to have and to hold while it may; and abhors, on any terms, to have it
torn from us, and nothing left in its room. It is the pang of parting,
the unloosing our grasp, the breaking asunder some strong tie, the
leaving some cherished purpose unfulfilled, that creates the repugnance
to go, and 'makes calamity of so long life,' as it often is.
O! thou strong heart!
There's such a covenant 'twixt the world and thee
They're loth to break!
The love of life, then, is an habitual attachment, not an abstract
principle. Simply _to be_ does not 'content man's natural desire': we
long to be in a certain time, place, and circumstance. We would much
rather be now, 'on this bank and shoal of time,' than have our choice of
any future period, than take a slice of fifty or sixty years out of the
Millennium, for instance. This shows that our attachment is not confined
either to _being_ or to _well-being_; but that we have an inveterate
prejudice in favour of our immediate existence, such as it is. The
mountaineer will not leave his rock, nor the savage his hut; neither are
we willing to give up our present mode of life, with all its advantages
and disadvantages, for any other that could be substituted for it. No
man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however
fortunate. We had as lief _not be_, as _not be ourselves_. There are
some persons of that reach of soul that they would like to live two
hundred and fifty years hence, to see to what height of empire America
will have grown up in that period, or whether the English constitution
will last so long. These are points beyond me. But I confess I should
like to live to see the downfall of the Bourbons. That is a vital
question with me; and I shall like it the better, the sooner it happens!
No young man ever thinks he shall die. He may believe that others will,
or assent to the doctrine that 'all men are mortal' as an abstract
proposition, but he is far enough from bringing it home to himself
individually.(1) Youth, buoyant activity, and animal spirits, hold
absolute antipathy with old age as well as with death; nor have we, in
the hey-day of life, any more than in the thoughtlessness of childhood,
the remotest conception how
This sensible warm motion can become
A kneaded clod--
nor how sanguine, florid health and vigour, shall 'turn to withered,
weak, and grey.' Or if in a moment of idle speculation we indulge in
this notion of the close of life as a theory, it is amazing at what a
distance it seems; what a long, leisurely interval there is between;
what a contrast its slow and solemn approach affords to our present gay
dreams of existence! We eye the farthest verge of the horizon, and
think what a way we shall have to look back upon, ere we arrive at our
journey's end; and without our in the least suspecting it, the mists are
at our feet, and the shadows of age encompass us. The two divisions of
our lives have melted into each other: the extreme points close and meet
with none of that romantic interval stretching out between them that
we had reckoned upon; and for the rich, melancholy, solemn hues of
age, 'the sear, the yellow leaf,' the deepening shadows of an autumnal
evening, we only feel a dank, cold mist, encircling all objects, after
the spirit of youth is fled. There is no inducement to look forward;
and what is worse, little interest in looking back to what has become
so trite and common. The pleasures of our existence have worn
themselves out, are 'gone into the wastes of time,' or have turned their
indifferent side to us: the pains by their repeated blows have worn us
out, and have left us neither spirit nor inclination to encounter them
again in retrospect. We do not want to rip up old grievances, nor to
renew our youth like the phoenix, nor to live our lives twice over. Once
is enough. As the tree falls, so let it lie. Shut up the book and close
the account once for all!
It has been thought by some that life is like the exploring of a
passage that grows narrower and darker the farther we advance, without
a possibility of ever turning back, and where we are stifled for want of
breath at last. For myself, I do not complain of the greater thickness
of the atmosphere as I approach the narrow house. I felt it more
formerly,(2) when the idea alone seemed to suppress a thousand rising
hopes, and weighed upon the pulses of the blood. At present I rather
feel a thinness and want of support, I stretch out my hand to some
object and find none, I am too much in a world of abstraction; the naked
map of life is spread out before me, and in the emptiness and desolation
I see Death coming to meet me. In my youth I could not behold him for
the crowd of objects and feelings, and Hope stood always between us,
saying, 'Never mind that old fellow!' If I had lived indeed, I should
not care to die. But I do not like a contract of pleasure broken off
unfulfilled, a marriage with joy unconsummated, a promise of happiness
rescinded. My public and private hopes have been left a ruin, or remain
only to mock me. I would wish them to be re-edified. I should like to
see some prospect of good to mankind, such as my life began with. I
should like to leave some sterling work behind me. I should like to have
some friendly hand to consign me to the grave. On these conditions I
am ready, if not willing, to depart. I shall then write on my
tomb--GRATEFUL AND CONTENTED! But I have thought and suffered too much
to be willing to have thought and suffered in vain.--In looking back, it
sometimes appears to me as if I had in a manner slept out my life in a
dream or shadow on the side of the hill of knowledge, where I have fed
on books, on thoughts, on pictures, and only heard in half-murmurs the
trampling of busy feet, or the noises of the throng below. Waked out
of this dim, twilight existence, and startled with the passing scene, I
have felt a wish to descend to the world of realities, and join in the
chase. But I fear too late, and that I had better return to my bookish
chimeras and indolence once more! _Zanetto, lascia le donne, et studia
la matematica._ I will think of it.
It is not wonderful that the contemplation and fear of death become more
familiar to us as we approach nearer to it: that life seems to ebb with
the decay of blood and youthful spirits; and that as we find everything
about us subject to chance and change, as our strength and beauty die,
as our hopes and passions, our friends and our affections leave us, we
begin by degrees to feel ourselves mortal!
I have never seen death but once, and that was in an infant. It is years
ago. The look was calm and placid, and the face was fair and firm. It
was as if a waxen image had been laid out in the coffin, and strewed
with innocent flowers. It was not like death, but more like an image
of life! No breath moved the lips, no pulse stirred, no sight or sound
would enter those eyes or ears more. While I looked at it, I saw no pain
was there; it seemed to smile at the short pang of life which was over:
but I could not bear the coffin-lid to be closed--it seemed to stifle
me; and still as the nettles wave in a corner of the churchyard over
his little grave, the welcome breeze helps to refresh me, and ease the
tightness at my breast!
An ivory or marble image, like Chantry's monument of the two children,
is contemplated with pure delight. Why do we not grieve and fret that
the marble is not alive, or fancy that it has a shortness of breath? It
never was alive; and it is the difficulty of making the transition from
life to death, the struggle between the two in our imagination, that
confounds their properties painfully together, and makes us conceive
that the infant that is but just dead, still wants to breathe, to enjoy,
and look about it, and is prevented by the icy hand of death, locking up
its faculties and benumbing its senses; so that, if it could, it
would complain of its own hard state. Perhaps religious considerations
reconcile the mind to this change sooner than any others, by
representing the spirit as fled to another sphere, and leaving the body
behind it. So in reflecting on death generally, we mix up the idea of
life with it, and thus make it the ghastly monster it is. We think, how
we should feel, not how the dead feel.
Still from the tomb the voice of nature cries;
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires!
There is an admirable passage on this subject in Tucker's _Light
of Nature Pursued_, which I shall transcribe, as by much the best
illustration I can offer of it.
'The melancholy appearance of a lifeless body, the mansion provided
for it to inhabit, dark, cold, close and solitary, are shocking to the
imagination; but it is to the imagination only, not the understanding;
for whoever consults this faculty will see at first glance, that there
is nothing dismal in all these circumstances: if the corpse were kept
wrapped up in a warm bed, with a roasting fire in the chamber, it would
feel no comfortable warmth therefrom; were store of tapers lighted up as
soon as day shuts in, it would see no objects to divert it; were it left
at large it would have no liberty, nor if surrounded with company would
be cheered thereby; neither are the distorted features expressions of
pain, uneasiness, or distress. This every one knows, and will readily
allow upon being suggested, yet still cannot behold, nor even cast a
thought upon those objects without shuddering; for knowing that a
living person must suffer grievously under such appearances, they become
habitually formidable to the mind, and strike a mechanical horror, which
is increased by the customs of the world around us.'
There is usually one pang added voluntarily and unnecessarily to the
fear of death, by our affecting to compassionate the loss which others
will have in us. If that were all, we might reasonably set our minds at
rest. The pathetic exhortation on country tombstones, 'Grieve not for
me, my wife and children dear,' etc., is for the most part speedily
followed to the letter. We do not leave so great a void in society as
we are inclined to imagine, partly to magnify our own importance, and
partly to console ourselves by sympathy. Even in the same family the gap
is not so great; the wound closes up sooner than we should expect. Nay,
_our room_ is not unfrequently thought better than _our company._ People
walk along the streets the day after our deaths just as they did before,
and the crowd is not diminished. While we were living, the world seemed
in a manner to exist only for us, for our delight and amusement, because
it contributed to them. But our hearts cease to beat, and it goes on
as usual, and thinks no more about us than it did in our lifetime. The
million are devoid of sentiment, and care as little for you or me as if
we belonged to the moon. We live the week over in the Sunday's paper,
or are decently interred in some obituary at the month's end! It is
not surprising that we are forgotten so soon after we quit this mortal
stage; we are scarcely noticed while we are on it. It is not merely that
our names are not known in China--they have hardly been heard of in
the next street. We are hand and glove with the universe, and think the
obligation is mutual. This is an evident fallacy. If this, however, does
not trouble us now, it will not hereafter. A handful of dust can have
no quarrel to pick with its neighbours, or complaint to make against
Providence, and might well exclaim, if it had but an understanding and
a tongue, 'Go thy ways, old world, swing round in blue ether, voluble to
every age, you and I shall no more jostle!'
It is amazing how soon the rich and titled, and even some of those who
have wielded great political power, are forgotten.
A little rule, a little sway,
Is all the great and mighty have
Betwixt the cradle and the grave--
and, after its short date, they hardly leave a name behind them. 'A
great man's memory may, at the common rate, survive him half a year.'
His heirs and successors take his titles, his power, and his wealth--all
that made him considerable or courted by others; and he has left nothing
else behind him either to delight or benefit the world. Posterity are
not by any means so disinterested as they are supposed to be. They give
their gratitude and admiration only in return for benefits conferred.
They cherish the memory of those to whom they are indebted for
instruction and delight; and they cherish it just in proportion to the
instruction and delight they are conscious they receive. The sentiment
of admiration springs immediately from this ground, and cannot be
otherwise than well founded.(3)
The effeminate clinging to life as such, as a general or abstract idea,
is the effect of a highly civilised and artificial state of society. Men
formerly plunged into all the vicissitudes and dangers of war, or staked
their all upon a single die, or some one passion, which if they could
not have gratified, life became a burden to them--now our strongest
passion is to think, our chief amusement is to read new plays, new
poems, new novels, and this we may do at our leisure, in perfect
security, _ad infinitum_. If we look into the old histories and
romances, before the _belles-lettres_ neutralised human affairs and
reduced passion to a state of mental equivocation, we find the heroes
and heroines not setting their lives 'at a pin's fee,' but rather
courting opportunities of throwing them away in very wantonness of
spirit. They raise their fondness for some favourite pursuit to its
height, to a pitch of madness, and think no price too dear to pay for
its full gratification. Everything else is dross. They go to death as to
a bridal bed, and sacrifice themselves or others without remorse at the
shrine of love, of honour, of religion, or any other prevailing feeling.
Romeo runs his 'sea-sick, weary bark upon the rocks' of death the
instant he finds himself deprived of his Juliet; and she clasps his
neck in their last agonies, and follows him to the same fatal shore. One
strong idea takes possession of the mind and overrules every other;
and even life itself, joyless without that, becomes an object of
indifference or loathing. There is at least more of imagination in such
a state of things, more vigour of feeling and promptitude to act, than
in our lingering, languid, protracted attachment to life for its own
poor sake. It is, perhaps, also better, as well as more heroical, to
strike at some daring or darling object, and if we fail in that, to
take the consequences manfully, than to renew the lease of a tedious,
spiritless, charmless existence, merely (as Pierre says) 'to lose it
afterwards in some vile brawl' for some worthless object. Was there
not a spirit of martyrdom as well as a spice of the reckless energy of
barbarism in this bold defiance of death? Had not religion something to
do with it: the implicit belief in a future life, which rendered this of
less value, and embodied something beyond it to the imagination; so
that the rough soldier, the infatuated lover, the valorous knight, etc.,
could afford to throw away the present venture, and take a leap into the
arms of futurity, which the modern sceptic shrinks back from, with all
his boasted reason and vain philosophy, weaker than a woman! I cannot
help thinking so myself; but I have endeavoured to explain this point
before, and will not enlarge farther on it here.
A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only
gives us fortitude to bear pain, but teaches us at every step the
precarious tenure on which we hold our present being. Sedentary and
studious men are the most apprehensive on this score. Dr. Johnson was
an instance in point. A few years seemed to him soon over, compared with
those sweeping contemplations on time and infinity with which he had
been used to pose himself. In the _still-life_ of a man of letters there
was no obvious reason for a change. He might sit in an arm-chair and
pour out cups of tea to all eternity. Would it had been possible for him
to do so! The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of
death is to set a just value on life. If we merely wish to continue on
the scene to indulge our headstrong humours and tormenting passions,
we had better begone at once; and if we only cherish a fondness for
existence according to the good we derive from it, the pang we feel at
parting with it will not be very severe!