pides' Hippolytus, of
a third all-powerful and superhuman entity: the spirit of monasticism.
The unequal misery, the martyrdom of Heloise arises herefrom, that she
rebels against this _Deus ex machina_; that this nun of the eleventh
century is a strong warm-hearted modern woman, fit for Browning. While
Abelard is her whole life, the intimate companion of her highest thoughts,
she is only a toy to him, and a toy which his theologian's pride, his
monkish self-debasement, makes him afraid and ashamed of. Abelard has
been for her, and ever remains, something like Brahma to Goethe's
Bayadere; her love, her love above all for his intrepid intellect, has
raised him to a sacredness so great, that his whim, his fame, his peace,
his very petulance can be refused nothing; and that, on the other hand,
any concession taken from him seems positive sacrilege. Hence her refusal
of marriage, her answer, "that she would be prouder as his mistress--the
Latin word is harlot--than as the wife of Caesar." Fifty years later, in
the kind, passionate, poetical days of St. Francis, Heloise might have
given this loving fervour to Christ, and been a happy, if a deluded,
woman; but in those frigid monkish days, there was no one for her to
love, save this frigid monkish Abelard. As it is, therefore, she loves
Christ and God in obedience to Abelard; she passionately cons the fathers,
the Scriptures, merely because, so to speak, the hand of Abelard has
lain on the page, the eyes of Abelard have followed the characters; and
finally, after all her vain entreaties for (she scarce knows what!) love,
sympathy, one personal word, she feeds her starving heart on the only
answer to her supplications--the dialectic exercises, metaphysical
treatises, and theological sermons (containing even the forms applicable
only to a congregation) which he doles out to her. Thankful for anything
which comes _from_ him, however little it comes _to_ her.

How different with Abelard! Despite occasional atrocious misery and
unparalleled temporal misfortunes (which on the whole act upon him as
tonics), this great metaphysician is well suited to his times, and
spiritually thrives in their exhausted, chill atmosphere. The public
rumour (which Heloise hurls at him in a fit of broken-hearted rage),
that his passion for her had been but a passing folly of the flesh,
he never denies, but, on the contrary, reiterates perpetually for
her spiritual improvement; let her understand clearly