Poor Eloisa! With so much reason to live at ease, what torments you continually create! All thy misfortunes come from thyself, O Israel! If you adhered to your own maxims; if, in point of sentiment, you only hearkened to the voice within you, and your heart did but silence your reason, you would then without scruple trust to that security it inspires, and you would not constrain yourself against the testimony of your own heart, to dread a danger which can arise only from thence.
I understand you, I perfectly understand you, Eloisa; being more secure in yourself than you pretend to be, you have a mind to humble yourself on account of your past failings, under a pretence of preventing new ones; and your scruples are not so much precautions against the future, as a penance you impose upon yourself to atone for the indiscretion which ruined you formerly. You compare the times; do you consider? Compare situations likewise, and remember that I then reproved you for your confidence, as I now reprove you for your diffidence.
You are mistaken, my dear; but nature does not alter so soon. If we can forget our situation for want of reflection, we see it in its true light when we take pains to consider of it, and we can no more conceal our virtues than our vices from ourselves. Your gentleness and devotion have given you a turn for humility. Mistrust that dangerous virtue which only excites self-love by making it centre in one point, and be assured that the noble sincerity of an upright mind, is greatly preferable to the pride of humility. If moderation is necessary in wisdom, it is requisite likewise in those precautions it suggests, lest a solicitude which is reproachful to virtue should debase the mind, and, by keeping us in constant alarm, render a chimerical danger a real one. Don't you perceive that after we have had a fall, we should hold ourselves upright, and that by leaning too much towards the side opposite to that on which we fell, we are in danger of falling again? Cousin, you loved like Eloisa. Now, like her, you are an extravagant devotee; he even said that you may be more successful in the latter than you were in the former! In truth, if I was less acquainted with your natural timidity, your apprehensions would be sufficient to terrify me in my turn, and if I was so scrupulous, I might, from being alarmed for you, begin to tremble for myself.
Consider farther, my dear friend; you whose system of morality is as easy and natural as it is pure and honest, do not make constructions which are harsh and foreign to your character, with respect to your maxims concerning the separation of the sexes. I agree with you that they ought not to live together, nor after the same manner; but consider whether this important rule does not admit of many distinctions in point of practice; examine whether it ought to be applied indiscriminately, and without exception to married as well as to single women, to society in general as well as to particular connections, to business as well as to amusements, and whether that honour and decency which inspire these maxims, ought not sometimes to regulate them? In well governed countries, where the natural relations of things are attended to in matrimony, you would admit of assemblies where young persons of both sexes, might see, be acquainted, and associate with each other; but you prohibit them, with good reason, from holding any private intercourse. But is not the case quite different with regard to married women and the mothers of families, who can have no interest, that is justifiable, in exhibiting themselves in public; who are confined within doors by their domestic concerns, and who should not be refused to do any thing at home which is becoming the mistress of a family? I should not like to see you in the cellars presenting the wine for the merchants to taste, nor to see you leave your children to settle accounts with a banker; but if an honest man should come to visit your husband, or to transact some business with him, will you refuse to entertain his guest in his absence; and to do him the honours of the house for fear of being lefttete a tetewith him? Trace this principle to its source, and it will explain all your maxims. Why do we suppose that women ought to live retired and apart from the men? Shall we do such injustice to our sex as to account for it upon principles drawn from our weakness, and that it is only to avoid the danger of temptations? No, my dear, these unworthy apprehensions do not become an honest woman, and the mother of a family who is continually surrounded with objects which nourish in her the sentiments of honour, and who is devoted to the most respectable duties of human nature. It is nature herself that divides us from the men, by prescribing to us different occupations; it is that amiable and timorous modesty, which, without being immediately attentive to chastity, is nevertheless its surest guardian; it is that cautious and affecting reserve, which at one and the same time cherishing both desire and respect in the hearts of men, serves as a kind of coquetry to virtue. This is the reason why even husbands themselves are not excepted out of this rule. This is the reason why the most discreet women generally maintain the greatest ascendancy over their husbands; because, by the help of this prudent and discreet reserve, without shewing any caprice or non-compliance, they know, even in the embraces of the most tender union, how to keep them at a distance, and prevent their being cloyed with them. You will agree with me that your maxims are too general not to admit of exceptions, and that not being founded on any rigorous duty, the same principle of decorum which established them, may sometimes justify our dispensing with them.
The circumspection which you ground on your past failings, is injurious to your present condition; I will never pardon this unnecessary caution which your heart dictates, and I can scarce forgive it in your reason. How was it possible that the rampart which protects your person, could not secure you from such an ignominious apprehension? How could my cousin, my sister, my friend, my Eloisa, confound the indiscretions of a girl of too much sensibility, with the infidelity of a guilty wife? Look around you, you will see nothing but what contributes to raise and support your mind. Your husband who has such confidence in you, and whose esteem it becomes you to justify; your children whom you would train to virtue, and who will one day deem it an honour that you was their mother; your venerable father who is so dear to you, who enjoys your felicity, and who derives more lustre from you than from his ancestors; your friend whose fate depends on yours, and to whom you must be accountable for a reformation to which she has contributed; her daughter, to whom you ought to set an example of those virtues which you would excite in her; your philosopher, who is a hundred times fonder of your virtues, than of your person, and who respects you still more than you apprehend; lastly, yourself, who are sensible what painful efforts your discretion has cost you, and who will surely never forfeit the fruit of so much trouble in a single moment; how many motives capable of inspiring you with courage, conspire to make you ashamed of having ventured to mistrust yourself! But in order to answer for my Eloisa, what occasion have I to consider what she is? It is enough that I know what she was, during the indiscretions which she bewails. Ah! if your heart had ever been capable of infidelity, I would allow you to be continually apprehensive: but at the very time when you imagined that you viewed it at a distance, you may conceive the horror its real existence would have occasioned you, by what you felt at that time, when but to imagine it, had been to have committed it.
I recollect with what astonishment we learnt that there was a nation where the wellness of a fond maid is considered as an inexpiable crime, though the adultery of a married woman is there softened by the gentle term of gallantry, and where married women publicly make themselves amends for the short-lived restraint they undergo while single. I know what maxims, in this respect, prevail in high life, where virtue passes for nothing, where every thing is empty appearance, where crimes are effaced by the difficulty of proving them, or where the proof itself becomes ridiculous against custom. But you, Eloisa, you who glowed with a pure and constant passion, who was guilty only in the eyes of men, and between heaven and earth was open to no reproach! You, who made yourself respected in the midst of your indiscretions; you, who being abandoned to fruitless regret, obliged us even to adore those virtues which you had forfeited; you, who disdained to endure self-contempt, when every thing seemed to plead in your excuse, can you be apprehensive of guilt, after having paid so dearly for your weakness? Will you dare to be afraid that you have less power now, than you had in those days which cost you so many tears? No, my dear, so far from being alarmed at your former indiscretions, they ought to inspire you with courage; so severe a repentance does not lead to remorse, and whoever is so susceptible of shame, will never bid defiance to infamy.
If ever a weak mind had supports against its weakness, they are such as uphold you; if ever a vigorous mind was capable of supporting itself, what prop can yours require? Tell me, what reasonable grounds there can be for your apprehensions? All your life has been a continual struggle, in which, even after your defeat, honour and duty never ceased opposition, and at length came off victorious. Ah! Eloisa! shall I believe that, after so much pain and torment, after twelve years passed in tears, and six spent gloriously, that you still dread a trial of eight days? In few words, deal sincerely with yourself; if there really is any danger, save your person, and blush at the condition of your heart; if there is no danger, it is an offence to your reason, it is a dishonour to your virtue to be apprehensive of perils which can never affect it. Do you not know that there are some scandalous temptations which never approach noble minds; that it is even shameful to be under a necessity of subduing them, and that to take precautions against them, is not so much to humble, as to debase ourselves?
I do not presume to give you my arguments as unanswerable, but only to convince you that yours may be controverted, and that is sufficient to warrant my advice. Do not depend on yourself, for you do not know how to do yourself justice, nor on me; who even in your indiscretions never considered any thing but your heart and always adored you; but refer to your husband who sees you such as you are, and judges of you, exactly according to your real worth. Being, like all people of sensibility, ready to judge ill of those who appear insensible, I mistrusted his power of penetration into the secrets of susceptible minds, but since the arrival of our traveller, I find by his letters that he reads yours perfectly well, and that there is not a single emotion which escapes his observation. I find his remarks so just and acute, that I have almost changed my opinion to the other extreme; and I shall readily believe that your dispassionate people, who consult their eyes more than their hearts, judge better of other men's passions, than your impetuous lively and vain persons like myself, who always begin by supposing themselves in another's place, and can never see any thing but what they feel. However it be, Mr. Wolmar is thoroughly acquainted with you, he esteems you, he loves you, and his destiny is blended with yours. What does he require, but that you would leave to him the entire direction of your conduct, with which you are afraid to trust yourself? Perhaps finding old age coming on, he is desirous, by some trials on which he may depend, to prevent those uneasy jealousies, which an old husband generally feels who is married to a young wife; perhaps the design he has in view requires that you should live in a state of familiarity with your friend, without alarming either your husband or yourself; perhaps he only means to give you a testimony of confidence and esteem, worthy of that which he entertains for you. You should never oppose such sentiments, as if the weight of them was too much for you to endure; and for my part, I think, that you cannot act more agreeably to the dictates of prudence and modesty, than by relying entirely on his tenderness and understanding.
Could you, without offending Mr. Wolmar, punish yourself for a vanity you never had, and prevent a danger which no longer exists? Remain alone with the philosopher, use all the superfluous precautions against him, which would formerly have been of such service to you; maintain the same reserve as if you still mistrusted your own heart and his, as well as your own virtue. Avoid all pathetic conversation, all tender recollection of time past; break off or prevent longtete a teteinterviews; be constantly surrounded by your children; do not stay long with him in a room, in elysium, or in the grove notwithstanding the profanation. Above all things, use these precautions in so natural a manner, that they may seem to be the effect of chance, and that he may never once suspect that you are afraid of him. You love to go upon the water; but you deprive yourself of the pleasure on account of your husband who is afraid of that element, and of your children whom you do not chuse to venture there. Take the advantage of this absence, to entertain yourself with this recreation, and leave your children to the care of Fanny. By this means you may securely devote yourself to the sweet familiarity of friendship, and quietly enjoy a longtete a teteunder the protection of the watermen, who see without understanding, and from whom we cannot go far without thinking what we are about.
A thought strikes me which many people would laugh at, but which will be agreeable to you, I am sure; that is to keep an exact journal in your husband's absence, to shew him on his return, and to think on this journal, with regard to every circumstance which is to be set down in it. In truth, I do not believe that such an expedient would be of service to many women; but a sincere mind, incapable of deceit, has many resources against vice, which others stand in need of. We ought to despise nothing which tends to preserve a purity of manners, and it is by means of trifling precautions, that great virtues are secured.
Upon the whole, as your husband is to see me in his way, he will tell me, I hope, the true reasons of his journey, and if I do not find them substantial, I will persuade him from proceeding any farther, or at all events, I will do what he has refused to do: upon this you may depend. In the mean time, I think I have said enough to fortify you against a trial of eight days. Go, Eloisa, I know you too well not to answer for you as much, nay more than I could for myself. You will always be what you ought to be, and what you desire to be. If you do but rely on the integrity of your own mind, you will run no risk whatever; for I have no faith in these unforeseen defects; it is in vain to disguise voluntary failings by the idle appellation of weaknesses; no woman was ever yet overcome who had not an inclination to surrender; and if I thought that such a fate could attend you, believe me, trust to the tenderness of my friendship, rely on all the sentiments which would arise in the heart of your poor Clara, I should be too sensibly interested in your protection, to abandon you entirely to yourself.
As to what Mr. Wolmar declared to you concerning the intelligence he received before your marriage, I am not much surprized at it; you know I always suspected it; and I will tell you, moreover, that my suspicions are not confined to the indiscretions of B——. I could never suppose that a man of truth and integrity like your father, and who had some suspicions at least himself, would resolve to impose upon his son-in-law and his friend. If he engaged you so strictly to secrecy, it was because the mode of discovery would come from him in a very different manner to what it would have proceeded from you, and because he was willing no doubt to give it a turn less likely to disgust Mr. Wolmar, than that which he very well knew you would not fail to give it yourself. But I must dismiss your messenger, we will chat about there matters more at our leisure about a month hence.
Farewell, my dearest cousin, I have preached long enough to the preacher; resume your old occupation.——I find myself quite uneasy that I cannot be with you yet. I disorder all my affairs, by hurrying to dispatch them, and I scarce know what to do. Ah Chaillot, Chaillot... If I was less giddy...but I always hope that I shall——
P. S. A propos; I forgot to make my compliments to your highness. Tell me, I beseech you, is the gentleman your husband Atteman, Knes, or Boyard?[63]O poor child! You, who have so often lamented being born a gentlewoman, are in high luck to become the wife of a prince! Between ourselves nevertheless you discover apprehensions which are somewhat vulgar for a woman of such high quality. Do not you know, that little scruples belong to mean people; and that a child of a good family, who should pretend to be his father's son, would be laughed at.
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