Our souls may lose their peace and even disturb other people's if we are always criticizing trivial actions - which often are not real defects at all but we construe them wrongly through our ignorance of their motives.
The hardest thing is spending twelve hours a day accommodating the rest of the world then going home at night and criticizing it. I would be curious about what I'd write if I didn't have to worry about offending.
As soon as you concern yourself with the 'good' and 'bad' of your fellows you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing competing with and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.
French novels generally treat of the relations of women to the world and to lovers after marriage consequently there is a great deal in French novels about adultery about improper relations between the sexes about many things which the English public would not allow.