s is lighter. And write the
more surely, if your letters may be messengers of joy. Whatever message
they bring, at least they will show that you remember us. You can write
to comfort your friend: while you soothe his wounds, you inflame mine.
Heal, I pray you, those you yourself have made, you who bustle about to
cure those for which you are not responsible. You cultivate a vineyard
you did not plant, which grows nothing. Give heed to what you owe your
own. You who spend so much on the obstinate, consider what you owe the
obedient. You who lavish pains on your enemies, reflect on what you owe
your daughters. And, counting nothing else, think how you are bound to
me! What you owe to all devoted women, pay to her who is most devoted.

You know better than I how many treatises the holy fathers of the Church
have written for our instruction; how they have labored to inform, to
advise, and to console us. Is my ignorance to suggest knowledge to the
learned Abelard? Long ago, indeed, your neglect astonished me. Neither
religion, nor love of me, nor the example of the holy fathers, moved you
to try to fix my struggling soul. Never, even when long grief had worn
me down, did you come to see me, or send me one line of comfort,--me, to
whom you were bound by marriage, and who clasp you about with a
measureless love! And for the sake of this love have I no right to even
a thought of yours?

You well know, dearest, how much I lost in losing you, and that the
manner of it put me to double torture. You only can comfort me. By you I
was wounded, and by you I must be healed. And it is only you on whom the
debt rests. I have obeyed the last tittle of your commands; and if you
bade me, I would sacrifice my soul.

To please you my love gave up the only thing in the universe it
valued--the hope of your presence--and that forever. The instant I
received your commands I quitted the habit of the world, and denied all
the wishes of my nature. I meant to give up, for your sake, whatever I
had once a right to call my own.

God knows it was always you, and you only that I thought of. I looked
for no dowry, no alliance of marriage. And if the name of wife is holier
and more exalted, the name of friend always remained sweeter to me, or
if you would not be angry, a meaner title; since the more I gave up, the
less should I injure your present renown, and the more deserve
your love.

Nor had you yourself forgotten this in that letter which I recal