TO live at liberty is doubtless much better than living in a prison; but,
even here, the reflection that God is present with us, that worldly joys
are brief and fleeting, and that true happiness is to be sought in the
conscience, not in external objects, can give a real zest to life. In
less than one month I had made up my mind, I will not say perfectly, but
in a tolerable degree, as to the part I should adopt. I saw that, being
incapable of the mean action of obtaining impunity by procuring the
destruction of others, the only prospect that lay before me was the
scaffold, or long protracted captivity. It was necessary that I should
prepare myself. I will live, I said to myself, so long as I shall be
permitted, and when they take my life, I will do as the unfortunate have
done before me; when arrived at the last moment, I can die. I
endeavoured, as much as possible, not to complain, and to obtain every
possible enjoyment of mind within my reach. The most customary was that
of recalling the many advantages which had thrown a charm round my
previous life; the best of fathers, of mothers, excellent brothers and
sisters, many friends, a good education, and a taste for letters. Should
I now refuse to be grateful to God for all these benefits, because He had
pleased to visit me with misfortune? Sometimes, indeed, in recalling
past scenes to mind, I was affected even to tears; but I soon recovered
my courage and cheerfulness of heart.
At the commencement of my captivity I was fortunate enough to meet with a
friend. It was neither the governor, nor any of his under-jailers, nor
any of the lords of the process-chamber. Who then?—a poor deaf and dumb
boy, five or six years old, the offspring of thieves, who had paid the
penalty of the law. This wretched little orphan was supported by the
police, with several other boys in the same condition of life. They all
dwelt in a room opposite my own, and were only permitted to go out at
certain hours to breathe a little air in the yard. Little deaf and dumb
used to come under my window, smiled, and made his obeisance to me. I
threw him a piece of bread; he took it, and gave a leap of joy, then ran
to his companions, divided it, and returned to eat his own share under
the window. The others gave me a wistful look from a distance, but
ventured no nearer, while the deaf and dumb boy expressed a sympathy for
me; not, I found, affected, out of mere selfishness. Sometimes he was at
a loss what to do with the bread I gave him, and made signs that he had
eaten enough, as also his companions. When he saw one of the
under-jailers going into my room, he would give him what he had got from
me, in order to restore it to me. Yet he continued to haunt my window,
and seemed rejoiced whenever I deigned to notice him. One day the jailer
permitted him to enter my prison, when he instantly ran to embrace my
knees, actually uttering a cry of joy. I took him up in my arms, and he
threw his little hands about my neck, and lavished on me the tenderest
caresses. How much affection in his smile and manner! how eagerly I
longed to have him to educate, raise him from his abject condition, and
snatch him, perhaps, from utter ruin. I never even learnt his name; he
did not himself know that he had one. He seemed always happy, and I
never saw him weep except once, and that was on being beaten, I know not
why, by the jailer. Strange that he should be thus happy in a receptacle
of so much pain and sorrow; yet he was light-hearted as the son of a
grandee. From him I learnt, at least, that the mind need not depend on
situation, but may be rendered independent of external things. Govern
the imagination, and we shall be well, wheresoever we happen to be
placed. A day is soon over, and if at night we can retire to rest
without actual pain and hunger, it little matters whether it be within
the walls of a prison, or of a kind of building which they call a palace.
Good reasoning this; but how are we to contrive so to govern the
imagination? I began to try, and sometimes I thought I had succeeded to
a miracle; but at others the enchantress triumphed, and I was
unexpectedly astonished to find tears starting into my eyes.