that Madame Guyon did
not understand her theme does not detract from the interest in her
book: it rather adds to it--she is so intensely prejudiced. Franklin was
the very king of humorists, and in humor Madame Guyon was a pauper.

There is not a smile in the whole big book from cover to cover--not a
smile, save those the reader brings to bear.

Madame Guyon lays bare her heart, but she does it by indirection. In
this book she keeps her left hand well informed of what her right hand
is doing. Her multi-masked ego tells things she must have known, but
which she didn't know she knew, otherwise she would not have told us. We
get the truth by reading between the lines. The miracle is that this
book should have passed for a work of deep religious significance, and
served as a textbook for religious novitiates for three centuries.

Madame Guyon was a woman of intellect, damned with a dower of beauty;
sensitive, alert, possessing an impetuous nature that endeavored to find
its gratification in religion. Born into a rich family, and marrying a
rich man, unkind Fate gave her time for introspection, and her mind
became morbid through lack of employment for her hands.

Work would have directed her emotions to a point where they would have
been useful, but for the lack of which she was feverish, querulous,
impulsive--always looking for offense, and of course finding it. Her
pride was colossal, and the fact that it found form in humility must
have made her a sore trial to her friends.

The confessional seems a natural need of humanity; however, when an
introspective hypochondriac acquires the confessional habit, she is a
pest to a good priest and likely to be a prey to a bad one.

A woman in this condition of mind confesses sins she never committed,
and she may commit sins of which she is unaware.

The highly emotional, unappreciated, misunderstood woman, noisily
bearing her cross alone, is a type well known to the pathologist. In
modern times when she visits a dentist's office the doctor hastily
summons his assistant; like unto the Prince of Pilsen, who, in the
presence of the strenuous widow, seizes his friend convulsively and
groans: "Don't leave me--don't leave me! I am up against it."

This type of woman is never commonplace--she is the victim of her
qualities; and these qualities in the case of Madame Guyon were high
ambition, great intellect, impelling passion, self-reliance. Had she
been less of a woman she would have