I need hardly be at pains to say to my readers, that lessons in literary composition form no part of the disciplinary curriculum of Aylesbury; nay, the art of writing is distinctly discouraged there, as interfering with the prescribed parliamentary régime. Accordingly, when I set out to tell my pitiful little story, I was told to look at myself objectively; then to pry into myself subjectively; then to regard both in their relation to the outside world--to describe how this, that, or the other affected me; in short, as one of them, more deep in science than others, expressed it, “We want as much as possible of the psychology of your prison life.”
I surreptitiously looked up that awe-inspiring word in a dictionary, and found that it refers to the soul, and that it was my soul they wanted me to lay bare. I vehemently protested that that belonged to my God, and I had no right to expose it for daws to peck at. But the publishers, with the aid of my friends, persuaded me that the public would give me their tenderest regard, and that possibly the humanities might be furthered a bit if the story of a woman--whatever might be her failings in other directions--wholly guiltless of the terrible charge of wilful murder, and for which in her innocence she was made to suffer so cruelly, be given in fullest heart detail to a sympathetic world. So I have done what I trust is best for all--spared myself as little as possible, lest the picture fail from suppression--and my dearest heart-hope is that somewhat of good may come of it, especially in behalf of those whom a dire fate shall compel to follow in my steps, with bruised spirits and bleeding feet.
I was born at Mobile, Ala., September 3, 1862. In searching for some account of my genealogy, I found a published letter of Gail Hamilton’s, who was ever one of my most eloquent and steadfast champions, and to whom I owe a debt of gratitude I can never adequately express. From this it appears that I am the great-great-granddaughter of Rev. Benjamin Thurston, a graduate of Harvard College, who settled at North Hampton, N. H., and of his wife, Sarah Phillips, who was the sister of John Phillips, who founded Phillips’ Academy in Exeter, endowed a professorship in Dartmouth, and contributed funds to Princeton; and who was the aunt of Samuel Phillips, who founded Phillips’s Academy at Andover.