Mathematical studies were impossible, for the authorities also refused to allow me my instruments, lest I should commit suicide with them; but I had provided for that, as every man should who goes to gaol. There was just width enough in my cell to admit of the heavy iron bed-frame being raised on one end. By marking a circle round one of the legs, which I did with a fragment of stone, I determined the place on which the leg would fall when the frame was pulled down. My head once placed on that spot, the great weight of the frame would have sent the narrow leg through the brain, and death must have been instantaneous. I am no friend of suicide, and had a thousand reasons for living; but I had not been long in gaol before I saw many things to which none but the degraded or the weak would submit--and lest they should come to my turn, I provided against them. About this time an event occurred in my family which converted my imprisonment into an unexpected bitterness. Against that 'love abroad which means spite (or indifference) at home,' I early set my face. Between me and Eleanor, my wife, there always existed an understanding as to the risks I ran in my free speaking. Whatever consequences fell upon my own head alone, I had myself only to please in incurring: but those which affected others, I had no right to invoke, without their consent--and this consent I always sought from my wife, in any special case which arose. At our marriage, Eleanor very well understood that my life somewhat resembled a soldier's, and that it would often include duties and dangers not compatible with perennial fireside comfort Nor did she object to this, and I have had the sweet fortune always to be left to do whatever I should have done, had I been single and childless. On my saying, on the imprisonment of Mr. Southwell, first editor of the _Oracle_, that it was my duty to take his place, Eleanor replied--'Do what it seems your duty to do, and I and the children will take care of ourselves as well as we can. When they grow up, I trust they will contemplate with little satisfaction any advantage they might have enjoyed at the expense of their father's duty. We can leave them no riches, but we may at least leave them a good example, and an unsoiled name.'