als were above
reproach. Theresa was sent to a convent in her native town by her
father, that she might be removed from the influence of gay companions,
especially her male cousins, who could not be denied the house. At first
she was quite unhappy, finding the convent dull, _triste_, and strict. I
cannot conceive of a convent being a very pleasant place for a worldly
young lady, in any country or in any age of the world. Its monotony and
routine and mechanical duties must ever have been irksome. The pleasing
manners and bright conversation of Theresa caused the nuns to take an
unusual interest in her; and one of them in particular exercised a great
influence upon her, so that she was inclined at times to become a nun
herself, though not of a very strict order, since she was still fond of
the pleasures of the world.

At sixteen, Theresa's poor health made it necessary for her to return to
her father's house. When she recovered she spent some time with her
uncle, afterwards a monk, who made her read good books, and impressed
upon her the vanity of the world. In a few months she resolved to become
a nun,--out of servile fear rather than love, as she avers. The whole
religious life of the Middle Ages was based on fear,--the fear of being
tortured forever by devils and hell. So universal and powerful was this
fear that it became the leading idea of the age, from which very few
were ever emancipated. On this idea were based the excommunications, the
interdicts, and all the spiritual weapons by which the clergy ruled the
minds of the people. On this their ascendency rested; they would have
had but little power without it. It was therefore their interest to
perpetuate it. And as they ruled by exciting fears, so they themselves
were objects of fear rather than of love.

All this tended to make the Middle Ages gloomy, funereal, repulsive,
austere. There was a time when I felt a sort of poetic interest in these
dark times, and called them ages of faith; but the older I grow, and the
more I read and reflect, the more dreary do those ages seem to me. Think
of a state of society when everything suggested wrath and vengeance,
even in the character of God, and when this world was supposed to be
under the dominion of devils! Think of an education which impressed on
the minds of interesting young girls that the trifling sins which they
committed every day, and which proceeded from the exuberance of animal
spirits, justly doomed them to