With a well chosen book or friend;
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall:
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.
Sir Thomas More was such a man. On Monday, July 5th, 1535, the night before he was beheaded, he wrote ("with a cole") this letter of farewell to his daughter Margaret Roper. He had seen her for the last time when she openly met and kissed him in the midst of his enemies and of the throngs on Tower Wharf, as he came from Judgment:
"Oure Lorde Blesse you good daughter, & youre good husbande, & youre lyttle boye, & all yours, & all my children, & all my Godde chyldren and all oure frendes.... I cumber you good Margaret much, but I would be sory, if it should be any longer than to morow. For it is saint Thomas even, & the utas of saint Peter: & therfore to morow long I to go to God: it were a day verye mete & convenient for me. I never liked your maner toward me better, than whan you kissed me laste: for I love when doughterly love, and deere charitye, hath no leysure to loke to worldlye curtesy. Farewell my dere chylde, & pray for me & I shall for you & all youre frendes, that we maye merilye mete in heaven...."
[288]. "Do Thou the same."
So too Walter Savage Landor: