SANTIAGO. 271 
Maria’s mind, of a high and lofty nature, is peculiarly susceptible of 
religious impressions. Under these, the tender-conscienced girl, to 
punish herself for an attachment not favoured by her house, which 
she still felt, though at her parents’ bidding she had given up its 
object, resolved to go for ten days to a Casa de Exercisio. There, 
under the guidance of an old priest, the young creatures who retire 
thus are kept praying night and day, with so little food and sleep 
that their bodies and minds alike become weakened. Al the inter- 
vals between the Masses, which are of the most lugubrious chants, 
are passed in silence; no voice is heard above a whisper, and the 
light of heaven is scarcely admitted. A young married woman who 
went in with Maria came out even gayer than she entered ; doubtless 
her heart had rested on her husband and their home. But what was 
to occupy the thoughts and affections of the girl whose best feelings 
were to be crushed ? Could she harbour there 
* A wish but death, a passion but despair ?” 
And she has returned as it were to earth, —on it, but not of it. 
The sight of friends throws her into fits of hysterical weeping ; and, 
only prostrate before the altar, and repeating the Masses of her house 
of woe, does she seem soothed or calmed. Such are the effects of 
the house of exercise. I might have thought that my young friend’s 
peculiar disposition alone had caused this; but I know a youth who 
was, I am told, once all that parents could wish, — accomplished and 
enlightened, and possessed of honour and spirit. He is now little 
better than a drivelling idiot. He went into a house of exercise a 
man, —he came out of it what he is. Oh! if I had power or in- 
fluence here, I would put down these mischievous establishments. 
Even when they do not cause, as in this instance, a derangement of 
the intellect, they are nurseries of bigotry and fanaticism. To have 
been in one is a source of vanity, to conform to the sentiments in- 
culcated there a point of conscience ; and as it is easier to be a bigot 
than a virtuous man, great laxity of conduct is permitted, so the spirit 
