Volume II

Letter LXXIV. From Lord B—— To Eloisa.

Now, charming Eloisa, we gain our point: a lucky mistake of our friend hath brought him to reason. The shame of finding himself a moment in the wrong has dissipated his phrenzy, and rendered him so tractable that we may manage him for the future as we please. It is with pleasure I see the fault with which he reproaches himself, attended rather with contrition than anger; and I know how highly he esteems me, from that humility and confusion he seems to feel when I am present; but without affection or constraint. His sensibility of the injury he has done me disarms my resentment. When the offender thus acknowledges his crime, he reaps more honour by such a reparation of his fault, than the offended in bestowing him a pardon. I have taken the advantage of this change, and the effect it has produced, to enter into some necessary measures with him before my departure, which I now cannot defer much longer. As I purpose to return the approaching summer, we have agreed that he shall go to wait for me at Paris, from whence we shall proceed together to England.

London is the most extensive theatre in the world for the display of great talents. [16] Those of our friend are in many respects of the first rank; and I despair not of seeing him, with some little assistance, soon strike out something in his way to fortune, worthy of his merit. I will be more explicit as to my intentions when I see you; in the mean time, you will readily conceive the importance of his success may encourage him to surmount many difficulties, and that there are various modes of distinction which may compensate for inferiority of birth, even in the opinion of your father. This appears to me the only expedient that remains to be tried, in order to effect your mutual happiness, since prejudice and fortune have deprived you of all others.

I have written for Regianino to come post hither, and to remain with me during the eight or ten days I shall yet stay with our friend. He is too deeply afflicted to admit of much conversation: music will serve to fill up the vacant hours of silence, indulge his reveries, and sooth his grief by degrees into a peaceful melancholy. I wait only to see him in such a temper of mind to leave him to himself; and before that, I dare not trust him. As for Regianino, I will leave him with you as I pass by, and shall not take him from you again till I return from Italy; by which time, I imagine, from the progress you have both already made, his assistance will be unnecessary. Just at present he is certainly useless to Eloisa, and I deprive her of nothing by detaining him here for a few days.

Letter LXXV. To Clara.

Ah, why do I live to open my eyes on my own unworthiness! O that I had for ever closed them, rather than thus to look on the disgrace into which I am fallen; rather than to find myself the most abject, after having been the most fortunate of men! generous and amiable friend, to whose care I have been so often obliged, still let me pour my complaints into your compassionate heart; still let me implore your assistance, sensible and ashamed as I am of my own demerits: abandoned by myself, it is to you I fly for consolation. Heavens! how can it be that a man so contemptible should ever be beloved by her; or that a passion for so divine an object should not have refined my soul: let her now blush at her choice, she whose name I am no longer worthy to repeat. Let her sigh to see her image profan’d by dwelling in a heart so abject and mean. What hatred and disdain doth she not owe a wretch, that, inspired by love, could be yet servile and base! you shall know, my charming [17] cousin, the cause of my disgrace: you shall know my crime and penitence. Be you my judge, and let me perish by your sentence; or be my advocate, and let the adorable object on whom depended the past, conduct my future fortune.

I will say nothing of the effect which so unexpected a separation had on me: I will say nothing of the excess of my grief, or the extravagance of my despair; you will judge of them too well from the unaccountable behaviour into which they betrayed me. The more sensible I grew of the misery of my situation, the less I conceived it possible for me voluntarily to give up Eloisa; and the bitterness of this reflection, joined to the amazing generosity of Lord B——, awaked suspicions, on which I shall never reflect without horror, and which I can never forget without ingratitude to the friend whose generosity could forgive them.

Revolving in my phrenzy the several circumstances attending my departure, I imagined I discovered it to be a premeditated scheme, which I rashly attributed to the most virtuous of mortals. That dreadful suspicion no sooner suggested itself than every circumstance appeared to confirm it. My lord’s conversation with the Baron D’Etange, and his peremptory manner, which I took to be affected, the quarrel which ensued. Eloisa’s being forbid to see me, and their resolution to send me away, the diligence and secrecy of the preparations made for my departure, his lordship’s discourse with me the preceding evening; in short, the rapidity with which I was rather forced than conducted hither: all these circumstances seemed to prove that my lord had formed a scheme to separate me from Eloisa; and lastly, his intended return assured me that I had discovered his designs. I resolved, however, to get more particular information before I broke with him; and with this design set myself to examine the matter with attention. But every thing conspired to increase my ridiculous suspicions; all his generous and humane actions in my favour, were converted by my jealousy into so many instances of his perfidy. I knew that he wrote to Eloisa from Besançon, without communicating to me the contents of his letter, or giving me the least hint. I thought myself therefore sufficiently assured of the truth of what I suspected, and waited only for his receiving answer to his letter, which, I hoped, might be disagreeable, to come to the explanation I meditated.

Last night we returned home pretty late, and I knew he had received a packet from Switzerland, of which however he took no notice when we retired. I let him have time to open it, and heard him from my apartment reading in a low voice; I listened attentively and overheard him thus exclaim to himself, in broken sentences, Alas, Eloisa! I strove to render you happy——honoured your virtues,——but I grieve at your delusion.——At these and other similar exclamations, which I distinctly heard, I was no longer master of myself; I snatched up my sword, and taking it under my arm, forced open the door, and rushed like a madman into his chamber; but I will not soil my paper, nor offend your delicacy with the injurious expressions my rage dictated, to urge him to fight me on the spot.

Here, my dear cousin, I must confess to have seen the most extraordinary instance of the influence of true wisdom, even over the most susceptible mind, when we listen to her dictates. At first he could not comprehend whence arose my disorder, and took it for a real delirium. But the perfidy of which I accused him, the secret designs with which I reproached him, Eloisa’s letter which he held in his hand, and which I incessantly mentioned, at length discovered the cause of my anger. He smiled, and said to me coldly, you are certainly out of your senses; do you think me so void of discretion as to fight with a madman? open your eyes, inconsiderate man, he said, with a milder tone, is it me that you accuse of betraying you? Something, I know not what, in his voice and manner of speaking, struck me immediately with a sense of his innocence and my own folly. His reproof sunk into my heart, and I had no sooner met his looks than my suspicions vanished, and I began to think with horror on the extravagance I had committed. He perceived immediately this change of sentiment, and taking me by the hand, ’tis well, says he, but if you had not recollected yourself before my justification, I would never have seen you more. As it is, and you have recovered your reason, read that letter, and know for once your friends. I would now have been excused from reading it, but the ascendant, which so many advantages had given him over me, made him insist on it with an air of authority; and, though my suspicions were vanished, I secretly wished to see it.

Think what a situation I was in, on reading a letter that informed me of the unparalleled obligations I was under, to a man I had so unworthily treated. I threw myself immediately at his feet, struck with admiration, affliction and shame: I embraced his knees with the utmost humiliation and concern, but could not utter a word. He received my penitence in the same manner as he did the outrage I had committed; and exacted no other recompense for the pardon he granted, than my promise that I would never more oppose his designs to serve me. Yes, he shall act for the future as he pleases: his sublime generosity is more than human, and it is as impossible to refuse his favours as it is to withstand the benevolence of the deity.

He gave afterwards two letters out of the packet, addressed to me, and which he would not deliver before he had read his own, that he might be made acquainted with the resolution of your cousin. In perusing them I found what a mistress and friend heaven had bestowed on me: I saw how it had connected me with the most perfect patterns of generosity and virtue, to render my remorse the more keen, and meanness contemptible. Say, who is that matchless fair, whose beauty is her least perfection; who, like the divinity, makes herself equally adored for the dispensation of good and evil. It is Eloisa; she has undone me; yet cruel as she is, I love and admire her but the more. The more unhappy she makes me, the more perfect she appears; and every pain she gives, is a new instance of her perfection. The sacrifice she has made to nature both afflicts and charms me; it enhances even the value of that which she made to love. No, my Eloisa can make no refusal that is not of equal value to what she bestows. And you, my charming, my truly deserving cousin, the only perfect model of friendship your sex can boast, an instance which minds, not formed like yours, will never believe real: tell not me of philosophy, I despise its vain parade of idle terms; I despise that phantom of wisdom which teaches us to brave the passions at a distance, but flies, and leaves us a prey to them the moment they approach. Abandon me not, Clara, to a distracted mind; withdraw not your wonted kindness from a wretch, who, though he deserves it no longer, desires it more ardently, and stands more in need of it, than ever. Assist me to recover my former self, and let your gentle counsel supply the dictates of reason to my afflicted heart.

I will yet hope I am not fallen into irretrievable disgrace. I feel that pure and sacred flame I once cherished, rekindle within me. The sublime examples before me shall not be given in vain. The virtues which I love and admire I will imitate. Yes, divine Eloisa! I will yet do honour to thy choice; and, you, my friends, whose esteem I am determined to regain, my awakened soul shall gather new strength and life from yours. Chaste love and sacred friendship shall restore that constancy of mind, of which a cowardly despair had deprived me; the pure sensations of my heart shall supply the place of wisdom: you shall make me every thing I ought to be, and I will compel you to forget my fall, in consideration of my endeavours to rise. I know not, neither do I desire to know, the future lot which providence assigns me; be it what it will, I will render myself worthy of that which I have already enjoyed. The image of Eloisa, never to be erazed from my mind, shall be my shield, and render my soul invulnerable. I have lived long enough for my own happiness, I will now live to her honour. Oh, that I could but live so supremely virtuous, that the admiring world should say, how could he do less who was loved by Eloisa?

P. S. From ties abhorred and perhaps inevitable! what is the meaning of those words? they are in Eloisa’s letter. Clara, I am attentive to every, the minutest circumstance; I am resigned to fortune: but those words,——whatever may happen, I will never leave this place till I have an explanation of those words.

Letter LXXVI. From Eloisa.

Can it be that my soul has not excluded all delight, and that a sense of joy yet penetrates my heart? alas! I conceived it insensible to any thing but sorrow: I thought I should do nothing but suffer, when you left me, and that absence had no consolations; your letter to my cousin has undeceived me; I have read and bath’d it with tears of compassion. It has shed a sweet refreshing dew o’er a drooping heart, dried up with vexation and sorrow. The peaceful serenity it has caused in my soul convinces me of the ascendant you hold, whether present or absent, over the affections of Eloisa. Oh! my friend, how much it delights me to see you recover that strength of mind which becomes the resolution of a man. I esteem you for it the more, and despise myself the less, in that the dignity of a chaste affection is not totally debased between us, and that our hearts are not both at once corrupted. I will say more, as we can at present speak freely of our affairs. That which most aggravated my despair, was to see that yours deprived us of the only resource which was left us, the exertion of your abilities, to improve them. You now know the worth of the friendship with which heaven has blessed you, in that of my Lord B——, whose generosity merits the services of your whole life, nor can you ever sufficiently atone for the offence you have committed. I hope you will need no other warning to make you guard for the future against your impetuous passions. It is under the protection of this honourable friend that you are going to enter on the stage of the world; it is under the sanction of his credit, under the guidance of his experience, that you go to revenge the cause of injured merit, on the cruelty of fortune.

Do that for his sake which you did not for your own. Endeavour at least to respect his goodness, by not rendering it useless to yourself. Behold a pleasing prospect still before you: contemplate the success you have reason to hope for in entering the lists where every thing conspires to ensure the victory. Heaven has been lavish to you of its bounties; your natural genius, cultivated by taste, has endowed you with every necessary and agreeable qualification; at least, at four-and-twenty you possess all the charms of youth, matured by the reflections of age.

Frutto simile in su’l gioveriel fiore.

Study has not impaired your vivacity, nor injured your person; insipid gallantry has not contracted your genius, nor formality your understanding: but love inspiring those sublime sentiments which are its genuine offspring, has given you that elevation of mind and justness of conception from which it is inseparable. [18] I have seen thy mind expanded by its gentle warmth, display its brilliant faculties, as a flower that unfolds itself to the rays of the sun; you possess at once every talent that leads to fortune, and should set you above it: you need only aspire to be considerable, to become so; and I hope that object for whose take you should covet distinction, will excite in you a greater zeal for those marks of the world’s esteem, than of themselves they may deserve.

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]

I enter with a secret horror on this vast desert, the world; whose confused prospect appears to me only as a frightful scene of solitude and silence. In vain my soul endeavours to shake off the universal restraint it lies under. It was the saying of a celebrated ancient, that he was never less alone than when he was by himself: for my part, I am never alone but when I mix with the crowd, and am neither with you nor with any body else. My heart would speak, but it feels there is none to hear: it is ready to answer, but no one speaks any thing that regards it. I understand not the language of the country, and no body here understands mine. Yet I own that I am greatly caressed, and that all the obliging offices of friendship and civility are readily offered to me: this is the very thing of which I complain. The officious zeal of thousands is ever on the wing to oblige me, but I know not how to entertain immediately a friendship for men I have never seen before. The honest feelings of humanity, the plain and affecting openness of a frank heart, are expressed in a different manner from those false appearances of politeness, and that external flattery, which the customs of the world require. I am not a little afraid that he, who treats me at first sight, as if I was a friend of twenty years standing, if at the end of twenty years I should want his assistance, will treat me as a stranger; and, when I see men, lost in dissipation, pretend to take so tender a part in the concerns of every one, I readily presume they are interested for no body but themselves.

There is, however, some truth in all this profession: the French are naturally good-natured, open, hospitable, and generous. But they have a thousand modes of expression, which are not to be too strictly understood. A thousand apparent offers of kindness which they make only to be refused; they are no more than the snares of politeness laid for rustic simplicity. I never before heard such profusion of promises: you may depend on my serving you, command my credit, my purse, my house, my equipage.——But, if all this were sincere, and literally taken, there would not be a people upon earth less attached to property. The community of possessions would be in a manner already established; the rich always making offers, and the poor accepting them, both would naturally soon come upon a level, and not the citizens of Sparta itself could ever have been more upon an equality than would be the people of Paris. On the contrary, there is not a place, perhaps, in the world, where the fortunes of men are so unequal, where are displayed at once the most sumptuous opulence and the most deplorable poverty. This is surely sufficient to prove the insignificance of that apparent commiseration, which every one here affects to have for the wants and sufferings of others, and that tenderness of heart, which in a moment contracts eternal friendship.

But if, instead of attending to professions so justly to be suspected, and assurances so liable to deceive, I desire information, and would see knowledge; here is its most agreeable source. One is immediately charmed with the good sense which is to be met with in company of the French, not only among the learned, but with men of all ranks, and even among the women: the turn of conversation is always easy and natural, it is neither dull nor frivolous, but learned without pedantry, gay without noise, polite without affectation, gallant without being fulsome, and jocose without immodesty. Their discourse is neither made up of dissertations nor epigrams; they reason without argumentation, and are witty without punning: they artfully unite reason and vivacity, maxims and rhapsodies; and mix the most pointed satire and refined flattery with strictness of morals. They talk about every thing, because every one has something to say; they examine nothing to the bottom, for fear of being tedious, but propose matters in a cursory manner, and treat them with rapidity: every one gives his opinion, and supports it in few words; no one attacks with virulence that of another, nor obstinately defends his own; they discuss the point only for the sake of improvement, and stop before it comes to a dispute: every one improves, every one amuses himself, and they part all satisfied with each other; even the philosopher himself carrying away something worthy his private meditation.

But, after all, what kind of knowledge do you think is to be gained from such agreeable conversation? to form a just judgment of life and manners; to make a right use of society; to know, at least, the people with whom we converse; there is nothing, Eloisa, of all this: all they teach is to plead artfully the cause of falsehood, to confound, by their philosophy, all the principles of virtue; to throw a false colour, by the help of sophistry, on the passions and prejudices of mankind; and to give a certain turn to error, agreeable to the fashionable mode of thinking. It is not necessary to know the characters of men, but their interests, to guess their sentiments on any occasion. When a man talks on any subject, he rather expresses the opinions of his garb or his fraternity, than his own, and will charge them as often as he changes his situation and circumstances.

Dress him up, for instance, by turns, in the robe of a judge, a peer, and a divine, and you shall hear him successively stand up, with the same zeal, for the rights of the people, the despotism of the prince, and the authority of the inquisition. There is one kind of reason for the lawyer, another for the officer of the revenue, and a third for the soldier. Each of them can demonstrate the other two to be knaves; a conclusion not very difficult to be drawn by all three. [21] Thus men do not speak their own sentiments but those they would instill into others, and the zeal which they affect is only the mask of interest. You may imagine, however, that such persons as are unconnected and independent, have at least a personal character and an opinion of their own. Not at all: they are only different machines, which never think for themselves, but are set a going by springs.

You need only inform yourself of their company, their clubs, their friends, the women they visit, the authors they are acquainted with; and you may immediately tell what will be their opinion of the next book that is published, the next play that is acted, the works of this or that writer they know nothing of, or this or that system of which they have not one idea. As ordinary clocks, also, are wound up to go but four and twenty hours, so are these people under the necessity of going every evening into company, to know what they are to think the next day.

Hence it is, that there is but a small number of both sexes, who think for all the rest, and for whom all the rest talk and act. As every one considers his own particular interest, and none of them that of the public, and as the interests of individuals are always opposed, there is amongst them a perpetual clashing of parties and cabals, a continual ebb and flow of prepossessions and contrary opinions; amidst which the most violent tempers, agitated only by the rest, seldom understand a word of the matter in dispute. Every club has its rules, its opinions, its principles, which are no where else admitted. An honest man at one house is a knave at the next door. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, truth, and even virtue itself, have all only a limited and local existence. Whoever chuses a general acquaintance, therefore, and goes into different societies, should be more pliable than Alcibiades; he should change his principles with his company, new-model his sentiments in a manner at every step, and lay down his maxims by the rod. He ought at every visit to leave his conscience, if he has one, at the door, and take up with that belonging to the house as a new servant, on his entrance, puts on its livery, which he leaves behind him when turned out, and if he chuses it, again takes up his own, which serves him till he gets a new suit with a new place. But what is still more extraordinary, is, that every one here is perpetually contradicting himself, without being concerned at all about it. They have one set of principles for conversation, and another for their actions; nor is any body scandalized at their inconsistency, it being generally agreed they should be very different. It is not required of an author, particularly of a moral writer, that he should maintain in conversation what he advances in his works; nor that he should put in practice what he inculcates. His writings, conversation, and conduct, are three things essentially different, which he is not at all obliged to reconcile to each other. In a word, every thing is absurd, and yet nothing offends, because absurdity is the fashion. Nay, there is attached to this incongruity of principles and manners, a fashionable air of which they are proud, and which is frequently affected. In fact, although every one zealously preaches up the maxims of his profession, he piques himself on the carriage and manners of another. The attorney, for instance, assumes the martial air of a soldier, and a petty clerk of the customs, the supercilious deportment of a lord; the bishop affects the gallantry of a fine gentleman; the courtier the precision of a philosopher; and the statesman the repartee and raillery of a wit. Even the plain mechanic, who knows not how to put on the airs of any other profession, dresses himself up in a suit of black on Sundays, in order to pass for a practitioner in the law. The military gentlemen alone, despising every other profession, preserve, without affectation, the manners of their own, which, to say the truth, are insufferable. Not that M. de Muralt was in the wrong, when he gave the preference to the conversation of a soldier; but, what might be true in his time, is no longer so now. The progress of literature has since improved conversation in general; and, as the gentlemen of the army despised such improvement in theirs, that which used to be the best, is at length become the worst. [22]

Hence it is, that the persons we talk to are not those with whom we converse; their sentiments do not come from the heart; their knowledge is not the acquisition of their own genius; their conversation does not discover their thoughts; and one perceives nothing of them but their figure. Thus, a man in company here, is nearly in the same situation as if he were spectator of a moving picture, where he himself is the only figure capable of self-motion.

Such are the notions I have formed of great societies, by that which I have seen at Paris. They may, nevertheless, be rather adapted to my own particular situation than to the true state of things; and will doubtless improve as I become more acquainted with the manners of the world. Besides this, I have hitherto kept no other company than that into which I have been introduced by the friends of Lord B——, and am sensible it is necessary to descend to persons of different ranks, to know the peculiar manners of a country; those of the opulent being almost every where the same. I shall endeavour to inform myself better hereafter; in the mean time, I leave you to judge whether I had not sufficient reason to call this crowded scene a desert, and to be terrified by a solitude, where I find only an empty appearance of sentiments and of sincerity, that falsifies itself in the instant of expression; and where I perceive only the mere apparitions of men, phantoms that strike the eye for a moment, but are insensible to the touch? Hitherto I have seen a great number of masks; when shall I behold the faces of mankind?

Letter LXXX. From Eloisa.

Yes, my friend, we shall continue to be united, notwithstanding our separation; we shall be happy in spite of fortune. It is the union of minds which constitutes their true felicity; the mutual attraction of hearts does not follow the ratio of their distance, and ours would be in contact, were they distant as the poles asunder. I am sensible with you that true lovers have a thousand expedients to sooth the pains of absence, and to fly to each other’s arms in a moment. Hence have they more frequent interviews even in absence, than when they see each other every day; for, no sooner is either alone, than they are both together. If you, my friend, can taste that pleasure every evening, I feast on it a hundred times a day. I am more alone, and am surrounded by objects I cannot look on without calling you to mind, without finding you ever near me.

Qui canto dolcemente e qui s’assise Qiu si revolve, e qui ritenne il passo Qui co ’begli occhi me trafise il core Qui disse una parola, e qui sorrise.

But is it so with you? can you thus alleviate the pains of absence? can you experience the sweets of a peaceful and tender passion, that speaks to the heart without inflaming the senses? Are your griefs at present more prudent than were formerly your desires? the violence of your first letter still makes me tremble. I dread those deceitful transports, by so much the more dangerous as the imagination which excites them, is the less subject to controul; and, I fear, lest even your excess of love should prove injurious to the object of it. Alas! you know not, your sensations are too indelicate to perceive how offensive to love is an irrational homage. You do not consider that your life is mine, nor that self-preservation leads us frequently to destruction. Sensual man! will you never learn to love? call to mind those peaceful, those tender sensations you once felt, and so affectingly described. If such be the highest pleasures which even happy lovers can taste, they are the only ones wherein those who pine in absence are permitted to indulge themselves; and those who once have felt them, though but for a moment, should never regret the loss of any other. I remember the reflections we made in reading your Plutarch, on the sensuality and depravity of taste, which debase our nature. Were such wretched pleasures attended only with the circumstance of their not being mutual, it were enough, we said, to render them insipid and contemptible. Let us apply the same conclusion to the sallies of an extravagant imagination, to which it is no less applicable. What can the wretch enjoy whose pleasures are confined to himself alone? his pleasures are lifeless, but thine, O love! are animated and generous delights. It is the union of souls: we receive more pleasure from that which we excite, than from our own enjoyment.

But, pray, tell me, my friend, in what language, or rather, in what jargon, is the description you give me in your last letter? did you not make use of it as an occasional display of your wit? if you intend to repeat it in your letters to me, it will be necessary to send me a dictionary. What is it you mean by the opinions of a garb? by a conscience that is to be put off and on, like a livery? by laying down maxims by the rod? how would you have a poor, simple Swiss comprehend those sublime tropes and figures? have you not already borrowed some of the tinsel understanding of the people you describe? take care, my good friend, how you proceed. Do you not think the metaphors of the chevalier Marini, which you have so often laughed at, bear some resemblance to your own? if a garment may be said to think, in a letter, why not that fire may sweat in a sonnet? [23]

To observe in the space of three weeks all the different company that is kept in a great city; to pass judgment on their conversation; to distinguish precisely the false from the true, the real from the affected; the difference between their thoughts and words: this is the very thing for which the French are frequently censured by people of other countries; but this nation especially deserves to be studied more at leisure. I as little approve also of persons speaking ill of a country where they reside and are well received: they had better, in my judgment, submit to be deceived by appearances, than to moralize at the expense of their hosts. In short, I always suspect the candour of those observers, who set up for wits. I am always apprehensive lest they should insensibly sacrifice the real state of things to the arts of description, and affect a brilliancy of stile at the expense of truth.

You know, my friend, the saying of Muralt, that wit is the epidemical madness of the French: I am mistaken if I do not discover some marks of your being yourself infected with this phrenzy. There is this difference, however, that while it is agreeable enough in the French, the Swiss are of all people in the world those it becomes the least. There is something very quaint and far-fetched in many passages of your letter. I do not speak of the lively turn or animated expressions, which are dictated by any peculiar strength of sentiments, but of that affected prettiness of stile, which being unnatural in itself, can be natural to no people whatever, but betrays the absurd pretensions of the person who uses it. Pretensions, with those we love, good God! ought not all our pretensions to be confined to the object beloved? It may be permitted to enliven an indifferent conversation with such rhetorical flourishes, and they may pass off as fine strokes of wit; but this is not the language adapted to the intercourse of lovers; the florid jargon of gallantry comes less from the heart than the most rude and simple of all dialects. I appeal to yourself: did wit ever find an opportunity to intrude into our private parties? if those fond, those endearing conversations had a charm to dispel and keep wit at a distance, how ill-suited are its embellishments to the letters of absence, always clouded in some measure with sorrow; and in which the heart expresses itself with peculiar tenderness? but, though every passion truly great should be serious, excess of joy sooner calling forth our tears than our smiles, I would not have love be always sad; its chearfulness should, nevertheless, be simple and unaffected, without art, without embellishment, and undissembled as the passion itself. In a word, I would have love appear in its native graces, and not in the false ornaments of wit.

My constant companion, in whose apartment I write this letter, pretends, that in the beginning of it I had just that pleasantry of disposition which love inspires; but I know not what is become of it. In proportion as I proceed, a languor invades my heart, and hardly leaves me spirits to write the reproaches she would have me make you. For you are to know the above hypercriticisms are rather hers than my own. It was she that dictated in particular the first article, laughing like an idiot, and insisting on my not altering a single syllable. She says, it is to teach you to respect Marini, whom she patronizes and you have the presumption to ridicule.

But can you guess the cause of our good humour? it is her approaching marriage. The contract was signed last night, and the day is fixed for Monday sevennight. If ever love was a chearful passion, it is surely so with her: surely no girl was ever so droll upon the like occasion.

The good Mr. Orbe, whose head is also a little turned, was highly delighted with the comical manner in which he was received. Less difficult to be pleased than you were, he takes great pleasure in adding to the pleasantry of courtship, and looks upon the art of diverting his mistress as a master-piece in making love. For her part, we may talk to her as we please of decorum, tell her as much as we will of the grave and serious turn she ought to assume on the point of matrimony, and of doing honour to the virgin state she is going to quit; she laughs at all we can say, as ridiculous grimace, and tells Mr. Orbe to his face, that on the wedding day she shall be in the best humour in the world; and that one cannot go too chearfully to be married. But the little dissembler does not tell all; I surprized her this morning wiping her eyes, which were red with crying, and I would lay a wager, the tears of the night equal the smiles of the day. She is going to bind herself in new chains, that will relax the gentle ties of friendship: she is entering on a manner of life very different to that which she most affected. Hitherto always pleased and tranquil, she is going to run those hazards which are inseparable from the best marriage; and, whatever face she may assume, I see that, as a clear and smooth water begins to be troubled at the approach of a storm, so her chaste and timid heart feels an alarm at her approaching change of condition.

May they be happy, my dear friend! they love, and will be united in marriage: they will reap the transports of mutual enjoyment without obstacles, without fear, without remorse! Adieu, my heart is full——I can write no more.

P.S. We have seen Lord B——, but he was in such haste to proceed on his journey, that he staid with us but a moment. Impressed with a due sense of the obligations we owe him, I would have made him my acknowledgments and yours; but, I know not how, I was ashamed. It is surely a kind of insult offered to his unparallel’d generosity to thank such a man for any thing!

Letter LXXXI. To Eloisa.

What children does the impetuosity of our passions make of us! how readily does an extravagant affection nourish itself on chimeras; and how easily are our too violent desires prevented by the most frivolous objects! I received your letter with as much rapture as your presence could have inspir’d: in the excess of my transport, a piece of folded paper supplying in my mind the place of Eloisa. One of the greatest evils of absence, and the only one which reason cannot alleviate, is the inquietude we are under concerning the actual state of the person we love. Her health, her life, her repose, her affections, nothing escapes the apprehensions of him who has every thing to lose. Nor are we more certain of the present condition than of the future; and every possible accident is realiz’d in the mind of the timid lover. I breathe, and am alive again. You are in health, and still love me; or rather ten days ago you loved me, and was well; but who can assure me it is so at this instant? How cruel! how tormenting is absence! how fatally capricious is that situation in which we can enjoy only the past moment and the present not yet arrived.

Had you said nothing about your constant companion, I should have detected her little malice in the censures passed on my observations, and her old grudge in the apology for Marini; but, if it be permitted me in turn to apologize for myself, I will not make her wait for a reply.

In the first place then, my dear cousin, for it is to her I should address my answer, as to the stile of my remarks, I have adopted that of the subject: I endeavoured to give you at once both an idea and an example of the mode of conversation in fashion; and thus, following an ancient precept, I wrote to you in the same manner they talk in some companies to each other. Besides, it is not the use of rhetorical figures, but the choice of them, which I blame in Marini. If a man has the least warmth of imagination, he must necessarily use metaphors and figurative expressions to make himself understood. Even your own letters are full of them, without your knowing it; and I will maintain it, that none but a geometrician or a blockhead can talk without metaphor. In effect, the same sentiment may admit of an hundred different degrees of energy; and how are we to determine the precise degree in which to enforce it, but by the turn of expression? I must confess I could not help smiling myself at the absurdity of some phrases I used. I thank you for the trouble you took to pick them out. But, let them stand where they are, you will find them clear and peculiarly emphatical. Let us suppose that your two sprightly sparkling eyes, whose language is now expressive, were separated one from the other, and from the set of features to which they give such lustre; what think you, cousin, they would say, even with all their vivacity and fire? Believe me, they would lose all power of expression; they would be mute even to Mr. Orbe.

Is not the first thing that presents itself to observation in a strange country, the general cast and turn of conversation? And is not this the first observation I have made in Paris? I have written to you only what is said, and not what is done in this city. If I remarked a contrast between the discourse, the sentiments, and the actions of the people, it is because the contrast is too striking to escape the most superficial observer. When I see the same persons change their maxims according to the company they frequent, Molinists in one and Jansenists in another, court sycophants with the minister, and factious grumblers with an anticourtier: when I see a man in lace and embroidery rail at luxury, an officer of the revenue against imposts, or a prelate against gluttony; when I hear a court-lady talk of modesty, a noble lord of honesty, an author of candour, or an abbé of religion, and see nobody surprized at these absurdities, is it not natural enough to conclude that people here are as little anxious to hear truth as to speak it? And that, so far from endeavouring to persuade others into their own opinion, they care not whether they are believed or not?

But, let this suffice, in the way of pleasantry, for an answer to our cousin. I will lay aside an affectation to which we are all three strangers, and I hope you will find in me for the future as little of the satirist as the wit. And now, Eloisa, let me reply to you; for I am at no loss to distinguish between critical raillery and serious reproaches.

I cannot conceive how both you and your cousin could so egregiously mistake the object of my description. It was not the French in particular, on whom I intended to animadvert. For, if the characters of nations can be determined only by their difference, how can I, who have as yet no acquaintance with any other, pretend to draw the character of this? I should not besides have been so indiscreet as to fix on the metropolis for the place of observation. I am not ignorant that capital cities differ less from each other, than the national characters of the people, which are there in a great measure lost and confounded, as well from the influence of courts, all which bear a great resemblance to each other, as from the common consequence of living in a close and numerous society; which is also every where nearly the same, and prevails over the original and peculiar character of the country.

Were I to study the national characteristics of a people, I would repair to some of the more distant provinces, where the inhabitants still pursue their natural inclinations. I would proceed slowly and carefully through several of those provinces, and those at greatest distance from each other: from the difference I might observe between them, I would then trace the peculiar genius of each province; from what was theirs in common and not customary to other countries, I would trace the genius of the nation in general; and what appeared common to all nations, I should regard as characteristics of mankind in general. But I have neither formed so extensive a project; nor, if I had, am I possessed of the necessary experience to put it in execution. My design is to improve myself in the knowledge of mankind universally, and my method is to consider man in his several relations. I have hitherto been acquainted only with small societies scattered up and down, in a manner alone, and without connections. At present I am in the midst of others, which are surrounded by multitudes on the same spot, from which I shall begin to judge of the genuine effects of society; for, if men are constantly made better by their association, the more numerous and closely connected they are, still better they ought to be; and their manners should be more simple and less corrupted at Paris than in the Valais; but if experience prove the contrary, we must draw the opposite conclusion.

This method, I confess may in time lead to the knowledge of the national characters of people; but by a route so tedious and indirect, that I may perhaps never be qualified to determine that of any one nation upon earth. I must begin to make my observations on the first country in which I reside, proceeding in the others I pass through to mark the difference between them and the first: comparing France to every other, as we describe an olive-tree by a willow, or a palm-tree by a fir, and must defer the forming my judgment of the first people observed, till I have finished my observations on all the rest.

Please to distinguish then, my charming monitor, between philosophical observation and national satire. It is not the Parisians that I study, but the inhabitants of a great city; and I know not whether the remarks I have made be not as applicable to those of Rome and London, as of Paris. Moral principles do not depend on the customs of a people; so in spite of their reigning prejudices I can perceive what is wrong in itself but I know not whether I can justly attribute it to the Frenchman, or the man; whether it be the effect of habit, or of nature. Vice is in every place offensive to an impartial eye, and it is no more blameable to reprove it in whatever country it is found, than to correct the failings of humanity, because we live among men. Am not I at present an inhabitant of Paris? perhaps, I may have already unconsciously contributed my share, to the disorders I have remarked: perhaps too long a stay may corrupt even my inclinations, and at the end of a year I may be no more than a Parisian myself; if, in order to be deserving of Eloisa, I do not cherish the spirit of liberty and the manners of a free citizen. Let me proceed therefore, without restraint, in describing objects I should blush to resemble, and in animating my zeal for virtue by displaying the disgustful pictures of falsehood and vice.

Were my employment and fortune in my own power, I might without doubt make choice of other subjects for my letters. You were not displeased with those I wrote you from Meillerie, and the Valais: but, my dear friend, it is necessary for me, in order to support the noise and hurry of the world, in which I am obliged to live, to console myself in writing to you; and the thoughts of drawing up my narratives for your perusal, should excite me to look out for proper subjects. Discouragement would otherwise overtake me at every step, and I must entirely relinquish my observations on mankind, if you refuse to hear me. Consider that, to live in a manner so little conformable to my taste, I make an effort not unworthy of its cause: and to enable you to judge of what I must undergo to obtain you, permit me to speak sometimes of the maxims I am forced to learn, and the obstacles I am obliged to encounter.

In spite of my slow pace, and unavoidable avocations, my collection was finish’d when your letter happily arrived to prolong my task of copying: but, I admire, in seeing it so short, how you contrive to say so much in so few words. I will maintain it, there can be no reading so delightful as that of your letters, even to those to whom you are a stranger, if their hearts do but sympathise with ours. But how can you be a stranger to any one who reads your letters? is it possible that a manner so engaging, that sentiments so tender, can belong to any other than Eloisa? your enchanting looks accompany every sentence; your charming voice pronounces every word. It is impossible for any other to love, to think, to speak, to act, to write like Eloisa. Be not surprized then if your letters, which so strikingly convey your form and feature, should sometimes have the same effect as your presence on a lover, who so devoutly idolizes your person. I lose my senses in their perusal; my head grows giddy, a devouring flame consumes me; my blood boils, and I become frantic with passion. I fancy I see, I feel, I press you to my heart, adorable object! bewitching beauty! source of rapture and delight! image of those angelic forms, which are the fabled companions of the bless’d! come to my arms——she is here——I clasp her in my embrace——ah! no, she is vanish’d; and I grasp but a shadow.——Indeed, my dear friend, you are too charming; you have been too indulgent to the weakness of a heart, that can never forget your charms, nor your tenderness. Your beauty even triumphs in its absence, it pursues me wherever I go, it makes me dread to be alone, and it is my greatest misery that I dare not give myself to the contemplation of so ravishing an object.

Our friends then, I find, will be united in spite of all obstacles; or rather they are so while I am now writing. Amiable and deserving pair! may heaven bestow on them all the blessings their prudent and peaceful affections, innocence of manners, and goodness of heart, deserve! may it bless them with that happiness it is so sparing of to those who were formed by nature to taste its delights! happy indeed will they be, if heaven should grant to them what it has taken from us! and yet, Eloisa, we may draw some consolation even from our misfortunes. Do you not perceive that our severest troubles are not without their peculiar satisfactions; and that altho’ our friends may taste pleasures of which we are deprived, we enjoy others of which they are ignorant? yes, my gentle friend, in spite of absence, losses, fears; in spite even of despair itself, the powerful exertion of two hearts, longing for each other, is always attended with a secret pleasure unknown to those at ease. This is one of the miracles of love, that teacheth us how to extract pleasure from pain; and would make us look upon a state of indifference as the greatest of all misfortunes. Tho’ we lament our own situation, then, let us not envy that of others. On the whole, perhaps, there is none preferable to our own: as the deity derives his happiness from himself, the hearts that glow with a celestial passion, find in themselves the source of refined enjoyment, independent of fortune.

Letter LXXXII. To Eloisa.

At length, Eloisa, behold me swim with the stream. My collection being finish’d, I begin to frequent the public diversions, and to sup in company; I spend the whole day abroad, and am attentive to every striking object: but, perceiving nothing that resembles you, I recollect myself in the midst of noise and confusion, and converse in secret with my love. It is not however, that this busy and tumultuous life has not in it something agreeable, or that such a vast variety of objects do not present a considerable fund of gratification to the curiosity of a stranger: but, to taste the entertainment they afford, the heart should be vacant, and the understanding idle. Both love and reason seem to unite in raising my disgust against such amusement. Every thing here being confined to appearances, which are every instant changing, I have neither the time to be moved with, nor to examine, any thing.

Hence I begin to see the difficulties of studying the world, and I know not what situation is most likely to make me a proficient in this science. The speculatist lives at too great a distance, and the man of business too near the object, to view it critically: the one sees too much to be able to reflect on any part, and the other too little to judge of the whole piece. Every object that strikes the philosopher he examines apart, and not being able to discern its connections and relations with others, that lie beyond the field of his observation, he never sees them placed in their proper point of view, and knows neither their real causes nor effects. The man of business sees all, and has leisure to think on nothing. The instability of objects permits him barely to perceive their existence, and not to examine their qualities: they pass in succession before him with such rapidity, that they efface the impression of each other, and load his memory only with a chaos of confused ideas. It is also as impossible to make observations, and meditate on them alternately: as the scene requires a constant and unremitted attention, which reflection would interrupt. A man who should divide his time by intervals between solitude and society, always perplexed in retirement and to seek in the world, would be able to do nothing in either. There is but one way: and that is to divide the whole period of life into two parts; applying the one to observation, and the other to reflection. But this is next to impossible; for reason is not a piece of furniture that can be thrown aside, and put to use again at pleasure: the man who should live ten years without reflection, will never again be capable of reflection as long as he lives.

I find it is a folly to think to study mankind in the quality of a simple spectator. He, who pretends only to make observations, will be able to observe nothing: for, being useless to the men of business, and troublesome to those of pleasure, he will find no where admittance. We can have the opportunity of seeing others act, in proportion only as we act with them; in the school of the world, as well as in that of love, we must begin by praising whatever we desire to learn.

What method then can I take? I that am a stranger, and can follow no employment in this country, and whom the difference of religion alone excludes from aspiring to office? I am reduced to be humble, in order to instruct myself; and, as I can never be useful, must endeavour to make myself agreeable. To this end, I aim as much as possible to be polite without flattery, complaisant without meanness, and to put so good a face on what is tolerable in society that I may be admitted into it, without being under the necessity of adopting its vices. Every man that would see the world, and has nothing to do in it, ought at least to adopt its manners to a certain degree. For what pretension can he have to be admitted into the society of people to whom he can be of no service, and to whom he has not the address to make himself agreeable? But, if he has found out this art, it is all that is required of him, particularly if he be a stranger. Such a one has no occasion to take part in their cabals, their intrigues, or their quarrels: if he behaves obligingly to every one; if he neither excludes, nor prefers women of a certain character; if he keeps the secrets of the company into which he is admitted; if he turns not into ridicule at one house, what he sees in another; if he avoids making confidents; entering into broils; and, in particular, if he maintains a certain personal dignity; he may see the world, without molestation, preserve the purity of his manners, his probity, and even his frankness itself, if it arises from a spirit of liberty, and not from that of party. This is what I have endeavoured to do, agreeable to the advice of some people of sense, whom I have chosen for my advisers, among the acquaintance Lord B——’s interest has procured me. In consequence of this, I begin now to be admitted into companies, less numerous and more select. Hitherto I have been chiefly invited to regular dinners, where the only woman at table is the mistress of the family; where open house is kept for all the idle people about Paris, with whom they have the slightest acquaintance; and where every one pays for his dinner in wit, or flattery, as he can best afford: the conversation being in general noisy and confused, and very much resembling that of a public ordinary.

I am at present initiated into the more secret mysteries of visiting: being intreated to private suppers, where the door is shut against all strolling and chance guests, and every one is upon an agreeable footing, if not with each other, at least with the provider of the entertainment. Here it is that the women are less reserved, and their real characters more easily discovered. The conversation is in these parties carried on with more decorum, and is more refined and satirical: instead of talking of the public news, plays, promotions, births, deaths, and marriages, which were the topics of the morning, they here take a review of the several anecdotes of Paris, divulge the secret articles of the scandalous chronicle, turn the good and bad alike into ridicule, and, in artfully describing the characters of others, undesignedly display their own. It is in these companies that the little circumspection which remains has invented a peculiar kind of language, under which they affect to render their satire more obscure, while it only makes it more severe. It is here, in a word, that they carefully sharpen the poignard, under pretence of making it less hurtful; but, in fact, only to make it wound the deeper. To judge, however, of this conversation according to our notions of things, we should be in the wrong to call it satirical; for it consists more of raillery than censure, and turns less upon the vicious than the ridiculous. Satire in general is not common in large cities, where that which is downright wicked is too simple to be worth talking about. What can they condemn where virtue is in no esteem? and what should they revile where nothing is held to be villainous? At Paris, more particularly, where every thing is seen in an agreeable light, the representation of things that ought to raise our indignation is well received, if it be but wrapt up in a song or an epigram. The fine ladies of this country do not like to be displeased; and are therefore displeased at nothing: they love to laugh, but woe be to him who happens to be the butt of their ridicule; the fears this caustic leaves are never to be effaced; they not only defame good manners and virtue, but exaggerate even vice itself. We now return to our company.

What strikes me most in these select meetings, is to see that half a dozen people, expressly chosen to entertain one another agreeably, and between whom there generally subsist very intimate connections, cannot converse an hour together without introducing the affairs of half the people in Paris; just as if their hearts had nothing to say to each other, or that there was no person in company of merit enough to engage their attention. You know, Eloisa, how far otherwise it was with us, when we supped together at your cousin’s, or your own apartment; how we could find means, in spite of constraint and secrecy, to turn the discourse on subjects that related to ourselves; how at every moving reflection, at every subtle allusion, a look more swift than lightening, a sigh rather imagined than perceived, conveyed the pleasing sensation from one heart to the other.

If the discourse here turn by accident on any of the company, it is commonly carried on in a jargon known only to the persons concerned, and which one had need of a vocabulary to understand. Thus by talking as it were in cypher, they are enabled to banter each other with insipid raillery, in which the greatest blockhead does not always shine the least. In the mean time, perhaps, a third part of the company, incapable of taking the jest, are either reduced to a disagreeable silence, or to laugh at what they do not understand. Of this kind, Eloisa, is all the tenderness and affection I have observed in the intimacies of this country: those of a more private nature, with only a second person, I have not, nor ever shall have experienced.

In the midst of all this, however, if a man of any weight and consequence should enter on a grave discourse, or begin to discuss a serious question, a general attention would be immediately fixed on this new object: men and women, old and young, every one would be ready to enter into its examination; and it is astonishing how much good sense and precision would, as it were, through emulation, sally out of their extravagant heads. [24] A point of morality could not be better determined in a society of philosophers, than in that of a fine lady at Paris: their conclusions would even be less precise and severe: for the philosopher, who thinks himself obliged to act as he speaks, will be less rigid in his principles; but, where morality is nothing more than a topic of discourse, the severity of it is of no consequence: and no one is displeased at an opportunity of checking philosophical pride, by placing virtue out of its reach.

Besides this, influenced by a knowledge of the world and of their own hearts, all agree in thinking human nature as depraved as possible: hence their philosophy is always of the gloomy cast; they are ever indulging their own vanity by depreciating the virtues of humanity; always accounting for good actions from vicious motives, and attributing to mankind in general the depravity of their own minds.

And yet, notwithstanding their adopting this abject doctrine, one of the favourite topics of these societies is sentiment; a word by which we are not to understand the sensation of a heart susceptible of love or friendship: this would be thought vulgar and disgusting. No, sentiment consists in great and general maxims, heightened by the most sublime subtilties of metaphysics. I can safely say that in my life, I have never heard so much talk of sentiment, nor ever comprehended so little what was meant by it; so inconceivable are these French refinements! our simple hearts, Eloisa, never were governed by any of these fine maxims; and I am afraid it is with sentiment in the polite world, as it is with Homer among the pedants, who discover in him a thousand imaginary beauties, for want of taste to point out his real ones. So much sentiment is here laid out in wit, and evaporated in conversation, that none is left to influence their actions. Happily politeness supplies its place, and people act from custom nearly as they would from sensibility: at least so long as it costs them only a few compliments, and such trifling restraints, as they willingly lay themselves under in order to be respected; but, if any considerable sacrifice of their ease or interest is required, adieu to sentiment: politeness does not proceed so far; so far as it goes, however, you can hardly believe how nicely every article of behaviour is weighed, measured, and estimated. What is not regulated by sentiment, is subjected to custom, by which indeed every thing here is governed. These people are all professed copyists; and, tho’ they abound in originals, nobody knows any thing of them, or presumes to be so himself. To do like other people, is a maxim of the greatest weight in this country: and this is the mode——that is not the mode, are decisions from which there is no appeal.

This apparent regularity gives to the common, and even the most serious transactions of life, the most comical air in the world. They have settled even the very moment when it is proper to send cards to their acquaintance; when to visit with a card, that is, to visit without visiting at all; when to do it in person; when it is proper to be at home; when to be denied; what advances it is proper to make, or reject on every occasion; what degree of sorrow should be affected at the death of such, or such a one; [25] how long to mourn in the country; when they may come to console themselves in town; the very day, and even the minute, when the afflicted is permitted to give a ball, or go to the play. Every body in the same circumstances does the same thing: they keep time, and their motions are made all together, like the evolutions of a regiment in battalia; so that you would think them so many puppets, nailed to the same board, or danced by the same wire.

Now, as it is morally impossible that all these people, tho’ they act in the same manner, should be at once equally affected, it is plain, their peculiar characters are not to be known by their actions; it is plain their discourse is only a formal jargon, which assists us less to form a judgment of the French manners in general, than the peculiar mode of conversing in Paris. In like manner, we learn only here their terms of conversation, but nothing by which we can judge of their estimation in the conduct of life. I say the same of most of their writings; and even of their theatrical representations. The stage, since the time of Moliere, being a place where they rather repeat agreeable dialogues, than give a representation of life and manners. There are here three theatres; on two of which they only introduce imaginary characters; such as Harlequin, Pantaloon, and Scaramouch, on the one; and, on the other, gods, devils, and conjurers. On the third, they represent those immortal dramas, which give us so much pleasure in reading, and other new pieces, which are from time to time written for the stage; many of which are tragical, but not affecting. And, tho’ the sentiments contained in them are sometimes natural, and well enough adapted to the human heart, they give us not the least light into the peculiar manners of the people to whom they afford entertainment.

The institution of tragedy was originally founded on religion, whose sanction was sufficient to establish its authority. Besides this, the tragic scene always presented to the Greeks an instructive and agreeable representation, either in the misfortunes of the Persians their enemies, or in the vices and follies of the kings from which they themselves were delivered. Should they represent in like manner at Berne, at Zurich, or at the Hague, the ancient tyranny of the house of Austria, the love of liberty and their country would make such a representation peculiarly interesting to the spectators: but I would be glad to know of what use are the tragedies of Corneille at Paris; and what interest its citizens can take in the fate of a Pompey or Sertorius. The Greek tragedies turned upon real events, or such as were supposed to be real, being founded on historical tradition. But what business has a refined heroic passion in the breasts of the great? the conflicts of love and virtue cause them, no doubt, many an unhappy day and sleepless night! the heart is doubtless vastly concerned in the marriage of kings! judge then of the probability and use of so many performances all turning on such imaginary subjects.

As to comedy, it should certainly be a lively representation of the manners of the people for whom it is written; that it may serve them as a mirror to shew them their vices and follies. Terence and Plautus mistook their subjects; but their predecessors, Aristophanes and Menander, displayed Athenian manners before an Athenian audience; and since these, Moliere, and Moliere only, has represented still more ingenuously in France the manners of the French in the last age.

The objects of the picture are since changed; but they have never since had so faithful, so masterly a painter. At present, they only copy on the theatre the manner of conversing in about an hundred families in Paris; and this is their representation of French manners: so that there are in this great city five or six hundred thousand persons, whose various characters are never introduced on the stage. Moliere described the shopkeeper and artisan, as well as the Marquis; Socrates introduces the discourses of coachmen, carpenters, shoemakers, and masons. But our present writers, quite of another stamp, think it beneath them to know what passes in a trader’s counting house or the shop of a mechanic: their dramas must consist of persons of the first quality; for by the grandeur of their characters, they aim at a degree of eminence they never could attain by the assistance of genius. Nay, the audience itself is become so very delicate, that the chief of the spectators are as jealous of place and precedence in going to a play as in making a visit, never condescending to be present at the representation of characters of inferior condition.

Indeed, the people of fashion here are considered by themselves as the only inhabitants of the earth; all the rest of mankind are nobody. All the world keep a coach, a Swiss and a Maitre d’Hotel: all the world, therefore, consist of a very small number of people. Those who walk afoot are nobody; they are your common people, human creatures, the vulgar, folks in short of another world: so that a coach is not so necessary to carry one about, as to give one a title to existence. And hence there is a handful of impertinent people, who look upon themselves as the only beings of any consequence in the universe: though, were it not for the mischief they occasion, they themselves would not deserve to be numbered with the rest of mankind. It is nevertheless solely for these people that theatrical entertainments are made. They are represented by fictitious characters in the middle of the theatre, and shew themselves in real ones on each side; they are at once persons of the drama on the stage, and comedians in the boxes. It is thus that the sphere of the world and genius is contracted, while the present dramatic writers absurdly affect to introduce only characters of imaginary importance. No man is worthy of being brought upon the stage that does not wear a laced coat. A stranger would hence be apt to think France peopled only by counts and marquises, altho’, in fact, the more miserable and beggarly its inhabitants grow, the more splendid and brilliant is their representation on the theatre; and hence it is, that the ridiculous behaviour of persons of rank, in being exposed on the stage, rather gains ground than diminishes, and that the common people, who are ever aping the rich, go less to the theatre to laugh at their follies than to study them, and to become by imitation greater fools than the originals.