Convent

“ The summer, too, which had been moving southward, now came slowly back, borne on warm airs that fanned the convent walls and sighed to its chaste lattices with the poetry of dead flowers and vanished songsters. But sighed in vain. With many a prayer, with many a cross on pure brow and shoulder and breast, with many a pious kiss of crucifix, the convent slept. Only some little novice, lying like a flushed figure of Sleep on a couch of snow, may have stirred to draw one sigh, as those zephyrs, toying with her warm hair, broke some earthly dream of too much tenderness. ”

“ In the quiet convent by the shores of the bay the wind of the world, with its burden of sin and sorrow, blows faintly and with tempered force: the talk of idle, eager tongues cannot break across the comforting of kind voices and the sweet strains of quiet worship. ”

“ Seemed the convent sate to rise,
Like a sacrament divine
Seemed to them the bread and wine.
In his heart the Monk was praying,
Thinking of the homeless poor,
What they suffer and endure;
What we see not, what we see ”

“ At that hour, standing alone in the high-walled garden when the convent bells are tolling, and the convent itself, with its iron-barred, Gothic windows, and its gray-green olive-trees that look so unreal and lifeless, is tinged by the last rays of the sun, the whole seems like a vision, or a half-remembered sketch, or a memory of romance. ”

“ Not far away, and even more conspicuous, a high, livid convent, many-windowed and forbidding, rises up out of the sand; and on its flat roof, remote against the sky, you may sometimes see the good nuns pacing to and fro together, or leaning solitarily against the wind. They must survey a bold and various prospect. ”

“ Beyond the convent’s silent walls,
Oh, never more shall I stray,
No earthly voice shall haunt me more,
When I humbly kneel to pray.
Heaven’s love will fill my broken heart,
The world will have passed away. ”

“ Only, where is the convent? I have seen some in my day, and in not one have they cultivated their little paradise on cabbages. I find myself standing aghast on that neutral ground between the world and the Church; and, alas! there are so many other nice people standing there to keep me company. With such, this desert itself becomes an Eden, and on either side I cannot escape from it but into another.
The Convent of Perpetual Invocation received me with open arms from my morose jailer. It conducted me, in the person of its Mother, to the sunny parlour, and there sleeked and patted me fondly. ”

“ The liberty of it all, the delicious feeling of freedom, the release from convent rules and convent hours, bells ringing for chapel, bells ringing for meals, bells ringing to mark the end of the brief recreation—a perpetual ringing and drilling which had made conventual life a dull machine, working always in the same grooves. ”

“ Your interest begins as you come in sight of the convent perched on its little mountain and lifting against the sky, around the bell-tower of its gorgeous chapel, a coronet of clustered cells. You make your way into the lower gate, through a clamouring press of deformed beggars who thrust at you their stumps of limbs, and you climb the steep hillside through a shabby plantation which it is proper to fancy was better tended in the monkish time. ”

“ If I would walk in the garden, and enjoy the fragrance of the flowers, suddenly a swarm of bees flies buzzing about my head, and I have learned, to my sorrow, how sharp a sword they carry. The convent is alive with human beings—almost too many, methinks. ”

“ Castle and convent crown their nobler heights, and flat-roofed villages nestle amid groves of mulberry trees. Among these mountains we find several human races, several forms of government, and several schemes of religion, yet everywhere liberty: a proud, feudal aristocracy; a conventual establishment, which in its ramifications recalls the middle ages; a free and armed peasantry, whatever their creed, Emirs on Arabian steeds, bishops worthy of the Apostles, the Maronite monk, the horned head-gear of the Druses. ”

“ Passing on not unawed, I followed some flights of steps, which terminate in the neat cloisters of the convent, in perfect preservation, but totally deserted. Ranges of citron and aloes fill up the quadrangle, whose walls are hung with superstitious pictures most singularly fancied. The Jesuits were the last tenants of this retirement, and seem to have had great reason for their choice. Its peace and stillness delighted me. ”

“ It's a beautiful sight to see you writhing and plunging under every scathing cut. May it do you good, and draw the imprudence out of your tail. Will you? Will you, try and behave better, or shall I send you off to the convent at once, in their holiday time? ”

“ In this small convent the duties of a monastic life are strictly and most religiously observed; the pale friars clad in grey sackcloth, their sandals on their half bare feet, their habitual silence, all conspire to confirm an opinion of the sanctity of the place, where men seem but to live in preparation for another life. ”

“ Close at your feet are the buildings of the convent, with a bright green lawn and a black girdle of pine forest around them, the dell, the water-fall, and the savage height of the Appenines clothed with woods to the top.
The inmates of the convent have no neighbors, for they live out of the way of the world. ”

“ One smiles when one thinks how largely a fine starved sense for the forbidden things of earth, if it makes the most of its opportunities, may gratify this need under cover of devotion. Nothing is too base, too hard, too sordid for real humility, but nothing too elegant, too amiable, too caressing, caressed, caressable, for the exaltation of faith. The meaner the convent cell the richer the convent chapel. ”

“ The ancient convent long before our story begins had been transformed into a lovely dwelling with an immense garden on one side, edged by a dozen little brick houses that seemed so small that they made us children think of certain doll-houses that we used to see in the Paris magazines. ”

“ We entered the great Latin Convent which is built over the traditional dwelling-place of the Holy Family. We went down a flight of fifteen steps below the ground level, and stood in a small chapel tricked out with tapestry hangings, silver lamps, and oil paintings. A spot marked by a cross, in the marble floor, under the altar, was exhibited as the place made forever holy by the feet of the Virgin when she stood up to receive the message of the angel. So simple, so unpretending a locality, to be the scene of so mighty an event! ”

“ Writing to the Superioress of a convent, he gave her this warning: "Hold the balance evenly among your daughters, that their natural gifts may not cause you to divide your affection and your good offices unjustly. How many persons are there exteriorly polished, who are very pleasing in the eyes of God? Beauty, grace, agreeable conversation and manners, suit the taste of those who still live according to their inclinations. ”

“ It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice which was called the Convent of the Bernardines of the Perpetual Adoration. The box in which you stood was the parlor. The first voice which had addressed you was that of the portress who always sat motionless and silent, on the other side of the wall, near the square opening, screened by the iron grating and the plate with its thousand holes, as by a double visor. The obscurity which bathed the grated box arose from the fact that the parlor, which had a window on the side of the world, had none on the side of the convent. ”

“ Our doors stand open; and timid hands which could never knock to demand admittance at castle or convent gate can venture gently to lift our latch. Mothers creep to the kitchen with their sick children to ask for herbs, lotions, or drinks, which I learned to distil in the convent. ”

“ It becomes not charity, but folly, to hesitate in pronouncing the monks a set of impostors. The views here are exquisite, for the convent is just on the brow of the hill, and wherever circumstances admit any command of distant objects, the landscape is most beautiful ”

“ CHAPTER VI. THE CONVENT.
aving thus given a sketch of the history of the various monastic orders in England, we proceed to give some account of the constitution of a convent, taking that of a Benedictine monastery as a type, from which the other orders departed only in minor particulars.
The convent is the name especially appropriate to the body of individuals who composed a religious community. These were the body of cloister monks, lay and clerical; the professed brethren, who were also lay and clerical; the clerks; the novices; and the servants and artificers. ”

“ With my pockets full of gold and silver, I left the ridotto, hurried to Muran, entered the sanctuary, and saw my divinity leaning against the mantelpiece. She wore her convent dress. I come near her by stealth, in order to enjoy her surprise. I look at her, and I remain petrified, astounded.
The person I see is not M—— M——
It is C—— C——, dressed as a nun, who, more astonished even than myself, does not utter one word or make a movement. I throw myself in an arm-chair in order to breathe and to recover from my surprise. ”

“ Considering the date of his birth, 1387, and his conventual life, he was hardly less wonderful than his wonderful epoch. Here is the same convent, the same city; while instead merely of the works of Cimabue, Giotto, and Orgagna, there are masterpieces by all the painters who ever lived to study;—yet imagine the snuffy old monk who will show you about the edifice, or any of his brethren, coming out with a series of masterpieces! ”

“ Near the convent there is a beautiful garden, where we sometimes walk in the morning, cultivated by an old monk, who, after spending a laborious life in these distant missions, is now enjoying a contented old age among his plants and flowers. ”

“ A darker stone with no rosy tints was used for the convent, which makes it look very grim and old as it rises out of a soft and silvery setting of olive trees on the hillside, with orchards near of peaches and almonds. ”

“ There are two kinds of convents in this country: either a large building where all the monks or nuns are united beneath the same roof, or a quantity of tiny houses grouped in a large square round the central church.
The former alone are architecturally interesting, and some I have visited are exquisitely perfect in proportion and shape.
One of these convents above all others draws me towards it, for irresistible indeed is its charm.
A convent ... white and lonely, hidden away in wooded regions greener and sweeter than any other in the land. ”

“ The Convent of the Christmas Monks is a most charmingly picturesque pile of old buildings; there are towers and turrets, and peaked roofs and arches, and everything which could possibly be thought of in the architectural line, to make a convent picturesque. [Page 70] It is built of graystone; but it is only once in a while that you can see the graystone, for the walls are almost completely covered with mistletoe and ivy and evergreen. ”

“ Because the convent, which belongs as much to the East as to the West, to antiquity as to modern times, to Paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as to Christianity, is one of the lenses which man brings to bear on the Infinite. ”

“ There are always wax candles lighted and set in every window of the convent at nightfall; and when the people in the country about get uncommonly blue and down-hearted, they always go for a cure to look at the Convent of the Christmas Monks after the candles are lighted and the chimes are ringing. ”

“ Walking on, having thanked the peasant for his courtesy, they came in sight of a convent.
"Now we shall have some fresh water, I am bound," said Herr Müller. "Convents are always well supplied with refreshments of all kinds." ”

“ The convent at a distance looks like a palace, and, as I am told, was founded by a bishop, who they say is buried in a part of the church.
We botanized till dinner-time in the neighbouring meadows, and then returned to the convent to dine with a venerable old father recollets, who officiated here as a priest. The dishes were all prepared by nuns, and as numerous and various as on the tables of great men. There were likewise several sorts of wine, and many preserves. The revenues of this monastery are said to be considerable. At the top of the building is a small steeple with a bell. ”

“ The common idea of the cloister, as providing a career of impressive religious ceremonial varied by plain sewing, pious gossip, and “devotionettes” is far from the truth. On its external side, a well-ordered convent provides a busy, practical, family life of the most austere kind, with many duties, both religious and domestic, countless demands upon patience, good-temper and unselfishness, and few relaxations. On its hidden side, it is a device to train and toughen the spirit, develop its highest powers, and help it to concentrate its attention more and more completely on eternal realities. ”

“ The church is wedded to monasticism; one supports the other, and both make a unity exceedingly efficient in the Middle Ages. The communication between the church and the convent is effected by a cloister, a vaulted gallery surrounding a square, open space, where the brothers walk and meditate, but do not talk, except in undertone or whisper; for all the precincts are sacred, made for contemplation and silence,—a retreat from the noisy, barbaric world. Connected with the cloisters is a court opening into the refectory, where all the brothers dine. ”

“ I have come to take you to the convent. There, Holy Mary will be your safety.”
“But these wolves might attack the convent, father!”
“Our Blessed Lady is stronger than they. She has always kept her own.”
“Blessed be the hand of God and Mary! will trust in them. Ah, Antonia! Listen to Fray Ignatius! He says we must go to the convent—the heretics are coming. They have even slain some priests at the Mission.”
“Fray Ignatius has been misinformed, dear mother. When a man wears a gown and has no arms Americans do not molest him. That is certain. As for the convent it is impossible. ”