By the purity of our mutual tenderness, therefore, I conjure you, banish all your suspicion. Why should your fear exceed the passions of your lover! To what greater felicity can I aspire, when that with which I am blest, is already more than I am well able to support? We are both young, and in love unexperienced, it is true: but is that honour which conducts us, a deceitful guide? can that experience be needful which is acquired only from vice? I am strangely deceived, if the principles of rectitude are not rooted in the bottom of my heart. In truth, my Eloisa, I am no vile seducer, as, in your despair, you were pleased to call me; but am artless and of great sensibility, easily discovering my feelings, but feeling nothing at which I ought to blush. To say all in one word, my love for Eloisa is not greater than my abhorrence of the crime. I am even doubtful, whether the love which you inspire be not in its nature incompatible with vice; whether a corrupt heart could possibly feel its influence. As for me, the more I love you, the more exalted are my sentiments. Can there be any degree of virtue, however unattainable for its own sake, to which I would not aspire to become more worthy of my Eloisa?
Letter VI. Eloisa To Clara.
Is my dear cousin resolved to spend her whole life in bewailing her poor Chaillot, and will she forget the living because of the dead? I sympathize in your grief, and think it just, but shall it therefore be eternal? Since the death of your mother, she was assiduously careful of your education; she was your friend rather than your governess. She loved you with great tenderness, and me for your sake; her instructions were all intended to enrich our hearts with principles of honour and virtue. All this I know, my dear, and acknowledge it with gratitude; but confess with me also, that in some respects she acted very imprudently; that she often indiscreetly told us things with which we had no concern; that she entertained us eternally with maxims of gallantry, her own juvenile adventures, the management of amours; and that to avoid the snares of men, though she might tell us not to give ear to their protestations, yet she certainly instructed us in many things with which there was no necessity for young girls to be made acquainted. Reflect therefore upon her death as a misfortune, not without some consolation. To girls of our age, her lessons grew dangerous, and who knows but heaven may have taken her from us the very moment in which her removal became necessary to our future happiness. Remember the salutary advice you gave me when I was deprived of the best of brothers. Was Chaillot dearer to you? Is your loss greater than mine?
Return, my dear, she has no longer any occasion for you. Alas! whilst you are wasting your time in superfluous affliction, may not your absence be productive of greater evils? Why are you not afraid, who know the beatings of my heart, to abandon your friend to misfortunes which your presence might prevent. O Clara! strange things have happened since your departure. You will tremble to hear the danger to which I have been exposed by my imprudence. Thank heaven, I hope I have now nothing to fear: but unhappily I am as it were at the mercy of another. You alone can restore me to myself: haste therefore to my assistance. So long as your attendance was of service to poor Chaillot, I was silent; I should even have been the first to exhort you to such an act of benevolence. Now that she is no more, her family are become the objects of your charity: of this obligation we could better acquit ourselves, if we were together, and your gratitude might be discharged without neglecting your friend.
Since my father took his leave of us we have resumed our former manner of living. My mother leaves me less frequently alone; not that she has any suspicion. Her visits employ more time than would be proper for me to spare from my little studies, and in her absence Bab fills her place but negligently. Now though I do not think my good mother sufficiently watchful, I cannot resolve to tell her so. I would willingly provide for my own safety, without losing her esteem, and you alone are capable of managing this matter. Return then, my dear Clara, prithee return. I regret every lesson at which you are not present, and am fearful of becoming too learned. Our preceptor is not only a man of great merit, but of exemplary virtue, and therefore more dangerous. I am too well satisfied with him to be so with myself. For girls of our age, it is always safer to be two than one, be the man ever so virtuous.
Letter VII. Answer.
I understand, and tremble for you: not that I think your danger so great as your imagination would suggest. Your fears make me less apprehensive for the present; but I am terrified with the thought of what may hereafter happen: should you be unable to conquer your passion, what will become of you! Alas, poor Chaillot, how often has she foretold, that your first sigh would mark your fortune. Ah! Eloisa, so young, and thy destiny already accomplished? Much I fear we shall find the want of that sensible woman whom, in your opinion, we have lost for our advantage. Sure I am, it would be advantageous for us to fall into still safer hands; but she has made us too knowing to be governed by another, yet not sufficiently so to govern ourselves: she only was able to shield us from the danger to which, by her indiscretion, we are exposed. She was extremely communicative, and, considering our age, we ourselves seem to have thought pretty deeply. The ardent and tender friendship which hath united us, almost from our cradles, expanded our hearts, and ripened them into sensibility perhaps a little premature. We are not ignorant of the passions, as to their symptoms and effects; the art of suppressing them seems to be all we want. Heaven grant that our young philosopher may know this art better than we.
By _we_ you know who I mean: for my part, Chaillot used always to say, that my giddiness would be my security in the place of reason, that I should never have sense enough to be in love, and that I was too constantly foolish to be guilty of a great folly. My dear Eloisa, be careful of yourself! the better she thought of your understanding, the more she was apprehensive of your heart. Nevertheless, let not your courage sink. Your prudence and your honour, I am certain, will exert their utmost, and I assure you, on my part, that friendship shall do every thing in its power. If we are too knowing for our years, yet our manners have been hitherto spotless and irreproachable. Believe me, my dear, there are many girls, who though they may have more simplicity, have less virtue than ourselves: we know what virtue means, and are virtuous by choice; and that seems to me the most secure.
And yet, from what you have told me, I shall not enjoy a moment’s repose till we meet; for if you are really afraid, your danger is not entirely chimerical. It is true, the means of preservation are very obvious. One word to your mother, and the thing is done: but I understand you; the expedient is too conclusive: you would willingly be assured of not being vanquished, without losing the honour of having sustained the combat. Alas! my poor cousin----if there was the least glimmering----Baron D'Etange consent to give his daughter, his only child, to the son of an inconsiderable tradesman, without fortune! Dost thou presume to hope he will?----or what dost thou hope? what would’st thou have? poor Eloisa!----Fear nothing however on my account. Your friend will keep your secret. Many people might think it more honest to reveal it, perhaps they are right. For my part, who am no great casuist, I have no notion of that honesty, which is incompatible with confidence, faith, and friendship. I imagine that every relation, every age, have their peculiar maxims, duties, and virtues; but what might be prudence in another, in me would be perfidy; and that to confound these things, would more probably make us wicked than wise and happy. If your love be weak, we will overcome it; but if it be extreme, violent measures may produce a tragical catastrophe, and friendship will attempt nothing for which it cannot be answerable. After all, I flatter myself that I shall have little reason to complain of your conduct when I have you once under my eye. You shall see what it is to have a duenna of eighteen!
You know, my dear girl, that I am not absent upon pleasure; and really the country is not so agreeable in the spring as you imagine: one suffers at this time both heat and cold; for the trees afford us no shade, and in the house it is too cold to live without fire. My father too, in the midst of his building, begins to perceive that the gazette comes later hither than to town; so that we all wish to return, and I hope to embrace thee in a few days. But what causes my inquietude is, that a few days make I know not what number of hours, many of which are destined to the philosopher: to the philosopher, cousin! you understand me. Think, O think, that the clock strikes those hours entirely for him!