generalizations to their briefest form of expression, to give them
the epigrammatic turn which made them portable in the memory. This was
the specialty of Madame de Sable's circle, and was, probably, due to her
own tendency. As the Hotel de Rambouillet was the nursery of graceful
letter-writing, and the Luxembourg of "portraits" and "characters," so
Madame de Sable's _salon_ fostered that taste for the sententious style,
to which we owe, probably, some of the best _Pensees_ of Pascal, and
certainly, the "Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld. Madame de Sable herself
wrote maxims, which were circulated among her friends; and, after her
death, were published by the Abbe d'Ailly. They have the excellent sense
and nobility of feeling which we should expect in everything of hers; but
they have no stamp of genius or individual character: they are, to the
"Maxims" of La Rochefoucauld, what the vase moulded in dull, heavy clay
is to the vase which the action of fire has made light, brittle, and
transparent. She also wrote a treatise on Education, which is much
praised by La Rochefoucauld and M. d'Andilly; but which seems no longer
to be found: probably it was not much more elaborate than her so-called
"Treatise on Friendship," which is but a short string of maxims. Madame
de Sable's forte was evidently not to write herself, but to stimulate
others to write; to show that sympathy and appreciation which are as
genial and encouraging as the morning sunbeams. She seconded a man's wit
with understanding--one of the best offices which womanly intellect has
rendered to the advancement of culture; and the absence of originality
made her all the more receptive toward the originality of others.

The manuscripts of Pascal show that many of the _Pensees_, which are
commonly supposed to be raw materials for a great work on religion, were
remodelled again and again, in order to bring them to the highest degree
of terseness and finish, which would hardly have been the case if they
had only been part of a quarry for a greater production. Thoughts, which
are merely collected as materials, as stones out of which a building is
to be erected, are not cut into facets, and polished like amethysts or
emeralds. Since Pascal was from the first in the habit of visiting
Madame de Sable, at Port Royal, with his sister, Madame Perier (who was
one of Madame de Sable's dearest friends), we may well suppose that he
would throw some of his jewels among the large