“That was, as you say, romance. But you humanitarians are always magnifying and distorting into the dreadful what is very ordinary experience; your imaginations are your masters, not your servants. What you want is to be familiarized with the ordinary sights of Nature, and the look of blood; we shouldn’t then have all this namby-pambyism to put up with.” “You recommend that we should be familiarized with the sight of blood? Might I suggest that no blood could be so educative as that of one who propounds the doctrine: Suffering is _nil_! Let your own blood flow for our enlightenment. Believe me, we shall pay a much more rapt attention to it than we should to that of any other creature.” “That, as you well know, is an absurd suggestion.” “Yes! Quite. But what I want you to appreciate is, how tiny the difference between us is. _We_ think, that a man should make light of his own suffering, but make light the suffering of others. Now, transposing that first ‘of’ would make our philosophy identical with yours.” “And how do you know that I have not sufferings, made light of—hidden from every one?” “Have you? We have, you see, no means of knowing; and you must prove it if you wish for the luxury of having attention paid to you when you make light of suffering for others. But if indeed you have, are you not a most unhappy person in that you do not let a fellow-feeling make you wondrous kind?” “Ah! I thought that was coming. Shall I tell you my opinion of you, sir? You are a sickly sentimentalist.” “My feeling about you, is not so hackneyed. With your philosophy of: ‘_I_ am all right. Let _them_ suffer!’—you are—the Modern Stoic.” ON PRISONS AND PUNISHMENT I SOLITARY CONFINEMENT (1) (An Open Letter to the Home Secretary—at that time, May, 1909, the Right Hon. Herbert John Gladstone, M.P.—printed in _The Nation_.) SIR,—In addressing you, I desire to say that I do so with a gratitude and respect that must be shared by those who know how much you have already done for the improvement of our prison system. I head this letter “Solitary Confinement” because, though the expression has long been officially abandoned in favour of the term “Separate Confinement,” it more adequately defines the seclusion undergone by prisoners in closed cells, and distinguishes that system from a practice obtaining in local prisons of setting prisoners to work separately in their cells with open doors (when it is impossible to find them work in association).