W.T. Stead to Benjamin Waugh (November 10, 1885)

Quoted in Benjamin Waugh, W.T. Stead: A Life for the People (1885)

The Dock, Old Bailey (November 10, 1885)

Dear Benjamin,

Good-bye, my dear friend. I am going to gaol with joy unspeakable, and a peace which is very rare with me. My peace is usually due to excessive action. Now I am inactive, and still am at peace. It is a new experience - possibly only a transient one - but very pleasant and heavenly while it lasts.

I have a kind of dread of the relapse when this trial is over, and I am left all alone in a cell. But God will be there. Perhaps he wants a quiet talk with me, and has not had time hitherto, and so we are to be alone.

God bless you, dear Mr. Waugh. You have fed me, and kept me in good humour with myself, when I have been inclined to be in doleful dumps. You have loved me with a love passing the love of woman, and I am deeply grateful to you for it all.

But now that we must part for a season, take one parting word from me. Pray do moderate your wrath against those who have been prosecuting me. Remember that we must be as charitable to a Judge as to a harlot, and that we must be just even to those we judge to be unjust.

Pardon this liberty, dear Benjamin, and believe me to be none the less thankful to you for your sympathy and helpful, inspiring loves which I feel you have heaped upon me far more than I deserve.

I am,

Yours, in brotherly love,

W.T.Stead