River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-08-18

#y CUUJuF0S Il VlSlOn OIL lOIJy forest
MN isles and mysterious depths
M "A where old Enchantment plies
her shuttle of lost days and
dreams" Where monks of old wan
dered in peaceful meditation today the
wild deer brouses and the providers
Of dim forests glide. The barefooted
Carmelites are gone, and the gray
convent on the mountain, with its no.
bic domes, and towers and cloisters,
and arched corridors is silent and
pathetic, with that peculiar pathos
that broods over solitude where man
has once ruled.
Nature has been busy here, as is her
wont, recovering the conquest of man;
but those monks Of old built so nobly
that their work still resists effacement
and sees to dominate the wilderness.
Beauty envelopes like a garment the
grass-grown cloisters and crumbling
walls and domes of faded color; and
the breeze that rustles the tall heavy
headed grass and clinging vines seems
TO bring down the river of Time,
from that island of long ago, odor of
incense, tones Of long silent bells,
prisons and chants.
Such is Ell Desierto today; and one
cannot do better than to quote, as
others have, the old chronicler Thomas
Gage, an English Dominican monk
who was struggled into Mexico. He
wrote about 260 years ago ut is the
pleasantest place." he says, "of any
about Mexico; called by some La Sole
dad and by other Ell DesieEto, the soil
tary Or desert place or wilderness.
Were all wildernesses like it, to live
in a wilderness would be better than
to live in city
This hath been a device of poor
Flyers, named discalced or barefooted
Carmelites, who to make show of
their hypocritical and apparent godli-
ness, and whilest they would be
thought to live like Eremites, retired
from the world, they may draw the
world to them; they have built there
a stately cloister, which being upon
hill and among rocks makes it to be
more admired.
About the cloister they have fash
toned out many holes and caves in.
under and among the rocks, like Ere
mite lodgings, with room 10 lie in,
an oratory to pray in, with pictures
and images, and rare devices for
modification as disciplines of wyar,
rods of iron, haircloth girdles with
sharp wyar points to girdle about
their bare flesh, and many such toys,
which hang about their oratories to
make people admire their mortified
and holy lives.
"All these Eremitical holes and
caves (Which are ten In number) are
within the bounds and compass of the
cloister and among orchards and gar
dens of fruit and flowers, which may
take up two miles in compass; and
here among the rocks are many
springs of water, which, with the
shade of plantins and other trees, are
most cool and pleasant to the Ere
mites; they have also the sweet smell
of rose and jaznlin, which is a little
flower but the sweetest of all others;
there is not any flower to be found
that is rare and exquisite in that coun-
try which is not in that wilderness to
delight the senses of these mortified
Eremites."
Racial bias and rivalry of order,
though not sanity attributes, might
find entrance and be harbored un-
awares in the soul of even a good
monk. And since we remember that
Father Gage was English and Domini-
can, may we not justly soften his
caustic presentation of his "Eremites"
while we thank him for his chronicle?
To see FL Desierto as we saw it,
you must first get lost. On the smooth
white road up over the rolling hills
from the desolate little puebla of
Santa Fe our horses Hoped briskly in
the early morning. This old white rib
bon of road is an automobile thor
oughfare, in these mountaineering
days, from the City of Mexico over