In sending forth this book to the world, I would have it clearly understood that it is not my desire to injure any one. I only wish that the mistakes of my life may prove a warning to others and prevent them from taking the step I did. I feel it to be a solemn duty, which I owe to God, to put before the public convent life in the Church of England, as I found it.

Naturally I shrink from the task, for the Mother of the Feltham convent has always acted, as far as my experience goes, conscientiously, and it was in no way on her account that I felt bound to withdraw from convent life. Besides Father Ignatius himself once seemed to love me as his “little daughter,” and was exceedingly kind to me. Let it be remembered that I was then but a child and a very simple and inexperienced one.

In one sense, it is not against him personally that I am writing, yet, in another, it is, because he was head over all, added to which, he made a personal application to my mother to give me up to him for God’s service, and thus he was responsible for seeing that my life was made at least endurable; instead of which, he gave me up entirely into the hands of a certain Mother Superior, who (I would speak the truth in love) was a zealous and tyrannical woman.

Believing it, then, to be my duty, I now take up my pen, and may God guide it, so that, in His hands, it may be the means of saving young girls and women, and young men and boys, from inflicting on their relatives the bitter pain and sorrow which I caused my own dear mother and friends. May many by this warning be saved from the bitter disappointment which was my lot, when I found convent life so different in practice and reality from what in theory and fancy it seemed to be. Instead of it being the “Gate of Heaven,” as it is sometimes said to be, my experience was that it is much nearer another gate.

I feel convinced too that, if the truth could only be got at, it would be discovered that my experience was not an exceptional one. I have heard that it was St. Chrysostom who said, “A monk, by the very nature of the life he leads, is either an angel or a devil,” and I seldom, if ever, knew a monk or boy, a girl or woman, who, sooner or later, did not turn into something which was far removed from that which is angelic, though at their entrance into that name of “Pax,” they were, to all appearances, “perfect saints.”

Instead of being ennobled by the monastic and conventual life, my experience has been (and I have had an experience of some seventeen years, and have come in contact with a goodly number of persons living under vows) that the life is far from having an ennobling influence. Life of this kind generally causes those who lead it to become mean, petty, and selfish, and no selfishness can equal a nun’s, particularly when nature inclines her to be so.[2] Nuns are either crushed slaves or tyrants, and often so puffed up with pride that they look upon “seculars” as a race of beings far below themselves, and who, as the Lady Prioress Wereburgh used to say to us, “should think themselves highly honoured to have the privilege of a nun condescending to speak to them.”

I would ask all who read this story to overlook the lack of style and order which may be apparent, but I am now very much occupied in earning my bread, and can only give a few night-hours occasionally to the task, and I have never been accustomed to work of this kind.