The only malady all covet is the only one which is absolutely fatal,—old age.
Death is the most and the least feared of any event. Seven of my most intimate friends committed suicide for various reasons, all good enough in their opinions. “No passion is so weak,” remarks Bacon, “but that a little pushed it will master the fear of death.”
The visits of death seem always inopportune. Dickens tells of a visit he paid to an Old Man’s Home. He found that, in the opinion of the inmates, every old man died prematurely. They invariably said, “He brought it on hisself.”
He who is haunted by the dread of dying makes himself miserable for fear he cannot make himself miserable longer.
When death is natural, that is, in extreme old age, it is neither feared nor felt. That it is so little a thing when natural, suggests that at all times we may deem it too great.