Part 81

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.

Letter 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.]