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THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS

JOINT EDITORS

ARTHUR MEE Editor and Founder of the Book of Knowledge

J.A. HAMMERTON Editor of Harmsworth's Universal Encyclopaedia

VOL. IX LIVES AND LETTERS

MCMX

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Table of Contents

ABELARD AND HELOISE
  Love-Letters

AMIEL, H.F.
  Fragments of an Intimate Diary

AUGUSTINE, SAINT
  Confessions

BOSWELL, JAMES
  Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

BREWSTER, SIR DAVID
  Life of Sir Isaac Newton

BUNYAN, JOHN
  Grace Abounding

CARLYLE, ALEXANDER
  Autobiography

CARLYLE, THOMAS
  Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell
  Life of Schiller

CELLINI, BENVENUTO
  Autobiography

CHATEAUBRIAND, FRANCOIS RENE DE
  Memoirs from Beyond the Grave

CHESTERFIELD, EARL OF
  Letters to His Son

CICERO, MARCUS TULLIUS
  Letters

COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR
  Biographia Literaria

COWPER, WILLIAM
  Letters

DE QUINCEY, THOMAS
  Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

DUMAS, ALEXANDRE
  Memoirs

EVELYN, JOHN
  Diary

FORSTER, JOHN
  Life of Goldsmith

FOX, GEORGE
  Journal

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN
  Autobiography

GASKELL, MRS.
  The Life of Charlotte Bronte

GIBBON, EDWARD
  Memoirs

GOETHE, J.W. VON
  Letters to Zelter
  Poetry and Truth
  Conversations with Eckermann

GRAY, THOMAS
  Letters

HAMILTON, ANTONY
  Memoirs of the Count De Grammont

HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL
  Our Old Home

A Complete Index of THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS will be found at the end
of Volume XX.

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ABELARD AND HELOISE


Love-Letters


     In the Paris cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, on summer Sundays,
     flowers and wreaths are still laid on the tomb of a woman who
     died nearly 750 years ago. It is the grave of Heloise and of
     her lover Abelard, the hero and heroine of one of the world's
     greatest love stories. Born in 1079, Abelard, after a
     scholastic activity of twenty-five years, reached the highest
     academic dignity in Christendom--the Chair of the Episcopal
     School in Paris. When he was 38 he first saw Heloise, then a
     beautiful girl of 17, living with her uncle, Canon Fulbert.
     Abelard became her tutor, and fell madly in love with her. The
     passion was as madly returned. The pair fled to Brittany,
     where a child was born. There was a secret marriage, but
     because she imagined it would hinder Abelard's advancement,
     Heloise denied the marriage. Fulbert was furious. With hired
     assistance, he invaded Abelard's rooms and brutally mutilated
     him. Abelard, distressed by this degradation, turned monk. But
     he must have Heloise turn nun; she agreed, and at 22 took the
     veil. Ten years later she learned that Abelard had not found
     content in his retirement, and wrote to him the first of the
     five famous letters. Abelard died in 1142, and his remains
     were given into the keeping of Heloise. Twenty years
     afterwards she died, and was buried beside him at Paraclete.
     In 1800 their remains were taken to Paris, and in 1817
     interred in Pere-Lachaise Cemetery. The love-letters,
     originally written in Latin, about 1128, were first published
     in Paris in 1616.


_I.--Heloise to Abelard_


Heloise has just seen a "consolatory" letter of Abelard's to a friend.
She had no right to open it, but in justification of the liberty she
took, she flatters herself that she may claim a privilege over
everything which comes from that hand.

"But how dear did my curiosity cost me! What disturbance did it
occasion, and how surprised I was to find the whole letter filled with a
particular and melancholy account of our misfortunes! Though length of
time ought to have closed up my wounds, yet the seeing them described by
you was sufficient to make them all open and bleed afresh. Surely all
the misfortunes of lovers are conveyed to them through the eyes. Upon
reading your letter I feel all mine renewed. Observe, I beseech you, to
what a wretched condition you have reduced me; sad, afflicted, without
any possible comfort unless it proceed from you. Be not then unkind, nor
deny me, I beg of you, that little relief which you only can give. Let
me have a faithful account of all that concerns you; I would know
everything, be it ever so unfortunate. Perhaps by mingling my sighs with
yours I may make your sufferings less, for it has been said that all
sorrows divided are made lighter.

"I shall always have this, if you please, and it will always be
agreeable to me that, when I receive a letter from you, I shall know you
still remember me. I have your picture in my room. I never pass it
without stopping to look at it. If a picture, which is but a mute
representation of an object, can give such pleasure, what cannot letters
inspire? We may write to each other; so innocent a pleasure is not
denied us. I shall read that you are my husband, and you shall see me
sign myself your wife. In spite of all our misfortunes, you may be what
you please in your letter. Having lost the substantial pleasures of
seeing and possessing you, I shall in some measure compensate this loss
