Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Female Literature In France In The Seventeenth Century.
aud , better still , upon the more consolatory points of her subject . Sufferer as she had been throughout the Avhole course oi a long life , Madame de Lambert did not permit her physical ills to jaundice her strong mind , or to Aveaken her pure and pious principles .
" Every one , " she says , " dreads old age : it is regarded as a period given over to pain and sorrow , from which all pleasures are shut out . Every one loses something by advancing in years , and women more than men . As all their merit consists in external attractions , and these are destroyed by time , they find themselves absolutely bereaved of all ; for there are few women whose merit outlives their beauty . " " At every period of our lives we owe something to others and to
ourselves . Our duties towards others are doubled in old age . When we can no longer add to the charm of society it demands from us solid virtues . " " We should , in groAving old , be observant of ourselves in all things ; in our conversation , in our deportment , and , finally , even in our clothes . Nothing is more ridiculous than to show by an undue love of dress that Ave wish to reeal the memory of the attractions Ave have lost . Avowed olcl age becomes less old . "
" An elderly woman should be no less careful as to the society which she frequents , and should attach herself only to persons of similar age and habits . Theatres and public places should be interdicted , or rarely attended ; for when she ceases to add to their attraction , she should abandon them . " "It is habits which make sorrow , not old age . Every age is a burthen to those who possess no inner life , which alone can make existence happy . A philosopher who had lived one hundred and seven years was once
asked if he did not find his life Avearisome : ' I cannot complain of my old age , ' was his reply , ' because I never degraded my youth . ' One indispensable duty in old age is to make a right use of time ; the less there remains , the more precious it should become ; the time of a Christian is the price of eternity . " " You shoAild , say many , terminate your life before you die , that is , your projects ; to terminate one ' s life is to have lost all taste for life ; for , as relates to our projects , so long as we exist , we continue to hope , and we live less in the present than in the future . Life would be short did not hope give it extent . "
Need I hesitate to ask whether sentiments such as these , although traced b y the pen of a woman , are not Avorth more than all the sour ancl selfish maxims of a Rochefoucauld ? The name of MADAME D'AULNOY is familiar , I doubt not , to all my readers , the lady in question having been , through the medium of her Fairy Tales , a species of perpetual annuity to our
pantomimists ancl play-Avrights ; but we do her injustice Avhen Ave build up her literary reputation upon these pretty and fanciful productions , AA'hich Avere among the earliest of her efforts . Our author Avas the daughter of M . le Jumel de Barneville , and was related to the most ancient families of Normand y . Her mother , who contracted a second marriage with the Marquis de Gadaigne , died at Madrid , in possession of a considerable
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Female Literature In France In The Seventeenth Century.
aud , better still , upon the more consolatory points of her subject . Sufferer as she had been throughout the Avhole course oi a long life , Madame de Lambert did not permit her physical ills to jaundice her strong mind , or to Aveaken her pure and pious principles .
" Every one , " she says , " dreads old age : it is regarded as a period given over to pain and sorrow , from which all pleasures are shut out . Every one loses something by advancing in years , and women more than men . As all their merit consists in external attractions , and these are destroyed by time , they find themselves absolutely bereaved of all ; for there are few women whose merit outlives their beauty . " " At every period of our lives we owe something to others and to
ourselves . Our duties towards others are doubled in old age . When we can no longer add to the charm of society it demands from us solid virtues . " " We should , in groAving old , be observant of ourselves in all things ; in our conversation , in our deportment , and , finally , even in our clothes . Nothing is more ridiculous than to show by an undue love of dress that Ave wish to reeal the memory of the attractions Ave have lost . Avowed olcl age becomes less old . "
" An elderly woman should be no less careful as to the society which she frequents , and should attach herself only to persons of similar age and habits . Theatres and public places should be interdicted , or rarely attended ; for when she ceases to add to their attraction , she should abandon them . " "It is habits which make sorrow , not old age . Every age is a burthen to those who possess no inner life , which alone can make existence happy . A philosopher who had lived one hundred and seven years was once
asked if he did not find his life Avearisome : ' I cannot complain of my old age , ' was his reply , ' because I never degraded my youth . ' One indispensable duty in old age is to make a right use of time ; the less there remains , the more precious it should become ; the time of a Christian is the price of eternity . " " You shoAild , say many , terminate your life before you die , that is , your projects ; to terminate one ' s life is to have lost all taste for life ; for , as relates to our projects , so long as we exist , we continue to hope , and we live less in the present than in the future . Life would be short did not hope give it extent . "
Need I hesitate to ask whether sentiments such as these , although traced b y the pen of a woman , are not Avorth more than all the sour ancl selfish maxims of a Rochefoucauld ? The name of MADAME D'AULNOY is familiar , I doubt not , to all my readers , the lady in question having been , through the medium of her Fairy Tales , a species of perpetual annuity to our
pantomimists ancl play-Avrights ; but we do her injustice Avhen Ave build up her literary reputation upon these pretty and fanciful productions , AA'hich Avere among the earliest of her efforts . Our author Avas the daughter of M . le Jumel de Barneville , and was related to the most ancient families of Normand y . Her mother , who contracted a second marriage with the Marquis de Gadaigne , died at Madrid , in possession of a considerable