Suppose that what I write might one day be useful to others,--might make
the Judge pause in his decision, and might save the wretched (innocent
or guilty) from the agony to which I am condemned,--why should _I_ do
it? What matters it? When my life has been taken, what will it be to me
if they take the lives of others? Have I really thought of such
folly?--to throw down the scaffold which I had fatally mounted!
* * * * *
What! sunshine, spring, fields full of flowers and birds, the clouds,
trees, nature, liberty, life,--these are to be mine no more!
Ah, it is myself I must try to save! Is it really true that this cannot
be, that I must die soon,--to-morrow, to-day perhaps; is it all thus?
Oh, heavens! what a dreadful idea,--of destroying myself against the
prison wall!