Eloisa · Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Preface by the Translator
_Ut cumque ferent ea facta minores, Vincet Amor._ What heart can be unaffected with the dangers, the misfortunes, the weakness, and the virtues of Eloisa? Who can possibly be insensible to the ardor of her lover, the vigilant, active, and impatient friendship of Clara, the noble and encouraging protection of Lord B----, the unshaken wisdom of Wolmar, and all these characters moved by the most extraordinary springs? Who can resist those torrents of pathetic language which penetrate the inmost soul, and so tyrannically command our tears; those master-strokes of simplicity which open the recesses of the human heart, and excite the pleasure of weeping sensibility? How can we help admiring his talent of giving life to every object, of transporting the reader in the middle of the scene, and engaging him as a party in every action, by the happy choice of incidents, and if I may be allowed the expression, by the use of words the most identical to the things intended to be described? Can there be a reader who is not enamoured of the soul of Eloisa? Can there be a reader who does not feel the loss of her as if she were his own, and who does not join in the general mourning at Clarens, and the despair of Clara on the death of her friend?
A common author would have satisfied himself with giving us, once for all, a beautiful picture of his heroine, in which he would have shewn us, in one general point of view, the accomplishment of every duty, and the expansion of every sentiment, by loading our imagination with all the particular applications of this virtuous principle to every single event. Mr. Rousseau, on the contrary, in one continued adion, always before our eyes, displays his Eloisa fulfilling without study, and without the least confusion, all the duties of a wife, a friend, a daughter, a mother, and mistress of a family; so that we behold her constantly employed in these several situations, without confounding the rights of any of them; without favouring one at the expense of the other. He does not relate her actions, but makes her perform them in our sight, and by that means renders those things real, which in recital would appear hyperbolical, romantic, and incredible. In the great number of different pictures which the author has here collected, whether he paints the respectable simplicity of Valesian manners, the brilliant corruption of great cities, the restricted impatience of expecting love, the wildness of despair, or the pathetic regret of a generous passion after an extraordinary sacrifice; whether, in the interesting scene of Meillerie, he displays all the eloquence of genius, and every tender emotion of the heart; whether excited by the plausibility of logic he collects his whole strength to destroy the sophisms of false honour; whether Virtue herself thunders with her respectable and sublime voice against the crime of suicide justified by eloquence; we always find his manner properly adapted both to the subject and to the speaker, which renders the illusion compleat.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.