flowers, confusions of carriages, cries out of doors, lighted
torches, pushings back, people run over; in short, a whirlwind, a
distraction; questions without answers, compliments without knowing
what is said, civilities without knowing who is spoken to, feet
entangled in trains. From the midst of all this, issue inquiries
after your health, which not being answered as quick as lightning,
the inquirers pass on, contented to remain in the state of
ignorance and indifference in which they [the inquiries] were made.
O vanity of vanities! Pretty little De Mouchy has had the
small-pox. O vanity, et caetera!

Yet again. The gay writer has been sobered, perhaps hurt, by a friend's
frankly writing to her, "You are old." To her daughter:--

So you were struck with the expression of Madame de la Fayette,
blended with so much friendship. 'Twas a truth, I own, which I
ought to have borne in mind; and yet I must confess it astonished
me, for I do not yet perceive in myself any such decay.
Nevertheless, I cannot help making many reflections and
calculations, and I find the conditions of life hard enough. It
seems to me that I have been dragged, against my will, to the fatal
period when old age must be endured; I see it; I have come to it;
and I would fain, if I could help it, not go any farther; not
advance a step more in the road of infirmities, of pains, of losses
of memory, of _disfigurements_ ready to do me outrage; and I hear a
voice which says, "You must go on in spite of yourself; or, if you
will not go on, you must die;" and this is another extremity from
which nature revolts. Such is the lot, however, of all who advance
beyond middle life. What is their resource? To think of the will of
God and of universal law, and so restore reason to its place, and
be patient. Be you, then, patient accordingly, my dear child, and
let not your affection soften into such tears as reason must
condemn.

She dates a letter, and recalls that the day was the anniversary of an
event in her life:--

PARIS, Friday, Feb. 5, 1672.

This day thousand years I was married.

Here is a passage with power in it. The great war minister of Louis has
died. Madame de Sevigne was now sixty-five years old. The letter is to
her cousin Coulanges:--

I am so astonished at the news of the sudden death