Tme_Lerrens of ABELAno ano Hetorsn.
TeanstareD by C.K. Scott-Moneneft, (6. Chapman. £2 2s.)
This is the first worthy edition in English of letters known all over the world by repute, and to the ordinary reader in a poor paraphrase, almost a parody. The persistence of the misrepresenting version, after the French, of the early 18th century is preference for the sentimental and the pretty. Mr. Scott Monerieff is rightly indigaant at an insult which turns Abelard and Heloise into elegant, mannered young people of an artificial court, In the false version Heloise is th introduced—"There was in Paris young creature (ah, Philintus!) formed in a prodigality of nature to show mankind a finished composition; dear Heloise, the reputed niece of one Fulbert, a canon. Her wit and her beauty would have stirred the dullest and most insensible heart, and her education was equally admirable, Heloise was the mistress of the most polite arts," Can one not see the Patch, the powder, and the sidelong glance? This finickly Miss parades: before us like a maiden of the Res-fon drama, Here is the real ed. Falbert, who, love for her, was all' the in hie zeal to" instruct her, in inthe know: edge of tetters while in face she was not inferior to other women, inthe abundance of her learning wat supreme. "For Inasmuch a this adv ge, namd renown through It may be said that thi merely translated the 4 suitable idiom for the times; but translator well as omits and this excuss not hold. "The
mistranslates; and the effect of his version is the circulation of an entirely false idea pf one of the greatest tragedies of history. It is as if one were to try to retell a story of Chavcer in the manner of Sterne: a drama of intense and burning realism is turned into a story of romantic intrigues, a thing of bribed servants, boudoirs and drawing-room:
The true story, as it is given in these letters, is an unbearable one. It is often forgotten—Mr. Scott-Monccrieff in his indignation against Abe~ lard forgets it—that when Abelard tuftered his terrible punishment he was a man of 40 years; Heloise then only 22, and they had loved for three years.' When this correspondence begins Abelard is fifty. Is it surprising that his letters strike a chill into the reader of to-day, as they did into the heart of Heloise? The real surprise is not their pedantry, their coldness, their remote preaching of restraint and repentance; the surprise is that they contain as much ay) they do of human affection, of ten-_ dorness, and of regret.
Then, again, it is forgotten foo often that it was Heloise who did not desire marriage, knowing that' an admitted and public union would block the preferment which waa
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.