I am going to Etange, my sweet cousin, and I proposed to call upon you in my way; but a delay of which you are the cause obliges me to make more haste, and I had rather lie at Lausanne as I come back, that I may pass a few hours the more with you. Besides I want to consult you with regard to many particulars, which it is proper to communicate before hand that you may have time to consider of them before you give me your opinion.
I would not explain my scheme to you in relation to the young man, till his presence had confirmed the good opinion I had conceived of him. I think I may now depend upon him sufficiently to acquaint you, between ourselves, that my design is to entrust him with the education of my children. I am not ignorant that those important concerns are the principal duty of a parent; but when it will be time to exert them, I shall be too old to discharge them, and being naturally calm and speculative by constitution, I should never have been sufficiently active to govern the spirit of youth. Besides for a reason you know,[64]Eloisa would be concerned to see me assume an office, in which I should never acquit myself to her liking. I have a thousand reasons besides; your sex is not equal to these duties; their mother shall confine herself to the education of her Henrietta; to your share I allot the management of the houshold upon the plan already established, and of which you approve; and it shall be my business to behold three worthy people concurring to promote the happiness of the family, and to enjoy that repose in my old age, for which I shall be indebted to their labours.
I have always found, that my wife was extremely averse from trusting her children to the care of mercenaries, and I could not discommend her scruples. The respectable capacity of a preceptor requires so many talents which are not to be paid for, so many virtues which have no piece set upon them, that it is in vain to think of procuring one by means of money. It is from a man of genius only that we can expect the talents of a preceptor; it is from the heart of an affectionate friend alone that we can hope to meet with the zeal of a parent; and genius is not to be sold any more than attachment.
All the requisite qualities seem to be united in your friend; and if I am well acquainted with his disposition, I do not think he would desire greater happiness, than to make those beloved children contribute to their mother's felicity. The only obstacle I can foresee is his affection for Lord B——, which will not allow him to disengage himself from so dear a friend, to whom he has such great obligations, at least if his Lordship does not require it himself. We expect to see this extraordinary man very soon; and as you have a great ascendancy over him, if he answers the idea you have given me of him, I may commit the business, so far as it relates to him, to your management.
You have now, my dear cousin, the clue of my whole conduct, which, without this explanation, must have appeared very extraordinary, and which, I hope, will hereafter meet with Eloisa's approbation and yours. The advantage of having such a wife as I have, made me try many expedients which would have been impracticable with another. Though I leave her, in full confidence, with her old lover, under no other guard than her own virtue, it would be madness to establish that lover in my family, before I was certain that he ceased to be such; and how could I be assured of it, if I had a wife on whom I had less dependence?
I have often observed you smile at my remarks on love; but now I think I can mortify you. I have made a discovery which neither you nor any other woman, with all the subtlety they attribute to your sex, would ever have made; the proof of which you will nevertheless perceive at first sight, and you will allow it to be equal to demonstration, when I explain to you the principles on which I ground it. Was I to tell you that my young couple are more fond than ever, this undoubtedly would not appear wonderful to you. Was I to assure you on the contrary, that they are perfectly cured; you know the power of reason and virtue, and therefore you would not look upon that neither as a vast miracle: but if I tell you, that both these opposites are true at the same time; that they love each other with more ardor than ever, and that nothing subsists between them but a virtuous, attachment; that they are always lovers, and yet never more than friends: this, I imagine is what you would least expect, what you will have more difficulty to conceive, and what nevertheless precisely corresponds with truth.
This is the riddle, which makes those frequent contradictions, which you must have observed in them, both in their conversation and in their letters. What you wrote to Eloisa concerning the picture, has served more than any thing to explain the mystery, and I find that they are always sincere, even in contradicting themselves continually. When I say they, I speak particularly of the young man; for as to your friend, one can only speak of her by conjecture. A veil of wisdom and honour makes so many folds about her heart, that it is impenetrable to human eyes, even to her own. The only circumstance which leads me to imagine that she has still some distrust to overcome is, that she is continually considering with herself what she should do if she was perfectly cured; and she examines herself with so much accuracy, that if she was really cured, she would not do it so well.
As to your friend, who, though virtuously inclined, is less apprehensive of his present feelings, I find that he still retains all the affections of his youth; but I perceive them without having any reason to be offended at them. It is not Eloisa Wolmar he is fond of, but Eloisa Etange; he does not hate me as the possessor of the object I love, but as the ravisher of her whom he doated on. His friend's wife is not his mistress, the mother of two children is not her who was formerly his scholar. It is true she is very like that person, and often puts him in mind of her. He loves her in the time past. This is the true explanation of the riddle. Deprive him of his memory, and you destroy his love.
This is not an idle subtlety, my pretty cousin, but a solid observation, which, if extended to other affections, may admit of a more general application, than one would imagine. I even think that, it would not be difficult to explain it by your own ideas. The time, when you parted the two lovers, was when their passion was at the highest degree of impetuosity. Perhaps, if they had continued much longer together, they would gradually have grown cool; but their imagination, being strongly affected, constantly presented each to the other in the light in which they appeared at the time of their separation. The young man, not perceiving those alterations which the progress of time made in his mistress, loved her such as he had seen her formerly, not such as she was then.[65]To compleat his happiness, it would not have been enough to have given him possession of her, unless she could have been given to him at the same age; and under the same circumstances she was in, when their loves commenced. The least alteration in these particulars would have lessened so much of the felicity he proposed to himself; she is grown handsomer, but she is altered, her improvement, in that sense, turns to her prejudice; for it is of his former mistress, not of any other, that he is enamoured.
What deceives him, is, that he confounds the times, and often reproaches himself on account of a passion which he thinks present, and which in fact is nothing more than the effect of too tender a recollection; but I do not know, whether it will not be better to accomplish his cure, than to undeceive him. Perhaps, in this respect, we may reap more advantage from his mistake, than from his better judgment. To discover to him the true state of his affections, would be to apprize him of the death of the object he loved; this might be an affliction dangerous to him, inasmuch as a state of melancholy is always favourable to love.
Freed from the scruples which restrain him, he would probably be more inclined to indulge recollections which he ought to stifle; he would converse with less reserve, and the traces of Eloisa are not so effaced in Mrs. Wolmar, but upon examination he might find them again. I have thought, that instead of undeceiving him with respect to his opinion of the progress he has made, and which encourages him to pursue it to the end, we should rather endeavour to banish the remembrance of those times which he ought to forget, by skilfully substituting other ideas in the room of those he is so fond of. You, who contributed to give them birth, may contribute more than any one to efface them: but I shall wait till we are all together, that I may tell you in your ear what you shall do for this purpose; a charge, which if I am not mistaken, will not be very burthensome to me. In the mean time, I endeavour to make the objects of his dread familiar to him, by presenting them to him in such a manner, that he may no longer think them dangerous. He is impetuous, but tractable and easily managed. I avail myself of this advantage to give a turn to his imagination. In the room of his mistress, I compel him always to look at the wife of his friend, and the mother of my children; I efface one picture by another, and hide the past with the present. We always ride a startish horse up to the object which frights him, that he may not be frightened at it again. We should act in the same manner with those young people, whose imaginations are on fire even after their affections are grown cold, and whose fancy presents monsters at a distance, which disappear as they draw nearer.
I think I am well acquainted with the strength of both, and I do not expose them to a trial which they cannot support: for wisdom does not consist in using all kinds of precautions indiscriminately, but in choosing those which are really useful, and in neglecting such as are superfluous. The eight days, during which I leave them together, will perhaps be sufficient for them to discover the true state of their minds, and to know in what relation they really stand to each other. The oftener they perceive themselves in private with each other, the sooner they will find out their mistake, by comparing their present sensations with those they felt formerly, when they were in the same situation. Besides, it is of importance that they should use themselves to endure, without danger, that state of familiarity, in which they must necessarily live together, if my schemes take place. I find by Eloisa's conduct, that you have given her advice, which she could not refuse taking, without wronging herself. What pleasure I should take in giving her this proof that I am sensible of her real worth, if she was a woman with whom a husband might make a merit of such confidence! But if she gains nothing over her affections, her virtue will still be the same; it will cost her dearer, and she will not triumph the less. Whereas if she is still in danger of feeling any inward uneasiness, it can arise only from some moving conversation, which she must be too sensible before hand will awaken recollection, and which she will therefore always avoid. Thus, you see, you must not in this instance judge of my conduct by common maxims, but from the motives which actuate me, and from the singular disposition of her towards whom I shall regulate my behaviour.
Farewell, my dear cousin, till my return. Though I have not entered into these explanations with Eloisa, I do not desire you to keep them secret from her. It is a maxim with me, never to make secrets among my friends; therefore I commit these to your discretion; make that use of them which your prudence and friendship will direct. I know you will do nothing, but what is best and most proper.
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