Good God! was this the lovely world from which I had been excluded! I
Had reached that age when the sensibilities are in all their bloom and
freshness. Mine had been checked and chilled. They now burst forth with
the suddenness of a retarded spring. My heart, hitherto unnaturally
shrunk up, expanded into a riot of vague, but delicious emotions. The
beauty of nature intoxicated, bewildered me. The song of the peasants;
their cheerful looks; their happy avocations; the picturesque gayety of
their dresses; their rustic music; their dances; all broke upon me like
witchcraft. My soul responded to the music; my heart danced in my
bosom. All the men appeared amiable, all the women lovely.
I returned to the convent, that is to say, my body returned but my
heart and soul never entered there again. I could not forget this
glimpse of a beautiful and a happy world; a world so suited to my
natural character. I had felt so happy while in it; so different a
being from what I felt myself while in the convent--that tomb of the
living. I contrasted the countenances of the beings I had seen, full of
fire and freshness and enjoyment, with the pallid, leaden, lack-lustre
visages of the monks; the music of the dance, with the droning chant of
the chapel. I had before found the exercises of the cloister wearisome;
they now became intolerable. The dull round of duties wore away my
spirit; my nerves became irritated by the fretful tinkling of the
convent bell; evermore dinging among the mountain echoes; evermore
calling me from my repose at night, my pencil by day, to attend to some
tedious and mechanical ceremony of devotion.
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