irited, and polite: with them you almost forget
the recluse in the woman of condition. In short, you have the best
nuns at the Ursulines, the most agreeable women at the General
Hospital: all however have an air of chagrin, which they in vain
endeavour to conceal; and the general eagerness with which they tell
you unask'd they are happy, is a strong proof of the contrary.

Tho' the most indulgent of all men to the follies of others,
especially such as have their source in mistaken devotion; tho' willing
to allow all the world to play the fool their own way, yet I cannot
help being fir'd with a degree of zeal against an institution equally
incompatible with public good, and private happiness; an institution
which cruelly devotes beauty and innocence to slavery, regret, and
wretchedness; to a more irksome imprisonment than the severest laws
inflict on the worst of criminals.

Could any thing but experience, my dear Lucy, make it be believ'd
possible that there should be rational beings, who think they are
serving the God of mercy by inflicting on themselves voluntary
tortures, and cutting themselves off from that state of society in
which he has plac'd them, and for which they were form'd? by renouncing
the best affections of the human heart, the tender names of friend, of
wife, of mother? and, as far as in them lies, counter-working creation?
by spurning from them every amusement however innocent, by refusing the
gifts of that beneficent power who made us to be happy, and destroying
his most precious gifts, health, beauty, sensibility, chearfulness, and
peace!

My indignation is yet awake, from having seen a few days since at
the Ursulines, an extreme lovely young girl, whose countenance spoke a
soul form'd for the most lively, yet delicate, ties of love and
friendship, led by a momentary enthusiasm, or perhaps by a childish
vanity artfully excited, to the foot of those altars, which she will
probably too soon bathe with the bitter tears of repentance and
remorse.

The ceremony, form'd to strike the imagination, and seduce the heart
of unguarded youth, is extremely solemn and affecting; the procession
of the nuns, the sweetness of their voices in the choir, the dignified
devotion with which the charming enthusiast received the veil, and took
the cruel vow which shut her from the world for ever, struck my heart
in spite of my reason, and I felt myself touch'd even to tears by a
superstition I equally pity and despise