sits bound in the galley; to despairful widows, pensive prisoners, and deposed kings; to them whose fortune runs back, and whose spirits mutiny: unto such, death is a redeemer, and the grave a place for retiredness and
These wait upon the shore of death, and waft unto him to draw near, wishing above all others to see his star, that they might be led to his place; wooing the remorseless sisters to wind down the watch of their life, and to break them off before the hour.
- But death is a doleful messenger to a usurer, and fate untimely cuts their thread; for it is never mentioned by him, but when rumors of war and civil tumults put him in mind thereof.
And when many hands are armed, and the peace of a city in disorder, and the foot of the common soldiers sounds an alarm on his stairs, then perhaps such a one (broken in thoughts of his moneys abroad, and cursing the monuments of coin which are in his house) can be content to think of death, and (being hasty of perdition) will perhaps hang himself, lest his throat should be cut; provided that he may do it in his study, surrounded with wealth, to which his eye sends a faint and languishing salute, even upon the turning off; remembering always, that he have time and liberty, by writing, to depute himself as his own heir.
For that is a great peace to his end, and reconciles him wonderfully upon the point.
- Herein we all dally with ourselves, and are without proof of necessity. I am not of those, that dare promise to pine away myself in vainglory, and I hold such to be but feat boldness, and them that dare commit it, to be vain. Yet, for my part, I think nature should do me great wrong, if I should be so long in dying, as I was in being born.