"Yes," said he, my mind filling with unspoken wonder at this during a brief pause in the conversation, "Yes, prison did me good. Not in the rough way you think, perhaps, as of taking nonsense out of a man with a stick, but as solitude. Strict Catholics go into retreat once a year, and it does them good as Catholics: whether otherwise I do not know, but it is possible. You have a wild philosopher whom I love; and wild philosophers are much the best. In them there is more philosophic sport, more surprise, more shock; and it is shock that crystallises. They startle the breath into our own unborn thoughts--thoughts formed in the mind, you know, but without any ninth month for them: they wait for some outer voice to make them alive. Well, once upon a time I heard this philosopher, your Mr. Ruskin, say that only the most noble, most virtuous, most beautiful young men should be allowed to go to the war; the others, never. And he maintained it--ah! in language from some divine madhouse in heaven. But as to that, it is a great objection that your army is already small. Yet of this I am nearly sure; it is the wrong men who go to gaol. The rogues and thieves should give place to honest men--honest _reflective_ men. Every advantage of that conclusive solitude is lost on blackguard persons and is mostly turned to harm. For them prescribe one, two, three applications of your cat-o'-nine tails----" "There is knout like it!" said I, intending a severity of retort which I hoped would not be quite lost in the pun. "----and then a piece of bread, a shilling, and dismissal to the most devout repentance that brutish crime is ever acquainted with, repentance in stripes. Imprisonment is wasted on persons of so inferior character. Waste it not, and you will have accommodation for wise men to learn the monk's lesson (did you ever think it _all_ foolishness?) that a little imperious hardship, a time of seclusion with only themselves to talk to themselves, is most improving. For statesmen and reformers it should be an obligation." "And according to your experience what is the general course of the improvement? In what direction does it run?" "At best? In sum total? You know me that I am no monk nor lover of monks, but I say to you what the monk would say were he still a man and intelligent. The chief good is rising above petty irritation, petty contentiousness; it is patience with ills that _must_ last long; it is choosing to build out the east wind instead of running at it with a sword." "And, if I remember aright, you never had that sword out of your hand." "From twenty years old to fifty, never out of my hand. But there were excuses--no, but more than excuses; remember that that was another time. Now how different it is, and what satisfaction to have lived to see the change!" "And what is the change you are thinking of!"