"Your novitiate, soon to end in freedom," said L'Isle, "would not help
you to the experience of the true internal life of the nun. It is
pleasant to walk, leading your horse by the rein, and at liberty to
mount when you like; but the essence of monastic life lies in the
conviction that you have turned your back forever on the world
without, with all its trials, its hopes and fears, its passions and
pursuits, and have given yourself religiously to tread through this
life, the narrow path you have chosen, to the next."
"You have convinced me," said Lady Mabel. "In my longing after a
varied experience of the conditions of life, I might sacrifice half a
year to the trial of one, but I prefer ignorance on this point to the
burden of a life-enduring vow."
"If our knowledge were limited by our own experience, we would know
little indeed," said L'Isle. "Our capacity to bring home to ourselves
other conditions than our own, depends more on the transferring and
transforming faculties of the imagination, than on the observing
powers of the eye. If, indeed, we had never felt bodily pain, we could
not feel for a man on the rack. Had we never known anguish of mind, we
might not estimate the mental agonies of others.
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