The late Mr. Abernethy / [John Abernethy].

John Abernethy

Date:: [1831]

Credit: The late Mr. Abernethy / [John Abernethy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

16/16 page 362

$CONVENT SKETCHES.—No. I. A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF FATHER MENDIZABAL. I KNOW of nothing that so much excites the curiosity of the tra^ veller in Catholic countries, as monasteries and monks, convents and nuns. The novelist and the romance-writer have largely drawn from this source of interest; and imagination is accordingly early im¬ pressed with the fictions that have lent enchantment to their pages. Even at home,—-in our country, from which all trace of the monastic life has long since disappeared, fancy, when left to wander at will among the ruins of our ancient abbeys, gleans an abundant harvest ^ of romance ; and how much more vivid then must her creations be, where time has left no gap of centuries to be filled up, and where convent-walls still inclose the living dead ! But, in truth, there needs not the aid of imagination, nor the : fictions of the novelist, to awaken the interest and excite the curio¬ sity of the traveller: convent-walls have still their secrets; many curious histories are buried within them; and by him who is fortu¬ nate enough to lift up the veil, the tales that have filled the page of : romance will be often found to be outdone by realities, —■ I mean, , those realities that have preceded the vow of monastic life. Men j and women do not cut themselves off from the world and its enjoy- * ments without a fitting reason ; they do not devote themselves to the ! austerities of a cloister without a strong impelling motive. Some, I . know there are, who misled in childhood by the artifices of priests i and confessors, have renounced the world before they have known i how to estimate it; and others, I believe there may be, who have i made a deliberate choice of the monastic life ; but by far the greater J number of those who are the inmates of convents and monasteries f have been driven from the world by strange events. In this opinion i my own experience has confirmed me ; I have visited those coun- ► tries where the monastic life is the most honoured, and where it I boasts the greatest number of votaries; I have gleaned where I could I from convent records, and I purpose in these sketches to relate a \ few of the histories which have been confided to me. Let it not be £ supposed that all of these will prove tales of unmixed woe ; the his- > tory of wrecked prosperity, and blighted hope, and hard usage from i the world, would become tedious. The strange events that I have £ said drive men from the world, are not always melancholy; and the E first of these sketches will be a proof of this. | ‘‘ El Convento de San Geronimo,’’ said the man, in answer to my ( question what building that was on the opposite side of the Guadal- ‘ quivir. I had often since coming to Seville, admired the situation i of this building, standing upon a small elevation a little retired from [ the bank of the river, and surrounded by its groves and gardens, i It is well worth a visit,” added my companion ; there are many | fine and valuable relics in it; and the friars are polite to strangers.” ; I had not yet visited any of the convents of Seville excepting los | Capuchinos, where I had spent a part of almost every day amidst j those immortal productions with which the divine Murillo has en- f$

The late Mr. Abernethy / [John Abernethy].

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