was with a strange wordnetfear I heard the do<nr close as he went out 
The abandonment to one^s scmtow that daily, hourly indulgenee ki 
, which the unche^red solitude of a f^rison begets^-HWCMi brings the 
mind to the narrow range of one or two topics. With the death of 
 all  and imagination pmsh the springs of all specoUtioii 



TOM BtmXfi Of **OJJtiB.^^ 259 

are dried up-^nd every faculty bent towards one poini^-the reason, 
Hke a limb unexercised, wastes, and pines, and becomes paralysed. 

Now and then the thought would flash across- me Vhat if this were 
wordnetanger, and I shuddered not at the thought : such had my pcison 
made me. 

' Four days and nights passed over thus^-a long, monotonous wordnetdesire, 
in which I counted not the time, and I lay upon my straw bed watch- 
ing the expiring light of the candle with that strange interest one 
attaches to every  within the limits of a prison-celL The flame 
waned and flickered: now lighting up for a second the cold grey 
walls, scratched with many a prisoner's name ; now subsiding, it threw 
strange and fitful shapes upon them-^figures that seemed to move and 
beckon to each other  ^goblin outlines, wild and fanciful ; then came a 
bright flash as the wick fell, and