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