I saw that youth but once again. He was the son of a wealthy and powerful family, but even his wealth was no balance against his contumacy, in the opinion of the convent, that is, of four monks of rigid principles, whom the Superior consulted that very evening. The Jesuits are fond of courting power, but they are still fonder of keeping it, if they can, to themselves. The result of their debate was, that the offender should undergo a severe humiliation and penance in their presence. His sentence was announced to him, and he submitted to it. He repeated every word of contrition they dictated to him. He then bared his shoulders, and applied the scourge till the blood flowed, repeating between every stroke, My God, I ask pardon of thee for having given the slightest comfort or relief to Fra Paolo, during his merited penance. He performed all this, cherishing in the bottom of his soul an intention still to comfort and relieve Fra Paolo, whenever he could find opportunity. He then thought all was over. He was desired to retire to his cell. He did so, but the monks were not satisfied with this examination. They had long suspected Fra Paolo of irregularity, and imagined they might extort the confession of it from this youth, whose humanity increased their suspicion. The virtues of nature are always deemed vices in a convent. Accordingly, he had hardly been in bed when they surrounded him. They told him they came by command of the Superior to enjoin him a further penance, unless he disclosed the secret of the interest he felt for Fra Paolo. It was in vain he exclaimed, I have no interest but that of humanity and compassion. Those were words they did not understand. It was in vain he urged, I will inflict whatever penance the Superior is pleased to order, but my shoulders are bleeding still,  and he shewed them. The executioners were pitiless. They compelled him to quit his bed, and applied the scourge with such outrageous severity, that at last, mad with shame, rage, and pain, he burst from them, and ran through the corridor calling for assistance or for mercy. The monks were in their cells, none dared to stir,  they shuddered, and turned on their straw pallets. It was the vigil of Saint John the Lesser, and I had been commanded what is called in convents an hour of recollection, which was to be passed in the church. I had obeyed the order, and remained with my face and body prostrate on the marble steps of the altar, till I was almost unconscious, when I heard the clock strike twelve. I reflected the hour had elapsed without a single recollection on my part. And thus it is to be always, I exclaimed, rising from my knees; they deprive of the power of thinking, and then they bid me recollect. As I returned through the corridor, I heard frightful cries  I shuddered. Suddenly a phantom approached me  I dropt on my knees  I cried, Satana vade retro  apage Satana. A naked human being, covered with blood, and uttering screams of rage and torture, flashed by me; four monks pursued him  they had lights. I had shut the door at the end of the gallery  I felt they must return and pass me  I was still on my knees, and trembling from head to foot. The victim reached the door, found it shut, and rallied. I turned, and saw a groupe worthy of Murillo. A more perfect human form never existed than that of this unfortunate youth. He stood in an attitude of despair  he was streaming with blood. The monks, with their lights, their scourges, and their dark habits, seemed like a groupe of demons who had made prey of a wandering angel,  the groupe resembled the infernal furies pursuing a mad Orestes. And, indeed, no ancient sculptor ever designed a figure more exquisite and perfect than that they had so barbarously mangled. Debilitated as my mind was by the long slumber of all its powers, this spectacle of horror and cruelty woke them in a moment. I rushed forward in his defence  I struggled with the monks  I uttered some expressions which, though I hardly was conscious of, they remembered and exaggerated with all the accuracy of malice. I have no recollection of what followed; but the issue of the business was, that I was confined to my cell for the following week, for my daring interference in the discipline of the convent. And the additional penance of the unfortunate novice, for resisting that discipline, was inflicted with such severity, that he became delirious with shame and agony. He refused food, he got no rest, and died the eighth night after the scene I had witnessed. He was of a temper unusually mild and amiable  he had a taste for literature, and even the disguise of a convent could not conceal the distinguished graces of his person and manners. Had he lived in the world, how these qualities would have embellished it! Perhaps the world would have abused and perverted them  true; but would the abuses of the world ever have brought them to so frightful and disastrous a conclusion?  would he have been first lashed into madness, and then lashed out of existence? He was interred in the church of the convent, and the Superior himself pronounced his eulogium  the Superior! by whose order, or else permission, or at least connivance, he had been driven mad, in order to obtain a trivial and imaginary secret. During this exhibition, my disgust arose to a degree incalculable. I had loathed the conventual life  I now despised it; and every judge of human nature knows, that it is harder to eradicate the latter sentiment than the former. I was not long without an occasion for the renewed exercise of both feelings. The weather was intensely hot that year  an epidemic complaint broke out in the convent  every day two or three were ordered to the infirmary, and those who had merited slight penances were allowed, by way of commutation, to attend the sick. I was most anxious to be of the number  I was even resolved, by some slight deviation, to tempt this punishment, which would have been to me the highest gratification. Dare I confess my motive to you, Sir? I was anxious to see those men, if possible, divested of the conventual disguise, and forced to sincerity by the pangs of disease, and the approach of death. I triumphed already in the idea of their dying confession, of hearing them acknowledge the seductions employed to ensnare me, deplore the miseries in which they had involved me, and implore, with convulsed lips, my pardon in  no  not in vain. This wish, though vindictive, was not without its palliations; but I was soon saved the trouble of realizing it at my own expence. That very evening the Superior sent for me, and desired me to attend in the infirmary, allowing me, at the same time, remission from vespers. The first bed I approached, I found Fra Paolo extended on. He had never recovered the effects of the complaint he laboured under at the time of his penance; and the death of the young novice so (fruitlessly incurred) had been mortal to him. I offered him medicines  I attempted to adjust him in his bed. He had been greatly neglected. He repelled both offers, and, feebly waving his hand, said, Let me, at least, die in peace. A few moments after, he unclosed his eyes, and recognized me. A gleam of pleasure trembled over his countenance, for he remembered the interest I had shewn for his unfortunate friend. He said, in a voice hardly intelligible, It is you, then? Yes, my brother, it is I can I do any thing for you? After a long pause, he added, Yes, you can. Tell me then. He lowered his voice, which was before almost inaudible, and whispered, Let none of them come near me in my dying moments  it will not give you much trouble  those moments are approaching. I pressed his hand in token of acquiescence. But I felt there was something at once terrifying and improper in this request from a dying man. I said to him, My dear brother, you are then dying?  would you not wish an interest in the prayers of the community?  would you not wish the benefit of the last sacraments? He shook his head and I fear that I understood him too well. I ceased any further importunity; and a few moments he uttered, in tones I could hardly distinguish, Let them, let me die.  They have left me no power to form another wish. His eyes closed,  I sat beside his bed, holding his hand in mine. At first, I could feel he attempted to press it  the attempt failed, his hold relaxed. Fra Paolo was no more. I continued to sit holding the dead hand in mine, till a groan from an adjacent bed roused me. It was occupied by the old monk with whom I had held a long conversation the night before the miracle, in which I still believed most firmly. I have observed, that this man was of a temper and manners remarkably mild and attractive. Perhaps this is always connected with great weakness of intellect, and coldness of character in men. (It may be different in women  but my own experience has never failed in the discovery, that where there was a kind of feminine softness and pliability in the male character, there was also treachery, dissimulation, and heartlessness.) At least, if there he such an union, a conventual life is sure to give it every advantage in its range of internal debility, and external seductiveness.  That pretence of a wish to assist, without the power, or even the wish, that is so flattering both to the weak minds that exercise it, and the weaker on whom it is exercised. This man had been always judged very weak, and yet very fascinating. He had been always employed to ensnare the young novices. He was now dying  overcome by his situation, I forgot every thing but its tremendous claims, and offered him every assistance in my power. I want nothing but to die, was his answer. His countenance was perfectly calm, but its calmness was rather that of apathy than of resignation. You are, then, perfectly sure of your approach to blessedness? I know nothing about it. How, my brother, are those words for a dying man to utter? Yes, if he speaks the truth. But a monk?  a catholic? Those are but names  I feel that truth, at least, now. You amaze me! I care not  I am on the verge of a precipice  I must plunge from it  and whether the bystanders utter outcries or not, is a matter of little consequence to me. And yet, you expressed a willingness to die? Willingness! Oh impatience!  I am a clock that has struck the same minutes and hours for sixty years. Is it not time for the machine to long for its winding up? The monotony of my existence would make a transition, even to pain, desirable. I am weary, and would change  that is all. But to me, and to all the community, you seemed to be resigned to the monastic life. I seemed a lie  I lived a lie  I was a lie  I ask pardon of my last moments for speaking the truth  I presume they neither can refuse me, or discredit my words  I hated the monastic life. Inflict pain on man, and his energies are roused  condemn him to insanity, and he slumbers like animals that have been found inclosed in wood and stone, torpid and content; but condemn him at once to pain and inanity, as they do in convents, and you unite the sufferings of hell and of annihilation. For sixty years I have cursed my existence. I never woke to hope, for I had nothing to do or to expect. I never lay down with consolation, for I had, at the close of every day, only to number so many deliberate mockeries of God, as exercises of devotion. The moment life is put beyond the reach of your will, and placed under the influence of mechanical operations, it becomes, to thinking beings, a torment insupportable. I never ate with appetite, because I knew, that with or without it, I must go to the refectory when the bell rung. I never lay down to rest in peace, because I knew the bell was to summon me in defiance of nature, whether it was disposed to prolong or shorten my repose. I never prayed, for my prayers were dictated to me. I never hoped, for my hopes were founded not on the truth of God, but on the promises and threatenings of man. My salvation hovered on the breath of a being as weak as myself, whose weakness I was nevertheless obliged to flatter, and struggle to obtain a gleam of the grace of God, through the dark distorted medium of the vices of man. It never reached me  I die without light, hope, faith, or consolation.  He uttered these words with a calmness that was more terrific than the wildest convulsions of despair. I gasped for breath  But, my brother, you were always punctual in your religious exercises. That was mechanism  will you not believe a dying man? But you urged me, in a long conversation, to embrace the monastic life and your importunity must have been sincere, for it was after my profession. It is natural for the miserable to wish for companions in their misery. This is very selfish, very misanthropic, you will say, but it is also very natural. You have yourself seen the cages suspended in the cells  are not the tame birds always employed to allure the wild ones? We were caged birds, can you blame us for the deception? In these words I could not help recognizing that simplicity of profound corruption,15  that frightful paralysis of the soul, which leaves it incapable of receiving any impression or making one,  that says to the accuser, Approach, remonstrate, upbraid  I defy you. My conscience is dead, and can neither hear, utter, or echo a reproach. I was amazed  I struggled against my own conviction. I said, But your regularity in religious exercises   Did you never hear a bell toll? But your voice was always the loudest and most distinct in the choir. Did you never hear an organ played? I shuddered, yet I still went on with my queries  I thought I could not know too much. I said, But, my brother, the religious exercises in which you were constantly engaged, must have imperceptibly instilled something of their spirit into you?  is it not so? You must have passed from the forms of religion into its spirit ultimately?  is it not so, my brother? Speak on the faith of a dying man. May I have such a hope! I would undergo any thing  any thing, to obtain it. There is no such hope, said the dying man, deceive not yourself with it. The repetition of religious duties, without the feeling or spirit of religion, produces an incurable callosity of heart. There are not more irreligious people to be found on earth than those who are occupied always in its externals. I verily believe half our laybrothers to be Atheists. I have heard and read something of those whom we call heretics. They have people to open their pews, (shocking profanation you will call it, to sell seats in the house of God, and you are right), they have people to ring bells when their dead are to be interred; and these wretches have no other indication of religion to give, but watching during the whole time of service, (in which their duties forbid them to partake), for the fees which they extort, and dropping upon their knees, ejaculating the names of Christ and God, amid the rattling of the pewdoors, which always operates on their associations, and makes them bound from their knees to gape for a hundredth part of the silver for which Judas sold his Saviour and himself. Then their bellringers  one would imagine death might humanize them. Oh! no such thing  they extort money in proportion to the depth of the grave. And the bellringer, the sexton, and the survivors, fight sometimes a manual battle over the senseless remains, whose torpidity is the most potent and silent reproach to this unnatural conflict. I knew nothing of this, but I grasped at his former words, You die, then, without hope or confidence? He was silent. Yet you urged me by eloquence almost divine, by a miracle verified before my own eyes. He laughed. There is something very horrible in the laugh of a dying man Hovering on the verge of both worlds, he seems to give the lie to both, and proclaim the enjoyments of one, and the hopes of another, alike an imposture. I performed that miracle myself, he said with all the calmness, and, alas! something of the triumph of a deliberate impostor. I knew the reservoir by which the fountain was supplied  by consent of the Superior it was drawn off in the course of the night. We worked hard at it, and laughed at your credulity every pump we drew. But the tree   I was in possession of some chemical secrets  I have not time to disclose them now  I scattered a certain fluid over the leaves of the poplar that night, and they appeared withered by the morning  go look at them a fortnight hence, and you will see them as green as ever. And these are your dying words? They are. And why did you deceive me thus? He struggled a short time at this question, and then rising almost upright in his bed, exclaimed, Because I was a monk, and wished for victims of my imposture to gratify my pride! and companions of my misery, to soothe its malignity! He was convulsed as he spoke, the natural mildness and calmness of his physiognomy were changed for something that I cannot describe  something at once derisive, triumphant, and diabolical. I forgave him every thing in that horrible moment. I snatched a crucifix that lay by his bed  I offered it to his lips. He pushed it away. If I wanted to have this farce acted, I should choose another actor. You know I might have the Superior and half the convent at my bedside this moment if I pleased, with their tapers, their holy water, and their preparations for extreme unction, and all the masquerade of death, by which they try to dupe even the dying, and insult God even on the threshold of his own eternal mansion. I suffered you to sit beside me, because I thought, from your repugnance to the monastic life, you might be a willing hearer of its deceptions, and its despair. Deplorable as had been the image of that life to me before, this representation exceeded my imagination. I had viewed it as excluding all the enjoyments of life, and thought the prospect blasting; but now the other world was weighed in the balance, and found wanting. The genius of monasticism seemed to wield a twoedged sword, and to lift it between and against time and eternity. The blade bore a twofold inscription  on the side next the world was written the word suffer,  on that opposed to eternity, despair. In the utter hopelessness of my soul, I still continued to question him for hope  him! while he was bereaving me of its very shadow, by every word he uttered. But, must all be plunged in this abyss of darkness? Is there no light, no hope, no refuge, for the sufferer? May not some of us become reconciled to our situation  first patient of it, then attached to it? Finally, may we not (if our repugnance be invincible) make a merit of it with God and offer to him the sacrifice of our earthly hopes and wishes, in the confidence of an ample and glorious equivalent? Even if we are unable to offer this sacrifice with the unction which would ensure its acceptance, still may we not hope it will not be wholly neglected?  that we may become tranquil, if not happy  resigned, if not content. Speak, tell me if this may be? And you wish to extort deception from the lips of death  but you will fail. Hear your doom  Those who are possessed of what may be called the religious character, that is, those who are visionary, weak, morose and ascetic, may elevate themselves to a species of intoxication in the moments of devotion. They may, while clasping the images, work themselves into the delusion, that the dead stone thrills to their touch; that the figures move, assent to their petitions, and turn their lifeless eyes on them with an expression of benignity. They may, while kissing the crucifix, believe that they hear celestial voices pronouncing their pardon; that the Saviour of the world extends his arms to them, to invite them to beatitude; that all heaven is expanded to their view, and the harmonies of paradise are enriched to glorify their apotheosis. But this is a mere inebriation that the most ignorant physician could produce in his patients by certain medicines. The secret of this ecstatic swoon might be traced to an apothecarys shop, or purchased at a cheaper rate. The inhabitants of the north of Europe procure this state of exaltation by the use of liquid fire  the Turks by opium  the Dervises by dancing  and Christian monks by spiritual pride operating on the exhaustion of a macerated frame. It is all intoxication, with this difference only, that the intoxication of men of this world produces always selfcomplacency  that of men of the other world, a complacency whose supposed source is derived from God. The intoxication is, therefore, more profound, more delusive, and more dangerous. But nature, violated by these excesses, exacts a most usurious interest for this illicit indulgence. She makes them pay for moments of rapture with hours of despair. Their precipitation from extasy to horror is almost instantaneous. In the course of a few moments, they pass from being the favourites of Heaven to becoming its outcasts. They doubt the truth of their raptures,  the truth of their vocation. They doubt every thing  the sincerity of their prayers, even the efficacy of the Saviours atonement, and the intercession of the blessed Virgin. They plunge from paradise to hell. They howl, they scream, they blaspheme. From the bottom of the infernal gulph in which they imagine themselves plunged, they bellow imprecations against their Creator  they denounce themselves as damned from all eternity for their sins, while their only sin is their inability to support preternatural excitement. The paroxysm ceases  they become the elect of God again in their own imaginations. And to those who interrogate them with regard to their late despair, they answer, That Satan was permitted to buffet them  that they were under the hidings of Gods face, c. All saints, from Mahomet down to Francis Xavier, were only a compound of insanity, pride, and selfimposition;  the latter would have been of less consequence, but that men always revenge their impositions on themselves, by imposing to the utmost on others. There is no more horrible state of mind than that in which we are forced by conviction to listen on, wishing every word to be false, and knowing every word to be true. Such was mine, but I tried to palliate it by saying, It was never my ambition to be a saint; but is the lot of all, then, so deplorable? The monk, who appeared to rejoice in this opportunity to discharge the concentrated malignity of sixty years of suffering and hypocrisy, collected his dying voice to answer. He seemed as if he never could inflict enough, for what had been inflicted on himself. Those who possess strong sensibility, without the religious character, are of all others the most unhappy, but their miseries are soonest terminated. They are harassed by trivial constraints, stupified by monotonous devotion, exasperated by dull insolence and bloated superiority. They struggle, they resist. Penance and punishment are applied. Their own violence justifies increased violence of treatment; and, at all events, it would be applied without this justification, for there is nothing that delights the pride of power, more than a victorious strife with the pride of intellect. The remainder is easily to be conceived by you, who have witnessed it. You saw the unfortunate youth who interfered about Paolo. He was lashed to madness. Tortured first to phrenzy, then to stupefaction,  he died! I was the secret, unsuspected adviser of the whole proceeding. Monster! I exclaimed, for truth had made us equal now, and even precluded the language that humanity would dictate when uttered to a dying man.  But why?  said he, with that calmness which had once attracted, and now revolted me, but which had at all times undisputed possession of his physiognomy;  his sufferings were shorter, do you blame me for diminishing their duration?  There was something cold, ironical, and jeering, even in the suavity of this man, that gave a certain force to his simplest observations. It seemed as if he had reserved the truth all his life, to utter it at his dying hour. Such is the fate of those who possess strong sensibility; those who have less languish away in an imperceptible decline. They spend their time in watching a few flowers, in tending birds. They are punctual in their religious exercises, they receive neither blame or praise,  they melt away in torpor and ennui. They wish for death, as the preparation it might put the convent to might produce a short excitement, but they are disappointed, for their state forbids excitement, and they die as they have lived,  unexcited, unawakened. The tapers are lit, they do not see them,  the unction is applied, they do not feel it,  prayers are uttered, they cannot partake in them;  in fact, the whole drama is acted, but the principal performer is absent,  is gone. Others indulge themselves in perpetual reverie. They walk alone in the cloister,  in the garden. They feed themselves with the poison of delicious, innutritive illusion. They dream that an earthquake will shake the walls to atoms, that a volcano will burst forth in the centre of the garden. They imagine a revolution of government,  an attack of banditti,  any thing, however improbable. Then they take refuge in the possibility of a fire, (if a fire bursts out in a convent, the doors are thrown open, and Sauve qui peut, is the word). At this thought they conceive the most ardent hope,  they could rush out,  they could precipitate themselves into the streets, into the country,  in fact, they would fly any where to escape. Then these hopes fail,  they begin to get nervous, morbid, restless. If they have interest, they are indulged with remission from their duties, and they remain in their cells, relaxed,  torpid,  idiotical; if they have not interest, they are forced to the punctual performance of their duties, and then idiotism comes on much sooner, as diseased horses, employed in a mill, become blind sooner than those who are suffered to wear out existence in ordinary labour. Some of them take refuge in religion, as they call it. They call for relief on the Superior, but what can the Superior do? He is but human too, and perhaps feels the despair that is devouring the wretches who supplicate him to deliver them from it. Then they prostrate themselves before the images of the saints,  they invoke, they sometimes revile them. They call for their intercession, deplore its inefficacy, and fly to some other, whose merits they imagine are higher in the sight of God. They supplicate for an interest in the intercession of Christ and the Virgin, as their last resort. That resort fails them too,  the Virgin herself is inexorable, though they wear out her pedestal with their knees, and her feet with their kisses. Then they go about the galleries at night, they rouse the sleepers, they knock at every door,  they cry, Brother Saint Jerome, pray for me,  Brother Saint Augustine, pray for me. Then the placard is seen fastened to the rails of the altar, Dear brothers, pray for the wandering soul of a monk. The next day the placard bears this inscription, The prayers of the community are implored for a monk who is in despair. Then they find human intercession as unavailing as divine, to procure them a remission of the sufferings which, while their profession continues to inflict on them, no power can reverse or mitigate. They crawl to their cells,  in a few days the toll of the bell is heard, and the brethren exclaim, He died in the odour of sanctity, and hasten to spread their snares for another victim. And is this, then, monastic life? It is,  there are but two exceptions, that of those who can every day renew, by the aid of imagination, the hope of escape, and who cherish that hope even on their dying bed; and those who, like me, diminish their misery by dividing it, and, like the spider, feel relieved of the poison that swells, and would burst them, by instilling a drop of it into every insect that toils, agonizes, and perishes in their net,  like you. At these last words, a glare of malignity flashed on the features of the dying wretch, that appalled me. I retreated from his bed for a moment. I returned, I looked at him,  his eyes were closed,  his hands extended. I touched him,  raised him,  he was dead,  those were his last words. The expression of his features was the physiognomy of his soul,  they were calm and pale, but still a cold expression of derision lingered about the curve of his lips. I rushed from the infirmary. I was at that time indulged, like all the other visitants of the sick, to go to the garden beyond the allotted hours, perhaps to diminish the chance of infection. I was but too ready to avail myself of this permission. The garden, with its calm moonlight beauty, its innocence of heaven, its theology of the stars, was at once a reproach and a consolation to me. I tried to reflect, to feel,  both efforts failed; and perhaps it is in this silence of the soul, this suspension of all the clamorous voices of the passions, that we are most ready to hear the voice of God. My imagination suddenly represented to me the august and ample vault above me as a church,  the images of the saints grew dim in my eyes as I gazed on the stars, and even the altar, over which the crucifixion of the Saviour of the world was represented, turned pale to the eye of the soul, as I gazed on the moon walking in her brightness. I fell on my knees. I knew not to whom I was about to pray, but I never felt so disposed to pray. I felt my habit touched at this moment. I at first trembled, from the idea of being detected in a forbidden act. I started up. A dark figure stood beside me, who said in indistinct and faultering tones, Read this, and he thrust a paper into my hand; I have worn it sewed into my habit for four days. I have watched you night and day. I had no opportunity but this,  you were in your cell, in the choir, or in the infirmary. Tear it in pieces, throw the fragments into the fountain, or swallow them, the moment you have read it.  Adieu. I have risked every thing for you, and he glided away. I recognized his figure as he departed; it was the porter of the convent. I well understood the risk he must have run in delivering this paper, for it was the regulation of the convent, that all letters, whether addressed to or written by boarders, novices, or monks, were first to be read by the Superior, and I never knew an instance of its infringement. The moon gave me sufficient light. I began to read, while a vague hope, that had neither object or basis, trembled at the bottom of my heart. The paper contained these words My dearest brother, (My God! how I started!) I see you revolt at the first lines which I address to you,  I implore you, for both our sakes, to read them with calmness and attention. We have been both the victims of parental and priestly imposition; the former we must forgive, for our parents are the victims of it too. The Director has their consciences in his hand, and their destiny and ours at his feet. Oh, my brother, what a tale have I to disclose to you! I was brought up, by the Directors orders, whose influence over the domestics is as unbounded as it is over their unhappy master, in complete hostility against you, as one who was depriving me of my natural rights, and degrading the family by your illegitimate intrusion. May not this palliate, in some degree, my unnatural repulsiveness when we first met? I was taught from my cradle to hate and fear you,  to hate you as an enemy, and fear you as an impostor. This was the Directors plan. He thought the hold he had over my father and mother too slight to gratify his ambition of domestic power, or realize his hopes of professional distinction. The basis of all ecclesiastical power rests upon fear. A crime must be discovered or invented.


The vague reports circulated in the family, my mothers constant dejection, my fathers occasional agitation, offered him a clue, which he followed with incessant industry through all its windings of doubt, mystery, and disappointment, till, in a moment of penitence, my mother, terrified by his constant denunciations if she concealed any secret of her heart or life from him, disclosed the truth. We were both infants then. He adopted immediately the plan he has since realized at the expence of all but himself. I am convinced he had not, from the first hour of his machinations, the least malignity against you. The aggrandizement of his interest, which ecclesiastics always individualize with that of the church, was his only object. To dictate, to tyrannize, to manage a whole family, and that of rank, by his knowledge of the frailty of one of its members, was all he looked to. Those who by their vows are excluded from the interest which natural affections give us in life, must seek for it in the artificial ones of pride and domination, and the Director found it there. All thenceforth was conducted and inspired by him. It was he who caused us to be kept asunder from our infancy, fearful that nature might frustrate his plans,  it was he who reared me in sentiments of implacable animosity against you. When my mother fluctuated, he reminded her of her vow, with which she had rashly intrusted him. When my father murmured, the shame of my mothers frailty, the bitter feuds of domestic discussion, the tremendous sounds of imposture, perjury, sacrilege, and the resentment of the church, were thundered in his ears. You may conceive there is nothing this man would shrink at, when, almost in my childhood, he disclosed to me my mothers frailty, to insure my early and zealous participation in his views. Heaven blast the wretch who could thus contaminate the ears, and wither the heart of a child, with the tale of a parents shame, to secure a partizan for the church! This was not all. From the first hour I was able to hear and comprehend him, he poisoned my heart by every channel he could approach. He exaggerated my mothers partiality for you, which he assured me often contended vainly with her conscience. He represented my father as weak and dissipated, but affectionate; and, with the natural pride of a boyfather, immoveably attached to his eldest offspring. He said, My son, prepare yourself to struggle with a host of prejudices,  the interests of God, as well as of society, demand it. Assume a high tone with your parents,  you are in possession of the secret that corrodes their consciences, make your own use of it. Judge the effect of these words on a temper naturally violent,  words, too, uttered by one whom I was taught to regard as the agent of the Divinity. All this time, as I have since been informed, he was debating in his own mind whether he would not adopt your part instead of mine, or at least vacillate between both, so as to augment his influence over our parents, by the additional feature of suspicion. Whatever influenced his determination, the effect of his lessons on me may be easily calculated. I became restless, jealous, and vindictive;  insolent to my parents, and suspicious of all around me. Before I was eleven years of age I reviled my father for his partiality to you,  I insulted my mother with her crime,  I tyrannized over the domestics,  I was the dread and the torment of the whole household; and the wretch who had made me thus a premature demon, had outraged nature, and compelled me to trample on every tie he should have taught me to hallow and cherish, consoled himself with the thought that he was obeying the calls of his function, and strengthening the hands of the church. Scire volunt secreta domus et inde timeri. On the day preceding our first meeting, (which had not been intended before), the Director went to my father; he said, Senhor, I think it best the brothers should meet. Perhaps God may touch their hearts, and by his merciful influence over them, enable you to reverse the decree that threatens one of them with seclusion, and both with a cruel and final separation. My father assented with tears of delight. Those tears did not melt the heart of the Director; he hastened to my apartment, and said, My child, summon all your resolution, your artful, cruel, partial parents, are preparing a scene for you,  they are determined on introducing you to your spurious brother. I will spurn him before their faces, if they dare to do so, said I, with the pride of premature tyranny. No, my child, that will not do, you must appear to comply with their wishes, but you must not be their victim,  promise me that, my dear child,  promise me resolution and dissimulation. I promise you resolution, keep the dissimulation for yourself. Well, I will do so, since your interests require it. He hurried back to my father. Senhor, I have employed all the eloquence of heaven and nature with your younger son. He is softened,  he melts already,  he longs to precipitate himself into the fraternal embrace, and hear your benediction poured over the united hearts and bodies of your two children,  they are both your children. You must banish all prejudices, and   I have no prejudices! said my poor father; let me but see my children embrace, and if Heaven summoned me at that moment, I should obey it by dying of joy.  The Director reproved him for the expressions which gushed from his heart, and, wholly unmoved by them, hurried back to me, full of his commission. My child, I have warned you of the conspiracy formed against you by your own family. You will receive a proof of it tomorrow,  your brother is to be introduced,  you will be required to embrace him,  your consent is reckoned on, but at the moment you do so, your father is resolved to interpret this as the signal, on your part, of the resignation of all your natural rights. Comply with your hypocritical parents, embrace this brother, but give an air of repugnance to the action that will justify your conscience, while it deceives those who would deceive you. Watch the signalword, my dear child; embrace him as you would a serpent,  his art is not less, and his poison as deadly. Remember that your resolution will decide the event of this meeting. Assume the appearance of affection, but remember you hold your deadliest enemy in your arms. At these words, unnatural as I was, I shuddered. I said, My brother! Never mind, said the Director, he is the enemy of God,  an illegitimate impostor. Now, my child, are you prepared? and I answered, I am prepared. That night, however, I was very restless. I required the Director to be summoned. I said in my pride, But how is this poor wretch (meaning you) to be disposed of? Let him embrace the monastic life, said the Director. At these words I felt an interest on your account I had never recognized before. I said decidedly, for he had taught me to assume a tone of decision, He shall never be a monk. The Director appeared staggered, yet he trembled before the spirit he had himself raised. Let him go into the army, I said; let him inlist as a common soldier, I can supply him with the means of promotion;  let him engage in the meanest profession, I shall not blush to acknowledge him, but, father, he shall never be a monk. But, my dear child, on what foundation does this extraordinary objection rest? It is the only means to restore peace to the family, and procure it for the unfortunate being for whom you are so much interested. My father, have done with this language. Promise me, as the condition of my obedience to your wishes tomorrow, that my brother shall never be compelled to be a monk. Compelled, my dear child! there can be no compulsion in a holy vocation. I am not certain of that; but I demand from you the promise I have mentioned. The Director hesitated, at last he said, I promise. And he hastened to tell my father there was no longer any opposition to our meeting, and that I was delighted with the determination which had been announced to me of my brother eagerly embracing the monastic life. Thus was our first meeting arranged. When, at the command of my father, our arms were entwined, I swear to you, my brother, I felt them thrill with affection. But the instinct of nature was soon superseded by the force of habit, and I recoiled, collected all the forces of nature and passion in the terrible expression that I dared to direct towards our parents, while the Director stood behind them smiling, and encouraging me by gestures. I thought I had acted my part with applause, at least I gave myself enough, and retired from the scene with as proud a step as if I had trampled on a prostrate world, I had only trampled on nature and my own heart. A few days after I was sent to a convent. The Director was alarmed at the dogmatizing tone he himself had taught me to assume, and he urged the necessity of my education being attended to. My parents complied with every thing he required. I, for a wonder, consented; but, as the carriage conveyed me to the convent, I repeated to the Director, Remember, my brother is not to be a monk. (After these lines several were unintelligible to me, apparently from the agitation under which they were written;  the precipitancy and fiery ardor of my brothers character communicated itself to his writings. After many a defaced page I could trace the following words.) It was singular enough that you, who were the object of my inveterate hatred before my residence in the convent, became the object of my interest from that moment. I had adopted your cause from pride, I now upheld it from experience. Compassion, instinct, whatever it was, began to assume the character of a duty. When I saw the indignity with which the lower classes were treated, I said to myself, No, he shall never suffer that,  he is my brother. When I succeeded in my exercises, and was applauded, I said, This is applause in which he never can share. When I was punished, and that was much more frequently, I said, He shall never feel this mortification. My imagination expanded. I believed myself your future patron, I conceived myself redeeming the injustice of nature, aiding and aggrandizing you, forcing you to confess that you owed more to me than to your parents, and throwing myself, with a disarmed and naked heart, on your gratitude alone for affection. I heard you call me brother,  I bid you stop, and call me benefactor. My nature, proud, generous, and fiery, had not yet quite emancipated itself from the influence of the Director, but every effort it made pointed, by an indescribable impulse, towards you. Perhaps the secret of this is to be found in the elements of my character, which always struggled against dictation, and loved to teach itself all it wished to know, and inspire itself with the object of its own attachments. It is certain that I wished for your friendship, at the moment I was instructed to hate you. Your mild eyes and affectionate looks haunted me perpetually in the convent. To the professions of friendship repeatedly made me by the boarders, I answered, I want a brother. My conduct was eccentric and violent,  no wonder, for my conscience had begun to operate against my habits. Sometimes I would apply with an eagerness that made them tremble for my health; at others, no punishment, however severe, could make me submit to the ordinary discipline of the house. The community grew weary of my obstinacy, violence, and irregularities. They wrote to the Director to have me removed, but before this could be accomplished I was seized with a fever. They paid me unremitting attention, but there was something on my mind no cares of theirs could remove. When they brought me medicine with the most scrupulous punctuality, I said, Let my brother fetch it, and if it be poison I will drink it from his hand; I have injured him much. When the bell tolled for matins and vespers, I said, Are they going to make my brother a monk? The Director promised me differently, but you are all deceivers. At length they muffled the bell. I heard its stifled sound, and I exclaimed, You are tolling for his funeral, but I,  I am his murderer! The community became terrified at these exclamations so often repeated, and with the meaning of which they could not accuse themselves. I was removed in a state of delirium to my fathers palace in Madrid. A figure like yours sat beside me in the carriage, alighted when we stopped, accompanied me where I remained, assisted me when I was placed again in the carriage. So vivid was the impression, that I was accustomed to say to the attendants, Stop, my brother is assisting me. When they asked me in the morning how I had rested? I answered, Very well,  Alonzo has been all night at my bedside. I invited this visionary companion to continue his attentions; and when the pillows were arranged to my satisfaction, Would say, How kind my brother is,  how useful,  but why will he not speak? At one stage I absolutely refused nourishment, because the phantom appeared to decline it. I said, Do not urge me, my brother, you see, will not accept of it. Oh, I entreat his pardon, it is a day of abstinence,  that is his reason, you see how he points to his habit,  that is enough. It is very singular that the food at this house happened to be poisoned, and that two of my attendants died of partaking of it before they could reach Madrid. I mention these circumstances, merely to prove the rivetted hold you had taken both on my imagination and my affections. On the recovery of my intellect, my first inquiry was for you. This had been foreseen, and my father and mother, shunning the discussion and even trembling for the event, as they knew the violence of my temper, intrusted the whole business to the Director. He undertook it,  how he executed it is yet to be seen. On our first meeting he approached me with congratulations on my convalescence, with regrets for the constraints I must have suffered in the convent, with assurances that my parents would make my home a paradise. When he had gone on for some time, I said, What have you done with my brother? He is in the bosom of God, said the Director, crossing himself. I understood him in a moment,  I rushed past him before he had finished. Where are you going, my son? To my parents. Your parents,  it is impossible that you can see them now. But it is certain that I will see them. Dictate to me no longer,  degrade yourself not by this prostituted humiliation, for he was putting himself in a posture of intreaty,  I will see my parents. Procure for me an introduction to them this moment, or tremble for the continuance of your influence in the family. At these words he trembled. He did not indeed dread my influence, but he dreaded my passions. His own lessons were bitterly retaliated on him that moment. He had made me fierce and impetuous, because that suited his purpose, but he had neither calculated on, or prepared himself for, this extraordinary direction which my feelings had taken, so opposite to that which he had laboured to give them. He thought, in exciting my passions, he could ascertain their direction. Woe be to those, who, in teaching the elephant to direct his trunk against their foes, forget that by a sudden convolution of that trunk, he may rend the driver from his back, and trample him under his feet into the mire. Such was the Directors situation and mine. I insisted on going instantly to my fathers presence. He interposed, he supplicated; at last, as a hopeless resource, he reminded me of his continual indulgence, his flattery of my passions. My answer was brief, but Oh that it might sink into the souls of such tutors and such priests! And that has made me what I am. Lead the way to my fathers apartment, or I will spurn you before me to the door of it. At this threat, which he saw I was able to execute, (for you know my frame is athletic, and my stature twice that of his), he trembled; and I confess this indication of both physical and mental debility completed my contempt for him. He crawled before me to the apartment where my father and mother were seated, in a balcony that overlooked the garden. They had imagined all was settled, and were astonished to see me rush in, followed by the Director, with an aspect that left them no reason to hope of an auspicious result of our conference. The Director gave them a sign which I did not observe, and which they had not time to profit by,  and as I stood before them livid from my fever, on fire with passion, and trembling with inarticulate expressions, they shuddered. Some looks of reproach were levelled by them at the Director, which he returned, as usual, by signs. I did not understand them, but I made them understand me in a moment. I said to my father, Senhor, is it true you have made my brother a monk? My father hesitated; at last he said, I thought the Director had been commissioned to speak to you on that subject. Father, what has a Director to do in the concerns of a parent and child? That man never can be a parent,  never can have a child, how then can he be a judge in a case like this? You forget yourself,  you forget the respect due to a minister of the church. My father, I am but just raised from a deathbed, my mother and you trembled for my life,  that life still depends on your words. I promised submission to this wretch, on a condition which he has violated, which   Command yourself, Sir, said my father, in a tone of authority which ill suited the trembling lips it issued from, or quit the apartment. Senhor, interposed the Director, in a softened tone, let not me be the cause of dissension in a family whose happiness and honour have been always my object, next to the interests of the church. Let him go on, the remembrance of my crucified Master will sustain me under his insults, and he crossed himself. Wretch! I cried, grasping his habit, you are a hypocrite, a deceiver! and I know not of what violence I might have been guilty, but my father interposed. My mother shrieked with terror, and a scene of confusion followed, in which I recollect nothing but the hypocritical exclamations of the Director, appearing to struggle between my father and me, while he mediated with God for both. He repeated incessantly, Senhor, do not interpose, every indignity I suffer I make a sacrifice to Heaven; it will qualify me to be an intercessor for my traducer with God; and, crossing himself, he called on the most sacred names, and exclaimed, Let insults, calumnies, and blows, be added to that preponderance of merit which is already weighed in the scales of heaven against my offences, and he dared to mix the claims of the intercession of the saints, the purity of the immaculate Virgin, and even the blood and agony of Jesus Christ, with the vile submissions of his own hypocrisy. The room was by this time filled with attendants. My mother was conveyed away, still shrieking with terror. My father, who loved her, was driven by this spectacle, and by my outrageous conduct, to a pitch of fury  he drew his sword. I burst into a laugh, that froze his blood as he approached me. I expanded my arms, and presented my breast exclaiming, Strike!  this is the consummation of monastic power,  it begun by violating nature, and ends in filicide. Strike! give a glorious triumph to the influence of the church, and add to the merits of the holy Director. You have sacrificed your Esau, your firstborn, already, let Jacob be your next victim. My father retreated from me, and, revolted by the disfigurement which the violence of my agitation had caused, almost to convulsion, he exclaimed, Demon! and stood at a distance viewing, and shuddering at me. And who has made me so? He who fostered my evil passions for his own purposes; and, because one generous impulse breaks out on the side of nature, would represent or drive me mad, to effectuate his purposes. My father, I see the whole power and system of nature reversed, by the arts of a corrupt ecclesiastic. By his means my brother has been imprisoned for life;  by his means our birth has been made a curse to my mother and to you. What have we had in the family since his influence was fatally established in it, but dissension and misery? Your sword was pointed against my heart this moment; was it nature or a monk that armed a parent against his child, whose crime was  interceding for his brother? Dismiss this man, whose presence eclipses our hearts, and let us confer together for a moment as father and son, and if I do not humiliate myself before you, spurn me for ever. My father, for Gods sake examine the difference between this man and me, as we stand before you. We are together at the bar of your heart, judge between us. A dry and featureless image of selfish power, consecrated by the name of the church, occupies his whole soul,  I plead to you by the interests of nature, that must be sincere, because they are contrary to my own. He only wishes to wither your soul,  I seek to touch it. Is his heart in what he says? does he shed a tear? does he employ one impassioned expression? he calls on God,  while I call only on you. The very violence which you justly condemn, is not only my vindication but my eulogy. They who prefer their cause to themselves, need no proof of their advocacy being sincere. You aggravate your crime, by laying it on another; you have always been violent, obstinate, and rebellious. But who has made me so? Ask himself,  ask this shameful scene, in which his duplicity has driven me to act such a part. If you wish to show submission, give me the first proof of it, by promising never to torture me by renewing the mention of this subject. Your brothers fate is decided,  promise not to utter his name again, and   Never,  never, I exclaimed, never will I violate my conscience by such a vow; and his who could propose it must be seared beyond the power of Heaven to touch it. Yet, in uttering these words, I knelt to my father, but he turned from me. I turned in despair to the Director. I said, If you are the minister of Heaven, prove the truth of your commission,  make peace in a distracted family, reconcile my father to both his children. You can effect this by a word, you know you can, yet you will not utter it. My unfortunate brother was not so inflexible to your appeals, and yet were they inspired by a feeling as justifiable as mine. I had offended the Director beyond all forgiveness. I knew this, and spoke indeed rather to expose than to persuade him. I did not expect an answer from him, and I was not disappointed,  he did not utter a word. I knelt in the middle of the floor between them. I cried, Deserted by my father and by you, I yet appeal to Heaven. I call on it to witness my vow never to abandon my persecuted brother, whom I have been made a tool to betray. I know you have power,  I defy it. I know every art of circumvention, of imposture, of malignant industry,  every resource of earth and hell, will be set at work against me. I take Heaven to witness against you, and demand only its aid to insure my victory. My father had lost all patience; he desired the attendants to raise and remove me by force. This mention of force, so repugnant to my habits of imperious indulgence, operated fatally on intellects scarcely recovering from delirium, and too strongly tried in the late struggle. I relapsed into partial insanity. I said wildly, My father, you know not how mild, generous, and forgiving is the being you thus persecute,  I owe my life to him. Ask your domestics if he did not attend me, step by step, during my journey? If he did not administer my food, my medicines, and smoothe the pillows on which I was supported? You rave, cried my father, as he heard this wild speech, but he cast a look of fearful inquiry on the attendants. The trembling servants swore, one and all, as well they might, that not a human being but themselves had been suffered to approach me since I quitted the convent, till my arrival at Madrid. The small remains of reason forsook me completely at this declaration, which was however true every word of it. I gave the lie to the last speaker with the utmost fury,  I struck those who were next me. My father, astonished at my violence, suddenly exclaimed, He is mad. The Director, who had till then been silent, instantly caught the word, and repeated, He is mad. The servants, half in terror, half in conviction, reechoed the cry. I was seized, dragged away; and this violence, which always excited corresponding violence in me, realized all my father feared, and the Director wished for. I behaved just as a boy, scarce out of a fever, and still totally delirious, might be supposed to behave. In my apartment I tore down the hangings, and there was not a porcelain vase in the room that I did not dash at their heads. When they seized me, I bit their hands; when at length they were compelled to bind me, I gnawed the strings, and finally snapt them by a violent effort. In fact, I completely realized all the hopes of the Director. I was confined to my apartment for several days. During this time, I recovered the only powers that usually revive in a state of isolation,  those of inflexible resolution and profound dissimulation. I had soon exercise enough for both of them. On the twelfth day of my confinement, a servant appeared at the door of my apartment, and, bowing profoundly, announced, that if my health was recovered, my father wished to see me. I bowed in complete imitation of his mechanical movements, and followed him with the steps of a statue. I found my father, armed with the Director at his side. He advanced, and addressed me with an abruptness which proved that he forced himself to speak. He hurried over a few expressions of pleasure at my recovery, and then said, Have you reflected on the subject of our last conversation? I have reflected on it?  I had time to do so.  And you have employed that time well?  I hope so.  Then the result will be favourable to the hopes of your family, and the interests of the church. The last words chilled me a little, but I answered as I ought. In a few moments after the Director joined me. He spoke amicably, and turned the conversation on neutral topics. I answered him,  what an effort did it cost me!  yet I answered him in all the bitterness of extorted politeness. All went on well, however. The family appeared gratified by my renovation. My father, harassed out, was content to procure peace on any terms. My mother, still weaker, from the struggles between her conscience and the suggestions of the Director, wept, and said she was happy. A month has now elapsed in profound but treacherous peace on all sides. They think me subdued, but      In fact, the efforts of the Directors power in the family would alone be sufficient to precipitate my determinations. He has placed you in a convent, but that is not enough for the persevering proselytism of the church. The palace of the Duke de Monada is, under his influence, turned into a convent itself. My mother is almost a nun, her whole life is exhausted in imploring forgiveness for a crime for which the Director, to secure his own influence, orders her a new penance every hour. My father rushes from libertinism to austerity,  he vacillates between this world and the next;  in the bitterness of exasperated feeling, sometimes reproaches my mother, and then joins her in the severest penance. Must there not be something very wrong in the religion which thus substitutes external severities for internal amendment? I feel I am of an inquiring spirit, and if I could obtain a book they call the Bible, (which, though they say it contains the words of Jesus Christ, they never permit us to see) I think  but no matter. The very domestics have assumed the in ordine ad spiritualia character already. They converse in whispers  they cross themselves when the clock strikes  they dare to talk, even in my hearing, of the glory which will redound to God and the church, by the sacrifice my father may yet be induced to make of his family to its interests. My fever has abated  I have not lost a moment in consulting your interests  I have heard that there is a possibility of your reclaiming your vows  that is, as I have been told, of declaring they were extorted under impressions of fraud and terror. Observe me, Alonzo, I would rather see you rot in a convent, than behold you stand forth as a living witness of our mothers shame. But I am instructed that this reclamation of your vows may be carried on in a civil court If this be practicable, you may yet be free, and I shall be happy. Do not hesitate for resources, I am able to supply them. If you do not fail in resolution, I have no doubt of our ultimate success.  Ours I term it, for I shall not know a moments peace till you are emancipated. With the half of my yearly allowance I have bribed one of the domestics, who is brother to the porter of the convent, to convey these lines to you. Answer me by the same channel, it is secret and secure. You must, I understand, furnish a memorial, to be put into the hands of an advocate. It must be strongly worded,  but remember, not a word of our unfortunate mother;  I blush to say this to her son. Procure paper by some means. If you find any difficulty, I will furnish you; but, to avoid suspicion, and too frequent recurrences to the porter, try to do it yourself. Your conventual duties will furnish you with a pretext of writing out your confession,  I will undertake for its safe delivery. I commend you to the holy keeping of God,  not the God of monks and directors, but the God of nature and mercy.  I am your affectionate brother, JUAN DI MONADA. Such were the contents of the papers which I received in fragments, and from time to time, by the hands of the porter. I swallowed the first the moment I had read it, and the rest I found means to destroy unperceived as I received them,  my attendance on the infirmary entitling me to great indulgences. At this part of the narrative, the Spaniard became so much agitated, though apparently more from emotion than fatigue, that Melmoth intreated him to suspend it for some days, and the exhausted narrator willingly complied. Chapter 6   ,  . HOMER When, after some days interval, the Spaniard attempted to describe his feelings on the receipt of his brothers letter, the sudden resuscitation of heart, and hope, and existence, that followed its perusal, he trembled,  uttered some inarticulate sounds,  wept;  and his agitation appeared to Melmoth, with his uncontinental feelings, so violent, that he entreated him to spare the description of his feelings, and proceed with his narrative. You are right, said the Spaniard, drying his tears, joy is a convulsion, but grief is a habit, and to describe what we never can communicate, is as absurd as to talk of colours to the blind. I will hasten on, not to tell of my feelings, but of the results which they produced. A new world of hope was opened to me. I thought I saw liberty on the face of heaven when I walked in the garden. I laughed at the jar of the doors as they opened, and said to myself, You shall soon expand to me for ever. I behaved with uncommon complacency to the community. But I did not, amid all this, neglect the most scrupulous precautions suggested by my brother. Am I confessing the strength or the weakness of my heart? In the midst of all the systematic dissimulation that I was prepared and eager to carry on, the only circumstance that gave me real compunction, was my being obliged to destroy the letters of that dear and generous youth who had risked every thing for my emancipation. In the mean time, I pursued my preparations with industry inconceivable to you, who have never been in a convent. Lent was now begun,  all the community were preparing themselves for the great confession.


They shut themselves up,  they prostrated themselves before the shrines of the saints,  they occupied themselves whole hours in taking minutes of their consciences, and magnifying the trivial defects of conventual discipline into offences in the eye of God, in order to give consequence to their penitence in the hearing of the confessor,  in fact, they would have been glad to accuse themselves of a crime, to escape from the monotony of a monastic conscience. There was a kind of silent bustle in the house, that very much favoured my purposes. Hour after hour I demanded paper for my confession. I obtained it, but my frequent demands excited suspicion,  they little knew what I was writing. Some said, for every thing excites inquiry in a convent, He is writing the history of his family; he will discharge it into the ears of the confessor, along with the secrets of his own soul. Others said, He has been in a state of alienation for some time, he is giving an account to God for it,  we shall never hear a word about it. Others, who were more judicious, said, He is weary of the monastic life, he is writing an account of his monotony and ennui, doubtless that must be very long; and the speakers yawned as they uttered these words, which gave a very strong attestation to what they said. The Superior watched me in silence. He was alarmed, and with reason. He consulted with some of the discreet brethren, whom I mentioned before, and the result was a restless vigilance on their part, to which I supplied an incessant fuel, by my absurd and perpetual demand for paper. Here, I acknowledge, I committed a great oversight. It was impossible for the most exaggerated conscience to charge itself, even in a convent, with crimes enough to fill all the paper I required. I was filling them all the time with their crimes, not my own. Another great mistake I made, was being wholly unprepared for the great confession when it came on. I received intimations of this as we walked in the garden,  I have before mentioned that I had assumed an amicability of habit toward them. They would say to me, You have made ample preparations for the great confession. I have prepared myself. But we expect great edification from its results. I trust you will receive it.  I said no more, but I was very much disturbed at these hints. Others would say, My brother, amid the multitudinous offences that burden your conscience, and which you have found necessary to employ quires of paper to record, would it not be a relief to you to open your mind to the Superior, and ask for a few previous moments of consolation and direction from him. To this I answered, I thank you, and will consider of it.  I was thinking all the time of something else. It was a few nights before the time of the great confession, that I had to entrust the last packet of my memorial to the porter. Our meetings had been hitherto unsuspected. I had received and answered my brothers communications, and our correspondence had been conducted with a secrecy unexampled in convents. But this last night, as I put my packet into the porters hand, I saw a change in his appearance that terrified me. He had been a comely, robust man, but now, even by the moonlight, I could perceive he was wasted to a shadow,  his hands trembled as he took the papers from me,  his voice faultered as he promised his usual secrecy. The change, which had been observed by the whole convent, had escaped me till that night; my mind had been too much occupied by my own situation. I noticed it then, however, and I said, But what is the matter? Can you then ask? I am withered to a spectre by the terrors of the office I have been bribed to. Do you know what I risk?  incarceration for life, or rather for death,  perhaps a denunciation to the Inquisition. Every line I deliver from you, or to you, seems a charge against my own soul,  I tremble when I meet you. I know that you have the sources of life and death, temporal and eternal, in your hands. The secret in which I am an agent should never be intrusted but to one, and you are another. As I sit in my place, I think every step in the cloister is advancing to summon me to the presence of the Superior. When I attend in the choir, amid the sounds of devotion your voice swells to accuse me. When I lie down at night, the evil spirit is beside my bed, reproaching me with perjury, and reclaiming his prey;  his emissaries surround me wherever I move,  I am beset by the tortures of hell. The saints from their shrines frown on me,  I see the painting of the traitor Judas on every side I turn to. When I sleep for a moment, I am awakened by my own cries. I exclaim, Do not betray me, he has not yet violated his vows, I was but an agent,  I was bribed,  do not kindle those fires for me. I shudder,  I start up in a cold sweat. My rest, my appetite, are gone. Would to God you were out of this convent;  and O! would that I had never been instrumental to your release, then both of us might have escaped damnation to all eternity. I tried to pacify him, to assure him of his safety, but nothing could satisfy him but my solemn and sincere assurance that this was the last packet I would ever ask him to deliver. He departed tranquillized by this assurance; and I felt the dangers of my attempt multiplying around me every hour. This man was faithful, but he was timid; and what confidence can we have in a being whose right hand is held out to you, while his left trembles to be employed in transferring your secret to your enemy. This man died a few weeks after. I believe I owed his dying fidelity to the delirium that seized on his last moments. But what I suffered during those moments!  his death under such circumstances, and the unchristian joy I felt at it, were only in my mind stronger evidences against the unnatural state of life that could render such an event, and such feelings, almost necessary. It was on the evening after this, that I was surprised to see the Superior, with four of the monks, enter my cell. I felt this visit boded me no good. I trembled all over, while I received them with deference. The Superior seated himself opposite to me, arranging his seat so as that I was opposite the light. I did not understand what this precaution meant, but I conceive now, that he wished to watch every change in my countenance, while his was concealed from me. The four monks stood at the back of his chair; their arms were folded, their lips closed, their eyes half shut, their heads declined  they looked like men assembled reluctantly to witness the execution of a criminal. The Superior began, in a mild voice, My son, you have been intently employed on your confession for some time  that was laudable. But have you, then, accused yourself of every crime your conscience charges you with? I have, my father. Of all, you are sure? My father, I have accused myself of all I was conscious of. Who but God can penetrate the abysses of the heart? I have searched mine as far as I could. And you have recorded all the accusations you found there? I have. And you did not discover among them the crime of obtaining the means of writing out your confession, to abuse them to a very different purpose?  This was coming to the point. I felt it necessary to summon my resolution  and I said, with a venial equivocation, That is a crime of which my conscience does not accuse me? My son, do not dissemble with your conscience, or with me. I should be even above it in your estimation; for if it errs and deceives you, it is to me you should apply to enlighten and direct it. But I see it is in vain to attempt to touch your heart. I make my last appeal to it in these plain words. A few moments only of indulgence await you  use them or abuse them, as you will. I have to ask you a few plain questions, which, if you refuse to answer, or do not answer truly, your blood be on your own head. I trembled, but I said, My father, have I then refused to answer your questions? Your answers are all either interrogations or evasions. They must be direct and simple to the questions I am about to propose in the presence of these brethren. More depends on your answer than you are aware of. The warning voice breaks forth in spite of me.  Terrified at these words, and humbled to the wish to propitiate them, I rose from my chair  then gasping, I leant on it for support. I said, My God! what is all this terrible preparation for? Of what am I guilty? Why am I summoned by this warning voice so often, whose warnings are only so many mysterious threatenings? Why am I not told of my offence? The four monks, who had never spoken or lifted up their heads till that moment, now directed their livid eyes at me, and repeated, all together, in a voice that seemed to issue from the bottom of a sepulchre, Your crime is   The Superior gave them a signal to be silent, and this interruption increased my consternation. It is certain, that when we are conscious of guilt, we always suspect that a greater degree of it will be ascribed to us by others. Their consciences avenge the palliations of our own, by the most horrible exaggerations. I did not know of what crime they might be disposed to accuse me; and already I felt the accusation of my clandestine correspondence as dust in the balance of their resentment. I had heard the crimes of convents were sometimes unutterably atrocious; and I felt as anxious now for a distinct charge to be preferred against me, as I had a few moments before to evade it. These indefinite fears were soon exchanged for real ones, as the Superior proposed his questions. You have procured a large quantity of paper  how did you employ it? I recovered myself, and said, As I ought to do. How, in unburdening your conscience? Yes, in unburdening my conscience. That is false; the greatest sinner on earth could not have blotted so many pages with the record of his crimes. I have often been told in the convent, I was the greatest sinner on earth. You equivocate again, and convert your ambiguities into reproaches  this will not do  you must answer plainly For what purpose did you procure so much paper, and how have you employed it? I have told you already. It was, then, employed in your confession?  I was silent, but bowed assentingly.  You can, then, shew us the proofs of your application to your duties. Where is the manuscript that contains your confession? I blushed and hesitated, as I showed about halfadozen blotted and scrawled pages as my confession. It was ridiculous. It did not occupy more than a tenth part of the paper which I had received. And this is your confession? It is. And you dare to say that you have employed all the paper entrusted to you for that purpose.  I was silent. Wretch! said the Superior, losing all patience, disclose instantly for what purpose you have employed the paper granted you. Acknowledge instantly that it was for some purpose contrary to the interests of this house.  At these words I was roused. I saw again the cloven foot of interest peeping from beneath the monastic garb. I answered, Why am I suspected if you are not guilty? What could I accuse you of? What could I complain of if there were no cause? Your own consciences must answer this question for me. At these words, the monks were again about to interpose, when the Superior, silencing them by a signal, went on with his matteroffact questions, that paralyzed all the energy of passion. You will not tell me what you have done with the paper committed to you?  I was silent.  I enjoin you, by your holy obedience, to disclose it this moment.  His voice rose in passion as he spoke, and this operated as a signal on mine. I said, You have no right, my father, to demand such a declaration. Right is not the question now. I command you to tell me. I require your oath on the altar of Jesus Christ, and by the image of his blessed Mother. You have no right to demand such an oath. I know the rules of the house  I am responsible to the confessor. Do you, then, make a question between right and power? You shall soon feel, within these walls, they are the same. I make no question  perhaps they are the same. And you will not tell what you have done with those papers, blotted, doubtless, with the most infernal calumnies? I will not. And you will take the consequences of your obstinacy on your own head? I will. And the four monks chorussed again, all in the same unnatural tone, The consequences be on his own head. But while they spoke thus, two of them whispered in my ears, Deliver up your papers, and all is well. The whole convent knows you have been writing. I answered, I have nothing to give up  nothing on the faith of a monk. I have not a single page in my possession, but what you have seized on. The monks, who had whispered in a conciliatory tone to me before, quitted me. They conversed in whispers with the Superior, who, darting on me a terrible look, exclaimed, And you will not give up your papers? I have nothing to give up Search my person  search my cell  every thing is open to you. Every thing shall be soon, said the Superior in fury. In a moment the examination commenced. There was not an article of furniture in my cell that was not the object of their investigation. My chair and table were overturned, shaken, and finally broken, in the attempt to discover whether any papers had been secreted in them. The prints were snatched from the walls,  held up between them and the light.  Then the very frames were broken, to try if any thing was concealed in them. Then they examined my bed;  they threw all the furniture about the floor, they unripped the mattress, and tore out the straw; one of them, during this operation, actually applied his teeth to facilitate it,  and this malice of activity formed a singular contrast to the motionless and rigid torpor with which they had clothed themselves but a few moments before. All this time, I stood in the centre of the floor, as I was ordered, without turning to right or left. Nothing was found to justify their suspicions. They then surrounded me; and the examination of my person was equally rapid, minute, and indecorous. Every thing I wore was on the floor in a moment The very seams of my habit were ript open; and, during the examination, I covered myself with one of the blankets they had taken from my bed. When it was over, I said, Have you discovered any thing? The Superior answered, in a voice of rage, struggling proudly, but vainly, with disappointment, I have other means of discovery  prepare for them, and tremble when they are resorted to. At these words he rushed from my cell, giving a sign to the four monks to follow him. I was left alone. I had no longer any doubt of my danger. I saw myself exposed to the fury of men who would risk nothing to appease it. I watched, waited, trembled, at every step I heard in the gallery  at the sound of every door that opened or shut near me. Hours went on in this agony of suspense, and terminated at last without an event. No one came near me that night  the next was to be that of the great confession. In the course of the day, I took my place in the choir, trembling, and watching every eye. I felt as if every countenance was turned on me, and every tongue said in silence, Thou art the man. Often I wished that the storm I felt was gathering around me, would burst at once. It is better to hear the thunder than to watch the cloud. It did not burst, however, then. And when the duties of the day were over, I retired to my cell, and remained there, pensive, anxious, and irresolute. The confession had begun; and as I heard the penitents, one by one, return from the church, and close the doors of their cells, I began to dread that I was to be excluded from approaching the holy chair, and that this exclusion from a sacred and indispensible right, was to be the commencement of some mysterious course of rigour. I waited, however, and was at last summoned. This restored my courage, and I went through my duties more tranquilly. After I had made my confession, only a few simple questions were proposed to me, as, Whether I could accuse myself of any inward breach of conventual duty? of any thing I had reserved? any thing in my conscience? c.  and on my answering them in the negative, was suffered to depart. It was on that very night the porter died. My last packet had gone some days before,  all was safe and well. Neither voice or line could bear witness against me now, and hope began to revisit me, as I reflected that my brothers zealous industry would discover some other means for our future communication. All was profound calm for a few days, but the storm was to come soon enough. On the fourth evening after the confession, I was sitting alone in my cell, when I heard an unusual bustle in the convent. The bell was rung,  the new porter seemed in great agitation,  the Superior hurried to the parlour first, then to his cell,  then some of the elder monks were summoned. The younger whispered in the galleries,  shut their doors violently,  all seemed in agitation. In a domestic building, occupied by the smallest family, such circumstances would hardly be noticed, but, in a convent, the miserable monotony of what may be called their internal existence, gives an importance,  an interest, to the most trivial external circumstance in common life. I felt all this. I said to myself, Something is going on.  I added, Something is going on against me. I was right in both my conjectures. Late in the evening I was ordered to attend the Superior in his own apartment,  I said I was ready to go. Two minutes after the order was reversed, and I was desired to remain in my cell, and await the approach of the Superior,  I answered I was willing to obey. But this sudden change of orders filled me with an indefinite fear; and in all the changes of my life, and vicissitude of my feelings, I have never felt any fear so horrible. I walked up and down, I repeated incessantly, My God protect me! my God strengthen me! Then I dreaded to ask the protection of God, doubting whether the cause in which I was engaged merited his protection. My ideas, however, were all scattered by the sudden entrance of the Superior and the four monks who had attended him on the visit previous to the confession. At their entrance I rose,  no one desired me to sit down. The Superior advanced with a look of fury, and, dashing some papers on my table, said, Is that your writing? I threw a hurried and terrified eye over the papers,  they were a copy of my memorial. I had presence of mind enough to say, That is not my writing. Wretch! you equivocate, it is a copy of your writing.  I was silent.  Here is a proof of it, he added, throwing down another paper. It was a copy of the memoir of the advocate, addressed to me, and which, by the influence of a superior court, they had not the power of withholding from me. I was expiring with anxiety to examine it, but I did not dare to glance at it. The Superior unfolded page after page. He said, Read, wretch! read,  look into it, examine it line by line. I approached trembling,  I glanced at it,  in the very first lines I read hope. My courage revived.  I said, My father, I acknowledge this to be the copy of my memorial. I demand your permission to read the answer of the advocate, you cannot refuse me this right. Read it, said the Superior, and he flung it towards me. You may readily believe, Sir, that, under such circumstances, I could not read with very steady eyes; and my penetration was not at all quickened by the four monks disappearing from the cell, at a signal I did not see. The Superior and I were now alone. He walked up and down my cell, while I appeared to hang over the advocates memoir. Suddenly he stopped;  he struck his hand with violence on the table,  the pages I was trembling over quivered from the violence of the blow,  I started from my chair. Wretch, said the Superior, when have such papers as those profaned the convent before? When, till your unhallowed entrance, were we insulted with the memoirs of legal advocates? How comes it that you have dared to   Do what, my father? Reclaim your vows, and expose us to all the scandal of a civil court and its proceedings. I weighed it all against my own misery. Misery! is it thus you speak of a conventual life, the only life that can promise tranquillity here, or ensure salvation hereafter. These words, uttered by a man convulsed by the most frantic passion, were their own refutation. My courage rose in proportion to his fury; and besides, I was driven to a point, and forced to act on my defence. The sight of the papers added to my confidence. I said, My father, it is in vain to endeavour to diminish my repugnance to the monastic life; the proof that that repugnance is invincible lies before you. If I have been guilty of a step that violates the decorum of a convent, I am sorry,  but I am not reprehensible. Those who forced me into a convent, are guilty of the violence which is falsely ascribed to me. I am determined, if it be possible, to change my situation. You see the efforts I have already made, be assured they will never cease. Disappointment will only redouble their energy; and if it be in the power of heaven or earth to procure the annulment of my vows, there is no power in either I will not have recourse to. I expected he would not have heard me out, but he did. He even listened with calmness, and I prepared myself to encounter and repel that alternation of reproach and remonstrance, of solicitation and menace, which they so well know how to employ in a convent. Your repugnance to a conventual life is then invincible? It is. But to what do you object?  not to your duties, for you perform them with the most edifying punctuality,  not to the treatment you receive, for it has been the most indulgent that our discipline admits of,  not to the community itself, who are all disposed to cherish and love you;  of what do you complain? Of the life itself,  that comprehends every thing. I am not fit to be a monk. Remember, I implore you, that though the forms of earthly courts must be obeyed, from the necessity that makes us dependent on human institutions, in all matters between man and man, they never can be available in matters between God and man. Be assured, my deluded child, that if all the courts on earth pronounced you absolved from your vows this moment, your own conscience never can absolve you. All your ignominious life, it will continue to reproach you with the violation of a vow, whose breach man has connived at, but God has not. And, at your last hour, how horrible will those reproaches be! Not so horrible as at the hour I took that vow, or rather at the hour when it was extorted. Extorted! Yes, my father, yes,  I take Heaven to witness against you. On that disastrous morning, your anger, your remonstrances, your pleadings, were as ineffectual as they are now, till you flung the body of my mother before my feet. And do you reproach me with my zeal in the cause of your salvation? I do not wish to reproach you. You know the step I have taken, you must be aware I will pursue it with all the powers of nature,  that I will never rest till my vows are annulled, while a hope of it remains,  and that a soul, determined as mine, can convert despair itself into hope. Surrounded, suspected, watched as I have been, I yet found the means of conveying my papers to the hands of the advocate. Calculate the strength of that resolution which could effectuate such a measure in the very heart of a convent. Judge of the futility of all future opposition, when you failed in defeating, or even detecting, the first steps of my design. At these words the Superior was silent. I believed I had made an impression on him. I added, If you wish to spare the community the disgrace of my prosecuting my appeal within its walls, the alternative is easy. Let the door he left unguarded some day, connive at my escape, and my presence shall never molest or dishonour you another hour. How! would you make me not only a witness, but an accomplice in your crime? Apostate from God, and plunged in perdition as you are, do you repay the hand stretched out to save you, by seizing it, that you may drag me into the infernal gulph along with you? and he walked up and down the cell in the most violent agitation. This unlucky proposal operated on his masterpassion, (for he was exemplarily rigid in discipline), and produced only convulsions of hostility. I stood waiting till this fresh burst had subsided, while he continued to exclaim incessantly, My God, for what offence am I thus humiliated?  for what inconceivable crime is this disgrace precipitated on the whole convent? What will become of our character? What will all Madrid say? My father, whether an obscure monk lives, dies, or recalls his vows, is an object of little importance beyond the walls of his convent. They will forget me soon, and you will be consoled by the restored harmony of the discipline, in which I should always be a jarring note. Besides, all Madrid, with all the interest you ascribe to it, could never be made responsible for my salvation. He continued to walk up and down, repeating, What will the world say? What will become of us? till he had worked himself into a state of fury; and, suddenly turning on me, he exclaimed, Wretch! renounce your horrible resolution,  renounce it this moment! I give you but five minutes for consideration. Five thousand would make no change. Tremble, then, lest you should not have life spared to see the fulfilment of your impious purposes. As he uttered these words he rushed from my cell. The moments I passed during his absence were, I think, the most horrible of my life. Their terror was aggravated by darkness, for it was now night, and he had carried away the light along with him. My agitation did not at first permit me to observe this. I felt I was in the dark, but knew not how or why. A thousand images of indescribable horror rushed in a host on me. I had heard much of the terrors of convents,  of their punishments, often carried to the infliction of death, or of reducing their victim to a state in which death would have been a blessing. Dungeons, chains, and scourges, swam before my eyes in a fiery mist. The threatening words of the Superior appeared emblazoned on the darkened walls of my cell in characters of flame. I shuddered,  I cried aloud, though conscious that my voice would be echoed by no friendly answering tones in a community of sixty persons,  such is the sterility of humanity in a convent. At last my very fears recovered me by their excess. I said to myself, They dare not murder me,  they dare not incarcerate me;  they are answerable to the court to which I have appealed for my forthcoming,  they dare not be guilty of any violence. Just as I had come to this comfortable conclusion, which indeed was the triumph of the sophistry of hope, the door of my cell was thrown open, and the Superior, attended by his four satellites reentered. My eyes were dim from the darkness in which I had been left, but I could distinguish that they carried with them a rope and a piece of sackcloth. I drew the most frightful presages from this apparatus. I altered my reasoning in a moment, and instead of saying they dare not do so and so, I instantly argued What dare they not do? I am in their power,  they know it. I have provoked them to the utmost,  what is it monks will not do in the impotence of their malignity?  what is to become of me? They advanced, and I imagined the rope was to strangle me, and the sackcloth to inclose my murdered body. A thousand images of blood swam before me,  a gush of fire choaked up my respiration. The groans of a thousand victims seemed to rise from the vaults of the convent, to which they had been hurried by a fate like mine. I know not what is death, but I am convinced I suffered the agonies of many deaths in that moment. My first impulse was to throw myself on my knees. I said, I am in your power,  I am guilty in your eyes,  accomplish your purpose, but do not keep me long in pain. The Superior, without heeding, or perhaps hearing me, said, Now you are in the posture that becomes you. At hearing these words, which sounded less dreadful than I had feared, I prostrated myself to the ground. A few moments before I would have thought this a degradation, but fear is very debasing. I had a dread of violent means,  I was very young, and life was not the less attractive from its being arrayed only in the brilliant drapery of imagination. The monks observed my posture,  they feared its effect on the Superior. They said, in that choral monotony,  that discordant unison that had frozen my blood when I knelt in the same posture but a few nights before, Reverend father, do not suffer yourself to be imposed on by this prostituted humiliation,  the time for mercy is past. You gave him his moments of deliberation,  he refused to avail himself of them. You come now not to listen to pleadings, but to inflict justice. At these words, that announced every thing horrible, I went on my knees from one to the other, as they all stood in a grim and executionerlike row. I said to each with tears, Brother Clement,  Brother Justin,  why do you try to irritate the Superior against me? Why do you precipitate a sentence which, whether just or not, must be severe, since you are to be the executioners? What have I done to offend you? I interceded for you when you were guilty of any slight deviation  Is this my return? This is wasting time, said the monks. Hold, said the Superior; give him leave to speak. Will you avail yourself of the last moment of indulgence I can ever afford you, to renounce your horrible resolution of recalling your vows? Those words renewed all my energies. I stood upright before them all. I said, in a loud distinct voice, Never  I stand at the bar of God. Wretch! you have renounced God. Well, then, my father, I have only to hope that God will not renounce me. I have appealed to a bar also, over which you have no power. But we have power here, and that you shall feel. He made a signal, and the four monks approached. I uttered one short cry of fear, but submitted the next moment. I felt convinced it was to be my last. I was astonished, when, instead of fastening the cords round my neck, they bound my arms with them. They then took off my habit, and covered me with the sackcloth. I made no resistance; but shall I confess to you, Sir, I felt some disappointment. I was prepared for death, but something worse than death appeared threatened in these preparations. When we are driven to the precipice of mortality, we spring forward with resolution, and often defeat the triumph of our murderers, by merging it in our own. But when we are led to it step by step, held often over it, and then withdrawn, we lose our resolution along with our patience; and feel, that the last blow would be mercy, compared with its longsuspended, slowly descending, wavering, mutilating, hesitating stroke. I was prepared for every thing but what followed. Bound with this rope as fast as a felon, or a galleyslave, and covered only with the sackcloth, they dragged me along the gallery. I uttered no cry, made no resistance. They descended the stairs that led to the church. I followed, or rather was dragged after them. They crossed the aisle; there was a dark passage near it which I had never observed before. We entered it. A low door at the end presented a frightful perspective. At sight of it I cried aloud, You will not immure me? You will not plunge me in that horrible dungeon, to be withered by damps, and devoured by reptiles? No, you will not,  remember you are answerable for my life. At these words, they surrounded me; then, for the first time, I struggled,  I called for help;  this was the moment they waited for; they wanted some repugnance on my part.