Then there is the absence of contact (entire absence in Catholic countries) with the sex which is, by instinct and education, more refined, and exercises a refining influence. In the absence of that influence, whose effect is too notorious to be insisted upon, a natural masculine tendency to coarseness develops freely—unless it receives a check in deep spirituality, which cannot be said to be frequently the case. In point of fact most of the founders of orders seem to have appreciated that influence very sensibly. St. Augustine, of course, in his saintly days, does not, for obvious reasons, but St. Benedict had his Scholastica, St. Francis his Clare, St. Francis de Sales his Jeanne Françoise, and even the grim St. Peter of Alcantara had his Teresa. Their modern disciples have also many 'spiritual' friendships, but the fact is unable to counterbalance the effect of their celibate home-life; their intercourse with women, in the face of their ascetical teaching, is necessarily either very limited or hypocritical.
Thus it is that, wherever there is not deep piety, selfish individualism, which is the root of all that undignified intrigue, meanness, and dissension which has been described, is engendered. Thus it is also that there is a morbid craving for indulgence in food and drink—making a mockery of their long fasts and abstinences: in the midst of a long fast they will celebrate an accidental feast-day most luxuriously, and at the close of the fast have quite a gastronomic
