ed light of the silvery winter sun
sometimes streamed through the dense glass upon my face, rays of
the eternal splendor coming so many millions of miles from the
great fire-fount, how indifferent, as Perdita saw, to the artificial
distinctions of men! I felt refreshed, but the feeling wore off as I
returned to the gloomy corridor, skirting cells on the right, and on the
left a low rail that offered the suicide a tempting leap into the arms
of Death. All this time I was living an intense inward life, but
I suppose there was a far-away look in my eyes, for now and then a
prisoner would say "Cheer up, sir." I smiled at this consolatory effort,
for although I was disgusted, I was not despondent. Occasionally
an attempt was made to drag me into conversation, but I parried all
advances with as little offence as possible. One dirty short man,
grievously afflicted with scurvy, or something worse, several times
manoeuvred to get behind me, and at last he succeeded. "How long ye
doin', mate?" No answer. "I say, mate, how long ye doin'?" No answer. "A
damned long time, _I_ know, or they wouldn' give ye a ---- new suit like
that, ye stuck-up ------."

What oaths I heard in that wretched gaol! No abomination of human speech
is unknown to me. One particularly vile expletive was fashionable during
my imprisonment; it seasoned every phrase, and preceded every adjective.
Its constant iteration was sickening, until long experience made me
callous. How thankful I should be to Judge North for trying to purify
me in that mud-bath of rascality. I can never forget the debt of
gratitude--and I never will!

Among the prisoners I noticed one of robust physique and martial
bearing. Seldom had I seen so fine a figure. Within six months I saw
that man reduced almost to a skeleton by solitary confinement, wearily
trailing one limb after the other, and looking out despairingly from
cavernous, moribund eyes. Well did Lord Fitzgerald (I think) in a recent
speech in the House of Lords describe this torture as the worst ever
devised by the brain of man. His lordship added that the Governor of a
great prison told him that he never knew a man undergo twelve months
of such punishment without severe suffering, or two years of it without
being terribly shaken, or three years without being physically and
mentally wrecked. In the penal servitude establishments the discipline
has to be relaxed, or the prisoners would die or go mad before their
terms expired.