I determined then and there to live in the future, and never to dwell on the horrible present or past. Then I remembered the last scene in Newgate and my promise to accompany my friends step by step, day by day, in our readings. Finding a Bible on the little rusty iron shelf in the corner, and this being the fourth day of our sentence, I turned to the fourth chapter. It gives the story of Cain's crime and punishment, and I read the graphic narrative with an intensity of interest difficult to describe. When I read, "And Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth," I felt that the cry of Cain in all its intense naturalness, in its remorse and despair, was my own, and I was overcome. Laying the book down, I walked the floor for an hour in agony, until fantastic images came thronging thick and fast to my brain. I realized that my mind was going and felt I must do something to make me forget my misery.
I opened the Bible at random and my eye caught the word "misery." I looked closely at the verse and read:
"Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away."
I threw the book down, crying with vehemence, "That's a lie! God never gives something for nothing." Soon I opened the book again and looked at the context. Those of my readers who care to do so can do the same. The verse is Job xi., 16. The context begins at verse 13. From that hour I never despaired again.
The same day I began committing the Book of Job to memory, and worked for dear life and reason. I became interested, and my interest in that wondrous poem deepened until the study became a passion. Thus I turned the whole current of my thoughts into a new channel. Reason came back, and with it resolution and courage and strength.
I was in Pentonville Prison, in the suburbs of London. All men convicted in England are sent to this prison to undergo one year's solitary confinement. At the completion of the year they are drafted away to the public works' prisons, where, working in gangs, they complete their sentences.
Of my experience in Pentonville during my year of solitude it suffices to say that, passing through a great deal of mental conflict, I found I had grown stronger and was eager for transfer to the other prison, where I could for a few hours each day at least look on the sky and the faces of my fellow men.
At last the day of transfer came, and, escorted by two uniformed and armed warders, I was taken to the famous Chatham Prison, twenty-seven miles from London on the river Medway....
"You were sent here to work, and you will have to do it or I will make you suffer for it," was the friendly greeting that fell on my ears as I stood before a pompous little fellow (an ex-major from the army) at Chatham Prison one lovely morning in 1874.
I had arrived there under escort but an hour before, strong in the resolve to obey the regulations if I could, and never to give in if I had a fair chance; also with a desperate resolve never to submit to persecution, come what might, and these resolutions saved me—but only by a steady and dogged adherence to them on many occasions, through many years and amid surroundings that might well make me—as it did and does many good men—desperate and utterly reckless.