Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History

Eloisa : $b or, A series of original letters

Open Original Text

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Eloisa
 
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Eloisa
 or, A series of original letters

Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Translator: W. Kenrick

 
Release date: August 6, 2025 [eBook #76639]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Griffiths, Becket, and DeHondt, 1761

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76639

Credits: Veronica Litt and Subyeta Haque from scans generously made available by Gale Cengage.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ELOISA ***

Eloisa:
Or, a Series of Original Letters

Collected and published by J.J. Rousseau

Translated from the French.

In Four Volumes.

The Second Edition.

London: Printed for R. Griffiths, at the Dunciad, and T. Becket
and P.A. DeHondt at Tully's Head, in the Strand.

MDCCLXI.

Translation of M. Rousseau's Preface

Great cities require public theatres, and romances are necessary to a
corrupt people. I saw the manners of the times, and have published
these letters. Would to heaven I had lived in an age when I ought
rather to have thrown them in the fire!

Though I appear only as the editor of this work, I confess that I have
had some share in the composition. But am I the sole author, and is
the entire correspondence fictitious? Ye people of the world, of what
importance is it to you? Certainly, to you, it is all a fiction.

Every honest man will avow the books which he publishes. I have
prefixed my name to these letters, not with a design to appropriate
them to myself, but that I might be answerable for them. If they
deserve censure, let it fall on me; if they have any merit, I am not
ambitious of the praise. If it is a bad book, I am the more obliged to
own it: I do not wish to pass for better than I am.

As to the reality of the history, I declare that, though I have been
several times in the country of the two lovers, I never heard either
of Baron D'Etange, his daughter, Mr. Orbe, Lord B----, or Mr. Wolmar.
I must also inform the reader that there are several topographical
errors in this work; but whether they are the effect of ignorance or
design, I leave undetermined. This is all I am at liberty to say: let
every one think as he pleases.

The book seems not calculated for an extensive circulation, as it is
not adapted to the generality of readers. The stile will offend people
of taste, to austere men the matter will be alarming, and all the
sentiments will seem unnatural to those who know not what is meant by
the word virtue. It ought to displease the devotee, the libertine, the
philosopher; to shock all the ladies of gallantry, and to scandalize
every modest woman. By whom, therefore, will it be approved? Perhaps
only by myself: certain I am, however, that it will not meet with
_moderate_ approbation from any one.

Whoever may resolve to read these letters ought to arm himself with
patience against faults of language, rusticity of stile, and pedantry
of expression; he ought to remember that the writers are neither
natives of France, wits, academicians, nor philosophers; but that they
are young and unexperienced inhabitants of a remote village, who
mistake the romantic extravagance of their own imagination, for
philosophy.

Why should I fear to speak my thoughts? This collection of letters,
with all their gothic air, will better suit a married lady than books
of philosophy: it may even be of service to those who, in an irregular
course of life, have yet preserved some affection for virtue. As to
young ladies, they are out of the question; no chaste virgin ever read
a romance: but if perchance any young girl should dare to read a
single page of this, she is inevitably lost. Yet let her not accuse me
as the cause of her perdition: the mischief was done before; and since
she has begun, let her proceed, for she has nothing worse to fear.

May the austere reader be disgusted in the first volume, revile the
Editor, and throw the book into the fire. I shall not complain of
injustice; for probably, in his place, I might have acted in the same
manner. But if after having read to the end, any one should think fit
to blame me for having published the book, let him, if he pleases,
declare his opinion to all the world, except to me; for I perceive it
would never be in my power to esteem such a man.

Preface by the Translator

It is by no means my design to swell the volume, or detain the
reader from the pleasure he may reasonably expect in the perusal of
this work: I say _reasonably_, because the author is a writer of great
reputation. My sole intention is to give a concise account of my
conduct in the execution of this arduous task; and to anticipate such
accusations as may naturally be expected from some readers: I mean
those who are but imperfectly acquainted with the French language, or
who happen to entertain improper ideas of translation in general.

If I had chosen to preserve the original title, it would have stood
thus: _Julia, or the New Eloisa_, in the general title-page; and in
the particular one, _Letters of two Lovers, inhabitants of a small
village at the foot of the Alps, collected and published,_ &c.
Whatever objection I might have to this title, upon the whole, my
principal reason for preferring the name of Eloisa to that of Julia,
was, because the public seemed unanimous in distinguishing the work by
the former rather than the latter, and I was the more easily
determined, as it was a matter of no importance to the reader.

The English nobleman who acts a considerable part in this romance, is
called in the original, Lord Bomston, which I suppose Mr. Rousseau
thought to be an English name, or at least very like one. It may
possibly sound well enough in the ears of a Frenchman; but I believe
the English reader will not be offended with me for having substituted
that of Lord B---- in its room. It is amazing that the French
novelists should be as ignorant of our common names, and the titles of
our nobility, as they are of our manners. They seldom mention our
country, or attempt to introduce an English character, without
exposing themselves to our ridicule. I have seen one of their
celebrated romances, in which a British nobleman, called the Duke of
_Workinsheton_, is a principal personage; and another, in which the
one identical lover of the heroine is sometimes a Duke, sometimes an
Earl, and sometimes a simple Baronet; _Catombridge_ is, with them, an
English city: and yet they endeavour to impose upon their readers by
pretending that their novels are translations from the English.

With regard to this _Chef d'oeuvre_ of Mr. Rousseau, it was receive

Next