Amid all her studies and labors, we read that Sister Juana was constant in her religious devotions, and faithful to the least rules of her order. But her conscientious spirit, moved by a letter of Bishop Fernandez of Puebla, determined her at length to renounce the exercise of her talents for the strictest and purest ascetism. Hence, one of her Mexican critics is led to say that we have only the echoes of her songs, only the shades of her images, inasmuch as her sex and state, and the reigning scholasticism, were not convenient for the true expression of her thoughts. The noble, ascetic literature of Spain, respecting which it is with reason boasted that the world contains nothing of the kind more valuable, discredits in good part this supposition. Moreover, the recognition of Sor Juana's work and genius was, as we have seen, not inconsiderable. The world is still in its infancy as regards religious ideality, and, spite of the highest evidences, often refuses to believe that thoughts fed from the divine source can fulfil the true poem of life, be it written or acted. What the thoughts of Sor Juana were like in her ordinary religious life we understand partly from a number of daily exercises and meditations which have come down to us. Here are specimens of these compositions:
EXERCISE.
On this day, at seeing the light come forth, bless its Author who made it so beautiful a creation, and praise him with a submissive heart; not only because he created it for our good, but because he made it a vassal to his mother and our mediatrix. Go to Mass with all possible devotion, and those who can, let them fast and give thanks to God. Thou shalt sing the canticle Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino and the verse Benedicite lux. Understand that not only the just ought to praise God, who are themselves as light, but the sinners who are as darkness. Consider yourselves such, every one of you, and mourn for having added to the original transgression, darkness upon darkness, sins upon sins. Resolve to correct thyself; and that Mary's purest light may reach you, recite a Salve, and nine times the Magnificat, face to the ground, and fly from all sin this day, even the shadow thereof. Abstain from all impatience, murmurings, repinings, and suffer with meekness those evils which are a repugnance to our nature. If it be a day of discipline of the community, that is enough, but if not, it shall be especially made so. Those who do not know how to read Latin shall recite nine Salves mouth to the ground, and shall fast if they are able, and if not, they shall make an act of contrition, so that the Lord may give them light for his timely service, even as he gave them material light by which to live.
MEDITATION.
If we look at the properties of the firmament, what more assimilates to the miraculous constancy of Mary, whom neither those steeped in original sin could make fall, nor the combats of temptation make stumble! But still, amid the torrents and tempests of human miseries, between the troubles of her life, and the painful passion and death of her most holy Son and our most beloved Saviour; amid the waves of incredulity in the doubts of his disciples; among the hidden rocks of the perfidy of Judas, and the uncertainty of so many timid souls—ever was her constancy preserved. Not only was she firm, but beautiful as the firmament, which (according to the mathematicians) hath this other excellence, that it is bordered by innumerable stars, but has only seven planets which are fixed and never move. Thus, holiest Mary was not only most pure in her conception, transparent and translucent, but afterwards the Lord adorned her with innumerable virtues which she acquired, even as the stars which border that most beautiful firmament; and she not only had them all, but had them fixed, all immovable, all in order and admirable concert: but if in the other children of Adam we see some virtues, they are errant—to-day we have them, to-morrow they are gone—to-day is light, to-morrow darkness. We will rejoice in her prerogative, and say unto her:
OFFERING.
Honored Lady, and crown of our human being, divine firmament where the stars of virtue are fixed, give their benign influence to us, thy devoted ones, that by thy favor we may cure ourselves and acquire them; and that light which thou dost partake of the Sun of Righteousness, communicate it to our souls, and fix in them thy virtues, the love of thy precious Son, and thy sweetest and tenderest devotion, and of thy happy husband, our patron and advocate, St. Joseph.
These compositions doubtless give us a better idea of the interior thought of Mexican monasticism than some yellow-covered speculations. In that life grew the finest genius, the greatest woman, perhaps the most remarkable character in all respects that Mexico ever produced. Considering the time and place in which she wrote, the New World has scarcely produced her superior among women of genius. Up to the nineteenth century America had, doubtless, no, literary product comparable to the poems of Sor Juana Ines. What Cabrera, was to the art, Sor Juana seems to have been to the literature of her country; and both these workers of genius gave their powers to the service of religion. It is here worthy of remark that not only were the greatest painter and poet of Mexico studious servants of the church, but that its most celebrated scientist was the Jesuit Siguenza y Gongora, author of a funeral eulogy of Sor Juana Ines, whom he knew and appreciated, for he, too, was a poet. Without social helps, without emulation, such as is ordinarily understood, such proofs of her high intelligence as we possess have come to light. Perplexed as it was with the mannered erudition of the schools, her poetry nevertheless reveals noble sensibility and thought in superior forms. Thus she sings in her verses entitled "Sentiments of Absence:"
"Hear me with eyes,
Now that so distant are thine ears;
Of absence my laments;
In echoes from my pen the groans;
And as can reach thee not my voice so rude,
Hear thou me deaf, since dumbly I complain."
This is like a voice of the Elizabethan age; but what woman even of that day has left us so rare a record of poetry and piety combined as the nun of San Geronimo, she who lived in 1670 in far-off, outlandish Mexico? What chapter of literature would seem too good to entertain this Tenth Muse, to whom we owe such sonnets as these:
TO A PAINTER OF OUR LADY, OF MOST EXCELLENT PENCIL.
If pencil, although grand in human wise,
Could make a picture thus most beautiful,
Where even clearest vision not refines
Thy light, O admirable—yet in vain:
How did the author of thy sovereign soul
Proportion space to his creation fair!
What grace he painted, and what loveliness!
The scope more ample, greater was the hand.
Was found within the sphere of purest light
The pencil, schooled within the morning-star,
When thou wert dawned, Aurora most divine?
Yea, thus indeed it was; but verily
The sky has not paid back thy cost to him
Who spent in thee more light than it has now.
THE LOVERS.
Feliciano loves me, and I hate him;
Lizardo hates me, and I do adore him;
For him who does not want me, do I cry,
And him who yearns for me, I not desire.
To him who me disdains, my soul I offer,
And him who is my victim, I disdain.
Him I despise who would enrich my honor,
And him who doth contemn me, I'd enrich.
If with offence the first I have displeased,
The other doth displease by me offended—
And thus I come to suffer every way;
For both are but as torments to my feelings—
This one with asking that which I have not,
And that in not having what I'd ask.