LETTERS, &c. LETTER I. ON CERTAIN FUNERAL CEREMONIES. THE advice you wish me to give, my dear friend, in a certain quarter, would be useless. I have long lost all influence there, if I ever had any. Counsel from me to avoid exposure to the pestilence, would rather induce your kinsman to encounter it, and run the chance of the contingency, to prove me wrong. I believe, however, that your fears are needless, and you may safely calm your solicitude:-Were it otherwise, I could hardly partake of it. I am glad that your own experience and feelings, make you think death such a misfortune for others: for myself, I think it far from being the worst thing that can happen to us, and there are situations in which, though it would not be justifiable to seek it, 'tis not worth the trouble to avoid it. I have felt many moments when it appeared a desirable alternative. I rejoice that you have not found life, to borrow the exasperated expressions of Helen M'Gregor," the same weary and wasting burden that it is to me that it is to every noble and generous mind." But I have so much reason to regard its loss with indifference, that I can but faintly participate in your apprehensions. To say the truth, I am at times seriously tired of this chrysalis state of existence, and feel a wish to be trying my wings in a different region. You know that I am not sullen, nor careless of your anxieties? but if my views are gloomy, are not your fears unfounded;-or if not unfounded, are they not exaggerated? This is a subject that will bear the support of poetry: let me recall a passage that you are well acquainted with. -Reason thus with life : If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would reck ;—a breath thou art, That do this habitation, where thou keep'st, And yet runn'st tow'rd him still :-Thou art not noble, ; Are nurs'd by baseness :-Thou'rt by no means valiant ; Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And what thou hast, forget'st :-Thou art not certain ; After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor ; Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, Dreaming on both for pall'd, thy blessed youth Of palsied Eld: and when thou'rt old and rich, Yet I do not wish to bring you to my conclusions; and if these arguments have an influence that way, you know where to find in the same admirable drama,* the opposite side of the question, stated even more eloquently, and with an effect that will make you shudder. You will do me the justice to acknowledge that, whatever may be the course of my reflections, I do not often talk or write in the strain I have here been led into; but it may be a fit occasion, after this introduction, to make some remarks, which I once promis . Measure for Measure. |