Omnia mors poscit; lex est, non poena, perire.
God has subjected man to six great necessities: birth, action, eating, sleep, reproduction and death.
Death is the absolute interruption of the sensual relations, and the absolute annihilation of the vital powers, which abandons the body to the laws of decomposition.
These necessities are all accompanied and softened by a sensation of pleasure, and even death, when j natural, is not without charms. We mean when a man has passed through the different phases of growth, virility, old age, and decrepitude.
Had I not determined to make this chapter very short, I would invoke the assistance of the physicians, who have observed every shade of the transition of a living to an inert body. I would quote philosophers, kings, men of letters, men, who while on the verge of eternity, had pleasant thoughts they decked in the graces; I would recall the dying answer of Fontinelle, who being asked what he felt, said, "nothing but the pain of life;" I prefer, however, merely to express my opinion, founded on analogy as sustained by many instances, of which the following is the last:
I had a great aunt, aged eighty-three when she died. Though she had long been confined to her bed, she preserved all her faculties, and the approach of death was perceived by the feebleness of her voice and the failing of her appetite.
She had always exhibited great devotion to me, and I sat by her bed-side anxious to attend on her. This, however, did not prevent my observing her with most philosophic attention.
"Are you there, nephew?" said she in an almost inaudible voice. "Yes, aunt! I think you would be better if you would take a little old wine." "Give it to me, liquids always run down." I hastened to lift her up and gave her half a glass of my best and oldest wine. She revived for a moment and said, "I thank you. If you live as long as I have lived, you will find that death like sleep is a necessity."
These were her last words, and in half an hour she had sank to sleep forever.
Richerand has described with so much truth the gradations of the human body, and the last moments of the individual that my readers will be obliged to me for this passage.