.

During the three or four years that followed this signal triumph over
his old master, Abelard enjoyed a popularity and a reputation for
learning almost without parallel. He was of handsome presence, polished
and winning in manners, accomplished even in the little arts and graces
of the society of the period. All this would account for his personal
popularity; but his was really a brilliant mind, fascinatingly if
dangerously logical, and straightforward in dealing with vexed questions
of philosophy and theology. And with all his learning he knew how to
meet the difficulties of ordinary minds, to present his arguments in a
style not only simple but lucid and entertaining. He brought to his work
a precious quality--enthusiasm. From all parts of Europe students
flocked to him, by hundreds, by thousands; and with the offerings they
brought he was rich. Then it was that pride prepared his ruin.
"Believing myself henceforth the only living philosopher, fancying that
I had no more opposition to encounter or accusation to fear, I commenced
to give rein to my passions, I who had always lived in the greatest
continence. The more I advanced in the paths of philosophy and theology,
the further I was getting, by my impure life, from philosophers and
saints." How much of this confession is real humility, and how much mere
pretence, exaggeration, and vain rhetoric, we cannot say. It is an
unfortunate fact that what is recognized as the language of religion is
so highly colored, so tropical, so manifestly not to be taken in its
absolute and literal sense, that one cannot estimate a character by
autobiographic testimony of this sort. What Rousseau meant when he
confessed that he "gave rein to his passions" we know full well, for he
tells us. What, or rather how much, Abelard means we cannot tell, since
his language is evidently in large part figurative. We do not think,
however, that he was ever really a libertine.

In his own account of his love story Abelard says that he was attracted
by the beauty, the youth, and the mental attainments of Heloise, the
niece of Fulbert, a canon of Notre Dame, who had loved her tenderly and
had educated her with unusual care. Smitten more by the physical than by
the mental graces of the girl, then about eighteen, Abelard sought a
pretext to ingratiate himself with Fulbert, and to enter his house as a
lodger. The opportunity of having his beloved niece instructed by a
person of such distinction was m