There is nothing evil in life for
him who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: to
know, how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint. Paulus
Emilius answered him whom the miserable King of Macedon, his prisoner,
sent to entreat him that he would not lead him in his triumph, "Let him
make that request to himself."--[ Plutarch, Life of Paulus Aemilius,
c. 17; Cicero, Tusc., v. 40.]

In truth, in all things, if nature do not help a little, it is very hard
for art and industry to perform anything to purpose. I am in my own
nature not melancholic, but meditative; and there is nothing I have more
continually entertained myself withal than imaginations of death, even in
the most wanton time of my age:

"Jucundum quum aetas florida ver ageret."

["When my florid age rejoiced in pleasant spring."
--Catullus, lxviii.]

In the company of ladies, and at games, some have perhaps thought me
possessed with some jealousy, or the uncertainty of some hope, whilst I
was entertaining myself with the remembrance of some one, surprised, a
few days before, with a burning fever of which he died, returning from an
entertainment like this, with his head full of idle fancies of love and
jollity, as mine was then, and that, for aught I knew, the same-destiny
was attending me.

"Jam fuerit, nec post unquam revocare licebit."

["Presently the present will have gone, never to be recalled."
Lucretius, iii. 928.]

Yet did not this thought wrinkle my forehead any more than any other.
It is impossible but we must feel a sting in such imaginations as these,
at first; but with often turning and returning them in one's mind, they,
at last, become so familiar as to be no trouble at all: otherwise, I, for
my part, should be in a perpetual fright and frenzy; for never man was so
distrustful of his life, never man so uncertain as to its duration.
Neither health, which I have hitherto ever enjoyed very strong and
vigorous, and very seldom interrupted, does prolong, nor sickness
contract my hopes. Every minute, methinks, I am escaping, and it
eternally runs in my mind, that what may be done to-morrow, may be done
to-day. Hazards and dangers do, in truth, little or nothing hasten our
end; and if we consider how many thousands more remain and hang over our
heads, besides the accident that immediately threatens us, we shall find
that the sound and the sick, those