has its shades, its subtleties, its half-perceptible and quite
unconscious coquetries. But the supreme passion of Mme. de
Sevigne was her love for her daughter. It was the exaltation of
her mystical grandmother, in another form. "To love as I love
you makes all other friendships frivolous," she writes. Whatever
her gifts and attractions may have been, she is known to the
world mainly through this affection and the letters which have
immortalized it. Nowhere in literature has maternal love found
such complete and perfect expression. Nowhere do we find a
character so clearly self-revealed. Others have professed to
unveil their innermost lives, but there is always a suspicion of
posing in deliberate revelations. Mme. De Sevigne has portrayed
herself unconsciously. It is the experience of yesterday, the
thought of today, the hope of tomorrow, the love that is at once
the joy and sorrow of all the days, that are woven into a
thousand varying but living forms. One naturally seeks in the
character of the daughter a key to the absorbing sentiment which
is the inspiration and soul of these letters; but one does not
find it there. More beautiful than her mother, more learned,
more accomplished, she lacked her sympathetic charm. Cold,
reserved, timid, and haughty, without vivacity and apparently
without fine sensibility, she was much admired but little loved
by the world in which she lived. "When you choose, you are
adorable," wrote her mother; but evidently she did not always so
choose. Bussy-Rabutin says of her, "This woman has esprit, but
it is esprit soured and of insupportable egotism. She will make
as many enemies as her mother makes friends and adorers." He did
not like her, and one must again take his opinion with reserve;
but she says of herself that she is "of a temperament little
communicative." In her mature life she naively writes: "At first