"
Cicero mentions the approach of death as the fourth drawback of old age.
To many minds the shadow of the end is ever present, like the coffin in
the Egyptian feast, and overclouds all the sunshine of life. But ought we
so to regard death?
Shelly's beautiful lines,
"Life, like a Dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until death tramples it to fragments,"
contain, as it seems to me at least, a double error. Life need not stain
the white radiance of eternity; nor does death necessarily trample it to
fragments.
Man has, says Coleridge,
"Three treasures,--love and light
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death."
Death is "the end of all, the remedy of many, the wish of divers men,
deserving better of no men than of those to whom she came before she was
called." [3]
It is often assumed that the journey to
"The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveler returns"
must be one of pain and suffering.
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