True dignities, as often as possible, stand
at ease. But here indeed were no true strengths and dignities,--only
prison-strengths and prison-dignities. Here the majesties, the
occupations, the offences, were alike frivolities, fantastically changed
about into solemnities.
That first impression of abject bowed heads and chains rattled beneath
desks, was roughly correct. For all that was human in a man, this was a
prison. These men who bent over foolish papers were evidently convicts
of the most desperate character; so, at all events, you would judge when
occasionally one or other of the prison-governors, known as "partners,"
passed among them with the lash of his eye. Such faint human twittering
as may have grown up amongst even these poor exiles would suddenly die
into a silence white with fear, as when the shadow of a hawk falls
across the song of smaller birds.
No human relations are acknowledged here. Outside, you may be a husband
wonderfully beloved and tragically important; you may be a man whose
courage has be-medalled your brave breast; you may be a passionate and
subtle musician in your private hours; you may even on Sundays be a much
appreciated vessel of the divine: but all such distinctions are not
current here; here they are foreign coin, diplomas unacknowledged in
this barbarous realm of ink and steel.
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