Nunnery

“ More than once, indeed, she had been heard to state with mild emphasis that when she was no longer able to entertain herself with human nature, or, at the worst, with an interesting book, it would be high time to retire into a nunnery, or its modern equivalent. ”

“ Here, as at the nunnery, we were obliged to walk with the head bent forward a little, the eyes fixed on the floor, one hand, if disengaged, under the cape, the other down by the side, and on no occasion might we look a person in the face. ”

“ Go to a Nunnery goe, why shouldst thou Be a breeder of sinners? I am my selfe indifferent honest, But I could accuse my selfe of such crimes It had beene better my mother had ne're borne me, O I am very prowde, ambitious, disdainefull, With more sinnes at my becke, then I haue thoughts To put them in, what should such fellowes as I Do, crawling between heauen and earth? To a Nunnery goe, we are arrant knaues all, Beleeue none of vs, to a Nunnery goe. ”

“ A few words of criticism on the purpose of the book and on its authorship are here necessary. We have before us a work written not for the regular inmates of a nunnery, not for nuns who lived [Pg 312] under the rule of a prioress or abbess, but for religious women who, after being trained in a nunnery, left it to continue a chaste and secluded life outside. ”

“ There are, however, constitutions and tempers to which the atmosphere of a nunnery seems natural and congenial. Women of uncommon cleverness and judgment, whose strength of mind preserves them in a state of rational happiness are sometimes found in the cloisters. ”

“ Some of the priests from the Seminary were in the nunnery every day and night, and often several at a time. ”

“ He is, moreover, the only man allowed inside a nunnery. Which is the reason why he finds himself brought into prominence now. He is usually a thin, lithe man, somewhat of the figure of those northerners who supply the bull-ring with Banderilléros. ”

“ A woman of Montreal, who had a niece in the nunnery, on hearing of what I declared about it, said that if it was true she would help to tear it down.
Among those who came to see me, numbers were at first as violent as any I have mentioned, but after a little conversation, became mild and calm. I have heard persons declare that it would be no harm to kill me, as I had an evil spirit. ”

“ Sometimes the owner of a goodly house,
Which they have now turn'd to a Nunnery.
Abb.
Well, daughter, say, what is thy suit with us?
Abig.
Fearing the afflictions which my father feeles,
Proceed from sinne, or want of faith in us,
I'de passe away my life in penitence,
And be a Novice in your Nunnery,
To make attonement for my labouring soule.
1. Fry. ”

“ But when the friends become too urgent, as they sometimes do, and their inventive powers are taxed too severely, or if the task of furnishing so many excuses become too irksome, the poor hapless victims are sent off to some other nunnery, and the friends are told that they were not contented, and wished to go to some other place, and that they, generous creatures that they are, have at length, after much solicitation, kindly consented to their removal. ”

“ It is unpleasant enough to distress or torture one's self; but there is something worse in being tormented by others, especially where they resort to force, and show a pleasure in compelling you, and leave you no hope of escape, or opportunity to resist. I had seen the gags repeatedly in use, and sometimes applied with a roughness which seemed rather inhuman; but it is one thing to see and another thing to feel. There were some of the old nuns who seemed to take pleasure in oppressing those who fell under their displeasure. ”

“ First of all, long ago it seemed now, he had allowed to be destroyed that first instinctive purity, that fragile, delicate innocence which dies young in almost every human being, and that one sees evaporating under the earliest taint of vice with a smile partly of contempt, partly of pity, partly of genuine regret. ”

“ In the history of duelling we read the history of mankind in the developement of our evil passions, and the occasional display of some redeeming qualities. 6 It is a reflective mirror stained with blood, and we must wipe off the clotted gore of ages to contemplate truth in all its bearings, to feel what miserable creatures we are!—the occasional foot-balls of vanity and pride, or the tools of ambition and hypocrisy, but always the victims of ideal pursuits and visionary joys! ”

“ My dear sir, we nuisances have endured so much, as we may say, from those of our own household, that the patience of the most Christian nuisance in the world must give way under such an incessant fire of impertinent insult. ”

“ I will tell thee, therefore, my crimes, that thou mayst know thy own felicity, lest, ignorant it means nothing but innocence, thou shouldst lose it, unconscious of its value. Listen then to me, and learn what Misery is! Guilt is alone the basis of lasting unhappiness;—Guilt is the basis of mine, and therefore I am a wretch for ever! ”

“ And we must put a difference betwixt these sinners also; for can it be that a child of seven, or ten, or sixteen years old, should be such a sinner—a sinner so vile in the eyes of the law as he is who has walked according to the course of this world, forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years? ”

“ The man who had talked still cursed the folly that had made him yield to a woman's nagging, but he did it in silence, automatically as the petition of a prayer-wheel, the curse fluttering in his shallow brain. ”

“ It is you and such as you who deliberately, persistently and flagrantly violate and misrepresent the most beneficent and sacred law of life—the Law of Affinity and Love—and by your wicked perversions and vicious subversions fix upon our noble Order a burden of cruel and unjust criticism, in the presence of which we who are thus maligned and misrepresented bow our heads in humiliation, in sorrow and in shame. ”

“ Dudley," said Norries, in his abrupt way, "that, notwithstanding all the wickedness and the crime which this world contains, all the folly, the feebleness, and the selfishness which are to be found in every class of life, there is still devotion more high and pure, honesty more incorruptible, and wisdom more beautiful, than even the enthusiasm of inexperience can picture to the mind of youth?" ”

“ There's some scandal about everybody. We're all sinners—if you want to call it sin to follow your most sacred instincts.
"Why should you be afraid of a little gossip or a few jokes or a little abuse from a few hypocrites? They're all sinners—worse than you, too, most of them, if the truth were known. ”

“ You will meet many people in this world who will laugh at you for desiring to do right and refusing to go with a multitude to do evil. Such people are the devil's own instruments for the ensnaring of timid souls, and, unless you are prepared to withstand them, there is no telling to what crime or folly you may not be driven. Aimeè erred through her affection to you, and she was very wrong, but I think your fault was the worse of the two. ”

“ Nuisance-hunters are always, of course, a nuisance to the nuisances; but the hunters are so often worse, upon the whole, than the hunted, that it would be a general benefit to hold up the mirror to these inconsiderate grumblers a little now and then. To whom, then, in this difficulty, can we appeal, but to you, oh Mr. Editor? who are yourself a very rock of offence to some misguided persons; who are, doubtless, a stumbling-block to you. ”

“ There are a number of lesser ways in which careless ungodly persons may annoy and inconvenience those who desire to do their duty humbly and fully. Such, especially, are those, which seem intended in the text, unkind censure, carping, slander, ridicule, cold looks, rude language, insult, and, in some cases, oppression and tyranny. ”

“ Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a nuisance, and this keimel is a nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a nuisance, and the nuisance is not merely a local nuisance, because it is a general nuisance to know that there can be such a nuisance left in civilization so very long after its time,"
"Will you go away? I have a gun in here," said the hermit. ”

“ Finally, that these kinds of stratagems, when they are discovered—and they are discovered oftener than people imagine—may overwhelm us with ridicule, or even with shame, and that the most trifling untruth exposes us to a risk far greater than the pleasure which it procures. Tell me if your sash would ever afford you a pleasure as great as the annoyance you would feel, if your uncle were to discover the subterfuge you employed in order to induce him to make you a present of it. ”

“ No gleam of goodness throughout the whole for the heart to cling to,—no thought of remorseful penitence,—no spark of noble feeling; nothing but vice,—low, grovelling, brutal vice,—from the moment the curtain rises to display the obscene spectacle, to that which sees it fall between the fictitious infamy on one side, and the real impurity left on the other! ”

“ Of itself it was enough to make us melancholy and bitter, but it was worse to see in the faces of old women and men who passed us surly on the road, the grudge that we had been spared, we gentlemen in the relics of fine garments, while their own lads had been taken. ”

“ O how will the drunkards cry for leading their neighbours into drunkenness! How will the covetous person howl for setting his neighbour, his friend, his brother, his children and relations, so wicked an example! by which he hath not only wronged his own soul, but also the souls of others. The liar, by lying, learned others to lie; the swearer learned others to swear; the whoremonger learned others to whore. ”

“ What! am I to be a mole and stay underground? A man must have his diversion, and though I detest the Prince I love his foolish followers. Do you know what, Mr. Greig? 'Tis the infernal irony of things in this absurd world that the good fellows, the bloods, the men of sensibilities must for ever be wrapped up in poor mad escapades and emprises. ”

“ I'll have to admit that we were taken, but we were in a spot and needed a world. He said that the larger bifurcates were too stupid to be a nuisance. We should have known that the stupider a creature, the more of a nuisance it is. ”

“ Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the 321 price of crime has been paid: here shall your spirit dwell for ever, and for ever. You have dreamed away life’s joyous hour, nor made atonement for error, nor denied yourself aught that the fair earth presented you. ”

“ Beside rendering the declining days of your mother unhappy, you do not recollect the idea you are implanting in the minds of the world! In the enjoyment of every blessing affluence could obtain—every wish gratified—what could be the reason of your clandestine procedure? [Pg 106] This is not the age of romance, Sir Henry! Your conduct, then, can claim only the excuse of lunacy!—a charge which, if authorised by a continuance of your mysterious behaviour, may, in the end, deprive you of those possessions you now appear to slight and contemn! ”

“ It is the supreme example of the childish folly that, for the next two years, we were to see always hand in hand with diabolical wickedness and cunning. And always the folly has robbed the cunning of its prey. ”

“ More than once kindly men of the world and scholars were smitten with pity for this strange lad, in whom they could not but recognise certain negative qualities rare in the eighteenth century—an intense and cruel truthfulness, an absolute disinterestedness, a constitutional contempt for all the vanities and baseness of the world. ”

“ It is said that in nunneries, where there is neither vice, nor the possibility of it, the ladies, if unable to talk real scandal, make up for it by censorious remarks upon the most trifling foibles in their companions, or upon the most unimportant failures in the performance of the most unimportant duties. ”

“ I cannot leave my pleasures, says the sinner: sweet sins, sweet pleasures, sweet delights, says the sinner. But what grace is it in God thus to parley with the sinner! O the patience of God to a poor sinner! ”

“ In obscene conversation, too, such antiquated sinners have left their juvenile rivals far behind. What indeed can be more shockingly disgusting, than to contemplate an old wretched offender of this description seated at his own table, entertaining a large company of old and young with the infamous exploits of his licentious villainy? Silence and shame should displace the boasting that proves him only dead to principle and character. ”

“ I warn you also not to let the good opinion which men have of you be too much of a pleasure to you, unless perhaps in order that you may be the more ashamed of yourselves on that account. It is that which leads people to neglect themselves, and this negligence, in many cases, upsets, as by a kind of trick, all that lowliness of which I speak, and puts conceit and arrogance in its place. ”

“ Such a personage can no more see his own folly than he can see his own ears. And the great quality of Dulness is to be unalterably contented with itself. What myriads of souls are there of this admirable sort,—selfish, stingy, ignorant, passionate, brutal; bad sons, mothers, fathers, never known to do kind actions! ”

“ But the evils that surround us—that come to our knowledge and under our very eyes—are real and tangible and dreadful. So much the more reason for our being here;—but so much the less likely that you, gently reared and delicately cared for, will be allowed to risk your delicate nurture in this land of savages. ”

“ When I think of the miserable stories that were raked up against him,—the misconstruction of everything he did, or said, or left undone,—my own impotent indignation, and my poor brother's senseless rage, and the insulting way in which I was watched, and taunted, and tortured,—oh, Nelly! it is agony to write. ”