The place had evidently been intended for the
culture of shrubbery and flowers, but the growth of the trees had long
since so intercepted the sunlight and fresh air that not even grass
could find root beneath their branches. The ground was covered with a
damp green mould, strewn here and there with dead boughs, or patched
with tufts of fern and lycopodium, throwing out their green hairy roots
into the moist soil. A few half-dead roses and jasmines, remnants of
former days of flowers, still maintained a struggling existence, but
looked wan and discouraged in the effort, and seemed to stretch and pine
vaguely for a freer air. In fact, the whole garden might be looked upon
as a sort of symbol of the life by which it was surrounded,--a life
stagnant, unnatural, and unhealthy, cut off from all those thousand
stimulants to wholesome development which are afforded by the open plain
of human existence, where strong natures grow distorted in unnatural
efforts, though weaker ones find in its lowly shadows a congenial
refuge.
We have given the brighter side of conventual life in the days we are
describing: we have shown it as often a needed shelter of woman's
helplessness during ages of political uncertainty and revolution; we
have shown it as the congenial retreat where the artist, the poet, the
student, and the man devoted to ideas found leisure undisturbed to
develop themselves under the consecrating protection of religion.
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