AGAINST IMMODERATE SORROW FOR THE DEATH OF FRIENDS.
Next to the encounter of death in our own bodies, the most sensible
calamity to an honest man is the death of a friend; and we are not in
truth without some generous instances of those that have preferred
a friend’s life before their own; and yet this affliction, which by
nature is so grievous to us, is by virtue and Providence made familiar
and easy.
To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh
or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate
sorrow. Clamorous and public lamentations are not so much the effects
of grief as of vain-glory. He that is sadder in company than alone,
shows rather the ambition of his sorrow than the piety of it. Nay, and
in the violence of his passion there fall out twenty things that set
him a-laughing. At the long-run, time cures all, but it were better
done by moderation and wisdom. Some people do as good as set a watch
upon themselves, as if they were afraid that their grief would make
an escape. The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief
itself. When any body is within hearing, what groans and outcries! when
they are alone and private, all is hush and quiet: so soon as any body
comes in, they are at it again; and down they throw themselves upon the
bed; fall to wringing of their hands, and wishing of themselves dead;
which they might have executed by themselves; but their sorrow goes off
with the company. We forsake nature, and run over to the practices of
the people, that never were the authors of anything that is good. If
destiny were to be wrought upon by tears, I would allow you to spend
your days and nights in sadness and mourning, tearing of your hair, and
beating of your breast; but if Fate be inexorable, and death will keep
what it has taken, grief is to no purpose. And yet I would not advise
insensibility and hardness; it were inhumanity, and not virtue, not to
be moved at the separation of familiar friends and relations: now, in
such cases, we cannot command ourselves, we cannot forbear weeping, and
we ought not to forbear: but let us not pass the bounds of affection,
and run into imitation; within these limits it is some ease to the mind.
A wise man gives way to tears in some cases, and cannot avoid them in
others. When one is struck with the surprise of ill-news, as the death
of a friend, or the like; or upon the last embrace of an acquaintance
under the hand of an executioner, he lies under a natural necessity
of weeping and trembling. In another case, we may indulge our sorrow,
as upon the memory of a dead friend’s conversation or kindness, one
may let fall tears of generosity and joy. We favor the one, and we are
overcome by the other; and this is well: but we are not upon any terms
to force them: they may flow of their own accord, without derogating
from the dignity of a wise man; who at the same time both preserves
his gravity, and obeys nature. Nay, there is a certain _decorum_ even
in weeping; for excess of sorrow is as foolish as profuse laughter.
Why do we not as well cry, when our trees that we took pleasure in,
shed their leaves, as at the loss of our satisfactions; when the next
season repairs them, either with the same again, or others in their
places. We may _accuse_ Fate, but we cannot _alter_ it; for it is hard
and inexorable, and not to be removed either with reproaches or tears.
They may carry _us_ to the _dead_, but never bring _them_ back again
to us. If reason does not put an end to our sorrows, fortune never
will: one is pinched with poverty; another solicited with ambition, and
fears the very wealth that he coveted. One is troubled for the loss
of children; another for the want of them: so that we shall sooner
want tears than matter for them; let us therefore spare that for which
we have so much occasion. I do confess, that in the very parting of
friends there is something of uneasiness and trouble; but it is rather
voluntary than natural; and it is custom more than sense that affects
us: we do rather impose a sorrow upon ourselves than submit to it; as
people cry when they have company, and when nobody looks on, all is
well again. To mourn without measure is folly, and not to mourn at
all is insensibility. The best temper is betwixt piety and reason;
to be sensible, but neither transported nor cast down. He that can
put a stop to his tears and pleasures when he will is safe. It is an
equal infelicity to be either too soft or too hard: we are overcome
by the one, and put to struggle with the other. There is a certain
intemperance in that sorrow that passes the rules of modesty; and yet
great piety is, in many cases, a dispensation to good manners. The
loss of a son or of a friend, cuts a man to the heart, and there is no
opposing the first violence of his passion; but when a man comes once
to deliver himself wholly up to lamentations, he is to understand,
that though some tears deserve compassion, others are yet ridiculous. A
grief that is fresh finds pity and comfort, but when it is inveterate
it is laughed at, for it is either counterfeit or foolish. Beside that,
to weep excessively for the dead is an affront to the living. The most
justifiable cause of mourning is to see good men come to ill ends, and
virtue oppressed by the iniquity of Fortune. But in this case, too,
they either suffer resolutely, and yield us delight in their courage
and example, or meanly, and so give us the less trouble for the loss.
He that dies cheerfully, dries up my tears; and he that dies whiningly,
does not deserve them. I would bear the death of friends and children
with the same constancy that I would expect my own, and no more lament
the one than fear the other. He that bethinks himself, how often
friends have been parted, will find more time lost among the living,
than upon the dead; and the most desperate mourners are they that cared
least for their friends when they were living; for they think to redeem
their credits, for want of kindness to the living, by extravagant
ravings after the dead. Some (I know) will have grief to be only the
perverse delight of a restless mind, and sorrows and pleasures to be
near akin; and there are, I am confident, that find joy even in their
tears. But which is more barbarous, to be insensible of grief for the
death of a friend, or to fish for pleasure in grief, when a son perhaps
is burning, or a friend expiring? To forget one’s friend, to bury the
memory with the body, to lament out of measure, is all inhuman. He that
is gone either would not have his friend tormented, or does not know
that he is so: if he does not feel it, it is superfluous; if he does,
it is unacceptable to him. If reason cannot prevail, reputation may;
for immoderate mourning lessens a man’s character: it is a shameful
thing for a wise man to make the _weariness_ of grieving the _remedy_
of it. In time, the most stubborn grief will leave us, if in prudence
we do not leave that first.
But do I grieve for my friend’s sake or for my own? Why should I
afflict myself for the loss of him that is either happy or not at all
in being? In the one case it is envy, and in the other it is madness.
We are apt to say, “What would I give to see him again, and to enjoy
his conversation! I was never sad in his company: my heart leaped
whenever I met him; I want him wherever I go.” All that is to be said
is, “The greater the loss, the greater is the virtue to overcome it.”
If grieving will do no good, it is an idle thing to grieve; and if that
which has befallen one man remains to all, it is as unjust to complain.
The whole world is upon the march towards the same point; why do we
not cry for ourselves that are to follow, as well as for him that has
gone first? Why do we not as well lament beforehand for that which we
know will be, and can not possibly but be? He is not _gone_, but _sent
before_. As there are many things that he has lost, so there are many
things that he does not fear; as anger, jealousy, envy, etc. Is he not
more happy in desiring nothing than miserable in what he has lost? We
do not mourn for the absent, why then for the dead, who are effectually
no other? We have lost one blessing, but we have many left; and shall
not all these satisfactions support us against one sorrow?
The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that
of having had one. As there is a sharpness in some fruits, and a
bitterness in some wines that please us, so there is a mixture in the
remembrance of friends, where the loss of their company is sweetened
again by the contemplation of their virtues. In some respects, I have
lost what I had, and in others, I retain still what I have lost. It
is an ill construction of Providence to reflect only upon my friend’s
being taken away, without any regard to the benefit of his being
once given me. Let us therefore make the best of our friends while
we have them; for how long we shall keep them is uncertain. I have
lost a hopeful son, but how many fathers have been deceived in their
expectations! and how many noble families have been destroyed by luxury
and riot! He that grieves for the loss of a son, what if he had lost a
friend? and yet he that has lost a friend has more cause of joy that
he once had him, than of grief that he is taken away. Shall a man bury
his friendship with his friend? We are ungrateful for that which is
past, in hope of what is to come; as if that which is to come would not
quickly be past too. That which is past we are sure of. We may receive
satisfaction, it is true, both from the future and what is already
past; the one by expectation, and the other by memory; only the one may
possibly not come to pass, and it is impossible to make the other not
to have been.
But there is no applying of consolation to fresh and bleeding sorrow;
the very discourse irritates the grief and inflames it. It is like an
unseasonable medicine in a disease; when the first violence is over,
it will be more tractable, and endure the handling. Those people
whose minds are weakened by long felicity may be allowed to groan and
complain, but it is otherwise with those that have led their days
in misfortunes. A long course of adversity has this good in it, that
though it vexes a body a great while, it comes to harden us at last;
as a raw soldier shrinks at every wound, and dreads the surgeon more
than an enemy; whereas a _veteran_ sees his own body cut and lamed with
as little concern as if it were another’s. With the same resolution
should we stand the shock and cure of all misfortunes; we are never the
better for our experience, if we have not yet learned to be miserable.
And there is no thought of curing us by the diversion of sports and
entertainments; we are apt to fall into relapses; wherefore we had
better overcome our sorrow than delude it.