It was a notion of this kind which induced Lord Byron to observe that he believed no man ever took a razor into his hand who did not at the same time think how easily he might sever the silver cord of life. The noble poet evidently alludes, in the following stanzas, to the strange and unaccountable influence of fascination in exciting the mind to commit suicide:—
“A sleep without dreams, after a rough day
Of toil, is what we covet most, and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very suicide that pays his debts
At once, without instalments, (an old way
Of paying debts, which creditors regret,)
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,
Less from disgust of life than dread of death.
’Tis round him, near him, there, everywhere;