"The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means. For then she will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own."
This seemed not a little grim. But how touching is the personal confession which appears on the following page.
"My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me. Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their affection for us."
The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt. But unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into question the entire conduct of his or her life. Evelyn remembered that she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen, did not seem compatible with her soul's safety. Looked at from a certain side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must be made for the difficulties—the entanglements in which the first false step had involved her. But in any case she must not question the efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church. The mission of the contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our prayers, we held them to eternal salvation. We leave them for a little while, but only that we may live with them for ever.
"Believe me, my dear sisters, if you serve him well you will not find better parents than those the Divine Master sends you. I know that it is even so."
"What beauty there is in her sternness," Evelyn thought.
"I repeat that those whose trend is toward worldly things and who do not make progress in virtue, shall leave this monastery; should she persist in remaining a nun let her enter another convent; for if she doesn't she will see what will happen to her. Nor must she complain about me; nor accuse me of not having make known to her the practical life of the monastery I founded. If there is an earthly paradise it is in this house, but only for souls who desire nothing but to please God, who have no thought for themselves; for these the life here is infinitely agreeable."
This passage is one of the very few in which appears the wise, practical woman, the founder of an order and of many monasteries, who lived side by side in the same body, the constant associate of the lyrical saint. Evelyn tried to picture her to herself, and two pictures alternated in her thoughts. She saw deep, eager, passionate eyes, and a frail, exhausted body borne along easily by the soul, and doing the work of the unconquerable soul. In the second picture, there were the same consuming eyes, the same wasted body, but the expression was quite different. The saint's manner was the liveliest, happiest manner, and Evelyn thought of the privilege of such companionship, and she envied those who had walked with her, hearing her speak.
The little pond at her feet was full of fair reflections of the sky and trees, and the idea of convent life lay on the pages of the book even as fair. In itself it was disparate and vague, but on the pages of the book it floated clear and distinct. She asked if any of the Wimbledon nuns lived a life of that intense inward rapture which St. Teresa deemed essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the convent of St. Joseph at Avila, and the coincidence of the names gave her pause. This convent's patron saint was St. Joseph, and she sought for some resemblance between the Reverend Mother and St. Teresa. She wondered if she, Evelyn, were a nun, towards which of the nuns would her personal sympathies incline: would she love better Sister Veronica or Sister Mary John? It might be Mother Mary Hilda. It would be one of the three. There was not one among the others likely to interest her in the least. She tried to imagine this friendship: it assumed a vague shape and then dissolved in the distance. But would the Reverend Mother tolerate this friendship, or would it be promptly cut down to the root according to the advice of St. Teresa?
Her thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped out of the soul's dimness. Only the splashing of the fish broke the stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid the weeds. That she should be living in a convent, that she should have repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment. The vague autumn blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air was like crystal, the leaves were falling.... We have perceptions of the outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them. The only thing we are sure of is what is in ourselves. We know the difference between right and wrong. She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond, gazing into the vague depths. Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the mystery of things. She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation. Her past life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only since she had been in the convent. Ah, that little chapel, haunted by prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far off. She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the chapel or to herself. She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way, that to her at least everything depended on her chastity.... She had been chaste now a long while. The explanation seemed to have come to her. Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become religious.