e that is not felt, error
that has not been committed. It is not for us to criticise the
catastrophe of the drama, when we have no acquaintance with the scenes
which have preceded it. It is not for us, guided by our own thoughts,
moved by the impulses of the world we live in, to decide upon the
measure of good or evil contained in an act of self-sacrifice at the
altar of religion, which is in its own motive and result so utterly
separated from all other motives and results, that we cannot at the
outset even so much as sympathise with it. The purpose of the convent
system is of those purposes which are conceived in this world, but which
appeal for justification or condemnation only to the next.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged!" Those words sink deep into our
hearts, as we look our last upon the convent walls, and leave the
living-dead at old Lanhearne.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] All the particulars here related of the convent discipline, were
communicated to me by the resident priest. This gentleman was certainly
not a prejudiced witness on the side of austerity--for he frankly
complained of the lonely life which the rules of the Sisterhood
inflicted on him, and unhesitatingly acknowledged that he was anxious
for the time when his clerical successor would come to relieve him.

XIII.

LEGENDS OF THE NORTHERN COAST.

From the time when we left St. Ives, we walked through the last part of
our journey much faster than we walked through the first; faster,
perhaps, than the reader may have perceived from these pages. When we
stopped at the town of St. Columb Major, to visit the neighbouring vale
of Mawgan, we had already advanced half way up the northern coast of
Cornwall. Throughout this part of the county the towns lay wide asunder;
and, as pedestrian tourists, we were obliged to lengthen our walks and
hasten our pace accordingly.

After we had quitted St. Columb Major, our rambles began to draw rapidly
to their close. Little more was now left for us to examine than the
different localities connected with certain interesting Cornish legends.
The places thus associated with the quaint fancies of the olden time,
were all situated close together, some fifteen or twenty miles farther
on, along the coast. The first among them that we reached was Tintagel
Castle, an ancient ruin magnificently situated on a precipice
overhanging the sea, and romantically, if not historically, reputed as
the birthplace of King Arthur.

T