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There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences, little handfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society suddenly crystallises itself. Among these is the incidental remark of Madame de Lambert to her son: “Mon ami, ne vous permettez jamais que des folies, qui vous feront grand plaisir”—the motherliest and wisest remark, by the way, that was ever addressed to a son.