Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/143

Rh in a consistent chain of policy; he almost writes as if to persuade us that from the outset he deliberately planned his mistress's ruin. To those who read his words with a deeper perception of his character, and much more to those who go on to the long correspondence and the life long interdependence of Abailard and Heloïssa, such an explanation will appear not merely inadequate but incredible. Abailard's account, written moreover under the oppression of enduring remorse, is too highly coloured by these mixed feelings to be taken as it stands: his interpretation of his error, or his guilt, is misleading. In the words of his wisest biographer, 'he deceives himself; a noble and secret instinct bade him love her who had no equal:' and the same instinct kept the two in spiritual union, however far apart their lives might run, until the end.

Abailard privately married Heloïssa; but this step, a concession to the wishes of her family, was powerless to avert their vengeance. Here we must carefully observe that the marriage was in no wise thought of as an act unbecoming or forbidden to a clergyman. From Abailard's own writings we learn that he would be ready with arguments for such a case. The lower clergy, he held,