d
yet shews very little sign of decay, being still lively and
cheerful. She caressed me as if I had been her daughter, giving me
some pretty things of her own work, and sweetmeats in abundance. The
grate is not of the most rigid; it is not very hard to put a head
through, and I don't doubt but a man, a little more slender than
ordinary, might squeeze in his whole person. The young count of
Salamis came to the grate, while I was there, and the abbess gave him
her hand to kiss. But I was surprised to find here, the only
beautiful young woman I have seen at Vienna, and not only beautiful
but genteel, witty, and agreeable, of a great family, and who had
been the admiration of the town. I could not forbear shewing my
surprise at seeing a Nun like her. She made me a thousand obliging
compliments, and desired me to come often. It will be an infinite
pleasure to me, (said she, sighing) but I avoid, with the greatest
care, seeing any of my former acquaintance, and whenever they come to
our convent, I lock myself in my cell. I observed tears come into
her eyes, which touched me extremely, and I began to talk to her in
that strain of tender pity she inspired me with; but she would not
own to me, that she is not perfectly happy. I have since endeavoured
to learn the real cause of her retirement, without being able to get
any other account, but that every body was surprised at it, and no
body guessed the reason. I have been several times to see her; but
it gives me too much melancholy to see so agreeable a young creature
buried alive. I am not surprised that Nuns have so often inspired
violent passions; the pity one naturally feels for them, when they
seem worthy of another destiny, making an easy way for yet more
tender sentiments. I never in my life had so little charity for the
Roman Catholick (sic) religion, as since I see the misery it
occasions; so many poor unhappy women! and then the gross
superstition of the common people, who are some or other of them, day
and night, offering bits of candle to the wooden figures that are set
up almost in every street. The processions I see very often, are a
pageantry, as offensive, and apparently contradictory to common
sense, as the pagods (sic) of China. God knows whether it be the
_womanly_ spirit of contradiction that works in me; but there never
before was such zeal against popery in the heart of,
Dear madam, &c. &c.