Part 24

You are going, my friend, far from me----my best beloved is going to fly from his Eloisa.----It must be so,----it is necessary that we should part at present, if we ever mean to be happy; on the success of your undertakings also depends our last hope of such an event----Oh, may the anticipation of it animate and comfort you throughout our cruel, perhaps long separation! may it inspire you with that zeal, which surmounts every obstacle. The world and its affairs will indeed continually engage your attention, and relieve you from the pangs of absence. But I, alas! remain alone, abandoned to my own thoughts, or subject to the persecution of others, that will oblige me incessantly to lament thy absence. Happy, however, shall I be, in some measure, if groundless alarms do not aggravate my real afflictions, and if the evils I actually suffer be not augmented by those to which you may be exposed----I shudder at the thoughts of the various dangers to which your life and your innocence will be liable. I place in you all the confidence a man can expect; but, since it is our lot to live asunder, O, my friend, I could wish you were something more than man. Will you not stand in need of frequent advice to regulate your conduct in a world, to which you are so much a stranger? It does not belong to me, young and unexperienced, and even less qualified by reflection and study than yourself, to advise you here. That difficult task I leave to Lord B----. I will content myself to recommend to you two things, as these depend more on sentiment than experience; and, tho’ I know but little of the world, I flatter myself I am not to be instructed in the knowledge of your heart: _Be virtuous, and remember Eloisa._

I will not make use of any of those subtle arguments you have taught me to despise; and which, though they fill so many volumes, never yet made one man virtuous. Peace to those gloomy reasoners! to what ravishing delights their hearts are strangers! leave, my friend, those idle moralists, and consult your own breast. It is there you will always find a spark of that sacred fire, which hath so often inflamed us with love for the sublimest virtue. It is there you will trace the lasting image of true beauty, the contemplation of which inspires us with a sacred enthusiasm; an image which the passions may continually defile, but never can efface. [19] Remember those tears of pleasure, those palpitations of heart, those transports which raised us above ourselves at the recital of heroic examples, which have done honour to human nature. Would you know which is most truly desirable, riches or virtue? reflect on that which the heart prefers in its unprejudiced moments: think on that which interests us most in the perusal of history. Did you never covet the riches of Croesus, the honours of Caesar, nor the pleasures of Heliogabalus? If they were happy, why did you not wish to be placed in the same situation? But they were not, you were sensible they were not, happy; you were sensible they were vile and contemptible; and that bad men, however fortunate, are not objects of envy.

What characters did you then contemplate with the greatest pleasure? what examples did you most admire? which did you desire most to imitate? inexpressible are the charms of ever-blooming virtue: it was the condemn’d Athenian, drinking hemlock; it was Brutus, dying for his country: it was Regulus, in the midst of tortures: it was Cato, plunging his dagger in his breast. These were the unfortunate heroes, whose virtues excited your envy, while your own sensations bore witness of that real felicity they enjoyed, under their apparent misfortunes. Think not this sentiment peculiar to yourself; it is the sentiment of all mankind, and that frequently in spite of themselves. That divine image of virtue, imprinted universally on the mind, displays irresistible charms even to the least virtuous. No sooner doth passion permit us to contemplate its beauty, but we wish to resemble it; and, if the most wicked of mankind could but change his being, he would chuse to be virtuous.

Excuse this rhapsody, my dear friend, you know it is originally derived from you, and it is due to the passion that inspired it. I do not take upon me to instruct you, by repeating your own maxims, but endeavour to enforce their application to yourself. Now is the time to put in practice your own precepts, and to shew how well you can act what you so well know to teach. Though it is not expected you should be put to the trials of a Cato, or a Regulus, yet every man ought to cherish a love for his country, resolution and integrity, and to keep his promise inviolable, even at the expense of his life. Private virtues are often the more sublime as they less aspire to public approbation, but have their end in the testimony of a good conscience, which gives the virtuous a more solid satisfaction, than the loudest applauses of the multitude. Hence you may see true greatness is confirmed to no one station of life, and that no man can be happy who is not the object of his own esteem; for, if the height of self- enjoyment consists in the contemplation of the truly beautiful, how can the vicious man admire the beauty of virtue in others, and not be forced to despise himself. I am not apprehensive of your being corrupted by sensual pleasures; a heart so refined as yours will be in little danger from the gross seductions of appetite. But there are others more dangerous and sentimental. I dread the effects of the maxims and lessons of the world; I dread the force of vicious examples, so constantly present, and so generally extensive: I dread those subtle sophisms by which vice is excused and defended: I dread, in short, lest your heart should impose upon itself, and render you less difficult about the means of acquiring importance than you would be, if our union were not to be the consequence. I only caution you, my friend, against the danger; your own discretion must do the rest: a foresight of accidental evils, however, is no small step towards their prevention. I will add but one reflection more, which, in my opinion, disproves the false arguments of vice, exposes the mistaken conceits of folly, and ought alone to direct a wise man to pursue his sovereign good. This is, that the source of true happiness is not confined to the desired object, nor to the heart which possesses it, but consists in a certain relation between the one and the other: that every object of our desires will not produce the happiness sought in its possession, nor is the heart at all times in a disposition to receive it. If the utmost refinement of intellectual pleasure is not sufficient alone to constitute our felicity, surely all the voluptuous pleasures on earth cannot make the depraved man happy. There is on both sides a necessary preparative, a certain combination of causes, from which results that delightful sensation so earnestly sought after by every sensible being, and for ever unexperienced by the pretended philosopher, who coldly nips his pleasures in the bud, for want of knowing how to conduct them to lasting felicity. What helps it, then, to obtain one advantage at the expense of another? to gain _without_ what we lose from _within_; to procure the means of happiness, and lose the art of employing them. Is it not better also, if we can but enjoy one of these advantages, to sacrifice what the power of fortune may restore, to that which once lost can never be recovered? none should know better than I, who have imbittered all the sweets of my life, by thinking to increase them. Let the vicious and profligate then, who display their good fortune but keep their hearts a secret, let them advance what they will; be assured that if there be one instance of happiness upon earth it must be found in the breast of the virtuous. Heaven hath bestowed on you an happy inclination for what is virtuous and good: listen then only to your own desires, follow only your own inclinations, and think above all on the growth of our infant affections. So long as the remembrance of those delightful moments of innocence shall remain, it will be impossible that you should cease to love that which rendered them so endearing; it will be impossible the charms of moral excellence should ever be effaced from your mind, or that you should wish to obtain Eloisa by means unworthy of yourself. Can anyone enjoy a pleasure for which he has lost the taste? no, to be able to possess that which one loves, it is necessary the heart that loved it should be still the same.

I come now to my second point: you see I have not forgot my logic; it is possible, my friend, without love to have the sublime sentiments of a great mind; but a love like ours supplies its flame, which being once extinguished, the soul becomes languid; and a heart once exhausted is good for nothing. Tell me, what should we be if we ceased to love? is it not better to lose our existence than our sensibility? or could you resolve to endure the life of an ordinary being, after having tasted every delight that can ravish the heart of man? you are going to visit populous cities, where your age and figure, rather than your merit, will lay a thousand snares for your fidelity. Insinuating coquetry will affect the language of tenderness, and please without deceiving you. You will not seek love, but enjoyment; you will taste it without love, and not know it for the same pleasure. I know not whether you will find in another the heart of Eloisa; but of this I am certain, you will never experience with another those ecstasies you have tasted with her. The vacancy of your exhausted mind will forebode the destiny I predict. Sadness and care will overwhelm you in the midst of frivolous amusements. The remembrance of our first transports will pursue you in spite of yourself; my image, an hundred times more beautiful than I ever was, will overtake you. In a moment the veil of disgust will be thrown over all your delights, and a thousand bitter reflections rush into your mind. My best beloved, my amiable friend, Oh, should you ever forget me----Alas! I can but die; but you, you, shall live base and unhappy, and my death will be but too severely revenged.

Forget not then that Eloisa, who lived for you, and whose heart can never be another’s. I can say nothing more regarding that dependence in which Providence hath placed me: but, after having recommended fidelity to you, it is but just to give you the only pledge of mine that is in my power. I have consulted, not my duty, my distracted mind knows that no longer, but I have examined my heart, the last guide of those who can follow no other; and behold the result of its examination: I am determined never to be your wife without the consent of my father, but I will never marry another without your consent; of this I give you my word, which, whatever happens, I will keep sacred, nor is there a power on earth can make me break my promise. Be not, therefore, disquieted at what may befall me in your absence. Go, my dear friend, pursue, under the auspices of the most tender love, a destiny worthy to crown your merit: mine is in your hands, as much as it is in my power to commit it, and never shall it be altered but with your consent.

Letter LXXVII. To Eloisa.

_O qual fiamma di gloria d’onore, Scorrer sento per tutte le sene, Alma grande parlando conto!_

O Eloisa, let me breathe a moment,----you make me shudder, my blood boils, my heart pants; your letter glows with that sacred love of virtue that fires your breast, and communicates its celestial flame to the inmost recesses of mine. But why so many exhortations, where you should have laid on me your commands? do you think I can so far forget myself as to want arguments to excite me to act justly? at least, can I want to have them urged by you, whose injunctions alone I should fly to obey. Can you be ignorant that I ever will be what you please to have me? and that I could even act unjustly before I could disobey you? yes, I could set another capitol in flames if you enjoined me, for nothing can be so dear to me as you are. But, do you know, my incomparable Eloisa, why you are thus dear? it is because you can desire nothing but what is virtuous, and that my admiration of your virtues exceeds even the love inspired by your charms. I go, encouraged by the engagement into which you have entered, the latter part of which, however, you might have omitted; for to promise not to be another’s without my consent, is it not to promise to be none but mine? for my own part, I speak more freely, and pledge with you the faith of a man of honour, ever to remain sacred and inviolable: I am ignorant to what destiny fortune will lead me in the career I am going, for your satisfaction, to enter upon; but never shall the ties of love or marriage unite me to any other than Eloisa D’Etange. I live, I exist, but for her, and shall either die married to her, or not married at all. Adieu! I am pressed for time, and am going to depart this instant.

Letter LXXVIII. To Eloisa.

I arrived last night at Paris, and he, who once could not live two streets length removed from you, is now at the distance of more than an hundred leagues. Pity, Eloisa, pity your unhappy friend: had the blood gushing from my veins, dy’d with its streams, my long, long route, my spirits could not have failed me more; I could not have found myself more languid than at present. O that I knew as well when we shall meet again, as I know the distance that divides us! the progress of time should then compensate for the length of space. I would count every day, every hour of my life, my steps, towards Eloisa. But that dismal career is hid in the gloom of futurity; its bounds are concealed from my feeble sight. How painful, how terrible is suspense! my restless heart is ever seeking, but finds you not. The sun rises, but gives me no hopes of seeing you; it sets without granting me that blessing. My days are void of pleasure, and pass away as one long continued night. In vain I endeavour to rekindle my extinguished hopes, they offer me nothing but uncertainty and groundless consolations. Alas, my gentle friend! what evils have I not to expect if they are to be a counterpoise to my past happiness!

But, I conjure you, let not my complaints alarm you; they are only the cursory effects of solitude, and the disagreeable reflections of my journey. Fear not the return of my former weakness; my heart is in your hands, Eloisa, and while you are its support it cannot debase itself. One of the comfortable fruits of your last letter is, that since I find myself sustained by a double share of spirits; and though love should annihilate what is properly mine, I should still be a gainer; the resolution with which you have inspired me being able to support me better than I could otherwise have supported myself. I am convinced it is not good for man to be alone. Human minds must be united to exert their greatest strength, and the united force of friendly souls, like that of the collateral bars of an artificial magnet, is incomparably greater than the sum of their separate forces. This is thy triumph, celestial friendship! but what is even friendship itself, compared to that perfect union of souls, which connects the most perfect, the most harmonious amity, with ties an hundred times more sacred? where are the men whose ideas, gross as their appetites, represent the passion of love only as a fever in the blood, the effect of brutal instinct? let them come to me, let them observe, let them feel, what passes in my breast; let them view an unhappy lover separated from his beloved object, doubtful whether ever he shall see her more, and hopeless of retrieving his lost happiness; animated, however, by the never dying flame, which, kindled by your beauties, has been nourished by your mental charms, they will see him ready to brave the rigours of adversity; to be deprived even of your lovely self, and to cherish all those virtues that you have inspired, and which embellish that adorable image that shall never be erazed from my soul. O, my Eloisa, what should I be without you? informed indeed by dispassionate reason, a cold admirer of virtue, I might have respected it in any one. I shall now do more, I shall now be enabled to put it zealously in practice, and, penetrated by your example, shall excite those who have known us to exclaim:----“what happy creatures should we be, if all the women in the world were Eloisa’s, and all the men had hearts susceptible of their charms!”

As I was meditating during my journey, on your last letter, I formed a resolution of collecting together all those you have written to me; as I no longer can attend to your delightful counsel from your own mouth. For, though there is not one which I have not learnt by heart, I love to read them continually, and to contemplate the characters of that lovely hand, which alone can make me happy: but the paper wears out by degrees, and therefore, before they fall quite in pieces, I design to copy each letter in a book, which I have already prepared for that purpose. It is pretty large, but I provide for the time to come, and even hope to live long enough to fill more than one volume. I set apart my evenings for the delightful employment, and proceed but slowly, in order to prolong so agreeable a task. This inestimable volume I will never part with; it shall be the manual of my devotions, my companion through the world which I am going to enter; it shall be my antidote against the pernicious maxims of society; it shall comfort me under my afflictions; it shall prevent or amend my errors; it shall afford me instruction in my youth, and yield me edification in age: the first love-letters, Eloisa, that perhaps ever were put to such an use! With respect to your last epistle, which I have before me, excellent as it appears to me, I find however one thing you should have omitted. You may think it strange; but it is much more so, that this very article should particularly regard yourself, and that I blame you even for writing it at all. Why do you talk to me of fidelity and constancy? you once were better acquainted both with my passion and your own power. Ah, Eloisa, do you entertain such changeable sentiments? what, though I had promised you nothing, should I the sooner cease to be yours? Oh, no, it was at the first glance you directed to me, at the first word you spoke, at the first motion of my heart, that a flame was kindled in my soul which can never be extinguished. Had I never seen you since that first moment, it had been enough, it had been afterwards too late to have ever forgotten you. And is it possible for me to forget you now? now, that, intoxicated with my past felicity, the very remembrance of it makes me still happy? now, that the soul, which once animated me, is fled, and I live only by that which Eloisa hath inspired? now, that I despise myself for expressing so coldly what I so sensibly feel? should all the beauties in the universe display their charms to seduce me, is there one amongst them could eclipse thine? let them all combine to captivate my heart; let them pierce, let them wound it, let them break to pieces, this faithful mirror of my Eloisa, her unsullied image will not cease to be reflected from its smallest fragments, for nothing is able to drive it thence. No, not omnipotence itself can go thus far; it may annihilate my soul, but it cannot leave its existence and make it cease to love Eloisa.

Lord B---- has undertaken to give you an account of my affairs, and what he has projected in my favour: but I am afraid he will not strictly fulfil his promise with respect to his present plan. For you are to know that he has abused the right his beneficence has given him over me, in extending it beyond the bounds of generosity. The pension he has settled on me, and which he has made independent, has put me in a condition to make an appearance here much above my rank, and perhaps even that which I shall have occasion to make in London. While I am here, as I have nothing to do, I live just as I please, and shall have no temptation to throw away the savings of my income in idle expenses. You, Eloisa, have taught me that our principal, at least our most pressing wants, are those of a benevolent mind; and, as long as one individual is deprived of the necessaries of life, what virtuous man will riot in its superfluities?

Letter LXXIX. To Eloisa. [20]