The grief was common, common were the cries.—Wakefield.
Heloisa to Abelard: "You alone expiated the crime common to us both. You only were punished though both of us were guilty."
[626] Heloisa to Abelard: "Oh whither does the excess of passion hurry me! Here love is shocked, and modesty joined with despair deprive me of speech."
[627] A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine quotes Settle's Empress of Morocco:
Muly Hamet.—Speak.
Empress.—Let my tears and blushes speak the rest.
[628] The altar of Paraclete, says Mr. Berrington, did not then exist. They were not professed at the same time or place; one was at Argenteuil, the other at St. Denys.—-Warton.
[629] Abelard to Heloisa: "I accompanied you with terror to the foot of the altar, and while you stretched out your hand to touch the sacred cloth, I heard you pronounce distinctly those fatal words which for ever separated you from all men."
[630] Her kissing the veil with "cold lips" strongly marks her want of that fervent zeal and devotion which should influence those votaries who renounce the world. The presages, likewise, which attended the rites are finely imagined,—the trembling of the shrines, and the pallid hue of the lamps as if they were conscious of the reluctant sacrifice she was making.—Ruffhead.
[631] Prior, in Henry and Emma, has a verse of similar pauses, and similar phraseology:
Thy lips all trembling, and thy cheeks all pale.—Wakefield.