l. You
are ready enough to set forth some of the reasons which I used to you,
to persuade you not to fetter your freedom, but you pass over most of
the pleas I made to withhold you from our ill-fated wedlock. I call God
to witness that if Augustus, ruler of the world, should think me worthy
the honor of marriage, and settle the whole globe on me to rule forever,
it would seem dearer and prouder to me to be called your mistress than
his empress.

Not because a man is rich or powerful is he better: riches and power may
come from luck, constancy is from virtue. _I_ hold that woman base who
weds a rich man rather than a poor one, and takes a husband for her own
gain. Whoever marries with such a motive--why, she will follow his
prosperity rather than the man, and be willing to sell herself to a
richer suitor.

That happiness which others imagine, best beloved, I experienced. Other
women might think their husbands perfect, and be happy in the idea, but
I knew that you were so and the universe knew the same. What
philosopher, what king, could rival your fame? What village, city,
kingdom, was not on fire to see you? When you appeared in public, who
did not run to behold you? Wives and maidens alike recognized your
beauty and grace. Queens envied Heloise her Abelard.

Two gifts you had to lead captive the proudest soul, your voice that
made all your teaching a delight, and your singing, which was like no
other. Do you forget those tender songs you wrote for me, which all the
world caught up and sang,--but not like you,--those songs that kept your
name ever floating in the air, and made me known through many lands, the
envy and the scorn of women?

What gifts of mind, what gifts of person glorified you! Oh, my loss! Who
would change places with me now!

And _you_ know, Abelard, that though I am the great cause of your
misfortunes, I am most innocent. For a consequence is no part of a
crime. Justice weighs not the thing done, but the intention. And how
pure was my intention toward you, you alone can judge. Judge me! I
will submit.

But how happens it, tell me, that since my profession of the life which
you alone determined, I have been so neglected and so forgotten that you
will neither see me nor write to me? Make me understand it, if you can,
or I must tell you what everybody says: that it was not a pure love like
mine that held your heart, and that your coarser feeling vanished with
absence and ill-report. Would that to