Page:Letters of Mlle. de Lespinasse.djvu/349

324 you that I had been to the Invalides a few days ago with the Duchesse de Chatillon; I came away heart-broken. I did not make one step without seeing the most painful sights: blind and mutilated men, frightful wounds, broken limbs. Ah! my God!' I thought, 'all that breathe here suffer ; and their woes are not the ills of imagination ; these are not those who love and torture one another in loving ; this is not pain at privation of letters, not even regret for having lost that which was dearest to them; these are bodily ills to which all men are equally subject!' And then I added, to myself: ’yet I am more unhappy than all whom I see here ; for I could pity, could console, could relieve these unfortunates with succour and money, but they can do nothing for me; they know not even the language of the ills I suffer; and all there is of happiness, and kinds of happiness upon earth, if all were offered to me, could do me no good.' "

Oh, Eliza ! Eliza ! how feeble, how imperfect is this poor sketch of thee! Is there an exquisite feeling, a rare virtue that honours humanity, which was not in thy heart? If I do anything that is good, honourable, if I attain to anything that is great it will be because thy memory still perfects and still inspires my soul. Oh, you who were her friends, and whom I have, through her, the right to call my own, let us all address to her memory the same invocation. In Eliza's name let us be friends, let us be dear to one another, let us do in presence of her memory the good we should have wished to do in her living presence; so that from heaven, where her soul has doubtless risen, she may see it and applaud, and men on earth, beholding it, may say of each: "He was Eliza's friend." Let that eulogy be graven on our tombs.

I speak of tombs, and it is of hers that we now must think. Ah! let her mortal remains consume away in the