To Mrs. Temple, Pall Mall.
April 22.
Certainly, my dear, you are so far right; a nun may be in many
respects a less unhappy being than some women who continue in the
world; her situation is, I allow, paradise to that of a married woman,
of sensibility and honor, who dislikes her husband.
The cruelty therefore of some parents here, who sacrifice their
children to avarice, in forcing or seducing them into convents, would
appear more striking, if we did not see too many in England guilty of
the same inhumanity, though in a different manner, by marrying them
against their inclination.
Your letter reminds me of what a French married lady here said to me
on this very subject: I was exclaiming violently against convents; and
particularly urging, what I thought unanswerable, the extreme hardship
of one circumstance; that, however unhappy the state was found on
trial, there was no retreat; that it was _for life_.