Life in a convent1848 - 120 pages |
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alone!-I beams become Benedictine bitter bleeding bloom bondage bosom BULWER LYTTON burst C. H. Minchin captivity chain character cheer Christian cloistered cell convent creatures dare dark ages darkness death depressing passions despair despondency distressing divine Dublin ennui enter Monastic Eügnxa evils exercised existence faint Farewell to thee fetters FINSBURY CHAPEL GERALD GRIFFIN gloom God,-the grief happiness harmony hath heart heaven honour hope human indisposition juvenile pen liberty live living-tomb martyrs melancholy mental disquietude MICHELET MINISTER OF FINSBURY misery monastery Monastic Institutions monastic system monasticism moral nature never nuns opiate Oracles pain peace pernicious perusal pestilent Pitiable delusion prison religion religious Remorse Rome SAMUEL PHILLIPS DAY sceptre sepulchre shrine sigh Signor CIOCCI society solitude sorrow soul spirit sufferer susceptible of disease talented and juvenile teaches a lesson thou thought tion tomb truth unhappy vows weak wherein whilst wisdom woes wretched writer young μηδὲ
Popular passages
Page vii - Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.
Page 37 - Titles and honours (if they prove his fate) He lays aside to find his dignity ; No dignity they find in aught besides. They triumph in externals (which conceal Man's real glory), proud of an eclipse : Himself too much he prizes to be proud, And nothing thinks so great in man as man.
Page 51 - Remorse is as the heart in which it grows : If that be gentle, it drops balmy dews Of true repentance ; but if proud and gloomy, It is a poison-tree, that pierced to the inmost Weeps only tears of poison.
Page 31 - And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.
Page 46 - I have a heart! I'd live, And die for him whose worth I knew — But could not clasp his hand and give My full heart forth as talkers do. And they who loved me, the kind few, Believed me changed in heart and tone, And left me, while it burned as true, To live alone ! — to live alone...
Page 46 - For then a stilly voice repeating, What oft hath woke its deepest moan, Startles my heart and stays its beating, — I am alone ! — I am alone ! Why hath my soul been given A zeal to soar at higher things Than quiet rest ? — to seek a heaven, And fall with scathed heart and wings ? Have I been blest ? the sea-wave sings 'Tween me and all that was mine own...
Page 13 - Glanced from the imperfect surfaces of things. • Flings half an image on the straining eye ; While wavering woods, and villages, and streams, And rocks, and mountain-tops, that long retained The ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, Uncertain if beheld.
Page 35 - ... ennui and melancholy. The harmony thus shown to exist between the moral and physical world is but another example of the numerous inducements to that right conduct and activity in pursuing which the Creator has evidently destined us to find terrestrial happiness.
Page 26 - Fifteen years ago I occupied, in a very solitary part of the town, a house, the garden of which was adjacent to that of a convent of women. Though my windows overlooked the greatest part of their garden, I had never seen my sad neighbours. In the month of May, on Rogation Day, I heard numerous weak, very weak voices, chanting prayers, as the procession passed through the convent garden. The singing was sad, dry, unpleasant, their voices false and as if spoiled by sufferings.
Page 35 - ... that of having fulfilled the end and object of our being, in the active discharge of our duties to God, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves. If we neglect...