think there remains for you another Eloisa, and forget not what you owe her. You are both going to lose the half of yourselves; unite therefore to preserve the other. The only method that remains for you to survive me, is to supply my place in my family and with my children. Oh that I could but invent still stronger bonds to unite those who are so dear to me! but reflect how much you are indebted to each other, and let that reflection strengthen your mutual attachment. Your former objections, against entering into such an engagement, will now become arguments for it. How can either of you ever speak of me without melting into tenderness? No, Eloisa and Clara shall for the future be so united together in your thoughts, that it shall not be in the power of your heart to separate them. Hers will share in every thing yours has felt for her friend; she will become both the confident and object of your passion. You will be happy in the enjoyment of that Eloisa who survives, without being unfaithful to her you shall have lost; and after so many disappointments and misfortunes, shall, before the age of life and love is past, burn with a lawful flame, and possess the happiness of an innocent passion.

Secured by this chaste union, you will be at liberty to employ your thoughts entirely on the discharge of those duties which I have recommended; after which you need never be at a loss to account for the good you have done on earth. You know there exists also a man worthy of an honour, to which he durst not aspire: you know him to have been your deliverer, as well as the husband of your friend. Left alone, without connections in this life, without expectations from futurity, without joy, without comfort, without hope, he will soon be the most unfortunate of men. You owe to him the same pains he has taken with you, and you know the way to render them successful. Remember the instructions of my former letter. Pass your days with him. Let no one that loved me forsake him. As he restored your taste for virtue, so shew him the object and the value of it. Be you truly a Christian, to engage him to be one too; the success of the attempt is more probable than perhaps you imagine. He has done his duty, I will do mine, and you must hereafter do yours. God is just and my confidence in him will not deceive me.

I have but a word or two more to say, concerning my children. I know the trouble their education will cost you; but at the same time I know you will not repine. In the most fatiguing moments of such employment, reflect that they are the children of Eloisa, and every thing will be easy. Mr. Wolmar will put into your hands the remarks I have made on your essay and on the character of my two sons. They are however unfinished, and I leave them to you, not as rules for your conduct, but submit them as hints to your judgment. Strive not to make my children scholars, but benevolent and honest men. Speak to them sometimes of their mother----you know how dear they were to her---- tell Marcellin, I die willingly as I saved his life. Tell his brother, it was for him I could have wished to live. Tell their----but I find myself fatigued; I must put an end to this letter. In leaving my children with you, I part with you with less regret: for in them I still continue with you.

Farewell, my dear friend! once more farewell. My life ends, alas! as it begun. Perhaps I have said too much at a time when the heart disguises nothing----ah! why should I be afraid to express all I feel? It is no longer I that speak; I am already in the arms of death. Before you read this letter, the worms will be preying on the features of your friend, and will take possession of a heart where your image will be found no more. But can my soul exist without you? without you, what happiness can I enjoy? No, we will not part----I go but to expect you. That virtue, which separated us on earth, will unite us for ever in the mansions of the blessed. I die in that peaceful hope; too happy to purchase, at the expense of my life, the privilege of loving you without a crime, and of telling you so once more.

CLXIII. From Mrs. Orbe

I am glad to hear that you begin to be so well recovered, as to give us hopes of seeing you soon here. You must, my friend, endeavour to get the better of your weakness and try to pass the mountains before the winter prevents you. The air of this country, will agree with you; you will see here nothing but sorrow; and perhaps our common affliction will be the means of soothing yours. Mine stands greatly in need of your assistance; for I can neither weep, nor speak, nor make myself understood. Mr. Wolmar indeed, understands me, but he makes me no answer. The affliction of an unfortunate father also is buried within himself; nor can any thing be conceived more cruelly tormenting: he neither hears, sees, nor understands any thing. Age has no vent for its griefs. My children affect me without knowing how to be affected themselves. I am solitary in the midst of company; a mournful silence prevails around me; and in the stupidity of my affliction, I speak to nobody; having but just life enough in me to feel the horrors of death. O come, you who partake of my loss, come and partake of my griefs. Come cherish my heart with your sorrow. This is the only consolation I can hope for; the only pleasure I can taste.

But before you arrive, and inform me of your intentions relative to a project which I know has been mentioned to you, it is proper I should inform you first of mine. I am frank and ingenuous, and therefore will dissemble nothing. That I have loved you I confess: nay, perhaps I love you still, and shall always do so: but this I know not, nor desire to know. I am not ignorant that it is suspected, which I do not concern myself about. But what I have to say, and what you ought to observe, is this: that a man who was beloved by Eloisa, and could resolve to marry another woman, would, in my opinion, be so base and unworthy a creature, that I should think it a dishonour to call such a one my friend. And with respect to myself, I protest to you that the man, whoever he be, that shall presume to talk of love hereafter to me, shall never have a second opportunity as long as he lives.

Think then only on the employment that awaits you, on the duties imposed on you, and on her to whom you engaged to discharge them. Her children are growing up apace, her father is insensibly wasting, her husband is in continual agitation of mind: in vain he strives to think her annihilated; his heart rebels against his reason. He speaks of her, he speaks to her, and sighs. Methinks I see already the repeated wishes of Eloisa half accomplished, and that you may put a finishing hand to so great a work. What a motive is here to induce both you and Lord B---- to repair hither. It is becoming his noble mind that our misfortunes have not made him change his resolution.

Come then, dear and respectable friends, come and rejoin all that is left of Eloisa. Let us assemble all that was dear to her: let her spirit animate us, let her heart unite ours; let us live continually under her eye. I take a delight in conceiving that her amiable and susceptible spirit will leave its peaceful mansions to revisit ours; that it will take a pleasure in seeing its friends imitate her virtues, in hearing herself honoured by their acknowledgments, in seeing them kiss her tomb, and sigh at the repetition of her name. No, she has not yet forsaken these haunts which she used to make so delightful. They are still full of her. I see her in every object; I perceive her at every step; every hour of the day I hear her well- known voice. It was here she lived, here died, and here repose her ashes----As I go, twice a week, to the church, I cast my eye on the sad, revered spot----O beauty! is such thy last asylum!----sincerity! friendship! virtue! pleasure! innocence! all lie buried in her grave ----I feel myself drawn as it were involuntarily to her tomb----I shudder as I approach----I dread to violate the hallowed earth----I imagine that I feel it shake and tremble under my feet----that I hear a plaintive voice call me from the hollow tomb----Clara! [110] where art thou? Clara! why dost thou not come to thy friend?----alas! her grave hath yet but half her ashes----it is impatient for the remainder of its prey----yet a little while, and it shall be satisfied!

Finis.

[Footnote 1: See the 7th Plate.----The cuts are daily expected from Paris.]

[Footnote 2: See Vol. II. p. 74.]

[Footnote 3: This regards only the modern English romances.]

[Footnote 4: See the letters to M. d’Alembert sur les spectacles.]

[Footnote 5: Preface to Narcisse----Lettre à M. d’Alembert.]

[Footnote 6 It is plain there is a chasm here, and the reader will find many in the course of this correspondence. Several of the letters are lost, others are suppressed, and some have been curtailed; but there appears to be nothing wanting essential to the story.]

[Footnote 7: The Lady seems to have forgot what she said in the preceding paragraph.]

[Footnote 8: Alluding to a letter which is suppressed.]

[Footnote 9: Unhappy youth! not to perceive, that to suffer himself to be paid in gratitude, what he refused in money, was infinitely more criminal. Under the mask of instruction he corrupted her heart; instead of nourishment he gives her poison, and is thanked by a deluded mother for the ruin of her child. Nevertheless one may perceive in him a sincere love for virtue; but it is so soon dissipated by his passions, that with all his fine preaching, unless his youth may be admitted as an excuse, he is no better than a wicked fellow. The two lovers, however, deserve some compassion; the mother is chiefly in fault.]

[Footnote 10: The sequel will but too well inform the reader, that this assertion of Eloisa’s was extremely ill grounded.]

[Footnote 11: This sentiment is a very just one. Disorderly passions lead to bad actions. But pernicious maxims corrupt the understanding, the very source and spring of good, and cut off the possibility of a return to virtue.]

[Footnote 12: Titular grants are not very common in the present age, except those which are bought or are obtained by placemen, the most honourable appendage to which, that I know of, is the privilege of not being hanged.]

[Footnote 13: In some countries, agreement in rank and fortune is held so far preferable to that of nature and of the heart, that an inequality in the former is judged sufficient to prevent or dissolve the most happy marriages, without any regard to the honour of the unfortunate lovers, who are daily made a sacrifice to such odious prejudices. I heard once a celebrated cause pleaded before the parliament at Paris, wherein the distinction of rank publicly and insolently opposed honesty, justice, and the conjugal vow; the unworthy parent, who gained his cause, disinheriting his son, because he refused to act the part of a villain. The fair sex are, in that polite country, subjected in the greatest degree to the tyranny of the laws. Is it to be wondered at, that they so amply avenge themselves in the looseness of their manners?]

[Footnote 14: It appears by the sequel that these suspicions fell upon Lord B----, and that Clara applies them to herself.]

[Footnote 15: Chimerical distinction of rank! It is an English peer that talks thus. Can there be any reality in all this? Reader, what think you of it?]

[Footnote 16: This it is to entertain unreasonable prejudices in favour of one’s own country. I have never heard of a people, among whom foreigners in general are so ill received, and find so many obstacles to their advancement as among the English. From the peculiar taste of this nation, foreigners are encouraged in nothing; and by the form of government, they are excluded from all emoluments. We must agree in their favour, however, that an Englishman is never obliged to any person for that hospitality he churlishly refuses others. Where, except in London, is there to be seen any of these insolent islanders servilely cringing at court? In what country except their own do they seek to make their fortunes? They are churlish it is true, but their churlishness does not displease me, while it is consistent with justice. I think it very well they should be nothing but Englishmen; since they have no occasion to be men.]

[Footnote 17: In imitation of Eloisa, he calls Clara, his cousin, and Clara, after her example, likewise calls him her friend.]

[Footnote 18: Simple Eloisa! you give no proof here of yours.]

[Footnote 19: The true philosophy of lovers is that of Plato; while the passion lasts they employ no other. A susceptible mind knows not how to quit this philosopher; a cold insensible reader cannot endure him.]

[Footnote 20: Without anticipating the judgment which the reader, or, Eloisa may pass on the following narratives, it may not be improper to observe, that, if I had written them myself, though I might not have made them better, I should have done it in a different manner. I was several times going to cancel them, and substitute others written in my own way in their place; but I have at length ventured to insert them as they are. I bethought myself that a young man of four and twenty ought not to see things in the same light as a man of fifty, whom experience had too well instructed to place them in a proper point of view. I reflected also, that, without having played any great part in life, I was not however, in a situation to speak with absolute impartiality. Let these letters pass then as they were originally written. The common place remarks or trivial observations that may be found in them, are but small faults, and import little. But it is of the greatest importance to a lover of truth, that to the end of his life his passions should never affect the impartiality of his writings.]

[Footnote 21: We ought, perhaps, to overlook this reasoning in a Swiss, who sees his own country well governed without the establishment of either of these professions. How can a state subsist without soldiers for its defence! no, every state must have defenders. But its members ought to be soldiers from principle, and not by profession. The same individuals among the Greeks and Romans were frequently magistrates in the city, and officers in the field; and never were either of those functions better served than before those strange prejudices took place, which now separate and dishonour them.]

[Footnote 22: This reflection, whether true or false, can be extended only to the subalterns, and those who do not reside in Paris; for almost all the great and polite men in the kingdom are in the service, and even the court itself is military. But there is a great difference between the manners learned in a campaign, and those which are contracted by living in garrison.]

[Footnote 23: Ye sweating fires, that in the furnace blaze. A line of sonnet by Marini.]

[Footnote 24: Provided always that no unforeseen object of pleasantry starts up to disturb their gravity; for in that case, it is laid hold of by every one in a moment, and it is impossible to recall their serious attention. I remember that a handful of gingerbread cakes once ludicrously put an end to a dramatic representation at the fair. The actions were indeed quadrupeds; but how many trifling things are there that would prove gingerbread cakes to some sort of men! it is well known whom Fontenelle intended to describe in his history of the Tyrintians.]

[Footnote 25: To be afflicted at the decease of any person, betrays a sense of humanity, and is a sign of a good disposition, but is no instance of virtue; there being no moral obligation to lament even the death of a father. Whoever in such a case, therefore, is not really afflicted, ought not to affect the appearance of it; for it is more necessary always to avoid deceit, than to comply with custom.]

[Footnote 26: Moliere ought not to be ranked here with Racine: the first indeed abounds with maxims and sentential observations, like all the others, especially in his versified pieces: but in Racine all is sentimental; he makes every character speak for the author, and is in this point truly singular among all the dramatic writers of his nation.]

[Footnote 27: I should have but a bad opinion of the reader’s sagacity, who, knowing the character and situation of Eloisa, should think this piece of curiosity hers. It will be seen hereafter that her lover knew to whom to attribute it. If he could have been deceived in this point, he had not deserved the name of a lover.]

[Footnote 28: If the reader approves of this criterion, and makes use of it to judge of this work, I will not appeal from his judgment, whatever it prove.]

[Footnote 29: Freedom, ease, cleverness.]

[Footnote 30: Speak for yourself, my dear philosopher, others may have been more happy. A coquet only, promises to every body, what she should reserve but for one.]

[Footnote 31: Amorous imagination.]

[Footnote 32: Things are changed since that time. By many circumstances one would suppose these letters to have been written above twenty years ago; but by their stile, and the manners they describe, one would conclude them to be of the last century.]

[Footnote 33: I shall not give my opinion of this letter; but I doubt much, whether a judgment which allows them the qualities they despise, and denies them those which they value, will be pleasing to the French ladies.]

[Footnote 34: Obliged by the tyrant to appear on the stage, he lamented his disgrace in some very affecting verses which justly irritated every honest mind against Caesar. After having lived, said he, sixty years with honour, I left my house this morning, a Roman knight, but shall return to it this evening an infamous stage-player. Alas! I have lived a day too long. O fortune! if it was my lot to be thus once disgraced, why did you not force me hither while youth and vigour had left me at least an agreeable person: but now, what a wretched object do I present to the insults of the people of Rome? a feeble voice, a weak body, a mere corpse an animated skeleton, which has nothing left of me but my name. The entire prologue which he spoke on this occasion, the injustice done him by Caesar, who was piqued at the noble freedom with which he avenged his offended honour, the affront he receives at the circus, the meanness of Cicero in upbraiding him, with the ingenious and satirical reply of Laberius, are all preserved by Aulus Gellius, and compose in my opinion the most curious and interesting piece in his whole collection: which is, for the most part, a very insipid one.]

[Footnote 35: They know nothing of this in Italy; the public would not suffer it, and thus the entertainment is subject to less expense: it would cost too much to be ill-served.]

[Footnote 36: Le bucheron.]

[Footnote 37: The light airs of the French music have not been unaptly compared to a cow’s courant, or the hobblings of a fat goose attempting to fly.]

[Footnote 38: And why should he not omit it? have the women of these times any thing to do with concerns of this kind? what would become of us and the state? what would become of our celebrated authors, our illustrious academicians, if the ladies should give up the direction of matters of literature and business, and apply themselves only to the affairs of their family?]

[Footnote 39: We find in the fourth part, that this feigned name was St. Preux.]

[Footnote 40: Where did the honest Swiss learn this? women of gaiety have long since assumed more imperious airs. They begin by boldly introducing their lovers into the house, and if they permit their husbands to continue there, it is only while they behave towards them with proper respect. A woman who took pains to conceal a criminal intrigue, would shew that she was ashamed, and would be despised; not one female of spirit would take notice of her.]

[Footnote 41: Mr. Richardson makes a jest of these attachments founded at first sight, and founded on an unaccountable congeniality of nature. It is easy to laugh at these attachments; but as too many of this kind take place, instead of entertaining ourselves with controverting them, would it not be better to teach us how to conquer them.]

[Footnote 42: Admitting the analogy to be chimerical, yet it lasts as long as the illusion, which makes us suppose it real.]

[Footnote 43: Minister of the parish.]

[Footnote 44: See page 170 of the present volume.]

[Footnote 45: See the first Vol. Letter 24.]

[Footnote 46: No association is more common than pride and stinginess. We take from nature, from real pleasures, nay from the stock of necessaries, what we lavish upon opinion. One man adorns his palace at the expense of his kitchen: another prefers a fine service of plate to a good dinner: a third makes a sumptuous entertainment, and starves himself the rest of the year. When I see a side-board richly decorated, I expect that the wine will poison me. How often in the country, when we breathe the fresh morning air, are we tempted by the prospect of a fine garden? we rise early, and by walking gain a keen appetite, which makes us wish for breakfast. Perhaps the domestic is out of the way, or provisions are wanting, or the lady has not given her orders, and you are tired to death with waiting. Sometimes they prevent your desires, and make you a very pompous offer of every thing, upon condition that you accept of nothing. You must last till three o’clock, or breakfast with the tulips. I remember to have walked in a very beautiful park, which belonged to a lady, who tho’ extremely fond of coffee, never drank any but when it was at a very low price; yet she very liberally allowed her gardener a salary of a thousand crowns. For my part, I should chuse to have tulips less finely variegated, and to drink coffee whenever my appetite called for it.]

[Footnote 47: A strange letter this, for the discussion of such a subject. Do men argue so coolly on a question of this nature, when they examine it on their own accounts? Is the letter a forgery, or does the author reason only with an intent to be refuted? what makes our opinion in this particular dubious, is the example of Robeck which he cites, and which seems to warrant his own. Robeck deliberated so gravely that he had patience to write a book, a large, voluminous, weighty, and dispassionate book; and when he had concluded, according to his principles, that it was lawful to put an end to our being, he destroyed himself with the same composure that he wrote. Let us beware of the prejudices of the times, and of particular countries. When suicide is out of fashion, we conclude that none but madmen destroy themselves; all the efforts of courage appear chimerical to dastardly minds; every one judges of others by himself. Nevertheless, how many instances are there, well attested, of men, in every other respect perfectly discreet; who, without remorse, rage, or despair, have quitted life for no other reason than because it was a burthen to them, and have died with more composure than they lived?]

[Footnote 48: No, my lord, we do not put an end to misery by these means, but rather fill the measure of affliction, by burning asunder the last ties which attach us to felicity. When we regret what was dear to us, grief itself still attaches us to the object we lament, which is a state less deplorable, than to be attached to nothing.]

[Footnote 49: Obligations more dear than those of friendship! is it a philosopher who talks thus! But this affected sophist was of an amorous disposition.]

[Footnote 50: I do not rightly understand this: Kensington not being above a mile and a half from London, the noblemen who go to court, do not lie there; yet Lord B---- tells us, he was obliged to stay there I know not how many days.]

[Footnote 51: What great obligation has he to her, who occasioned all the misfortunes of his life? Thou wretched querist! he is indebted to her for the honour, the virtue and peace of his beloved Eloisa: he owes her everything.]

[Footnote 52: At Paris, they pique themselves on rendering society easy and commodious; and this ease is made to consist of a great number of rules, equally important with the above. In good company, every thing is regulated according to form and order. All these ceremonies are in and out of fashion as quick as lightening. The science of polite life consists in being always upon the watch, to seize them as they fly, to affect them, and shew that we are acquainted with the mode of the day.]

[Footnote 53: In my Letter to M. D’Alembert, concerning the theatres, I have transcribed the following passage and some others; but as I was then preparing this edition, I thought it better to wait this publication till I took notice of the quotation.]

[Footnote 54: I have narrowly examined into the management of great families, and I have found it impossible for a master who has twenty servants, to know whether he has one honest man among them, and not to mistake the greatest rascal perhaps to be that one. This alone would give me an aversion to riches. The rich lose one of the sweetest pleasures of life, the pleasure of confidence and esteem. They purchase all their gold at a dear rate!]

[Footnote 55: Desert islands in the South sea, celebrated in Lord Anson’s voyage.]

[Footnote 56: The mice, owls, hawks, and above all, children.]

[Footnote 57: They were therefore like those fashionable little woods, so ridiculously twisted, that you are obliged to walk in a zig zag manner, and to make a pirouette at every step.]

[Footnote 58: I am persuaded that sometime hence, gardens will be furnished with nothing belonging to the country; neither plants or trees will be suffered to grow in them: we shall see nothing but China flowers, baboons, arbor work, gravel of all colours, and fine vases with nothing in them.]

[Footnote 59: He might have enlarged on the bad taste of lopping trees in such a ridiculous manner, to make them shoot to the clouds, by taking off their fine tops, their umbrage, by draining the sap, and preventing their thriving. This method, it is true, supplies the gardeners with wood, but it robs the kingdom of it, which is not over stocked with it already. One would imagine that nature was different in France, from what it is in any other part of the world, they take so much pains to disfigure her. The parks are planted with nothing but long poles; they are like so many forests of masts, and you walk in the midst of woods without finding any shelter.]

[Footnote 60: The sagacious Wolmar had not sufficiently reflected. Was he, who was so skilful in judging of men, so bad a judge of nature? Did he not know that if the author of nature displays his greatness in great things, he appears still greater in those which are small?]

[Footnote 61: I do not know whether there has ever been an attempt to give a slight curve to these long walks, that the eye may not be able to reach the end of the walk, and that the opposite extremity may be hid from the spectator. It is true, the beauty of the prospects in perspective would be lost by these means; but proprietors would reap one advantage which they generally prize at a high rate, which is that of making their grounds more extensive in appearance, and in the midst of a starry plot thus bounded, one might think himself in a vast park. I am persuaded that the walk would be less tiresome, though more solitary; for whatever gives play to the imagination, excites ideas, and nourishes the mind; but gardeners are people who have no idea of these things. How often in a rural spot, would the pencil drop from their hands, as it did from Le Nostre’s in St. James’s park, if they knew like him what gave life to nature, and interested the beholder?]

[Footnote 62: He might have added the conclusion, which is very fine, and as apposite to the subject. _Si vedria che I lo nemici Anno in seno, e si reduce Nel parere a noi felici Ogni lor felicita._]

[Footnote 63: Mrs. Orbe was ignorant however that the first two names are titles of distinction in Russia; but Boyard is only that of a private gentleman.]

[Footnote 64: The reader is not yet acquainted with this reason; but he is desired not to be impatient.]

[Footnote 65: You women are very ridiculous, to think of rendering such a frivolous and fluctuating passion as that of love consistent. Every thing in nature is changeable, every thing is continually fluctuating, and yet you would inspire a constant passion! And what right have you to pretend that we must love you for ever, because we loved you yesterday? Then preserve the same face, the same age, the same humour; be always the same, and we will always love you, if we can. But when you alter continually, and require us always to love you, it is in fact desiring us every minute not to love you; it is not seeking for constant minds, but looking out for such as are as fickle as your own.]

[Footnote 66: A bird of passage on the lake of Geneva, which is not good to eat.]

[Footnote 67: Different sorts of birds on the lake of Geneva, and very good to eat.]

[Footnote 68: These mountains are so high, that half an hour after sun-set, its rays still gild the tops of them, and the reflection of red on those white summits, forms a beautiful roseate colour, which may be perceived at a great distance.]

[Footnote 69: The snipe on the lake of Geneva is not the bird called by that name in France. The more lively and animated chirping of the former, gives an air of life and freshness to the lake at night, which renders its banks still more delightful.]

[Footnote 70: This letter appears to have been written before the receipt of the preceding.]

[Footnote 71: Not that this philosophical age has not produced one true philosopher. I know one, I must confess, and but one; but the happiest circumstance is, that he resides in my native country. Shall I venture publicly to name him, whose honour it is to have remained unknown? Yes, learned and modest Abauzit, let your sublime simplicity forgive my zeal, which, to say truth, hath not your name for its object. No, it is not you I would make known in an age unworthy to admire you; it is Geneva I would honour, by making it known as the place of your residence. It is my fellow citizens who are honoured by your presence. Happy the country, where the merit that conceals itself, is by so much the more esteemed. Happy the people, among whom presumptuous and forward youth is ashamed of its dogmatic insolence, and blushes at its vain knowledge before the learned ignorance of age. Venerable and virtuous old man! you have never been praised by babbling wits; no noisy academician has written your elogium. Instead of depositing all your wisdom in books, you have displayed it in your life, as an example to the country you have deigned to make the object of your esteem. You have lived like Socrates; but he died by the hands of his fellow citizens, while you are cherished by yours.]

[Footnote 72: The letter here alluded to is not inserted in this collection. The reason of it, will be seen hereafter.]

[Footnote 73: There is near Clarens a village called Moutru, the right of common to which is sufficient to maintain the inhabitants, though they had not a foot of land of their own. For which reason, the freedom of that village is almost as difficult to be obtained as that of Berne. It is a great pity that some honest magistrate is not appointed to make these burghers a little more sociable, or their burghership less dear.]

[Footnote 74: Man, perverted from his first state of simplicity, becomes so stupid that he even knows not what to desire. His wishes always tend to wealth and never to happiness.]

[Footnote 75: To give to beggars, say some people, is to raise a nursery of thieves: though it is, on the contrary, to prevent their becoming such. I allow that the poor ought not to be encouraged to turn beggars; but, when once they are so, they ought to be supported, lest they should turn robbers. Nothing induces people to change their profession so much as their not being able to live by it: now those, who have once experienced the lazy life of a beggar, get such an aversion to work that they had rather go upon the highway, at the hazard of their necks, than betake themselves again to labour. A farthing is soon asked for and soon refused; but twenty farthings might provide a supper for a poor man, whom twenty refusals might exasperate to despair: and who is there who would ever refuse so slight a gift, if he reflected that he might thereby be the means of saving two men, the one from theft, and perhaps the other from being murdered? I have somewhere read that beggars are a kind of vermin, that hang about the wealthy. It is natural for children to cling about their parents; but the rich, like cruel parents, disown theirs, and leave them to be maintained by each other.]

[Footnote 76: And that it does so, appears to me indisputable. There is true magnificence in the proportion and symmetry of the parts of a great palace; but there is none in a confused heap of irregular buildings. There is a magnificence in the uniformity of a regiment in battalia; but none in the crowd of people, that stand gazing on them, although perhaps there is not a man among them whose apparel is not of more value than those of any individual soldier. In a word, magnificence is nothing more than a grand scene of regularity, whence it comes to pass that, of all sights imaginable, the most magnificent are those of nature.]

[Footnote 77: The noise of people in a house of distinction continually disturbs the quiet of the master of it. It is impossible for him to conceal any thing from so many Arguses. A crowd of creditors make him pay dear for that of his admirers. His apartments are generally so large and splendid, that he is obliged to betake himself to a closet that he may sleep at ease, and his monkey is often better lodged than himself. If he would dine, it depends on his cook and not on his appetite; if he would go abroad, he lies at the mercy of his horses. A thousand embarrassments stop him in the streets; he is impatient to be where he is going, but knows not the use of his legs. His mistress expects him, but the dirty pavement frightens him, and the weight of his laced coat oppresses him, so that he cannot walk twenty paces. Hence he loses, indeed, the opportunity of seeing his mistress; but he is well repaid by the by-standers for the disappointment, every one remarking his equipage, admiring it, and saying aloud to the next person, There goes Mr. Such-a-one!]

[Footnote 78: Locke himself, the sagacious Locke, has forgot it, instructing us rather in the things we ought to require of our children, than in the means.]

[Footnote 79: This doctrine, so true in itself, surprizes me as adopted by Mr. Wolmar; the reason of it will be seen presently.]

[Footnote 80: If there ever was a man upon earth made happy by his vanity, it is past a doubt, that he was a fool.]

[Footnote 81: Here appears to be some little mistake. Nothing is so useful to the judgment as memory: it is true, however, that it is not the remembrance of words.]

[Footnote 82: The translator cannot help observing that it was extraordinary in Mr. Rousseau to put such a false, ridiculous, assertion in the mouth of an Englishman.]

[Footnote 83: God forbid, that I should give a sanction to assertions so rash and severe; I insinuate only, that there are people who make such assertions; and for whose indiscretion, the conduct of the clergy in every country and of all religions, often give but too much occasion. So far am I, however, from intending meanly to screen myself by this note, that my real opinion on this subject is, that no true believer can be a persecutor and an enemy to toleration. If I were a magistrate, and the law inflicted death on atheists, I would begin to put it in execution, by burning the first man that should come to accuse and prosecute another.]

[Footnote 84: How! Will the deity take up with only the refuse of his creatures? not so; all the love the human heart can possess for created beings is so little, that when they think it is replete, it is yet vacant; an infinite object only can possess it entirely.]

[Footnote 85: It is certain, the mind must be fatigued by the unequal talk of contemplating the deity. Such ideas are too sensible for the vulgar, who require a more sensible object of devotion. Are the Catholics to blame, then, in filling their legends, their calendars, and their churches with little angels, cherubs, and handsome saints? The infant Jesus, in the arms of his modest and beautiful mother, is one of the most affecting, and, at the same time, the most agreeable spectacles that Christian devotion can present to the view of the faithful.]

[Footnote 86: How much more natural is this humane sentiment, than the horrid zeal of persecutors, always employed in tormenting the unbeliever, as if, to damn him in this life, they themselves were the fore-runners of devils? I shall ever continue to repeat it; a persecutor of others cannot be a believer himself.]

[Footnote 87: There is here a long letter wanting, from Lord B---- to Eloisa. It is mentioned in the sequel; but, for particular reasons, I was obliged to suppress it.]

[Footnote 88: Hunting indeed might be added. But this exercise is now made so commodious, that there is not half the fatigue or pleasure in it there used to be. But I shall not here treat of this subject, which would furnish too much matter to be inserted in a note: I may take occasion, perhaps, to speak of it elsewhere.]

[Footnote 89: The vintage is very late in this country; because the principal crop is of white wines; to which the frost is of service.]

[Footnote 90: This will be better understood by the following extract of a letter from Eloisa, not inserted in this collection. This, says Mr. Wolmar, taking me aside, is the second proof I intended to put him to, if he had not paid great respect to your father, I should have mistrusted him. But, said I, how shall we reconcile that respect to the antipathy that subsists between them? It subsists no longer, replied he. Your father’s prejudices have done St. Preux all the harm they could; he has no farther reason to fear them, he is not angry at your father, but pities him. The baron, on his side, is no longer jealous of St. Preux; he has a good heart; is sensible he has injured him, and is sorry for it. I see they will do very well together, and will for the future see each other with pleasure. From this moment therefore I shall put an entire confidence in him.]

[Footnote 91: In Switzerland they drink a great deal of bitter wine; and in general, as the herbs of the Alps have more virtue than the plants of other countries, they make great use of infusions.]

[Footnote 92: If hence arises a kind of equality not less agreeable to those who descend, than to those who are elevated, does it not follow, that all conditions of life are in themselves almost indifferent, since people are not always confined to them? Beggars are unhappy, because they are always beggars; kings are miserable, because they are always kings. People in a middling condition are the happiest, because they can easier vary their circumstances, to enjoy the pleasures of those above or those below them. They are also more intelligent, because they have an opportunity of knowing more of the prejudices of mankind and of comparing them with each other. This seems to me the principal reason why, generally speaking, people of a middling station in life are the most happy and are persons of the best sense.]

[Footnote 93: For the better understanding this letter, the reader should have been made acquainted with the adventures of Lord B----, which at first I had indeed some notion of inserting in this collection. But, on second thought, I could not resolve to spoil the simplicity of this history of the two lovers, with the romance of his. It is better to leave something to the reader’s imagination.]

[Footnote 94: By a letter not published in this collection, it appears that Lord B---- was of opinion, that the souls of the wicked are annihilated in death.]

[Footnote 95: At present they do not take the trouble to seek the vices of foreigners: the latter are ready enough to bring them.]

[Footnote 96: It is to be remembered that these letters were written some years ago, a circumstance, I am afraid, that will be often suggested to the reader.]

[Footnote 97: Some men are continent without having any merit in it, others are so through virtue, and I doubt not there are many Romish priests in the latter situation: but to impose a state of celibacy on so numerous a body of men as the clergy of that church, it is not to bid them abstain from women, but to be content with the wives of other men. I am really surprized that in countries where morals are held in any esteem, the legislature should tolerate such scandalous engagements.]

[Footnote 98: This is a direct contradiction to what he asserted before. The poor philosopher seems to be in a droll dilemma between two pretty women. One might be apt to think he chose to make love to neither, that he might the better love them both.]

[Footnote 99: St. Preux supposes moral conscience to depend on sentiment not on judgment, which is contrary to the opinion of the philosophers. I am apt to think however that he is in the right.]

[Footnote 100: This is not the matter in dispute. It is to know whether the will be determined without a cause, or what is the cause that determines the will.]

[Footnote 101: Our gallant philosopher having imitated Abelard in his practice, seems desirous also of adopting his principles. Their notion of prayer being a good deal alike.]

[Footnote 102: A sort of enthusiasts that take it into their heads to follow the gospel strictly according to the letter; in the manner of the Methodists in England the Moravians in Germany, and the Jansenists in France; excepting, however, that the latter want only to be masters to be more severe and persecuting than their enemies.]

[Footnote 103: Hence it is that every sovereign who aspires to be despotic, aspires to the honour of being miserable. In every kingdom in the world, would you see the man who is the most unhappy of all his countrymen, go directly to the sovereign, particularly if he be an absolute monarch.]

[Footnote 104: This is not quite exact. Suetonius tells us that Vespasian employed himself as usual, and gave audience on his deathbed: but perhaps he had done better to have risen to give audience, and to have gone to bed again to die. This I know, that Vespasian, if not a great man, was at least a great prince; but it is not a time to put on the comedian at the hour of death.]

[Footnote 105: Plato says, that the souls of the just, who have contracted no uncleanness on earth, disengage themselves by death of all matter, and recover their original purity. But as to the souls of those who have indulged themselves in filthy and vicious passions, they do not soon recover that purity, but drag along with them certain terrestrial particles, that confine them, as it were, to hover about the receptacles of their bodies. Hence, says he, are seen those apparitions, which sometimes haunt burial places, etc. in expectation of new transmigrations,----It is a madness common to philosophers in all ages, to deny the existence of what is real, and to puzzle their brains to explain what is only imaginary.]

[Footnote 106: This seems to me to be well expressed; for what can it be to meet the Deity face to face, but to be able to read the supreme intelligence.]

[Footnote 107: It is easy to understand that, by the word see, is here meant purely an act of the intellect, such as that whereby we are said to see the Deity, and the Deity to see us. We cannot perceive the immediate communication of spirits: but we can conceive it very well; and better, in my opinion, than the communication of motion between bodies.]

[Footnote 108: It is clearly to be seen that the dream of St. Preux, of which Mrs. Orbe’s imagination was constantly full, suggested the expedient of the veil. I conceive also that if we examine into matters of this kind strictly, we shall find the same relation between many predictions and their accomplishment. Events are not always predicted because they are to happen; but they happen because they were predicted.]

[Footnote 109: The people of this country, though protestants, are extremely superstitious.]

[Footnote 110: After having read these letters several times over, I think I have discovered the reason why the interest, which I imagine every well-disposed reader will take in them, though perhaps not very great, is yet agreeable: and this is, because, little as it may prove, it is not excited by villainies or crimes, nor mixed with the disagreeable sensations of hatred. I cannot conceive what pleasure it can give a writer, to imagine and describe the character of a villain; to put himself in his situation as often as he represents his actions, or to set them in the most flattering point of view. For my part, I greatly pity the authors of many of our tragedies, so full of wickedness and horror, who spend their lives in making characters act and speak, which one cannot see or hear without shuddering. It would be to me a terrible misfortune to be condemned to such labour; nor can I think but that those who do it for amusement must be violently zealous for the amusement of the public. I admire their genius and talents; but I thank God, that he has not bestowed such talents upon me.----]

Transcriber’s Note

This e-book is based on the text of the second London edition of William Kenrick’s translation of Rousseau’s novel. The second London edition was printed for R. Griffiths, T. Becket, and P.A. De Hondt in 1761. I accessed this version of the text via Gale Cengage’s Eighteenth-Century Collections Online (ECCO) database. The document is used with their permission.

When preparing this edition for e-publication, I retained original spellings and only intervened in particular circumstances. These include silently regularizing spellings that shifted over the course of the text (i.e. D’Etange replaced D’ Etange and d’Etange; Valaisian replaced Valaisan, Valiasan, entire replaced a combination of entire and intire, phrenzy replaced a combination of phrensy, phrenzy, and frenzy, farewell replaced a combination of farewel and farewell, etc). In all instances, I used the spelling that was more frequently featured in the text. I also silently corrected obvious printer's errors, including misnumbered letters (i.e. two letters in a row mislabeled as letter CVI).

In accordance with Project Gutenberg policy, eighteenth-century verb conventions (exprest instead of expressed) and spelling (risque instead of risk) have been retained.

In the original text, em dashes vary significantly in length as was usual in eighteenth-century literature. This digital edition renders all em dashes as follows: ----

In the original text, ellipses vary significantly in length as was usual in eighteenth-century literature. This digital edition renders all ellipses s follows: ...

Rousseau frequently includes Italian and Latin quotes as well as occasional French turns of phrase. These are not translated in this edition. Stewart and Vaché’s modern translation of Rousseau’s original French text includes translations of most of these sources as well as excellent scholarly notes. See Julie, or the New Heloise, trans. Philip Stewart and Jean Vaché (University Press of New England, 1997).