It was not difficult for her to be both scholar and housewife. Writing
in after years, of domestic cares, she says: "I never could comprehend
how the attention of a woman who possesses method and activity can be
engrossed by them.... Nothing is wanting but a proper distribution of
employments, and a small share of vigilance.... People who know how to
employ themselves always find leisure moments, while those who do
nothing are in want of time for any thing.... I think that a wife should
keep the linen and clothes in order, or cause them to be so kept; nurse
her children; give directions concerning the cookery, or superintend it
herself, but without saying a word about it, and with such command of
her temper, and such management of her time, as may leave her the means
of talking of other matters, and of pleasing no less by her good humor
than by the graces natural to her sex.... It is nearly the same in the
government of states as of families. Those famous housewives who are
always expatiating on their labors are sure either to leave much in
arrears, or to render themselves tiresome to every one around them; and,
in like manner, those men in power so talkative and so full of business,
only make a mighty bustle about the difficulties they are in because too
awkward or ignorant to remove them."
An acquaintance which one of her uncles, who was an ecclesiastic, had
with an upper servant of the royal household, enabled her to spend some
days at the palace of Versailles.
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