IN PRISON
7
things into consideration and consoling and inspirational as that
scene may have been, I do not feel that what is suited to an asylum
is necessarily suited to a prison. That is, because I expect to go to
prison in full possession of my "faculties,"-in fact it is not until I
am securely installed there that I expect fully to realize them,-I
feel that something a little less rustic, a little harsher, might be of more
use to me personally. But it is a difficult question, and one that is
probably best decided, as of course it must be, by chance alone.
What I should like best of all, I might as well confess, would
be a view of a court-yard paved with stone. I have a fondness for
stone court-yards that amounts almost to a passion. If I were not to
be imprisoned I should at least attempt to make that part of my
dream a reality; I should want to live in a farm house such as I have
seen in foreign countries, a farm-house with an absolutely bare stone
platform attached to it, the stones laid in a simple pattern
of squares or diamonds. Another pattern I admire is interlocking
cobble-stone fans, with a border of larger stones set around the edge.
But from my cell window I should prefer, say, a lozenge design, out-
lined by long stones, the interior of the lozenges made of cobbles, and
the pattern narrowing away from my window towards the distant
wall of the prison-yard. The rest of my scen"erywould be the responsi-
bility of the weather alone, although I should rather face the east
than the west since I much prefer sunrises to sunsets. Then, too, it is
by looking towards the east that one obtains the most theatrical effects
from a sunset, in my opinion. I refer to that fifteen minutes or half
an hour of heavy gold in which any object can be made to look
magically significant. If the reader can tell me of anything more
beautiful than a stone court-yard lit obliquely in this way so that
the shallowly rounded stones each cast a small shadow but the general
surface is thickly sanded with gold, and a pole casts a long, long
shadow and a limp wire an unearthly one,-I beg him to tell me
what it is.
I understand that most prisons are now supplied with libraries
and that the prisoners are expected to read the
Everyman's Library
and other books of educational tendencies. I hope I am not being too
reactionary when I say that my one desire is to be given one very
dull book to read, the duller the better. A book, moreover, on a sub-
ject completely foreign to me; perhaps the second volume, if the first
would familiarize me too well with the terms and purpose of the
work. Then I shall be able to experience with a free conscience the
pleasure, perverse, I suppose, of interpreting it not at all according
to its intent. Because I share with Valery's
M. Teste
the "knowledge
that our thoughts are reflected back to us, too much so, through ex-
