fifty, a deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and wearing
on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can only call the
ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven years in retreat at a convent
of nuns in Belgium, and now five at Our Lady of the Snows; he never saw
an English newspaper; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he spoken it
like a native, there was not much chance of conversation where he dwelt.
With this, he was a man eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-
minded like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the
monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English face and hear an
English tongue.

He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among breviaries,
Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels. Thence he led me to the
cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry, where the
brothers' gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with his
religious name upon a board--names full of legendary suavity and
interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or Pacifique; into the
library, where were all the works of Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the
Odes et Ballades, if you please, and even Moliere, to say nothing of
innumerable fathers and a great variety of local and general historians.
Thence my good Irishman took me round the workshops, where brothers bake
bread, and make cartwheels, and take photographs; where one superintends
a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For in a
Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his own choice, apart
from his religious duties and the general labours of the house. Each
must sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in the
haymaking if he has a hand to stir; but in his private hours, although he
must be occupied, he may be occupied on what he likes. Thus I was told
that one brother was engaged with literature; while Father Apollinaris
busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot employs himself in binding