There is not a line in your letter that does not chill the blood in my
veins; and I can hardly be persuaded, after twenty times reading, that
it is addressed to me. Who I? Can I have offended Eloisa? Can I have
profaned her beauties? Can the idol of my soul, to whom every moment
of my life I offer up my adorations, can she have been the object of
my insults? No, I would have pierced this heart a thousand times
before it should have formed so barbarous a design. Alas! you know but
little of this heart that flies to prostrate itself at your feet; a
heart anxious to contrive for thee a new species of homage, unknown to
human beings. Ah! my Eloisa, you know that heart but little, if you
accuse it of wanting towards you the ordinary respect which even a
common lover entertains for his mistress. Is it possible I can have
been impudent and brutal? I, who detest the language of immodesty, and
never in my life entered into places where it is held! But that I
should repeat such discourse to you; that I should aggravate your just
indignation! Had I been the most abandoned of men, had I spent my
youth in riot and debauchery, had even a taste for sensual and
shameful pleasures found a place in the heart where you reside, tell
me, Eloisa, my angel, tell me, how was it possible I could have
betrayed before you that impudence, which no one can have but in the
presence of those who are themselves abandoned enough to approve it.
Ah, no! it is impossible. One look of yours had sealed my lips and
corrected my heart. Love would have veiled my impetuous desires
beneath the charms of your modesty; while in the sweet union of our
souls their own delirium only would have led the senses astray. I
appeal to your own testimony, if ever in the utmost extravagance of an
unbounded passion, I ceased to revere its charming object. If I
received the reward of my love, did I ever take an advantage of my
happiness, to do violence to your bashfulness? If the trembling hand
of an ardent but timid lover hath sometimes presumed too far, did he
ever with brutal temerity profane your charms? If ever an indiscreet
transport drew aside their veil, though but for a moment, was not that
of modesty as soon substituted in its place? Unalterable as the
chastity of your mind, the flame that glows in mine can never change.
Is not the affecting and tender union of our souls sufficient to
constitute our happiness? Does not in this alone consist all the
happiness of our lives? Have we a wish to know, or taste of any other?
And canst thou conceive that this enchantment can be broken? How was
it possible for me to forget in a moment all regard to chastity, to
our love, my honour, and that invincible reverence and respect which
you must always inspire even in those by whom you are not adored? No;
I cannot believe it. It was not I that offended you? I have not the
least remembrance of it; and, were I but one instant culpable, can it
be that my remorse should ever leave me? No, Eloisa, some demon,