The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-03-17
THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION
HelOiSe Learns of Abela1dS Death
Written for The Times b4 VIII Dnrant

ITO her master, nay father, to
Il her husband, nay brother;
his hand-maid, nay daughter, his
spouse, nay sister: to Abelard,
Heloise:
Your letter written to a friend
for his comfort, beloved, was late
~ brought to me by chance.
Which things I deem that no one
can read or hear with dry eyes,
for they renewed in fuller meas
ure my griefs; and every day
our trembling hearts and throb-
bling bosomS await the latest
rumor of thy death.
And so His name Who still pro-
tects thee in a certain measure
for Himself, in the name OF
Christ, as his hand-maids and
thine, we beseech thee to inform
us by frequent letters OF those
shipwrecks in which thou still art
tossed, that thou mayest have us
at least, who alone have remained
to thee, as partners in thy grief
Of Joy
For who among kings or phil
osophers could equal thee in
fame? What kingdom or city or
village did not burn to see thee?
Who, I ask, did not hasten to
gaze upon thee when thou APP
pearest in public, nor on thy de-
parture with straining neck and
fixed eyes follow thee? What
wife, what maiden did not yearn
for thee in thine absence, nor
burn in thy presence? What
queen or powerful lady did not
envy me my joys and my bed? .
Tell me one thing only, if thou
canst, why, after our CONVEX
sion Ito the monaStic and con-
ventional life, which thou alone
didst decree. am fallen into such
neglect and oblivion with thee
that I am neither refreshed by
thy speech and presence, nor
comforted by a letter in thine
absence? Tell me one thing only,
if thou canSt, or let me tell thee
what 1 feel, nay what all suspect.
ConcupiSence joined thee to me
rather than affection, the ardor
of desire rather than of love.
When, therefore. what thou de-
siredst ceased. all that thou hadst
exhibited at the same time failed.
This, most beloved, is not mine
only, but the conjecture of all
not peculiar, but common, not
private, but public. Would that it
seemed thus to me only, and thy
love found others to excuse it,
by whom my grief might be a
little quoted.
Give thy attention, I beseech
thee, to what I demand while
I am cheated of thy presence, at
least by written words, whereof
thou hast an abundance, present
the sweetness of thine image
Farewell, my all
His reply is almost cold: emascu-
lation had unnamed him, taking
both his love and his bravery away;
misfortune had broken him into a
man trembling at the repeated
blows of life, thinking now only Of
the refuge of death and the promise
of peace in another world. He adj
dresses her in a way calculated tC
remind her, as gently as possible
that they are now vowed to the re-
ligious life:
"HeloiSe, his dearly beloved sister
in Christ; Abelard, her brother ii
the same" He asks for her prayers
bids her comfort her own sorrow
with the hope that they meet ir
heaven, and begs of her, when he is
dead, to bury him in the oratory Of
the Paraclete.
THEY met once more, when the
l. Abbot Suger of Saint Denis
evicted the nuns from Argenteuil
on the ground that he needed the
land for other purposes. Abelard
hearing of it, came down to Paris
now an old and weary man, an6
offered the nuns refuge in the Pa
Taclete.
There Heloise became AbbesS;
"and such grace in the eyes of men
did the Lord bestow upon that, our
sister, that the bishops loved her as
a daughter, the abbots as sister,
the laity as a mother; and all alike
at her piety. her prudence,
and in all things the incompatible
of her patience" And here