FOREWORD
The writing of this book has been to me no joyful task, as its making has been at the expense of much-needed rest and peace of mind. In returning to my dear native land after a long imprisonment, I cherished the hope that I might as quietly as possible be permitted to take up the threads of outward existence so cruelly broken, little dreaming that trials hardly less grievous than those left behind awaited me; for no sooner had I touched these hospitable shores, when I was met by the fear-inspiring cry, “You must write a book—you must give the world an account of your sufferings”—as if one could never suffer enough. My well-meaning friends could hardly have known what they were asking in forcing upon me a mental return to the dread past. Solitary confinement in Woking Prison (as the reader may learn from these pages) was not such an elysium that one should voluntarily desire to hark back to it, nor is penal servitude in Aylesbury an Arcadian dream. While within their grim walls I did my best to exclude from thought the world without; and now that I am once again in the world (though scarcely of it), my one desire to shut out all the abhorrent things which so-called “prison life” stands for has thus far not only failed of realization, but, under conditions even more trying than the repressive prison régime (because of the free and happy life all about, which it seemed to poor me that I had some right to share), I have been compelled by force of circumstance to return to my cast-off prison shell, and live all the old heart-and-brain-crushing life over again. However, my second “trial and imprisonment,” like the first, is at last drawing to a close; and I devoutly trust that I shall be now permitted to enter upon a long-coveted rest, and partake as I may of those tempered joys which my countrymen by their beautiful sympathy have so chivalrously endeavored to make possible for me.
Theoretically my imprisonment terminated on English soil, but so relentlessly have the fates pursued me that I have been in nowise free quite up to the present moment. In Rouen, France, where I sojourned at my mother’s home for three weeks, I was as much in durance to my genial enemy, the ubiquitous reporter, as when the English Government held me in its inexorable grasp. Our cottage was completely invested by him, and all approaches and exits held with a persistency which, under other circumstances, might well have extorted my admiration.
Then came the ever-to-be-remembered sea voyage. I am a good sailor, and so the physical discomforts that beset so many were agreeably minimized; but I could not throw off the feeling that I was not yet free—the limits of the ship were still all too suggestive of the narrow exercise grounds of Aylesbury prison; and, while the eye could roam without hindrance, there came upon me again and again an irresistible desire, which the rolling billows strenuously gainsaid, to make a dash for liberty.
Thereupon followed a couple of days at the Holland House, New York, with the same persistent reporter never absent. After this experience, I was taken by the kindest of friends to where nature is at her loveliest and human hearts beat in unison with their uplifting surroundings. Beautiful Cragsmoor, with its wide reaches of inspiring scenery, most appropriately the summer home of an artistic colony, is not too easy of access to mar a desire for seclusion, and a greater antithesis to prison walls than is afforded by this aerie can hardly be imagined.
Here all things that on lower planes so cruelly vex the spirit seem far away and beneath. If only no publishers—however benevolent—had entered this Eden, what a paradise it could have been to me! However, in spite of these dread taskmasters, my soul drank deeply of the elixir so bountifully held to my lips; and when in the golden autumn all the noble woods about robed themselves in such glory as may be seen nowhere outside my beloved native land—and perchance nowhere here more ravishingly than in these Hudson Valley uplands—the rapture of my heart, so long starved within the narrowest and cruelest of confines, turned adoringly to Him who has made this world so beautiful for His children’s eyes.
I need hardly be at pains to say to my readers, that lessons in literary composition form no part of the disciplinary curriculum of Aylesbury; nay, the art of writing is distinctly discouraged there, as interfering with the prescribed parliamentary régime. Accordingly, when I set out to tell my pitiful little story, I was told to look at myself objectively; then to pry into myself subjectively; then to regard both in their relation to the outside world—to describe how this, that, or the other affected me; in short, as one of them, more deep in science than others, expressed it, “We want as much as possible of the psychology of your prison life.”
I surreptitiously looked up that awe-inspiring word in a dictionary, and found that it refers to the soul, and that it was my soul they wanted me to lay bare. I vehemently protested that that belonged to my God, and I had no right to expose it for daws to peck at. But the publishers, with the aid of my friends, persuaded me that the public would give me their tenderest regard, and that possibly the humanities might be furthered a bit if the story of a woman—whatever might be her failings in other directions—wholly guiltless of the terrible charge of wilful murder, and for which in her innocence she was made to suffer so cruelly, be given in fullest heart detail to a sympathetic world. So I have done what I trust is best for all—spared myself as little as possible, lest the picture fail from suppression—and my dearest heart-hope is that somewhat of good may come of it, especially in behalf of those whom a dire fate shall compel to follow in my steps, with bruised spirits and bleeding feet.