Eloisa · Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Letter CLII. Mrs. Orbe to Mrs. Wolmar
Has he ever opened his lips on this head to any one? in all the private conversations I have had with him, he talked of no body but you. In those which you have had, did he ever say anything of me? how can I imagine that, if he had concealed a secret of this kind in his breast, I should not have perceived him to be under some constraint, or that it would not, by some indiscretion or other, have escaped him? nay, since his departure, which of us does he most frequently mention in his letters? which of us is the subject of his dreams? I admire that you should think me so tender and susceptible, and should not at the same time suppose my heart would suggest all this. But I see through your device, my sweet friend; it is only to authorise your pretensions to reprisals, that you charge me with having formerly saved my heart at the expense of yours. But I am not so to be made the dupe of your subtlety. And so here is an end of my confession; which I have made, not to contradict, but to set you right; having nothing farther to say on this head, than to acquaint you with my resolution. You now know my heart as well, if not better, than myself. My honour, my happiness are equally dear to you as to myself; and, in the present tranquillity of your passions, you will be the best able to judge of the means to secure both the one and the other. Take my conduct therefore under your direction. I submit it entirely to you. Let us return to our natural state, and reciprocally change our employment; we shall both do the better for it: do you govern, and you shall find me tractable: let it be your place to direct what I should do, and it shall be mine to follow your directions.
Take my heart, and inclose it up in yours; what business have inseparables for two? but to return to our travellers; though, to say truth, I have already said so much about one, that I hardly dare speak a word about the other, for fear you should remark too great a difference in my stile, and that even my friendship for the generous Englishman should betray too much regard for the amiable Swiss. Besides, what can I say about letters I have not seen? you ought at least to send me that of Lord B----. But you durst not send it without the other. ’Tis very well. You might however have done better. Well, recommend me to your duennas of twenty: they are infinitely more tractable than those of thirty.
I must revenge myself, however, by informing you of the effect of your fine reserve. It has only made me imagine the letter in question, that letter which breathes such a----only a hundred times more tender than it really is. Out of spite, I take pleasure in conceiving it filled with soft expressions which cannot be in it; so that if I am not passionately admired, I shall make you suffer for it. After all, I cannot see with what face you can talk to me of the Italian post. You prove in your letter that I was not in the wrong to wait for it, but for not having waited long enough. Had I stayed but one poor quarter of an hour longer, I should have met the packet, have laid hold of it first, and read it at my ease. It had then been my turn to make a merit of giving it you. But, since the grapes are too sour, you may keep the letters. I have two others which I would not change for them were they better worth reading than I imagine they are. There is that of Harriot, I can assure you, even exceeds your own; nor have either you or I, in all our lives, ever wrote any thing so pretty. And yet you give yourself airs forsooth of treating this prodigy as a little impertinent. Upon my word I suspect that to arise from mere envy; and, since I have discovered in her this new talent, I purpose, before you spoil her writing as you have done her speech, to establish between her apartment and mine an Italian post, from whence I will have no pilfering of packets.
Farewell, my dear friend, you will find inclosed the answers to your letters, which will give you no mean idea of my interest here. I would write to you something about this country and its inhabitants; but it is high time to put an end to this volume of a letter. You have besides quite perplexed me with your strange fancies. As we have five or six days longer to stay here, and I shall have time to give another look at what I have already seen, you will be no loser by the delay; and you may depend on my transmitting you another volume as big as this, before my departure.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.