A Monastery (n.) is not the desperate man's first refuge: he must first consider whether some tie makes it his duty to get another person afloat — then, if not a knight in life, he may hope to be buried as one.
A Monastery (n.) is a childish hiding place, like a child who hides so that someone will come and find it; the monk told the world he had hidden himself — he was playing hide-and-seek.
A Monastery (n.) was the Middle Ages' relative salvation for the man gone astray; our age has no such help — he must perish if he is not entirely healed.
A Monastery (n.) drew medieval men because one could become extraordinary there at so cheap a price — but the gods do not sell the extraordinary at a bargain.
A Monastery (n.) is not the highest thing — but in an age when nobody enters one, it does not follow that everybody is greater than the earnest soul who found repose there.