What a wonderful alteration has a short space of time produced in my
affairs! The thoughts of meeting, delightful as they were, are now too
much allayed with disquieting apprehensions. What should have been the
object of my hopes is now, alas! become the subject of my fears, and
the very spirit of discernment, which on most occasions is so useful,
now serves but to dismay, to disquiet and torment me. Ah, Eloisa! too
much sensibility, too much tenderness, proves the bitterest curse
instead of the most fruitful blessing: vexation and disappointment are
its certain consequences. The temperature of the air, the change of
the seasons, the brilliancy of the sun, or thickness of the fogs, are
so many moving springs to the unhappy possessor, and he becomes the
wanton sport of their arbitration: his thoughts, his satisfaction, his
happiness, depend on the blowing of the winds, and the different
points of east or west can throw him off his bias, or enliven his
expectations: swayed as he is by prejudices, and distracted by
passions, the sentiments of his heart find continual opposition from
the axioms of his head. Should he perchance square his conduct to the
undeniable rule of right, and set up truth for his standard, instead
of profit and convenience, he is sure to fall a martyr to the maxims
of his integrity; the world will join in the cry, and hunt him down as
a common enemy. But supposing this not the case, honesty and
uprightness, though exempted from persecution, are neither the
channels of honour, nor the road to riches; poverty and want are their
inseparable attendants; and man, by adhering to the one, necessarily
attaches himself to the inheritance of the other; and by this means he
becomes his own tormentor. He will search for supreme happiness,
without taking into the account the infirmities of his nature. Thus
his affections and his reason will be engaged in a perpetual warfare,
and unbounded ideas and desires must pave the way for endless
disappointments.
This situation, dismal as it is, is nevertheless the true one, in
which the hard fate of my worldly affairs, counteracted by the
ingenuous and liberal turn of my thoughts, have involved me, and which
is aggravated and increased by your father’s contempt and your own
milder sentiments, which are at once both the delight and disquiet of
my life. Had it not been for thee, thou fatal beauty, I could never
have experienced the insupportable contrast between the greatness of
my soul, and the low estate of my fortune. I should have lived
quietly, and died contented in a situation that would have been even
below notice. But to see you without being able to possess you; to
adore you, without raising myself from my obscurity; to live in the
same place, and yet be separated from each other, is a struggle, my
dearest Eloisa, to which I am utterly unequal. I can neither renounce
you, nor get the better of my cruel destiny; I can neither subdue my
desires, nor better my fortune.