And will you no longer be my Eloisa? ah! do not tell me so, thou most worthy of all thy sex! Thou art more mine than ever. Thy merit claims homage from the whole world. It was thee whom I adored, when I first became susceptible of the impressions of beauty: and I shall never cease to adore thee, even after death, if my soul still retains any recollection of those truly celestial charms, which were my sole delight when living. The courageous effort by which you have recovered all your virtue, renders you more equal to your lovely self. No, whatever torment the sensation and the confession give me, yet I must declare that you never were my Eloisa more perfectly, than at this moment in which you renounce me. Alas! I regain my Eloisa, by losing her for ever. But I, whose heart shudders even at an attempt to imitate your virtue, I, who am tormented with a criminal passion which I can neither support nor subdue, am I the man whom I vainly imagined myself to be? was I worthy of your esteem? what right had I to importune you with my complaints and my despair? did it become me, to presume so high for you? Ah! what was I, that I should dare to love Eloisa?
Fool that I am! as tho’ I did not feel myself sufficiently humbled, without taking pains to seek fresh circumstances of humiliation! why should I increase my mortification by enumerating distinctions unknown to love? It was that which exalted me; and which made me your equal. Our hearts were blended, we shared our sentiments in common, and mine partook of the elevation of yours. Behold me now sunk into my pristine baseness! thou gentle hope, which didst so long feed my soul to deceive me, art thou then extinguished without a prospect of return? will she not be mine? must I lose her for ever? does she make another happy?----O rage! O torments of hell!----O faithless! ought you ever----pardon me, pardon me! dearest madam! have pity on my distraction. O! you had too much reason when you told me, she is no more----She is indeed no more than affectionate Eloisa, to whom I could disclose every emotion of my heart. How could I complain when I found myself unhappy? could she listen to my complaints? was I unhappy?----what then am I now? No, I will not make you blush for yourself or me. Hope is no more, we must renounce each other; we must part. Virtue herself has pronounced the decree; and your hand has been capable of transcribing it. Let us forget each other----Forget me, at least. I am determined, I swear, that I will never speak to you of myself again.
May I yet venture to talk of you, and to interest myself in what is now the only object of my concern; I mean your happiness? In describing to me the state of your mind, you say nothing of your present situation. As a reward of the sacrifice I have made, of which you ought to be sensible, at least deign to deliver me from this insupportable doubt. Eloisa, are you happy? if you are, give me the only comfort of which my despair is susceptible; if you are not, be compassionate enough to tell me so; my misery then will be less durable.
The more I reflect on the confession you propose to make, the less I am inclined to consent to it, and the same motive which always deprived me of resolution to deny your requests, renders me inexorable in this particular. It is a subject of the last importance, and I conjure you to weigh my reasons with attention. First, your excessive delicacy seems to lead you into a mistake, and I do not see on what foundation the most rigid virtue can exact such a confession from you. No engagement whatever can have any retro-active effect. We cannot bind ourselves with respect to time past, nor promise what is not in our power to perform! how can you be obliged to give your husband an account of the use you formerly made of your liberty, or how can you be responsible to him for a fidelity which you never promised to him? Do not deceive yourself, Eloisa; it is not to your husband, it is to your friend, that you have violated your engagement. Before we were separated by your father’s tyranny, heaven and nature had formed us for each other. By entering into other connections, you have been guilty of a crime, which love and honour can never forgive; and it is I who have a right to reclaim the prize, which M. Wolmar has ravished from my arms.
If, under any circumstances, duty can exact such a confession, it is when the danger of a relapse obliges a prudent woman to take precautions for her security. But your letter has given me more light into your real sentiments than you imagine. In reading it, I felt in my own heart, how much yours, upon a near approach, nay even in the bosom of love, would have abhorred a criminal connection, the horror of which was only diminished by its distance.
As duty and honour do not require such confidence, prudence and reason forbid it; for it is running a needless risk of forfeiting every thing that is dear in wedlock, the attachment of a husband, mutual confidence, and the peace of the family. Have you thoroughly weighed the consequences of such a step? are you sufficiently acquainted with your husband, to be certain of the effect it will produce in his disposition? do you know how many men there are, who, from such a confession, would conceive an immoderate jealousy, and an invincible contempt, and would probably be provoked, even to attempt your life? in such a nice examination, we ought to attend to time, place, and the difference of characters. In the country where I reside at present, such a confidence would be attended with no danger; and they who make so light of conjugal fidelity, are not people to be violently affected by any frailty of conduct prior to the engagement. Not to mention reasons which sometimes render those confessions indispensable, and which cannot be applied to your case, I knew some women of tolerable estimation, who, with very little risk, have made a merit of that kind of sincerity, in order perhaps by that sacrifice, to obtain a confidence which they might afterwards abuse at will. But in those countries where the sanctity of marriage is more respected, in those countries where that sacred tie forms a solid union, and where husbands have a real attachment to their wives, they require a more severe account of their conduct; they expect that their hearts should never have felt any tender affections but for themselves; usurping a right which they have not, they unreasonably expect their wives to have been theirs, even before they belonged to them, and they are as unwilling to excuse an abuse of liberty, as a real infidelity.
Believe me, virtuous Eloisa, and distrust this fruitless and unnecessary zeal. Keep this dangerous secret, which nothing can oblige you to reveal; the discovery of which might utterly ruin you, without being of any advantage to your husband. If he is worthy of such a confession, it will disturb his peace of mind; and you will have the mortification of having afflicted him without reason; if he is unworthy, why will you give him a pretence for using you ill? How do you know whether your virtue, which has defended you from the assaults of your heart, will likewise support you against the influence of domestic troubles daily reviving? Do not voluntarily increase your misfortunes, lest they become too powerful for your resistance, and you should at length relapse by means of your scruples into a worse condition, than that from which you have with so much difficulty disengaged yourself. Prudence is the basis of every virtue; consult that, I intreat you, in this most important crisis of your life; and if the fatal secret oppresses you so violently, wait at least, before you unbosom yourself, till time and a length of years, shall have made you more perfectly acquainted with your husband: stay till his heart, now affected by the power of your beauty, shall be susceptible of those more lasting impressions, which the charms of your disposition cannot fail to make, and till he is become habitually sensible of your perfections. After all, if these reasons, powerful as they are, should not convince you, yet do not refuse to listen to the voice which utters them. O Eloisa, hearken to a man who is yet, in some degree, susceptible of virtue, and who has a right to expect some concession from you at least, in return for the sacrifice he has made to you to- day.
I must conclude this letter. I find that I cannot forbear resuming a strain, to which you must no longer give ear. Eloisa, I must part with you! young as I am, am I already destined to renounce felicity? O time, never to be recalled! time irrevocably past, source of ever- lasting sorrows! pleasures, transports, delightful ecstasies, delicious moments, celestial raptures! my love, my only love, the honour and delight of my soul! Farewell for ever.
