The only way to realise what the monastic life really meant would be
to imagine a small modern college situated in the country, and the
passage of a decree that not a single student should leave the
college grounds until his body was committed to the tomb. The
outside interests of the world would quickly grow dim and eventually
vanish; and everything would be concentrated within the community. I
suppose that the passions of friendship, hatred, and jealousy would
be prodigiously magnified. There must have been friendships among
the monks of the middle ages compared to which our boasted college
friendships are thin and pale; and there must have been frightful
hatreds and jealousies. In all communities there are certain persons
that get on the nerves of certain others; the only way to avoid this
acute suffering is to avoid meeting the person who causes it. But
imagine a cloister where dwells a. man you simply can not endure:
every word he says, every motion he makes, every single mannerism of
walk and speech is intolerable.
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