An Immortal Love Letter

The love letters penned by the famous French man of letters Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) hold a place in the literature of letters that few others can rival, both in literary quality and in the feelings and inner stirrings they express.

And in his letters to the Countess Sophie d'Houdetot, Rousseau gave free rein to the passions blazing in his breast, and they went writhing, unchecked, across the purple pages.

Of these is the following letter, which he sent to his beloved in June of 1757 — reproaching, recalling memories, imploring...

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Let me torment your unjust heart, Sophie, that I may be cruel to you as you have been to me. And why should I not torment you, when you have robbed me of reason, honor, and life? How can I leave you to pass your days in tranquility, when you have left my days unlivable?

Ah, you would have been immeasurably less cruel had you plunged a dagger into my heart, instead of that deadly arrow that strikes me down. See what I was and what I have become, and to what depths you have cast me: I was more than a man when you stooped and consented to be mine; when you thrust me away from you, I became the lowest of creatures. I have lost all my reason, all my understanding, all my courage; in short, you have taken from me everything that was in me. And you saw fit to destroy what you yourself had built.

But how do you dare hold unworthy of regard a man whom you once honored with your tenderness? Ah, Sophie, I implore you not to be ashamed of a friend toward whom you once inclined in days gone by. For your own sake I ask you to render me an account of myself. Am I not yours? Have you not taken possession of me utterly? You cannot deny it. And since I am yours in spite of myself and of you, grant me to remain yours.

Think of the blissful hours that passed over us — hours I shall never forget, though their memory will make me wretched. That hidden flame which gave me a second, dearer life bestowed upon my soul and my senses all the vigor of youth, and the burning of my feeling lifted me up to you.

Did your heart not kindle with feeling for me, closed against all but me? How often you said to me, in the grove beside the waterfall: "You are the tenderest lover imagination can reach. No — no man ever loved as you love!" That confession, uttered by your lips, was a triumph for me — and what a triumph!

Ah, Sophie. The mere thought of an everlasting parting after those sweet moments is a dreadful thing to one wasted by the sorest anguish at being unable to merge his very self with yours. Is it true that your captivating eyes will never again grow languid before my gaze, with that sweet bashfulness that gives way to desire and longing? Shall I never again feel your heavenly tremblings, your devouring fire, swifter in its seizing than the seizure of lightning, driving one to madness? Ah, those moments — can they be described? What heart, what god, could have known you and been able to resist?