Identifier: argosythe45wood (find matches)
Title: The Argosy
Year: 1865 (1860s)
Authors: Wood, Henry, Mrs., 1814-1887 Wood, Charles W. (Charles William), b. 1850?
Subjects:
Publisher: London (etc.) R. Bentley (etc.)
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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he could only be moved here. But that was beyondthe region of possibility. About us and below us were the grey houses of Valdemosa. Asad, melancholy tone that suggested death and whispered of decay,the changing of all things, the passing of generations, the march of Letters from Majorca. 297 time; in short all that is painful to short-lived mortahty. In thewinter we had not visited the monastery. We did so to-day. I especially wished to make its acquaintance. For me it bore anameless charm. It was here that, fifty years ago, George Sand hadspent a winter, accompanied by her children, and by Chopin. Imaginea man of Chopins delicate health and sensitive temperament, spend-ing a winter in Mallorca ! It was a season of snow and frost, too,as George Sand has recorded. Even to-day, in visiting the island,you have to rough it to some extent: but fifty years ago the lifehere for a stranger was almost aboriginal. No one wanted him.He was a spy upon the land, like Caleb and Joshua: an intruder,
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Cloisters of Valdemosa. who was sent to Coventry. It nearly cost Chopin his life, and nodoubt hastened his end. Of course the monastery is now deserted, as far as monks andmidnight masses and religious ordinances are concerned. These allpassed away long ago. The building is the sole remaining vestigeof what has been. In Mallorca the monks have had their day.What was once devoted to sacred, is now given up to secular uses.The monks have been and are not; but Mallorca has not renouncedher religion, and is perhaps more priest-ridden than Spain itself.Nay, very certainly so. We first entered the church attached to the monastery : an emptybuilding of fine proportions, dimly lighted. Our footsteps echoedunder the vaulted roof. At the farther end, behind a screen, was a VOL. XLV. u 298 Letters from Majorca. harmonium. But it was locked, and the strains we would have up-raised remained mute. Perhaps they would have brought forth theshades of dead-and-gone monks, and we might have been very mu

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