What, then, could have been the spell by which this charming woman drew Christendom after her? Popes and bishops called her “beloved daughter,” priests entitled her “sister,” and all laymen laid claim to her as “mother.” If she were not so beautiful as some authorities positively state, she must certainly have been marvellously captivating. But chiefest of her many graces was her crowning loyalty and love. It showed itself in perfect sympathy, in entire self-devotion. Michelet, indeed, has observed that the legend of Abelard and Heloise is all that has survived in France out of the story of the Middle Ages.
Nor has the unanimity of literary judgment upon these lovers been less remarkable than the interest which they have inspired. With one voice Abelard is condemned and with one voice Heloise is extolled. “She was,” says a brilliant writer, “a great, heroic woman, one of those formed out of the finest clay of humanity.” “With the Grecian fire,” says another, “she had the Roman firmness.” And even the rude picture which the mechanical touch of Alexander Pope has painted, leaves to us in the “Epistle of Heloise” a trace of the same beauty, and affords one line—
“And graft my love immortal on thy fame”—
which only needs to be reversed in order to be prophetic. Morison’s tribute is both nobler and more acute, for he testifies, “She walked through life with ever-reverted glances on the glory of her girlish love.” It was the same thought which Dante—after Boethius—puts into the lips of Francesca—
“There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.”
Nay, it is even the very cameo out of Tennyson:
“As when a soul laments, which hath been blessed,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,