Madame De Sevigne.*

MADAME DE SEVIGNE . *

MRS . Richmond Ritchie , better known , perhaps , to our readers as Miss Thackeray , the authoress of Elizabeth , etc ., etc ., has given us a most charming " miniature painting " of the famous Madame de Sevigne . Many of us have probably perused her remarkable " letters , " in which the love of a faithful wife and a devotedmotheris forcibly contrasted with all the vivid touches and impulses , the ideas and sympathies of a graceful , a clever , ancl a fascinating

woman . Indeed , the fact that after this long lapse of years—amid altered circumstances and habits of life , and changed conditions of thought and taste—Madame de Sevigne ' s letters are still read and admired , as they deserve to be , is a proof , if proof be needed , of their inherent excellency , and of the powers and popularity of their gifted " scribe . " For , as a rule , the world is very chary indeed of accepting the utterances of letter-writerseither for what they claim

, to be , or what they profess to declare . How few letters , for instance , are still cared for , ancl fewer still are read at all , or are even worth reading . Horace Walpole ' s wondrous correspondence is no doubt still " to the fore "a mine of interest and information to any who find a pleasure in realizing to-day an old-world lore , and recalling the ideas , the ways , the very words of a defunct generation . But of the many collections of letters which we all

may have heard of , ancl some of us perchance have read , how very , very few , we repeat , there are which can " live " in this critical , dissatisfied , dyspeptic age of ours , or which are , after all , deserving either of careless perusal , or careful study ? It is just possible that we shall , some of us , recall to our minds some pet work which we still amusedly and gratefully linger overaslooking back on

, , the great waste and wilderness of time , we feel how some words in pointed truth , or graceful fervour—the " epea pteroenta , " if you like , of the brave , the true , the kind , the good , —are still potent to evoke fascinating memories out of a long buried past , are still able to stir the dull cold level of current

formality , and bring it into something of ancient animation or former realism ; to summon back , in fact , another age , other personalities ancl strange scenes , which weird and vanished as contrasted with our present mode of living and trains of thought , are often too much forgotten by us all . Madame de Sevigne ' s letters can , nevertheless , still delight the young ancl move the old . They even now , after this lapse of time , appear to us full of

grace and goodness , truth and trust , beauty ancl benificence , as we pore over them delightedly to-day , ancl seek to construct from their full , their lively , their touching , their striking " outcome , " as the case may be , a structure of thought , affection , ancl poesy , graceful in its culture , and grateful in its totality to the inner heart and being of us all . Indeed , perhaps no more realistic representation of what constitutes the " To Agathon " of life , its intense

sympathy , its living earnestness , has ever been offered to our inquisitive and callous race than the one so graciously presented b y that most moving writer , who " stirs , " as some one has said , " the pulses of our common humanity , " and who has been able , by her own grace , and goodness , and intellect combined , —by the effective passages of her marvellous pen , —to invest the common ideas of common life , its onward flow of duty , interest , affection , pain , pleasure , pity , love , with a soul of living fire , and to place before us in verbiage ever striking , and if unartificial most subduing , all the best feelings of the human heart , and all the most gracious sensibilities of domestic affection .