me in approving of them for the old; and
the "Index" at Rome assumes the difficult task of disapproval and
condemnation. That lets me out, I feel.

One of my most cherished books is the "Letters to People in the World,"
by Saint Francis de Sales. I have known people who have declared that it
is entirely exotic and has no meaning whatever for them. For me, it is a
book of edification and a guide to life; and the "Letters" of Saint
Francis himself, not entirely concerned with spiritual matters or the
relations of spiritual matters to life, are to me a constant source of
pleasure. I remember reading aloud to a friend the passage in which this
charming Bishop writes that, when he slept at his paternal ch[^a]teau, he
never allowed the peasants on the domain to perform their usual duty,
which was to stay up all night and beat the waters of the ponds, or
perhaps of the moat, around the castle, so that the seigneur and his
friends might sleep peacefully. My friend was very much bored and could
not see that it represented a social point of view, which showed that
the Saint was much ahead of his time! It did not bring old France back
to him; he could not see the old ch[^a]teau and the water in the moonlight,
or conceive how glad the peasants were to be relieved of their duty. I
can read the "Letters" of Saint Francis de Sales over and over again, as
I read the "Letters" of Madame de S['e]vign['e] or the "Memoirs" of the Duc
de Saint Simon.

I think I first made acquaintance of Saint Simon in an English
translation by Bayle St. John. If you have an interest in interiors--the
interiors of rooms, of gardens, of palaces--you must like Saint Simon.
Most people to-day read these "Memoirs" in little "collections"; but I
think it is worth while taking the trouble to learn French in order to
become an understanding companion of this malicious but very graphic
author. To me the Palace of Versailles would be an empty desert without
the "Memoirs" of Saint Simon. Else, how could anybody realize a picture
of Mademoiselle de la Valli[`e]re looking hopelessly out of the window of
her little room just before the birth of her child? Or what would the
chapel be without a memory of those devout ladies who knelt regularly,
holding candles to their faces, at the exercises in Lent, after Louis
XIV. had become devout, in order that he might see them?

But because I love to linger in the society of the Duc de Saint Simon
and Cardinal de Retz, it does n