"The majority of women," said Nicanor, "seem to try to write so that people will misunderstand them, so strange is their writing and so little sequency is there in their words."
"It is certain," replied Sapho, "that there are women who speak well who write badly; and that they do write badly is purely their own fault.... Doubtless it comes from the fact that they do not like to read, or that they read without paying any attention to what they are doing, and without reflecting upon what they have read. So that although they have read the same words they use when they write, thousands and thousands of times, when they come to write they write them all wrong. And by putting some letters where other letters ought to be, they make a confused tangle which no one can distinguish unless he is well used to it."
"What you say is so true," answered Erinne, "that I saw it proved no longer ago than yesterday. I visited one of my friends, who has returned from the country, and I carried her all the letters she wrote to me while she was away, so that she might read them to me and let me know what was in them."
Mademoiselle de Scudéry did not exaggerate; our great-grandmothers did not see the utility of applying a knowledge of spelling to their letters. In that respect each one extricated herself by the grace of God.
The Marchioness of Sablé, who was serious and wise, and, according to the testimony of _Sapho_, "the type of the perfect _précieuse_" had peculiar ways of her own in her spelling. She wrote, _J'hasse, notre broulerie votre houbly_. Another "_précieuse_," Madame de Brégy, whose prose and verse both appeared in print, wrote to Madame de Sablé, when they were both in their old age:
Je vous diré que je vieus d'aprendre que samedi, Monsieur, Madame, et les poupons reviene a Paris, et que pour aujourd'hui la Rayue et Madame de Toscane vout a Saint-Clou don la naturelle bauté sera reausé de tout les musique possible et d'un repas magnifique don je quiterois tous les gous pour une écuelle non pas de nantille, mes pour une devostre potage; rien n'étan si délisieus que d'an mauger en vous écoutan parler. (19th September, 1672.)
It is but just to add that as far as orthography was concerned many of the men were women. The following letter of the Duke of Gesvres, "first gentleman of Louis XIV.," has no reason to envy the letter of the old Marchioness.