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 Rh ? Who can extend a helping hand so frankly to a fellow mortal? Who can love so devotedly, or sacrifice herself with such cheerful serenity at the shrine of her deep affections? Her memory comes down to us through two centuries, enriched with graceful fancies. We know her as one good and gay, gentle and witty and wise, who, by virtue of her supreme and narrowed genius, wrote letters unsurpassed in literature. "Keep my correspondence," said Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the heyday of her youth and pride. "It will be as good as Mme. de Sévigné's, forty years hence." But four times forty years have only served to widen the gulf between these two writers, and to place them in parted spheres. Their work springs from different sources, and is as unlike in inspiration as in form. "It is impossible," says Sainte-Beuve, "to speak of women without first putting one's self in a good humor by the thought of Mme. de Sévigné. With us moderns, this process takes the place of one of those invocations or libations which the ancients were used to offer up to the pure source of grace." In the same devout spirit I am glad to close my volume