to the same. The convent has a school. The nuns are permitted to receive visits from their relations, and are also allowed to go out—once a year! Consequently, the rules are not very strict.
The parents of the young girls are said to be glad
to have two of their daughters so well provided for.
And however much I may have heard and read against
conventual life, yet I have received from this place a
very different impression. The bright and kindly
expression of the nuns; the well-lighted rooms, the
garden which was so fresh and verdant with golden
fruit shining on the trees—I thought that life here
might not be unpleasant, and I have seen this earthly
life so difficult in many ways for poor girls, especially
for those who are not richly endowed by nature; so
much humiliation in the world, so many straits at
home, so much anxiety for the morrow, so much
discomfort—sometimes even want—in old age, that I
cannot regard it otherwise than as good fortune to be
safely housed in such a position, even if one must pay
for it with a portion of one's liberty. But there are
ceonvents of another kind. The mild establishment
of San Fillippo de Neri, is differently constituted to
the soul-destroying, unnatural life of Le vive Sepolte,
and others of the same class, which prevails in many
of the Italian convents. In this institution the
motherly part of the woman's being is called into
operation and is developed by the education of children;
here the family-bond is not altogether broken. The
rules are not rigid; the work is good, daily, moderate;
the social life pleasant. The young girl is safe from
the necessities of life; she may live usefully for the
