I bury myself in these thoughts, and I find death so terrible, that I hate life more because it leads me thereto than because of the thorns with which it is planted.
You will say that I want to live forever then: not at all; but, if my opinion had been asked, I should have preferred to die in my nurse's arms; that would have removed me from vexations of spirit, and would have given me Heaven full surely and easily." Madame de Sevigne would have very much scandalized those gentlemen of Port-Royal, if she had let them see into the bottom of her heart as she showed it to her daughter.

Pascal used to say, "There are but three sorts of persons: those who serve God, having found Him; those who employ themselves in seeking Him, not having found Him; and those who live without seeking Him or having found Him.

The first are reasonable and happy; the last are mad and miserable; the intermediate are miserable and reasonable." Without ever having sought and found God, in the absolute sense intended by Pascal, Madame de Sevigne kept approaching Him by gentle degrees.

"We are reading a treatise by M.Namon of Port-Royal on continuous prayer; though he is a hundred feet above my head, he nevertheless pleases and charms us.

One is very glad to see that there have been and still are in the world people to whom God communicates His Holy Spirit in such abundance; but, O God! when shall we have some spark, some degree of it?
How sad to find one's self so far from it, and so near to something else! O, fie! Let us not speak of such plight as that: it calls for sighs, and groans, and humiliations a hundred times a day." After having suffered so much from separation, and so often traversed France to visit her daughter in Provence, Madame de Sevigne had the happiness to die in her house at Grignan.