ON THE WORLD

I saw that rich and great as she was, she was still a woman, and as much liable to all manner of passion and all womanly weakness as I was myself.  I saw as I lived in her house that rank is of little worth, and the higher it is, the greater the trouble and the anxiety it brings with it.  Great people must be careful of their dignity.  It will not suffer them to live at ease.  They must eat at fixed hours and by rule, for everything must be according to their state, and not according to their constitutions.  And they have frequently to take food more fitted for their state than for their liking.  So it was that I came to hate the wish to be a great lady.  God deliver me from this artificial and evil life!  Then, as to servants, though this lady has very good servants, how slight is the trust she is able to put in them.  One must not be conversed with more than the rest, otherwise he is envied and hated of all the rest.  This of itself is a slavery; and it is another of the lies of the world to call such people masters and mistresses, who, in reality, are nothing but slaves in a thousand ways.  I really see nothing good in the world and its ways but this, that it will not tolerate the smallest fault in those who are not its own.  For by detracting, and fault-finding, and evil-reporting on the good, the world greatly helps to perfect them.  He who will not die to the world shall die by it.  O wretched world!  Bless God, my daughters, that He has chosen and enabled you to turn your backs for ever on a thing so base.  The world is to be known by this also, that it esteems a man not by what he is, but by what he possesses: by what is in his purse: and, that failing, the honour and esteem of the world instantly fail also.  O our Lord; Supreme Power, Supreme Goodness, Supreme Truth; Thy perfections are without beginning and without end.  They are infinite and incomprehensible.  They are a bottomless ocean of beauty.  O my God, that I had the eloquence of an angel’s speech to set forth Thy goodness and Thy truth, and to win all men over to Thee!