I Leap over the Wall - Contrasts and Impressions After Twenty-eight Years in a Convent

INTRODUCTION: I am not the first member of my family to leap over a wall. Nearly four hundred years ago, my ancestor, Thomas Baldwin of Diddlebury, leaped to freedom from behind the walls of the Tower of London, where he had been imprisoned for taking part in a plot for the escape of Mary Queen of Scots. His name, with an inscription and the date July 1585 can still be seen where he carved it on the wall of his cell in the Bcauchamp Tower. Later, he added a motto to his coat-of-arms, Per Deum mcum transdio tnttrum By the help of my God I leap over the wall. It has been the family motto of the Baldwins ever since but the wall that I leapt over was a spiritual and not a material obstacle, In 1914, my cousin, William Sparrow, who disapproved of my entering the convent, wrote to me Knowing you as I do, T can safely predict that it will be with you as with another fair and foolish female, whose unwisdom caused her to languish long behind prison walls. Your End will be your Beginning. I commend these words, with those of the family motto, to your meditations. Taken together, they may suggest a course of action in years to come. . . In the following pages I hnve tried to describe what happened when my cousins rather ambiguous prophecy was fulfilled. It is a rash and foolhardy undertaking, in the circumstances, for 1 really know nothing about anything, except, perhaps, what goes on behind high convent walls At 1 I Jtfy o41yfe c Js l at J So many, and such different kinds of people, have, urged me to attempt it. Some of them said to me, Because of your past environment, your angle is unusual It should interest people. You ought to write about it Others simply bombarded me with questions. It is chiefly on their account that I have embarked upon this book. Some of the remarks made to me revealed such fantastically wrong ideas about nuns and convents that I began to feel something ought to be done to put the monastic ideal in a truer perspective for those who know little or nothing about it. So I have tried to write accurately and fairly about life in a strictly enclosed convent, as I myself experienced it. To do this it was necessary to describe not only the wonderful and exalted spiritual ideal which inspires that life, but also certain aspects of it which for various reasons, may perhaps leave something to be desired. I do not feel that I have done my subject justice. If, however, these pages help to straighten out even a few of the curiously crooked notions which so many people still appear to retain about convents, I shall be well satisfied. One fact I must make clear from the outset. I describe the reli gious vocation from the point of view of one who had no such voca tion. The alternative title of this book might well be Impressions of a Square Peg in a Round Hole MONICA BALDWIN. I LEAP OVER THE WALL. CHAPTER ONE: Leaps over walls especially when taken late in life can be extremely perilous. To leap successfully, you need a sense of humour, the spirit of adventure and an unshakable conviction that what you are leaping over is an obstacle upon which you would otherwise fall down. My own leap was taken on October 26, 1941. On that day I left the convent, where for twenty-eight years I had Uved in the strictest possible enclosure, and came out again into the world...