to be, you may break through one, but underneath you find two; it is a double, nay triple, net. Who can know its thickness? I read once in an old story what is really touching, and very significant. It was about a woman, a wandering princess, who, after many sufferings, found for her asylum a deserted palace, in the midst of a forest. She felt happy in reposing there, and remaining some time: she went to and fro from one large empty room to another, without meeting with any obstacle; she thought herself alone and free. All the doors were open. Only at the hall-door, no one having passed through since herself, the spider had woven his web in the sun, a thin, light, and almost invisible network; a feeble obstacle which the princess, who wishes at last to go out, thinks she can remove without any difficulty. She raises the web; but there is another behind it, which she also raises without trouble. The second concealed a third, that she must also raise :-strange! there are four. No, five? or rather six and more beyond. Alas! how will she get rid of so many? She is already tired. No matter! she perseveres; by taking breath a little she may continue. But the web continues too, and is ever renewed with a malicious obstinacy. What is she to do? She is over *A rough wild forest of tufted trees! The very thought of it renews my fears. How did I enter it? I cannot tell; so sleepy was I when I left the true way!-Dante, Inferno. come with fatigue and perspiration, her arms fall by her sides. At last, exhausted as she is, she sits down on the ground, on that insurmountable threshold: she looks mournfully at the aërial obstacle fluttering in the wind, lightly and triumphantly. — Poor princess! poor fly! now you are caught! But why did you stay in that fairy dwelling, and give the spider time to spin his web? ON CONVENTS. CHAPTER V. OMNIPOTENCE OF THE DIRECTOR. CONDITION OF THE NUN FORLORN AND WATCHED. -CONVENTS THAT ARE AT THE SAME TIME BRIDEWELLS AND BEDLAMS. INVEIGLING. BARBAROUS DISCIPLINE. STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE SUPERIOR NUN AND THE THE MAGIS FIFTEEN years ago I occupied, in a very solitary part of the town, a house, the garden of which was adjacent to that of a convent of women. Though my windows overlooked the greatest part of their garden, I had never seen my sad neighbours. In the month of May, on Rogation-day, I heard numerous weak, very weak voices, chanting prayers, as the procession passed through the convent garden. The singing was sad, dry, unpleasant, their voices. false, as if spoiled by sufferings. I thought for a moment they were chanting prayers for the dead; but listening more attentively, I distinguished, on the contrary," Te rogamus, audi nos," the song of hope which invokes the benediction of the God of life upon fruitful nature. This May-song, chanted by these lifeless nuns, offered to me a bitter contrast. To see these pale girls crawling along on the flowery verdant turf, these poor girls, who will never bloom again! — The thought of the middle ages, that had at first flashed across my mind, soon died away: for then, monastic life was connected with a thousand other things; but in our modern harmony what is this but a barbarous contradiction, a false, harsh, grating note? What I then beheld before me was to be defended neither by nature, nor by history. I shut my window again, and sadly resumed my book. This sight had been painful to me, as it was not softened or atoned for by any poetical sentiment. It reminded me much less of chastity than of sterile widowhood, a state of emptiness, inaction, disgust of an intellectual and moral fast, the state in which these unfortunate creatures are kept by their absolute rulers. * I have already spoken of Sister Marie Lemonnier, persecuted for knowing too well how to write, and draw flowers, &c.-"My confessor," says she, "forbade me to gather flowers, and to draw. Unfortunately, walking in the garden with the nuns, there were on the edge of the grass two wild poppies, which, without any intention, I lopped between my fingers, in passing. One of the sisters saw me, and ran to inform the superior nun, who was walking in front, and who immediately came towards me, made me open my hand, and, seeing the poppies, told me that I had done for myself. And the confessor having come the same evening, she accused me before him of disobedience, in having gathered flowers. It was in vain I told him that it was done unintentionally, and that they were only wild poppies; I could not obtain permission to confess myself." Note of Sister Marie Lemonnier, in Mr. Tilliard's Mémoire. The newspapers and the reviews in March, 1845, give extracts from it. K We were speaking of habit: it is certainly there that it reigns a tyrant. Very little art is required to rule over these poor insulated, immured, and dependent women; as there is no outward influence to counterbalance the impression that one person, ever the same person, makes on them daily. The least skilful priest may easily fascinate their natures, already weakened, and brought down to the most servile, trembling obedience. There is little courage or merit in thus trampling over the creature which is already crushed. To speak first of the power of habit: nothing of all that we see in the world can give us an idea of the force with which it acts upon this little immured community. Family society, doubtless, modifies us, but its influence is neutralised by outward events. The regularity, with which our favourite newspaper comes every morning with uniform monotony, has certainly some influence; but this newspaper has its rivals, its opponents. Another influence which exists less in our time, but is still very powerful over secluded persons, is that of a book, the captivating perusal of which may detain us for months and years. Diderot confesses that Clarissa was read by him over and over again, and that it was for a long time his very life, his joy, his grief, his summer and winter. But the finest thing of this class is, after all, but a book, a dumb, inanimate thing, which, though you may call it as animated as you please, does not |