Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-04-19
AbeIard and HelOise.
From the May Galaxy.l

rTOm INC may OdldAysJ
Heloise and Abelard are counted as
patterns of steadfast devotion under the
most adverse circumstances. Of the
many who make emotional pilgrimages
to their grave, and hang immortelles
thereon, few remember or even suspect
how thoroughly false, selfish and mean
were the pupils of William of Cham
peaux, who has come down to us as a
lofty type of fidelity, generosity, and
disinterested love. Michelet thinks that
to Abelard Heioise owes her fame; but
the truth is that he is remembered
through her nobleness and selfsacrifce
Two natures could hardly be in greater
contrast than theirs. She was all that
is sweet and tender and beautiful in wo-
man. and he whatever is vain and ego
tistic and ignoble in man. To call him
lover is to intensity irony and exhaust
satire.
When his fame was above that of any
dialectician in France, when his verses
were sung in the streets and his praises
repeated in cloisters, when men envied
and women worshipped his person or
his name in every city of Europe, he
was attracted to Heloise by the most
sensual and selfish motives. Having
seen her and been fired by her beauty,
he deliberately resolved to ruin her, as
he himself has the hardihood to confess
in one of his still preserved letters.
The innocent, romantic and passion
ate girl was living with her uncle Full
bert, and to him the fascinating dialec-
tician made proposal (this is his own
story, through some of his friends, that
he should be received as an inmate of
Fulbert's house, very near the philoso-
pher's school, that he might more thor
oughly devote himself TO the instruction
of the niece, whose appetite for learning
was unappeasable. Knowing Fulbert
to be niggardly, he offered to teach the
lovely girl on whatever terms her rela-
tive might name. The avaricious uncle
accepted the proposal with SO much
alacrity that the eloquent hbertine ex-
pressed his astonishment that so gentle
a lamb should be intrusted to hungry
wolf like himself. Abelard's confessions
of the certainty and satisfaction he felt
in his ability to accomplish his pupils
ruin are too coarse and brutal for repe-
tition in Latin, much more for transla-
ton in this age Of hnical phraseology.
The licentious logician, though he was
then forty and Heloise barely seventeen,
was not nearly so good scholar as she,
already thoroughly proficient in Latin,
and well-grounded in Hebrew and Greek.
All he could teach her was dialectics,
and these, very naturally under the cir
cumstances, occupied their attention
less than tender speeches and still ten
derer caresses. Although prudence as
we'll as honor should have bound the
lover to keep his hdiS0R secret, the fact
that he had written amorous verses to
his mistress sinduced him to show them to
his admirers in the city, both to adver-
tise what he conceived to be his clever
CESS in rhyme and his noble triumph
over the affections and virtue of his in
genious charge. His songs, publishing
the poor girl S shame, we're soen banded
about the streets, and all Paris bepams
the oonidapte Of his intrigue. Even
the blind and sordid uncle at last be-
came acquainted with the perhdy Of the
man he had so fully trusted, and the
latter was expelled from his house. The
lovers still had clandestiue meetings,
however, and Heloise, finding that her
condition could no longer be concealed,
fed to Brittany by the contrivance and
aid of Abelard, and under the roof Of
bis sister gsFe birth TO son.