LETTERS

OF

ABELARD AND HELOISE

LETTER I

Abelard to Philintus

his friend

THE last time we were together, Philintus, you Abelard gave me a melancholy account of your misfor- consoles tunes; I was sensibly touched with the relation, and like a true friend bore a share in your griefs. What did I not say to stop your tears? I laid before you all the reasons philosophy could furnish, which I thought might anyways soften the strokes of fortune. But all these endeavours have proved useless; grief, I perceive, has wholly seized your spirits, and your prudence, far from assisting, seems to have forsaken you. But my skilful friendship has found out an expedient to relieve you. Attend to me a moment, hear but the story of my misfortunes, and yours, Philintus, will be nothing as compared with those of the loving and unhappy Abelard. Observe, I beseech you, at what expense I endeavour to serve you; and think this no small mark of my affection; for I am going to present you with the relation of such particulars as it is impossible for me to re

He re- collect without piercing my heart with the most lates his sensible affliction.

early life

You know the place where I was born, but not, perhaps, that I was born with those complexional faults which strangers charge upon our nation-an extreme lightness of temper, and great inconstancy. I frankly own it, and shall be as free to acquaint you with those good qualities which were observed in me. I had a natural vivacity and aptness for all the polite arts. My father was a gentleman and a man of good parts; he loved the wars, but differed in his sentiments from many who follow that profession. He thought it no praise to be illiterate, but in the camp he knew how to converse at the same time with the Muses and Bellona. He was the same in the management of his family, and took equal care to form his children to the study of polite learning as to their military exercises. As I was his eldest, and consequently his favourite son, he took more than ordinary care of my education. I had a natural genius for study, and made extraordinary progress in it. Smitten with the love of books, and the praises which on all sides were bestowed upon me, I aspired to no other reputation than that of learning. To my brothers I leave the glory of battles and the pomp of triumphs; nay, more, I yielded them up my birthright and patrimony. I knew necessity was the great spur to study, and was afraid I should not merit the title of learned if I distinguished myself from others by nothing but a more plentiful fortune. Of all the sciences logic was the most to my taste. Such were the arms I chose to

profess. Furnished with the weapons of reason- His ing I took pleasure in going to public disputations youthful to win trophies; and wherever I heard that this struggles art flourished, I ranged, like another Alexander,

from province to province, to seek new_adver- v saries with whom I might try my strength.7

The ambition I had to become formidable in logic led me at last to Paris, the centre of politeness, and where the science I was so smitten with had usually been in the greatest perfection. I put myself under the direction of one Champeaux, a professor who had acquired the character of the most skilful philosopher of his age, but by negative excellencies only as being the least ignorant! He received me with great demonstrations of kindness, but I was not so happy as to please him long; for I was too knowing in the subjects he discoursed upon, and I often confuted his notions. Frequently in our disputations I pushed a good argument so home that all his subtlety was not able to elude its force. It was impossible he should see himself surpassed by his scholar without resentment. It is sometimes dangerous to have too much merit.

Envy increased against me in proportion to my reputation. My enemies endeavoured to interrupt my progress, but their malice only provoked my courage. Measuring my abilities by the jealousy I had raised, I thought I had no further need for Champeaux's lectures, but rather that I was sufficiently qualified to read to others. I stood for a post which was vacant at Melun. My master used all his artifice to defeat my hopes, but in vain; and on this occasion I triumphed over his

He con- cunning as before I had done over his learning. quers My lectures were always crowded, and my beginCham- nings so fortunate, that I entirely obscured the

peaux

renown of my famous master. Flushed with these
happy conquests, I removed to Corbeil to attack
the masters there, and so establish my character of
the ablest logician. The rush of travelling threw
me into a dangerous distemper, and not being able
to recover my health, my physicians, who perhaps
were in league with Champeaux, advised me to
remove to my native air. Thus I voluntarily
banished myself for some years. I leave you to
imagine whether my absence was not regretted
by the better sort. At length I recovered my
health, when I received news that my greatest
adversary had taken the habit of a monk; you
may think it was an act of penitence for having
persecuted me; quite the contrary, 'twas ambi-
tion; he resolved to raise himself to some church
dignity, therefore fell into the beaten track and
took on him the garb of feigned austerity; for
this is the easiest and shortest way to the highest
ecclesiastical dignities.
His wishes were success-
ful and he obtained a bishopric; yet did he not
quit Paris and the care of his schools: he went to
his diocese to gather in his revenues, but returned
and passed the rest of his time in reading lectures
to those few pupils which followed him. After
this I often engaged with him, and may reply to
you as Ajax did to the Greeks:-

:

'If you demand the fortune of that day

When stak'd on this right hand your honours lay,
If I did not oblige the foe to yield,

Yet did I never basely quit the field.'

About this time my father, Beranger, who to He the age of sixty had lived very agreeably, retired studies from the world and shut himself up in a cloister, divinity where he offered up to Heaven the languid remains of a life he could make no further use of. My mother, who was yet young, took the same resolution. She turned a Religious, but did not entirely abandon the satisfactions of life; her friends were continually at the grate, and the monastery, when one has an inclination to make it so, is exceedingly charming and pleasant. I was present when my mother was professed. At my return I resolved to study divinity, and inquired for a director in that study. I was recommended to one Anselm, the very oracle of his time, but, to give you my own opinion, one more venerable for his age and his wrinkles than for his genius or learning. If you consulted him upon any difficulty, the sure consequence was to be much more uncertain in the point. They who only saw him admired him, but those who reasoned with him were extremely dissatisfied. He was a great master of words and talked much, but meant nothing. His discourse was a fire, which, instead of enlightening, obscured everything with its smoke; a tree beautified with variety of leaves and branches, but barren of fruit. I came to him with a desire to learn, but found him like the fig tree in the Gospel, or the old oak to which Lucan compares Pompey. I continued not long underneath his shadow. I took for my guides the primitive Fathers and boldly launched into the ocean of the Holy Scriptures. In a short time I had made such progress that others