e point of personal religion:--

But, my dear child, the greatest inclination I have at present is
to be a little religious. I plague La Mousse about it every day. I
belong neither to God nor to the devil. I am quite weary of such a
situation; though, between you and me, I look upon it as the most
natural one in the world. I am not the devil's, because I fear God,
and have at the bottom a principle of religion; then, on the other
hand, I am not properly God's, because his law appears hard and
irksome to me, and I cannot bring myself to acts of self-denial; so
that altogether I am one of those called lukewarm Christians, the
great number of which does not in the least surprise me, for I
perfectly understand their sentiments, and the reasons that
influence them. However, we are told that this is a state highly
displeasing to God; if so, we must get out of it. Alas! this is the
difficulty. Was ever any thing so mad as I am, to be thus eternally
pestering you with my rhapsodies?

Madame de Sevigne involuntarily becomes a maxim-maker:--

The other day I made a maxim off-hand, without once thinking of it;
and I liked it so well that I fancied I had taken it out of M. de
la Rochefoucauld's. Pray tell me whether it is so or not, for in
that case my memory is more to be praised than my judgment. I said,
with all the ease in the world, that "ingratitude begets reproach,
as acknowledgment begets new favors." Pray, where did this come
from? Have I read it? Did I dream it? Is it my own idea? Nothing
can be truer than the thing itself, nor than that I am totally
ignorant how I came by it. I found it properly arranged in my
brain, and at the end of my tongue.

The partial mother lets her daughter know whom the maxim was meant for.
She says, "It is intended for your brother." This young fellow had, we
suspect, been first earning his mother's "reproaches" for spendthrift
habits, and then getting more money from her by "acknowledgment."

She hears that son of hers read "some chapters out of Rabelais," "which
were enough," she declares, "to make us die with laughing." "I cannot
affect," she says, "a prudery which is not natural to me." No, indeed, a
prude this woman was not. She had the strong aesthetic stomach of her
time. It is queer to have Rabelais rubbing cheek and jowl with Nicole
("We are going to begin a