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Whatever was done, in convent-walls, bar-rooms, and even in the hall of the council, contrary to truth, reason and sound morals, was exposed without mercy from the pulpit. Just then, 1519, the throne of the German Empire became vacant by the death of Maximilian I. Intrigues in regard to the choice of a successor kept the diet assembled in Zurich, in constant employment.
Vowed celibacy was abominable to her, because it was the resource of the Roman Catholics; and because she had been taught to believe that convent-walls were screens for hiding unheard-of wickedness. But yet, on behalf of her child, she desired seclusion from the world, fancying that so and so only might security be ensured. Superstition was as strong with her as with any self-flagellated nun.
But the Sisterhood is perfectly secular; they mingle with the inhabitants of the city, quit the Convent when they choose, and even marry when they are so minded; but they are obliged, so long as they belong to the Order, to attend Prayers a certain number of times a day, and to be within the Convent-walls at a stated hour every evening.
Beautiful and masterful though the Bargello is, it smells too strongly of restoration, and, much of old Italy as still lurks in its furbished and renovated chambers, it speaks even more distinctly of the ill-mannered young kingdom that has as "unavoidably" as you please lifted down a hundred delicate works of sculpture from the convent-walls where their pious authors placed them.
Opposite, perhaps, one of Fuga's golden-brown churches, with windy saints blowing out of their niches, overlooked the nereids of a barocco fountain, or an old house propped itself like a palsied beggar against a row of Corinthian columns; while everywhere flights of steps led up and down to hanging gardens or under archways, and each turn revealed some distant glimpse of convent-walls on the slope of a vineyard or of red-brown ruins profiled against the dim sea-like reaches of the Campagna.
"So the Church rejects me because I am poor," said she, with a sigh. "The Church rejects you not, but only the Convent. No place is less fit for you. You have a high spirit, and high religious sentiments: both would be mortified and shocked in a nunnery. Think you that convent-walls can shut out temptation?
Now she travelled as a devotee travels heavenward, making a monastery of the world, and convent-walls out of rays from Paradise. She thought only of the end of her journey; and everything touched her through the throbbings of her heart. On shipboard, she was busy with the poor old sick father whom his children were carrying home to his native land.
She never felt, within the convent-walls, that divine curiosity, that blessed insubordination of the artist-child which obtains its first understanding of beauty from its hatred of the ugliness around it and which turns towards pretty things as flowers and plants turn towards the light. Ah, my poor Rose, how I should like to see you more eager and alive!
The convent-walls might be battered down, the more valuable edifices might be converted into dwellings for the new Protestant aristocracy, their property might go to enrich upstarts, and feed the rapacity of greedy conquerors, but the institution itself could not perish. It is true that in all Catholic countries this seems also to be the case; but wide is the difference with regard to Ireland.
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