nd classify—the great lives, the great works, each one
of them neat and gleaming and complete, like metal letters in a box of type.
I wish that Pa was with me now. I would ask him how he would start to write
the story I have embarked upon to-day. I would ask him how he would neatly
tell the story of a prison—of Millbank Prison—which has so many separate
lives in it, and is so curious a shape, and must be approached, so darkly,
through so many gates and twisting passages. Would he start it with the building
of the gaols themselves? I cannot do that, for though I was told the date of it this
morning I have forgotten it jiow; besides which, Millbank is so solid and so
antique, I can''t believe that there was ever a time when it did not sit upon that
dreary spot beside the Thames, casting its shadow on the black earth there. He
might begin it, then, with Mr Shillitoe''s visit to this house, three weeks ago; or,
he might begin it at seven this morning, when Ellis first brought me my grey suit
and my coat—no, of course he would not start the story there, with a lady and
her servant, and petticoats and loose hair.
He would start it, I think, at the gate of Millbank, the point that every visitor
must pass when they arrive to make their tour of the gaols. Let me begin my
record there, then: I am being greeted by the prison porter, who is marking my