Page:Twelve Years in a Monastery (1897).djvu/179

 to use in teaching philosophy, Mgr. E. Grandclaude, a widely popular modern author, gravely attributes the more curious manifestations of somnambulism to the same untiring and ubiquitous agency. In every question the priest is found to be ignorant, antiquated, tyrannical.

Hence it is natural that the conversations with their parishioners which occupy most of their time are of a very desultory character. In the morning the friar rarely visits, except in case of sickness, but he is much visited. In every monastery there is a certain section marked off near the door, usually the hall and a few small parlours, to which ladies are allowed access; in the monastery proper, women (except the queen, who cannot be excluded) are never admitted under any circumstances whatever, even to visit a dying son or brother, under pain of excommunication. In these parlours, which, I hasten to add, are fitted with glass doors, the friars are much occupied in the mornings. The rest of the forenoon is spent reading or preparing sermons in their cells, or chatting together in each other’s cells, or in the library, or over the daily paper, all of which is illicit but unavoidable. After dinner and early tea they exchange their brown habits for ordinary clerical attire and proceed to visit their parishioners. They are directed to return to the convent at seven, but it is usually much later when they arrive.

Apart from the care of the sick and dying, and the