man went out of the world; and with reason.⸺Death opens the gate of fame, and shuts the gate of envy after it,—it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman’s task into another man’s hands.”
“Show me the man, who knows what life is, who dreads it, and I’ll show thee a prisoner who dreads his liberty.”
Is it not better, my dear brother Toby , (for mark—our appetites are but diseases)—is it not better not to hunger at all, than to eat?—not to thirst, than to take physic to cure it?
Is it not better to be freed from cares and agues, from love and melancholy, and the other hot and cold fits of life, than, like a galled traveller, who comes weary to his inn, to be bound to begin his journey afresh?
There is no terrour, brother Toby , in its looks, but what it borrows from groans and convulsions—and the blowing of noses and the wiping away of tears with the bottoms of curtains, in a dying man’s room.—Strip it of these, what is it?—’Tis better in battle than in bed, said my uncle Toby .—Take away its herses, its mutes, and its mourning,—its plumes, scutcheons, and other mechanic aids—What is it?⸺ Better in battle! continued my father, smiling, for he had absolutely forgot my brother Bobby —’tis terrible no way—for consider, brother Toby ,—when we are —death is not ;—and when death is —we are not . My uncle Toby laid down his pipe to consider the proposition; my father’s eloquence was too rapid to stay for any man—away it went,—and hurried my uncle Toby’s ideas along with it.⸺
For this reason, continued my father, ’tis worthy to recollect how little alteration, in great men, the approaches of death have made.— Vespasian died in a jest upon his close-stool— Galba with a sentence— Septimus Severus in a dispatch— Tiberius in dissimulation, and Caesar Augustus in a compliment.—I hope ’twas a sincere one—quoth my uncle Toby .