Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/141

 121 ILOVE»ILETTEF.tS OF FAMOUS By Lady MARGARET SACKVILLE ABELARD AND HELOiSE LOVI PEOPLE ! ovE-LETTERS, wheii the personality of the writer is interesting enough to save them from monotony, must always possess a very strong attraction for the rest of man- kind. All men fall in love, and like, therefore, to find their own, it may be inarticulate, emotions expressed as they would have them, or mirrored with perhaps greater intensity in the soul of another. Love-letters to be of any value, however, must possess one all-embracing quality — they must be sincere. In ordinary letter- writing, sincerity is only one of the qualities demanded, but in love-letters it is every- thing. The love-letter must reflect the whole nature or nothing ; it must reveal a soul in all its simplicity. In writing love-letters there is no question of writing for an audience — a consideration which must, consciously or unconsciously, influence those who are speaking to the world at large. To the writer of the love-letter there is no world except that which is contained in one person, and the idea that another might overhear the sentiments is merely horrible. Love-letters are, at the same time, the most intimate and the most universal things that exist, and because of their sincerity all lovers find in them a true comment on their own experiences. There are people who, when reading love- letters, have an uncomfortable sensation of guilt ; they feel conscious of eavesdropping, and to them the publication of love-letters — at any rate, until a long' time after the death of the writer — is like the violation and exhibition of the contents of a tomb. There is much to be said from this point of view in an age little appreciative of secrecy and reserve, and only too ready to rend the veils of the most in- timate sanctuaries, merely from curiosity, for the sole purpose of seeing what lies behind. The instinct which condemned the publication of the Browning letters was perhaps a right one. At any rate, a century must elapse before things so sensitive can be revealed without a shock to many. LETTERS PASSIONATE AND TENDER Love-letters, however, will afford fascinating reading so long as the world lasts, and so long as men and women are interested in each other. Women whose letters have become famous fall into two divisions — the passionate and the tender. To the first belong H^loi'se, Mile, de Lespinasse, and George Sand ; to the second, Dorothy Osborne, Elizabeth Browning, and Mrs. Carlyle. Which feel with most intensity oi suffer most it is impossible to say. The former perhaps are the most dominating ; the latter, with their wise gentleness, their humour, their essential gladness, are the most human. It is the difference between a dark mountain loch which the hill winds seldom leave at peace, and the clear, deep lake which is rarely ruffled and reflects green overhanging leaves and blue skies, the flowering rushes on its brink, the flight of a passing bird, and the mellow walls of some old house upon its bank. LETTERS BY HJ^LOlSE The letters of Heloise, which are among the stormiest now under consideration, seem to have suffered considerably in trans- lation. In the English rendering the fire of the original has waned into an amiable flame which could burn no one. Greard's French translation, moreover, moves too stiffly ; it is only from occasional passages that one can realise the force of that wild heart which belonged to Heloise, who " loved the creature as the great saints loved God," and who found but little satisfaction for her passion upon earth. The strange story of Abelard and Heloise is too well known to need much comment — how Abelard, the seductive canon of Notre Dame, loved Heloise, who refused to marry him for fear of injuring his career ; how she became his mistress ; how a child was born ; and how, at her lover's insistence, she was married to him secretly ; how Fulbert, her uncle, took a terrible revenge on Abelard ; and how, afterwards, he persuaded Heloise to join a rehgious order, whilst he himself became a monk. The story has been often told. It seems that Abelard's passion for Heloise, at one time insatiate, cooled at last to mere tenderness ; whilst hers remained violent and unappeased until the very end. As ab- bess of the Convent of the Paracletan Order, founded by Abelard, she corre- sponded with him regularly, ostensibly on the rules and management of the order ; but often her letters break off into fierce reminiscences of the past, and reproach Abelard for his present negligence. " You know, my beloved," she writes — " who does not ? — all that I have lost in you. You know what deplorable stroke — the infamous