“Curis acuens mortalia corda!”

     ["Probing mortal hearts with cares.”—­Virgil, Georg., i. 23.]

’Twere pity that any part of their greatness should escape our sense and knowledge.

’Tis certain that for the most part the preparation for death has administered more torment than the thing itself.  It was of old truly said, and by a very judicious author: 

          “Minus afficit sensus fatigatio, quam cogitatio.”

     ["Suffering itself less afflicts the senses than the apprehension
     of suffering.”—­Quintilian, Inst.  Orat., i. 12.]

The sentiment of present death sometimes, of itself, animates us with a prompt resolution not to avoid a thing that is utterly inevitable:  many gladiators have been seen in the olden time, who, after having fought timorously and ill, have courageously entertained death, offering their throats to the enemies’ sword and bidding them despatch.  The sight of future death requires a courage that is slow, and consequently hard to be got.  If you know not how to die, never trouble yourself; nature will, at the time, fully and sufficiently instruct you:  she will exactly do that business for you; take you no care—­

              “Incertam frustra, mortales, funeris horam,
               Quaeritis et qua sit mors aditura via.... 
               Poena minor certam subito perferre ruinam;
               Quod timeas, gravius sustinuisse diu.”

["Mortals, in vain you seek to know the uncertain hour of death, and by what channel it will come upon you.”—­Propertius, ii. 27, 1.  “’Tis less painful to undergo sudden destruction; ’tis hard to bear that which you long fear.”—­Incert.  Auct.]

We trouble life by the care of death, and death by the care of life:  the one torments, the other frights us.  It is not against death that we prepare, that is too momentary a thing; a quarter of an hour’s suffering, without consequence and without damage, does not deserve especial precepts:  to say the truth, we prepare ourselves against the preparations of death.  Philosophy ordains that we should always have death before our eyes, to see and consider it before the time, and then gives us rules and precautions to provide that this foresight and thought do us no harm; just so do physicians, who throw us into diseases, to the end they may have whereon to employ their drugs and their art.  If we have not known how to live, ’tis injustice to teach us how to die, and make the end difform from all the rest; if we have known how to live firmly and quietly, we shall know how to die so too.  They may boast as much as they please: 

          “Tota philosophorum vita commentatio mortis est;”

     ["The whole life of philosophers is the meditation of death.” 
     —­Cicero, Tusc.  Quaes., ii. 30.]

but I fancy that, though it be the end, it is not the aim of life; ’tis its end, its extremity, but not, nevertheless, its object; it ought itself to be its own aim and design; its true study is to order, govern, and suffer itself.  In the number of several other offices, that the general and principal chapter of Knowing how to live comprehends, is this article of Knowing how to die; and, did not our fears give it weight, one of the lightest too.