They were distant and isolated temporalities shrunken to toy constructions in the lonely waste of what seemed a desert--and was.

Such a scene is always mournful, it is so impressively still, and looks so steeped in death.

But there was a sound here which interrupted the stillness only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint far sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly knew whether we heard it with our ears or with our spirits.
We reached the monastery before dark, and there the males were given lodging, but the women were sent over to the nunnery.

The bells were close at hand now, and their solemn booming smote upon the ear like a message of doom.

A superstitious despair possessed the heart of every monk and published itself in his ghastly face.