I have sewn those pages up and you must never ask me to open them again: I dare not open them," he cried pitifully.
"But you ought to tell it all," I said, "that's perhaps the purpose you are here for: the ultimate reason." "Oh, no, Frank, never.

It would need a man of infinite strength to come here and give a truthful record of all that happened to him.

I don't believe you could do it; I don't believe anybody would be strong enough.
Starvation and purging alone would break down anyone's strength.
Everybody knows that you are purged and starved to the edge of death.
That's what two years' hard labour means.

It's not the labour that's hard.

It's the conditions of life that make it impossibly hard: they break you down body and soul.