Mother Mary
Hilda thought it would be dangerous to open the doors of the
novitiate to one who admitted she was entering the religious life
only as an experiment, especially to one like myself, an opera
singer, who, however zealously she might conform to the rule, would
bring a certain atmosphere with her into the novitiate, one which
could not fail to affect a number of young and innocent girls, and
perhaps deleteriously. I think I agree with Mother Mary Hilda. All
this I heard afterwards from Mother Philippa, who, in her homely way,
let out the secret of these secret deliberations to me--how the
Prioress, who desired the investiture, said that every postulant
entered the novitiate as an experiment. 'But believing,' Mother Mary
Hilda interrupted, 'that the experiment will succeed, whereas, in
her case, the postulant does not believe at all.'
"As it was impossible for the Mothers to decide I was sent for, and
asked whether I thought the experiment would succeed or fail.' But
what experiment?--I had to ask. And the Prioress and Mother Hilda
were not agreed, their points of view were not the same; mine was,
again, a different point of view, mine being, as you know, a
determination to conquer a certain thing in my nature which had
nearly brought about my ruin, and which, if left unchecked, would
bring it about.
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