Part 9
If indeed I might give vent to my sad tale, and trust the tender recital of my numberless woes to the kind bosom of a faithful friend, I should in some sort be eased of my misfortunes. But even this relief is denied me, except when I find an opportunity to pour a few tender sighs into the compassionate bosom of my cousin: but in general I am constrained to speak a language quite foreign to my heart, and to assume an air of thoughtless gaiety, when I am ready to sink into the grave.
_Sentirsi, Oh Dei, morir, E non poter mai dir, Morir mi Sento!_
A farther circumstance of distress, if any thing more distressful can yet be added, is that my disorder is continually increasing. I have of late thought so gloomily, that I seldom now think otherwise; and the more anxiety I feel at the remembrance of our past pleasures, the more eagerly do I indulge myself in the painful recollection. Tell me, my dear, dear friend, if you can tell me by experience, how nearly allied love is to this tender sorrow, and if disquiet and uneasiness itself be not the cement of the warmest affections?
I have a thousand other things to say, but first I would fain know, precisely where you are. Besides, this train of thinking has awakened my passion, and indeed rendered me unfit for writing any more. Adieu, my dear, and though I am obliged to lay down my pen, be assured, I can never think of parting with you.
Billet. As this comes to your hands by a waterman, an entire stranger to me, I shall only say at present, that I have taken up my quarters at _Meillerie_, on the opposite shore. I shall now have an opportunity of seeing at least the dear place, which I dare not approach.
Letter XXVI. To Eloisa.
What a wonderful alteration has a short space of time produced in my affairs! The thoughts of meeting, delightful as they were, are now too much allayed with disquieting apprehensions. What should have been the object of my hopes is now, alas! become the subject of my fears, and the very spirit of discernment, which on most occasions is so useful, now serves but to dismay, to disquiet and torment me. Ah, Eloisa! too much sensibility, too much tenderness, proves the bitterest curse instead of the most fruitful blessing: vexation and disappointment are its certain consequences. The temperature of the air, the change of the seasons, the brilliancy of the sun, or thickness of the fogs, are so many moving springs to the unhappy possessor, and he becomes the wanton sport of their arbitration: his thoughts, his satisfaction, his happiness, depend on the blowing of the winds, and the different points of east or west can throw him off his bias, or enliven his expectations: swayed as he is by prejudices, and distracted by passions, the sentiments of his heart find continual opposition from the axioms of his head. Should he perchance square his conduct to the undeniable rule of right, and set up truth for his standard, instead of profit and convenience, he is sure to fall a martyr to the maxims of his integrity; the world will join in the cry, and hunt him down as a common enemy. But supposing this not the case, honesty and uprightness, though exempted from persecution, are neither the channels of honour, nor the road to riches; poverty and want are their inseparable attendants; and man, by adhering to the one, necessarily attaches himself to the inheritance of the other; and by this means he becomes his own tormentor. He will search for supreme happiness, without taking into the account the infirmities of his nature. Thus his affections and his reason will be engaged in a perpetual warfare, and unbounded ideas and desires must pave the way for endless disappointments.
This situation, dismal as it is, is nevertheless the true one, in which the hard fate of my worldly affairs, counteracted by the ingenuous and liberal turn of my thoughts, have involved me, and which is aggravated and increased by your father’s contempt and your own milder sentiments, which are at once both the delight and disquiet of my life. Had it not been for thee, thou fatal beauty, I could never have experienced the insupportable contrast between the greatness of my soul, and the low estate of my fortune. I should have lived quietly, and died contented in a situation that would have been even below notice. But to see you without being able to possess you; to adore you, without raising myself from my obscurity; to live in the same place, and yet be separated from each other, is a struggle, my dearest Eloisa, to which I am utterly unequal. I can neither renounce you, nor get the better of my cruel destiny; I can neither subdue my desires, nor better my fortune.
But, as if this situation itself were not sufficiently tormenting, the horrors of it are increased by the gloomy succession of ideas ever present to my imagination. Perhaps too, this is heightened by the nature of the place I live in; it is dark, it is dreadful; but then it suits the habit of my soul; and a more pleasant prospect of nature would reflect little comfort on the dreary view within me. A ridge of barren rocks surrounds the coast, and my dwelling is still made more dismal, by the uncomfortable face of winter. And yet, Eloisa, I am sensible enough that if I were once forced to abandon you, I should stand in need of no other abode, no other season.
While my mind is distracted with such continual agitations, my body too is moving as it were in sympathy with those emotions. I run to and fro and get upon the rocks, explore my whole district, and find every thing as horrible without, as I experience it within. There is no longer any verdure to be seen, the grass is yellow and withered, the trees are stripped of their soilage, and the north-eastern blast heaps snow and ice around me. In short, the whole face of nature appears as decayed to my outward senses, as I myself from within am dead to hope and joy.
Amidst this rocky coast, I have found out a solitary cleft from whence I have a distinct view of the dear place you inhabit. You may easily imagine how I have feasted on this discovery, and refreshed my sight with so delightful a prospect. I spent a whole day in endeavouring to discern the very house, but the distance, alas, is too great for my efforts; and imagination was forced to supply what my wearied sight was unable to discover. I immediately ran to the curate’s, and borrowed his telescope, which presented to my view, or at least to my thoughts, the exact spot I desired. My whole time has been taken up ever since in contemplating those walls, that inclose the only source of my comfort, the only object of my wishes: notwithstanding the inclement severity of the season, I continue thus employed from day break until evening. A fire made of leaves and a few dry sticks defends me in some measure from the intenseness of the cold. This place, wild and uncultivated as it is, is so suited to my taste, that I am now writing to you in it, on a summit which the ice has separated from the rock.
Here, my dearest Eloisa, your unhappy lover is enjoying the last pleasure that perhaps he may ever relish on this side the grave. Here, in spite of every obstacle, he can penetrate into your very chamber. He is even dazzled with your beauty, and the tenderness of your looks reanimates his drooping soul; nay he can wish for those raptures which he experienced with you in the grove. Alas! it is all a dream, the idle phantom of a projecting mind. Pleasing as it is, it vanishes like a vision, and I am soon forced to awake from so agreeable a delirium; and yet, even then, I have full employment for my thoughts. I admire and revere the purity of your sentiments, the innocence of your life; I trace out in my mind the method of your daily conduct, by comparing it with what I formerly well knew in happier days, and under more endearing circumstances; I find you ever attentive to engagements, which heighten your character: need I add that such a view most movingly affects me. In the morning I say to myself, she is just now awaking from calm and gentle slumbers, as fresh as the early dew, and as composed as the most spotless innocence, and is dedicating to her Creator a day, which she determines shall not be lost to virtue. She is now going to her mother, and her tender heart is feeling the soft ties of filial duty; she is either relieving her parents from the burthen of domestic cares, soothing their aged sorrows, pitying their infirmities, or excusing those indirections in others, which she knows not how to allow in herself. At another time, she is employing herself in works of genius or of use, storing her mind with valuable knowledge, or reconciling the elegancies of life to its more sober occupations. Sometimes I see a neat and studied simplicity set off those charms which need no such recommendations, and at others, she is consulting her holy pastor, on the circumstances of indigent merit. Here she is aiding, comforting, relieving the orphan or the widow; there she is the entertainment of the whole circle of her friends, by her prudent and sensible conversation. Now she is tempering the gaiety of youth, with wisdom and discretion: and some few moments (forgive me the presumption) you bestow on my hapless love. I see you melted into tears at the perusal of my letters, and can perceive, it is thy devoted lover is the subject of the lines you are penning, and of the passionate discourse between you and your cousin. O Eloisa, Eloisa! shall we never be united? Shall we never live together? can we, can we part for ever? No, be that thought quite banished from my soul. I start into the phrenzy at the very idea, and my distempered mind hurries me from rock to rock. Involuntary sighs and groans betray my inward disorder; I roar out like a lioness robbed of her young. I can do every thing but lose you; there is nothing, nothing, I would not attempt for you, at the risk of my life.
I had wrote thus far, and was waiting an opportunity to convey it, when your last came to my hands from Sion. The melancholy air it breathes, has lulled my griefs to rest. Now, now am I convinced of what you observed long ago, concerning that wonderful sympathy between lovers. Your sorrow is of the calmer, mine of the more passionate kind, yet though the affection of the mind be the same, it takes its colour in each from the different channels through which it runs; and indeed it is but natural, that the greatest misfortunes should produce the most disquieting anxieties; but why do I talk of misfortunes? They would be absolutely insupportable. No, be assured, my Eloisa, that the irresistible decree of heaven has designed us for each other. This is the first great law we are to obey, and it is the great business of life, to calm, sooth, and sweeten it while we are here. I see, and lament it too, that your designs are too vague and inconclusive for execution. You seem willing to conquer insurmountable difficulties, while at the same time you are neglecting the only feasible methods: an enthusiastic idea of honour has supplanted your reason, and your virtue is become little better than an empty delirium.
If indeed it were possible for you to remain always as young and beautiful as you are at present, my only wish, my only prayer to heaven would be, to know of your continual happiness, to see you once every year, only once, and then spend the rest of my time in viewing your mansion from afar, and in adoring you among the rocks. But behold, alas, the inconceivable swiftness of that fate which is never at rest. It is constantly pursuing, time flies hastily, the opportunity is irretrievable, and your beauty, even your beauty is circumscribed by very narrow limits of existence: it must some time or other decay and wither away like a flower, that fades before it was gathered. In the mean time, I am consuming my health, youth, strength, in continual sorrow, and waste away my years in complaining. Think, oh think, Eloisa, that we have already lost some time; think too that it will never return, and that the case will be the same with the years that are to come, if we suffer them to pass by neglected and unimproved. O fond, mistaken fair! you are laying plans for a futurity at which you may never arrive, and neglecting the present moments, which can never be retrieved. You are so anxious, and intent on that uncertain hereafter, that you forget that in the mean while, our hearts melt away like snow before the sun. Awake, awake, my dearest Eloisa, from so fatal a delusion! Leave all your concerted schemes, the wanton sallies of a fruitful fancy, and determine to be happy. Come, my only hope, my only joy! to thy fond expecting lover’s arms: come and re-unite the hitherto divided portions of our existence. Come, and before heaven, let us solemnly swear to live and die for each other. You have no need, I am sure, of any encouragement, any exhortations, to bear up against the fear of want. Though poor, provided we are happy, what a treasure will be in our possession! but let us not so insult either the dignity or the humanity of the species, as to suppose that this vast world cannot furnish an Asylum for two unfortunate lovers. But we need not despair while I have health and strength; the bread earned by the sweat of my brow will be more relishing to you, than the most costly banquet that luxury could prepare. And indeed can any repast, provided and seasoned by love, be insipid? Oh my angel, if our happiness were sure to last us but one day, could you cruelly resolve, to quit this life, without tasting it?
One word more, and I have done. You know, Eloisa, the use which was formerly made of the rock of Leucatia; it was the last sad refuge of disappointed lovers. The place I am now in, and my own distressed situation, bear but too close a resemblance. The rock is craggy, the water deep, and I am in despair.
Letter XXVII. From Clara.
I have been lately so distracted with care and grief, that it is with much difficulty I have been able to summon sufficient strength for writing. Your misfortunes and mine are now at their utmost crisis. In short, the lovely Eloisa is very dangerously ill, and ere this can reach you, may perhaps be no more. The mortification she underwent in parting with you, first brought on her disorder, which was considerably increased by some very interesting discourse she has since had with her father. This has been still heightened by circumstances of additional aggravation, and as if all this were too little, your last letter came in aid, and compleatd, alas, what was already scarce supportable. The perusal of it affected her so sensibly, that after a whole night of violent agitations and cruel struggles, she was seized with a high fever which has increased to such a degree, that she is now delirious. Even in this situation she is perpetually calling for you, and speaks of you with such emotions as plainly point out, that you alone are the object of her more sober thoughts. Her father is kept out of the way as much as possible, which is no inconsiderable proof that my aunt suspects the truth. She has even asked me, with some anxiety, when you intended to return? so entirely does her concern for her daughter outweigh every other consideration! I dare say she would not be sorry to see you here.
Come then, I intreat you, as soon as you possibly can. I have hired a man and boat to transmit this to you; he will wait your orders, and you may come with him. Indeed if you ever expect to see our devoted Eloisa alive, you must not lose an instant.
Letter XXVIII. From Eloisa to Clara.
Alas, my dear Clara, how is the life you have restored me imbittered by your absence. What satisfaction can there be in my recovery, when I am still preyed upon by a more violent disorder? Cruel Clara! to leave me, when I stand most in need of your assistance. You are to be absent eight days, and perhaps by that time my fate will be determined, and it will be out of your power to see me any more. Oh if you did but know his horrid proposals, and the manner of his stating them! to elope----to follow him----to be carried off----What a wretch! But of whom do I complain, my heart, my own base heart has said a thousand times more than ever he has mentioned. Good God, if he knew all! Oh it would hasten my ruin----I should be hurried to destruction, be forced to go with him----I shudder at the very thought.
But has my father then sold me? Yes, he has considered his daughter as his merchandize, and consigned her with as little remorse, as he would a bale of goods. He purchases his own ease and quiet, at the dear price of all my future comfort, nay of my life itself----for I see but too well, I can never survive it. Barbarous, unnatural, unrelenting father! Does he deserve?----But why do I talk of deserving? he is the best of fathers, and the only crime I can alledge against him, is his desire of marrying me to his friend. But my mother, my dear mother, what has she done? Alas, too much; she has loved me too much, and that very love has been my ruin.
What shall I do, Clara? What will become of me? Hans is not yet come. I am at a loss how to convey this letter to you. Before you receive it, before you return----perhaps a vagabond, abandoned, ruined and forlorn. It is over, it is over: the time is come. A day----an hour ----perhaps a moment----but who can resist their fate?----Oh wherever I live, wherever I die, whether in honour or dishonour, in plenty or poverty, in pleasure or in despair, remember, I beseech you, your dear, dear friend. But misfortunes too frequently produce changes in our affections. If ever I forget you, mine must be altered indeed!
Letter XXIX. From Eloisa to Clara.
Stay, stay, where you are! I intreat, I conjure you, never never think of returning, at least, not to me. I ought never to see you more; for now, alas, I can never behold you as I ought. Where wert thou my tender friend, my only safeguard, my guardian angel? When thou withdrewest, ruin instantly ensued. Was that fatal absence of yours so indispensable, so necessary, and couldest thou leave thy friend in the most critical time of danger? What an inexhaustible fund of remorse hast thou laid up for thyself by so blameable a neglect! It will be as bitter, as lasting, as my unhappy sorrows. Thy loss is indeed as irretrievable as my own, and it were equally difficult to gain another friend as worthy of yourself, as alas! it is impossible to recover my innocence.
Ah! what have I said? I can neither speak nor yet be silent; and to what purpose were my silence, when my very sorrows would cry out against me? And does not all created nature upbraid me with my guilt? Does not every object before me remind me of my shame? I will, I must pour my whole soul into thine, or my poor heart will burst. Canst thou hear all this, my secure and careless friend, without applying some reproaches at the least to thyself? Even thy faith and truth, the blind confidence of thy friendship, but above all thy pernicious indulgencies, have been the unhappy instruments of my destruction.
What evil genius could inspire you to invite him to return; him, alas! who is now the cruel author of my disgrace? And am I indebted to his care for a life, which he has since made insupportable by his cruelty? Inhuman as he is, let him fly from me for ever, and deny himself the savage pleasure, of being an eye witness of my sorrows. But why do I rave thus? He is not to be blamed, I alone am guilty. I alone am the author of my own misfortunes, and should therefore be the only object of anger and resentment. But vice, new as it is to me, has already infected my very soul; and the first dismal effect of it is displayed in reviling the innocent.
No, no, he was ever incapable of being false to his vows. His virtuous soul disdains the low artifice of imposing upon credulity, or of injuring her he loves. Doubtless, he is much more experienced in the tender passions than I ever was, since he found no difficulty to overcome himself, and I alas fell a victim to my unruly desires. How often have I been a witness of his struggles and his victory, and when the violence of his transports seemed to get the better of his reason, he would stop on a sudden, as if awed and checked by virtue, when he might have led on to certain triumph. I indulged myself too much in beholding so dangerous an object. I was afflicted at his sighs, moved with his intreaties, and melted with his tears; I shared his anxieties when I thought I was only pitying them. I have seen him so affected, that he seemed ready to faint at my feet. Love alone might perhaps have been my security; but compassion, O my Clara! has fatally undone me.
Thus my unhappy passion assumed the form of humanity, the more easily to deprive me of the assistance of my virtue. That very day he had been particularly importunate and pressed me to elope with him. This proposal, connected as it was with the misery and distress of the best of parents, shocked my very soul; nor could I think with any patience, of thus imbittering their comforts. The impossibility of ever fulfilling our plighted troth, the necessity there was of concealing this impossibility from him, the regret which I felt at deceiving so tender and passionate a lover, after having flattered his expectations; all these were dreadful circumstances which lessened my resolution, increased my weakness, blinded and subdued my reason. I was then either to kill my parents, discard my lover, or ruin myself: without knowing what I did, I resolved on the latter; and forgetting every thing else, thought only of my love. Thus one unguarded minute has betrayed me to endless misery. I am fallen into the abyss of infamy from whence there is no return, and if I am to live, it is only to be wretched.