f these they eat sparingly; and though each is allowed
a small carafe of wine, many refrain from this indulgence. Without
doubt, the most of mankind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve
not only for support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the
labour of life. Yet, though excess may be hurtful, I should have thought
this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, at
the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all whom I beheld. A
happier nor a healthier company I should scarce suppose that I have ever
seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the incessant
occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain tenure, and death no
infrequent visitor, at Our Lady of the Snows. This, at least, was what
was told me. But if they die easily, they must live healthily in the
meantime, for they seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour; and the
only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy of eye, was
one that served rather to increase the general impression of vivacity and
strength.

Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet-tempered, with what I can
only call a holy cheerfulness in air and conversation. There is a note,
in the direction to visitors, telling them not to be offended at the curt
speech of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks to speak
little. The note might have been spared; to a man the hospitallers were
all brimming with innocent talk, and, in my experience of the monastery,
it was easier to begin than to break off a conversation. With the
exception of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed
themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all sorts of subjects--in
politics, in voyages, in my sleeping-sack--and not without a certain
pleasure in the sound of their own voices.

As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only wonder how they
bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart from any view
of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion
of women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some experience of lay
phalansteries, of an artistic, not to say a bacchanalian character; and
seen more than one association easily formed and yet more easily
dispersed. With a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted
longer. In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go
association that can be formed among defenceless men; the stronger
elec