George W. M. Reynolds

“ In the meantime the helpless victim of ecclesiastical vengeance—the poor erring creature, who had dared and sacrificed everything for the love of her seducer—had risen from her suppliant posture, and flown wildly—madly round to the elder nuns in succession, imploring mercy, and rending the very roof of the subterrane with piercing screams. But those to whom she appealed turned a deaf ear; for a convent is a tomb in which all human sympathies are immured—a vortex wherein all the best feelings that concrete in the mortal heart are cruelly engulfed! ”

“ The spectacle of these unfortunate creatures, with their naked forms writhing and bleeding beneath the self-inflicted stripes, which they doubtless rendered as severe as possible in order to escape the sooner from that terrible preparation for their novitiate—this spectacle, we say, was so appalling to the contemplation of Flora, that she seldom quitted her own cell to set foot in the chamber of penitence. ”

“ It was not, however, without feelings of the most intense—the most acute—the most bitter anguish, that the unhappy maiden received the announcement that she was to pass the remainder of her existence in that monastic institution.
All the eloquence—all the sophistry—all the persuasion of
Sister Alba, who presided over the department of the penitents, failed to make her believe that such a step was necessary for her eternal salvation.
"No," exclaimed Flora, "the good God has not formed this earth so fair that mortals should close their eyes upon its beauties. ”