my heart and say that if there is such
a place I do not think that I have done anything which would consign
me to it. A short stay in purgatory would, perhaps, be just; I would
take the chance of this, as there would be Paradise afterwards, and
there would be plenty of charitable persons to secure indulgences,
by which my sojourn would be shortened. The infinite goodness which
I have experienced in this world inspires me with the conviction
that eternity is pervaded by a goodness not less infinite, in which I
repose unlimited trust.

All that I have now to ask of the good genius which has so often
guided, advised, and consoled me is a calm and sudden death at my
appointed hour, be it near or distant. The Stoics maintained that one
might have led a happy life in the belly of the bull of Phalaris.
This is going too far. Suffering degrades, humiliates, and leads to
blasphemy. The only acceptable death is the noble death, which is not
a pathological accident, but a premeditated and precious end before
the Everlasting. Death upon the battle-field is the grandest of all;
but there are others which are illustrious. If at times I may have
conceived the wish to be a senator, it is because I fancy that
this function will, within some not distant interval, afford fine
opportunities of being knocked on the head or shot--forms of death
which are very preferable to a long illness, which kills you by inches
and demolishes you bit by bit. God's will be done! I have little
chance of adding much to my store of knowledge; I have a pretty
accurate idea of the amount of truth which the human mind can, in the
present stage of its development, discern. I should be very grieved to
have to go through one of those periods of enfeeblement during which
the man once endowed with strength and virtue is but the shadow and
ruin of his former self; and often, to the delight of the ignorant,
sets himself to demolish the life which he had so laboriously
constructed. Such an old age is the worst gift which the gods can
give to man. If such a fate be in store for me, I hasten to protest
beforehand against the weaknesses which a softened brain might lead
me to say or sign. It is the Renan, sane in body and in mind, as I am
now--not the Renan half destroyed by death and no longer himself, as
I shall be if my decomposition is gradual--whom I wish to be believed
and listened to. I disavow the blasphemies to which in my last hour I
might give way against the