[596] Heloisa to Abelard: "Let me have a faithful account of all that concerns you. I would know everything, be it ever so unfortunate. Perhaps by mingling my sighs with yours I may make your sorrows less."
[597] Heloisa to Abelard: "We may write to each other. Let us not lose through negligence the only happiness which is left us, and the only one perhaps which the malice of our enemies can never ravish from us."
[598] Heloisa to Abelard: "Tell me not by way of excuse you will spare our tears; the tears of women shut up in a melancholy place, and devoted to penitence, are not to be spared."
[599] Denham of Prudence:
To live and die is all we have to do.—Wakefield.
Prior's Celia to Damon:
And these poor eyes
No longer shall their little lustre keep,
And only be of use to read and weep.
[600] Heloisa to Abelard: "Be not then unkind, nor deny me that little relief. All sorrows divided are made lighter."
[601] Heloisa to Abelard: "Letters were first invented for comforting such solitary wretches as myself."
[602] Heloisa to Abelard: "What cannot letters inspire? They have souls; they can speak; they have in them all that force which expresses the transports of the heart; they have all the fire of our passions; they can raise them as much as if the persons themselves were present; they have all the softness and delicacy of speech, and sometimes a boldness of expression even beyond it."