would not have sustained me in physical efficiency.

The contrast between my life as a groom and this blackened underworld
was very marked, and I did not at all relish it. We were all, men and
boys and sometimes girls, reduced to the common level of blackened
humans, with about two garments each. The coal dust covered my skin
like a tight-fitting garment, and coal was part of every mouthful of
food I ate in that fetid atmosphere. I had a powerful body that defied
the dangers of the pit; but the labour was exhausting, and my face was
blistered every day with the hot oil dripping from the lamp on my
brow.

Sometimes I lay flat on my back and worked with a pick-axe at the coal
overhead. Sometimes I pushed long distances a thing called "a hutch,"
filled with coal.

I left my brother's pit with the hope of getting a larger wage; but
there was very little difference between the pits. Everywhere I went,
labour and wages were about the same. Everywhere life had the same
dull, monotonous round. It was a writhing, squirming mass of blackened
humanity struggling for a mere physical existence, a bare living.

The desire to learn to read and write returned to me with renewed
intensity, and gave me keen discontent with the life in the pits. At
the same time, the spiritual ideal sustained me in the upward look.
There was just ahead of me a to-morrow, and my to-morrow was bringing
an escape from this drudgery. I exulted in the thought of the future.
I could sing and laugh in anticipation of it, even though I lived and
worked like a beast. I was conscious that in me resided a power that
would ultimately take me to a life that I had had a little taste