Breaks o’er the brain and buries us in sleep.”
Death is often sudden, may often come during sleep, or may approach so gradually as to be almost unperceived. Those who resent the drawbacks of old age may take some consolation from the fact that the longer a man lives the easier he dies.
A medical friend of mine had among his patients a very old couple who, having few remaining interests in the world, had taken up the study and arrangement of their health as a kind of hobby or diversion. To them the subject was like a game of “Patience,” and was treated in somewhat the same way. They had made an arrangement with the doctor that he should look in and see them every morning. He would find them, in the winter, in a cosy, old-fashioned room, sitting round the fire in two spacious arm-chairs which were precisely alike and were precisely placed, one on the right hand and one on the left. The old lady, with a bright ribbon in her lace cap and a shawl around her shoulders, would generally have some knitting on her knees, while the old gentleman, in a black biretta, would be fumbling with a newspaper and a pair of horn spectacles.
The doctor’s conversation every morning was, of necessity, monotonous. He would listen to accounts of the food consumed, of the medicine taken and of the quantity of sleep secured, just as he would listen to the details of a game of “Patience.” Now and then there would be some startling “move,” some such adventure as a walk to the garden gate or the bold act of sitting for an hour at the open window. After having received this report he would compliment the lady on her knitting and on the singing of her canary and would discuss with the gentleman such items of news as he had read in the paper.
On one morning visit he found them as usual. The wife was asleep, with her spectacles still in place and her hands folded over her knitting. The canary was full of song. The midday beef tea was warming on the hob. The old gentleman, having dealt with his health, became very heated on the subject of certain grievances, such as the noise of the church bells and the unseemly sounds which issued from the village inn. He characterized these and like disturbances of the peace as “outrages which were a disgrace to the country.” After he had made his denunciation he said he felt better.
“Your wife, I see, is asleep,” said the doctor. “Yes,” replied the old man; “she has been asleep, I am glad to say, for quite two hours, because the poor dear had a bad night last night.” The doctor crossed the room to look at the old lady. She was dead, and had, indeed, been dead for two hours. Such may be the last moments of the very old.
Quite commonly the actual instant of death is preceded, for hours or days, by total unconsciousness. In other instances a state of semi-consciousness may exist up to almost the last moment of life. It is a dreamy condition, free of all anxiety, a state of twilight when the familiar landscape of the world is becoming very indistinct. In this penumbra friends are recognized, automatic acts are performed, and remarks are uttered which show, or seem to show, both purpose and reason. It is, however, so hazy a mental mood that could the individual return to life again no recollection of the period would, I think, survive. It is a condition not only free from uneasiness and from any suspicion of alarm, but is one suggestive even of content.
I was with a friend of mine—a solicitor—at the moment of his death. Although pulseless and rapidly sinking, he was conscious, and in the quite happy condition just described. I suggested that I should rearrange his pillows and put him in a more comfortable position. He replied, “Don’t trouble, my dear fellow; a lawyer is comfortable in any position.” After that he never spoke again.
In connexion with this semi-somnolent state it is interesting to note how certain traits of character which have been dominant during life may still survive and assert themselves—it may be automatically—in those whose general consciousness is fading away in the haze of death. The persistence of this ruling passion or phase of mind was illustrated during the last moments of an eminent literary man at whose death-bed I was present. This friend of mine had attained a position of great prominence as a journalist. He had commenced his career as a reporter, and the reporter’s spirit never ceased to mark the intellectual activities of his later life. He was always seeking for information, for news, for some matter of interest, something to report. His conversation, as one acquaintance said, consisted largely of questions. He always wanted to know. When he was in extremis, but still capable of recognizing those around him, the dire sound of rattling in his throat commenced. He indicated that he wanted to speak to me. I went to his bedside. He said, in what little voice remained, “Tell me: Is that the death rattle?” I replied that it was. “Thank you,” he said, with a faint shadow of a smile; “I thought so.”