The delirium of the moribund exhibits itself in diversified and often contrasted manifestations. Symonds looks upon it as closely analogous to the condition of the mind in dreaming. A popular and ancient error deserves mention, only to be corrected; that the mind, at the near approach of dissolution, becomes unusually clear, vigorous, and active.
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks which Time has made.”
Excitement of the uncontrolled imagination, as in dreams, and other modes of delirium, is frequently mistaken for general mental energy; some suggested association arouses trains of thought that have made deep traces in the memory; scenes familiar in early childhood are vividly described, and incidents long past recalled with striking minuteness. All physicians know the difference familiarly presented in diseases, some of which specifically occasion despondency and dejection of spirits, while others render indifferent or even give rise to exhilaration. The former constitute a class unhappily numerous. Cholera, which at a distance excites terrors almost insane, is usually attended with a careless stolidity, when it has laid its icy hand upon its victim. The cheerful hopefulness of the consumptive patient is proverbial; and in many instances of yellow fever, we find the moribund patient confident of recovery. These are the exceptions, however; and we cannot too often repeat that the religious prejudice which argues unfavorably of the previous conduct and present character from the closing scene of an agitating and painful illness, or from the last words, uttered amidst bodily anguish and intellectual confusion, is cruel and unreasonable, and ought to be loudly denounced. We can well enough understand why an English Elizabeth, Virgin Queen, as history labels her, could not lie still for a moment, agitated as she must have been by a storm of remorseful recollections, nor restrain her shrieks of horror long enough even to listen to a prayer. But how often does it happen that “the wicked has no bands in his death;” and the awful example of deep despair in the Stainless One, who cried out in his agony that he was forsaken of God, should serve to deter us from the daily repeated and shocking rashness of the decisions against which I am now appealing.
Some minds have seemed firm enough, it is true, to maintain triumphantly this last terrible struggle, and resist in a measure at least the depressing influence of disease. Such instances cannot, however, be numerous; and we should be prepared rather to sympathize with and make all due allowance for human weakness. I have seen such moments of yielding as it was deeply painful to witness, at the bedside of many of the best of men, whose whole lives had been a course of consistent goodness and piety, when warned of impending death, and called on to make those preparations which custom has unfortunately led us to look upon as gloomy landmarks at the entrance of the dark valley.
One of these, from youth to age a most esteemed and valued member of one of our most fervent religious bodies, with sobs and tears, and loud wailing, threw the pen and paper from him, exclaiming, over and over again, “I will not—I cannot—I must not die.” Like the eccentric Salvini, of whom Spence tells us that he died, crying out in a great passion, “Je ne veux pas mourir, absolument;” and Lannes, the bravest of Bonaparte’s marshals, when mortally wounded, struggled angrily and fearfully, shouting with his last breath, “Save me, Napoleon!”
But I recoil from farther discussion of a topic so full of awe and solemn interest, and conclude this prosaic “Thanatopsis” with the Miltonian strain of Bryant, who terminates his noble poem, thus styled, in language worthy of the best age and brightest laurel of our tongue:—
“So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take