But, waking or dreaming, Eloisa thought only of Abelard’s glory, Abelard’s advancement. Her secret, unacknowleged love was to feed his fame, as the hidden root and unnoticed tendrils feed the swelling trunk, impelling it into blossom and leaf and fruit. Well might Mr. Cousin declare, when a discussion was once raised as to who is the greatest woman that ever lived, that Eloisa towers above all competitors. But for the self-obliterating tenderness of her heart, the self-asserting strength of Abelard’s intellect would long since have been forgotten. Fancy a man worrying himself to death in order to establish that he is not heterodox in his views concerning the reality of Universals, while such a woman offers him, in her own particular person, the sum and abstract of all that is worth having in the world! Yet, in some sort, Abelard expiated his faults. I fail to see in him the passionate champion of free thought, which De Rémusat and others sometimes appear disposed to represent him, or it would be more easy to extend to him the indulgence which, for that reason, has to be yielded to a tortuous egotist like Voltaire, or to a cold-hearted sentimentalist like Rousseau. As far as I can see, he entertained certain metaphysical opinions, which, whether sound or otherwise, are not of the smallest practical importance, and upon which the dignity and happiness of mankind in no degree turn. Accused of heresy, he was condemned; and the condemnation was peculiarly wounding to his vanity. But he made his peace with the Church, and in one of the latest of his letters to Eloisa is particularly anxious to convince her that he has done so. No doubt it was not easy to battle with the strongly-organized Theology of the times; but if anyone should ask what Abelard was to do when accused of heresy, the answer might be that of the mother of Horatius, who, when asked, “Que voulez vous qu’il fasse contre trois?” replied: “Qu’il mourût!” Eloisa had died a thousand times over for his sake. Could he not die once for his precious Universals and his tenets on the Trinity, if he really thought them true, and so very important!