486 EXPERIENCES OF A SURGEON. 



stances ; whilst the majority of those who have been foretold their 

 doom have writhed in agony, and been stretched on the rack of 

 mental torture till perception has yielded to apathy, and they have 

 moved to their fate like men in a dream. 



If I might judge from what I have seen of death, its pangs are not 

 painful, and, consequently, the sense of it is most in apprehension. 

 If it were these pangs alone which we had to contend with, we 

 might say 



" If I must die, 



I will encounter darkness as a bride, 

 And hug her in mine arms : 



and though Shakspeare put these words into the mouth of Claudio, 

 he says before 



" I Ve hope to live, and am 

 Prepared to die." 



He knew human nature too well, however, thus to leave him; and 

 Claudio, though aware of the price that must be paid for his life, 

 when made sensible that to refuse this, the door of hope, the great 

 cause of our fortitude, would be closed for ever upon him, says 



" Ay ; but to die, and go we know not where ! 

 The weariest and most loathed worldly life 

 That age, ach, penury, imprisonment, 

 Can lay on nature, is a Paradise 

 To what we fear of death :" 



and such are the feelings of mankind at large : life is clung to tena- 

 ciously, and no man will willingly believe that the time is come to 

 lay it downi On the sick-bed, in the field of battle, or in the court 

 of justice, hope is warm in the heart ; and it is this which robs death 

 of its apprehensions. In many of the diseases which deprive us of 

 what we hold so dear, insensibility or delirium carry us over the 

 " bourne from whence no traveller returns," in total unconsciousness: 

 in other cases, where the intellectual faculties are unclouded, and in 

 which the steps of the " monster Death " come on slowly and al- 

 most imperceptibly, though we are apprised of his approach, and 

 though we express our resignation, and prepare to meet calmly the 

 fatal stroke, I have never yet seen one instance where these senti- 

 ments were unmixed with hope, and where schemes for the future did 

 not mingle largely with prayer and meditation ; and when the final 

 change was at hand, when pain yielded to the chill touch of 

 death, to remove the dread of its presence, the merciful ordinance I 

 have spoken of shrouds the senses in stupor or forgetfulness, and 

 departure has been as easy and as unthought of as if the individual 

 had resigned himself to the arms of sleep. 



The imaginary terrors with which my inexperience had invested a 

 dealh-bed, soon gave way therefore before the more peaceful and 

 quiet reality ; and I was taught to view the approach of dissolution 

 with less harassing feelings. The impression generally entertained is 

 similar to my own original one ; and men fear to die, and to see 



