Eloisa

“ It is the Bernardini who hath done it all—more than the Soranzo, or the Mocenigo—more even than our great Admiral of Cyprus. Thou shalt see!"
Eloisà fell easily into praises of her hero, and her tongue was unsealed. "To go at night, with only a poor fishing-skiff and a handful of men, to steal back the little king from the galley of Naples—it was not easy! But how should one think of peril when the Prince was in danger?—They are both like that—he and she."
"All knights are like that, or they would be craven: that was no honor to him. But what woman went with him from the palace? ”

“ This letter, full of passionate reproach, contains contradictions and improbabilities perceptible to all who have read that which has preceded.
Let us first call attention to the style, which is hardly to be explained. The passionate expressions of Eloisa would have been quite natural in the first years that followed her separation from Abelard, but fourteen years had elapsed—fourteen years of monastic life to both one and the other. ”

“ The history of the two lovers being true as a whole, we are far from wishing to take away from the sympathy that their constancy and hapless love so well deserve. Our only object is to separate the true from the false, and to show that the celebrated letters imputed to Eloisa were not written by her at all, and that the tomb in Père la Chaise is altogether a modern construction. ”

“ Dear fatal name! rest ever unreveal'd,
Nor pass these lips in holy silence seal'd.
Hide it, my heart, within that close disguise,
Where, mix'd with God's, his lov'd Idea lies.
Oh write it not, my hand—The name appears
Already written—wash it out, my tears!
In vain lost Eloisa weeps and prays,
Her heart still dictates, and her hand obeys. ”

“ However happy and judicious the subject of Pope's Epistle may be thought to be, as displaying the various conflicts and tumults between duty and pleasure, between penitence and passion, that agitated the mind of Eloisa, yet we must candidly own that the principal circumstance of distress is of so indelicate a nature, that it is with difficulty disguised by the exquisite art and address of the poet. ”

“ But nature will not be argued out of her rights; and these absurd doctrines introduced into every monastic institution throughout Europe a private intercourse, hostile, from its evil example to the interests both of morality and religion. The nuns of the convent of Argenteuil, who chose Eloisa for their Abbess, were in all probability, influenced in their choice by the recollections of her former frailty, and their knowledge of the present ruling passion of her heart ”

“ The peculiarities and minuteness of woman's speculations may be observed on all subjects, even on the graver and more impressive topic of religion. Although the celebrated Eloisa was deeply learned in all the cumbrous learning of the schools and the fathers, yet when speaking of the apostles, she seems to forget their religious character in order that she might express her astonishment that "even in the company of their master, they were so rustic and ill-bred, that regardless of common decorum, as they passed through cornfields they plucked the ears and ate them like children. ”

“ It was to be expected that the aunt would now be heartily tired of the Spa, and Eloisa and myself had never agreed with her so cordially in any thing before. Wagen, indeed, seemed to be fettered by some secret attraction to the ball-room, but he burst his chains like a hero. We hurried back to our lodgings, changed our clothes, and before the dawn were on our return home. By the middle of the day we were in Rudendorf.
The robber-history, if it did no other good, at least effected something in making the aunt more tolerable than usual ”

“ The Epistle of Eloisa is (artistically speaking) but a counterfeit. Yet Pope’s Elegy begins by stealing and translating into the false elegance of altered taste that lovely and poetic opening of Ben Jonson’s—
‘What beckoning ghost, besprent with April dew,
Hails me so solemnly to yonder yew?’
All the gravity, all the sweetness, one might fear, must be lost in such a change as Pope makes—
‘What beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?’
Yet they are not lost. ”

“ THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE With Introductions And Notes Whitwell Elwin POETRY--VOL. II.
CONTENTS AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM. APPENDIX. THE COMMENTARY AND NOTES OF W. WARBURTON ON THE ESSAY ON CRITICISM. RAPE OF THE LOCK. ELEGY TO THE MEMORY OF AN UNFORTUNATE LADY. ELOISA TO ABELARD. AN ESSAY ON MAN. THE ARGUMENT. THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER. APPENDIX. NOTES on "An Essay on Man". ”

“ The children complained at nothing. They sat quiet, gazing with a sort of indifference at the shafts of dusty light which penetrated the cellar. They had accepted everything, since the moment when they had huddled together there in the convent garden, in the same bewildered silence. They feared only that Sister Eloise might leave them, and sometimes followed her as she moved about the cellar, plucking at her gown. Their eyes, dilated in the constant twilight of the place, wore a piteous, haunted look.
Every night when the children slept, Sister Eloise went across the fields for the water. ”

“ Now, the old burgomaster was very rich, and having no child but Eloise, he was anxious that she should be well married and settled in life. "For," said he, "death is likely to come to me at any time: I am old and feeble, and I want to see my child sheltered by another's love before I am done with earth forever."
Eloise was much beloved by all the youth in the village, and there was not one who would not gladly have taken her to wife; but none loved her so much as did Herman and Ludwig. Nor did Eloise care for any but Herman and Ludwig, and she loved Herman. ”

“ The sight of these white-veiled women about whose crescent-decked brows the doves fluttered, wildly striving to be free, was very strange and beautiful as they advanced also singing a low and melancholy chant. Aziel searched their faces with his eyes while they passed slowly towards him, and presently his heart bounded, for there among them, clasping the dove she bore to her breast, as though to still its frightened strugglings, was the Lady Elissa. ”

“ Elias, seeing the game was lost, threw himself on the ground, and with expressions of deep contrition implored forgiveness. He was pardoned, but banished to a distant hermitage, where humbled and sad he pondered for many months upon his next move. He allowed his hair and beard to grow to such a length that even his enemies began to believe his repentance was sincere, and only two years after his misconduct we find him elected Vicar-General in the place of his former rival, and, under the title of Guardian and Master of the Basilica and Convent, in full command of the works at San Francesco. ”

“ Sister Eloise would say. "They are fighting for us now that we may come out."
But they stayed on in the cellar.
The moon had risen fair and full over the little wood and stood above it, making all the meadows about silver-gray and bright. The trees and the edges of shell-holes threw sharp, dark shadows, and of these Sister Eloise availed herself as she crept forward with her buckets. Lying prone at last behind the wall, and praying that the moon might quickly be veiled by a cloud, she caught again the gleam of helmets and heard low voices at the well. ”

“ To the north the constant booming was now sometimes broken by a sharper sound, a crackling crash. Sister Eloise laughed a little.
"It is so still to-day, so hot," she said, "the sound comes very clearly to us. It is many, many miles away. Run, mes petits; run and play, and make yourselves hungry for the luncheon."
They ran, laughing, but Michel sat under the cedar-tree with his chin in his hands, and he was trembling a little. His father had been killed the week before.
Sister Eloise was about to gather her little band together to march them two and two into the convent. ”

“ Weak as she was still with recent illness, half-fainting also from the shock of the terrible and unexpected fate which had overtaken her, Elissa was borne in triumph to the palace that now was hers. Around her gilded litter priestesses danced and sang their wild chants, half-bacchanalian and half-religious; before it marched the priests of El, clashing cymbals and crying, “Make way, make way for the new-born goddess! Make way for her whose throne is upon the horned moon!” while all about the multitude of spectators prostrated themselves in worship. ”

“ Sister Eloise was the only reality. He heard the swirl of her gown and saw a glint of light on her spectacles as she bent over him, and her arms, as she lifted him, were warm and real and very comforting. He did not understand why she washed and bound his legs every day, or connect it with his increased suffering at the time; but he understood her words: "Mon brave! Mon chéri! Ah, Jean-Marie!"
Michel followed Sister Eloise always.
"If my papa were not killed, he would take us out He would come and take us out," he said over and over. "Why do not the other papas who are not killed come for us?" ”

“ Now understanding that the doom of life-long separation had fallen upon them like the sudden sword of fate, Aziel and Elissa gazed at each other in despair. Then, before either of them could speak a word, at a sign from the Shadid, the priestesses closed round Elissa. Throwing a white veil over her head, they broke into a joyful pæan of song, and half-led, half-carried her from the chamber to enthrone her in the palace of the goddess, which was henceforth to be her home. ”

“ Have I not given you enough of beauty to snare a single soul from among the servants of my enemy the God of the Jews?”
“Nay, nay!” her heart cried; “I will not tempt him to do this evil thing.”
“Yea, yea!” mocked the phantom Voice; “for your sake he shall burn incense upon my altar.”
The phantasy passed, and now the golden gates of the palace of Baaltis rolled open before Elissa. Now, too, the priestesses bore her to the golden throne shaped like a crescent moon, and threw over her a black veil spangled with stars, symbol of the night. ”

“ Eloise shakes her head quickly and decisively. “I didn’t ask you over!” she reminds you. It is a warning that she is on her guard; that she is a difficult proposition; that she is a Nice Girl.
“Well, gee, can’t a guy try to be human?” Your voice should be petulant and youthful. “I was just trying to be human. I was lonesome.” It is a plaintive speech, and you look plaintive. But nevertheless you are a masculine being, strong and undefeated. Probably it is the bathing suit, or perhaps the air with which you light your cigarette. Eloise gazes at your profile in uncertainty. ”

“ She was facing the blinding glare of the sun on the wall and could not see, but she heard overhead a sudden noise, and saw something hovering; then the sky rushed down on her with an annihilating crash, and the world was swirling black, torn with fire and slashed with screams.
A flying sliver of stone had gashed Sister Eloise's forehead. She sat up, wiped the blood from behind her spectacles with her apron, and then stood up dizzily. The children were huddled in the corner of the wall under the cedar, with white faces turned toward her, and horror-stricken eyes looking beyond her. ”

“ Yes, Jew, you fought well till they deserted you, and the doom of cowards is little to a brave man. But what of the lady Elissa? Nay, I know all; she has taken refuge in the tomb of Baaltis, has she not, with poison in her bosom and bronze at her girdle to be used against her own life, should they lay hands on her or give her to me? And all this she does for the love of you, prince Aziel; for the love of you she refuses to become my queen, ruling over that city which I have conquered, and all my unnumbered tribes. ”

“ At the end of the third mile Jean-Marie opened his eyes.
"Why are you carrying me, Sister Eloise?" he asked. "I am too heavy. I will walk."
"Mais non," she said gently; "you are not heavy." As she looked down at him he tried to cling to her.
"Something hurts," he whispered, and lost consciousness again.
As Nichy became visible on the hill-top, Sister Eloise wondered a little at the brightness of the sunset behind it. Then almost immediately she thought:
"But no, how can it be? Nichy is in the north; it is the north we are facing. The sun sets behind the wood of Saint Monique." ”

“ And Elisha said: "I know it; but hold your peace."
And so it went on till they reached Jericho, and here again the sons of the prophets came to Elisha with their question: "Do you know that the Lord will take your master from your head to-day?"
And again Elisha sorrowfully answered: "Yes, I know it; hold ye your peace."
Then Elijah said to him: "Stay here, I pray thee; for the Lord hath sent me to Jordan."
But Elisha gave the same answer to him as he had given before, that he would not on any account leave him. So they went on together. ”

“ Eloise lounges on the beach, watching the slow ebb of the Sunday gaiety. She thinks vaguely of going in for one more dip before she gets dressed; thinks of the shock of cold water on her already-dry bathing suit; thinks of the damp, dank-smelling dressing-room, and decides to postpone the whole thing for a few minutes. There is no hurry and she isn’t cold. She runs her hand through her fuzzy hair and yawns. She is a slim girl with a slightly bored expression, and she is younger than she looks. ”