It is not our self-conceit. The Milky Way is not our conceit.
The eclipses are not our conceit. The awful sweep of our whole family of
planets, moons, and sun, onward in celestial space, is not a conceit.
Therefore we possess our souls, flashing within caskets which have not
been altogether unworthy of their priceless treasures.
AS THE CASKET DULLS
and grows to its decay, we cannot weep greatly over its loss, for will
it not reveal the splendors all within?
"It is worthy the observing," says Lord Bacon, "wisest of men," "that
there is no passion in the mind of men so weak, but it mates and masters
the fear of death; and, therefore, death is no such terrible enemy when
a man hath so many attendants about him that can win the combat from
him. Revenge triumphs over death; love slights it; honor aspireth to it;
grief flieth to it; fear pre-occupateth it; nay, we read, after Otho the
Emperor had slain himself,
PITY (WHICH IS THE TENDEREST OF AFFECTIONS)
provoked many to die out of mere compassion to their sovereign, and as
the truest sort of followers. A man would die, though he were neither
valiant nor miserable, only upon a weariness to do the same thing so oft
over and over again.
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