history; one changes from one to the other; that gives diversion;
one dreams a little of God, of his providence; one possesses
one's soul, one thinks of the future."

She embellishes her park, superintends the planting of trees, and
"a labyrinth from which one could not extricate one's self
without the thread of Ariadne;" she fills her garden with orange
trees and jessamine until the air is so perfumed that she
imagines herself in Provence. She sits in the shade and
embroiders while her son "reads trifles, comedies which he plays
like Moliere, verses, romances, tales; he is very amusing, he has
esprit, he is appreciative, he entertains us." She notes the
changing color of the leaves, the budding of the springtime. "It
seems to me that in case of need I should know very well how to
make a spring," she writes. She loves too the "fine, crystal
days of autumn." Sometimes, in the evening, she has "gray-brown
thoughts which grow black at night," but she never dwells upon
these. Her "habitual thought--that which one must have for God,
if one does his duty"--is for her daughter. "My dear child,"
she writes, "it is only you that I prefer to the tranquil repose
I enjoy here."

If her own soul is open to us in all its variable and charming
moods, we also catch in her letters many unconscious reflections
of her daughter's character. She offers her a little needed
worldly advice. "Try, my child," she says, "to adjust yourself
to the manners and customs of the people with whom you live;
adapt yourself to that which is not bad; do not be disgusted with
that which is only mediocre; make a pleasure of that which is not
ridiculous." She entreats her to love the little Pauline and not