What is a woman who is spiritually directed? Is it a woman who is more obliging to her husband, kinder to her servants, more devoted to her family and its affairs, more ardent and sincere with her friends; who is less of a slave to her mood, less attached to her own interests, who has less love of the commodities of life; I don't say who gives much money to her children who are already rich, but who, being opulent herself and overwhelmed with superfluities, furnishes them with everything necessary, and gives them what they justly deserve; who is more exempt of self-love and of estrangement from others; who is more free of all human attachments? "No," you say, "it doesn't mean any of those things." I insist, and ask again: "Then what is a woman who is spiritually directed?" At last I understand you, it is a woman who has a spiritual director.

Note concerning 'spiritual directors' below: At the time La Bruyère wrote, nearly every fashionable lady had, besides her father-confessor, a spiritual director, who was her 'guide, philosopher and friend.' Boileau, in his tenth satire, says:

But thanks to pious souls, of all mortels
no one is better pampered than a spiritual director of women.