Of toil, is what we covet most; and yet
How clay shrinks back from mere quiescent clay!
The very Suicide that pays his debt
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.”
Sir Chas. Morgan writes: “What poetical suicides and sublime despair might have been prevented by a timely dose of blue pill, or the offer of a Loge aux Italiens!”
Colton, d. 1832, in his “Lacon,” writes: “Suicide sometimes proceeds from cowardice, but not always; for cowardice sometimes prevents it: since as many live because they are afraid to die, as die because they are afraid to live.”
It has been affirmed that the works of Robert Owen, of Lanark, d. 1858, manufacturer and social economist, who was author of several visionary schemes for the mutual advancement of men, have, like those of Tom Paine, led to the commission of self-destruction.