220 SALMONIA. [EIGHTH DAY. 



this insect as desirable, and I cannot help regarding 

 the end of human life as most happy, when termi- 

 nated under the impulse of some strong energetic 

 feeling, similar in its nature to an instinct. I should 

 not wish to die like Attila in a moment of gross 

 sensual enjoyment : but the death of Epaminondas or 

 Nelson in the arms of victory, their whole attention 

 absorbed in the love of glory and of their country, I 

 think really enviable. 



POIET. I consider the death of the martyr or the 

 saint as far more enviable ; for in this case, what may 

 be considered as a divine instinct of our nature, is 

 called into exertion, and pain is subdued, or destroyed 

 by a secure faith in the power and mercy of the 

 Divinity. In such cases man rises above mortality, 

 and shows his true intellectual superiority. By in- 

 tellectual superiority I mean that of his spiritual 

 nature, for I do not consider the results of reason as 

 capable of being compared with those of faith. 

 Eeason is often a dead weight in life, destroying 

 feeling, and substituting, for principle, calculation 

 and caution; and, in the hour of death, it often 

 produces fear or despondency, and is rather a bitter 

 draught than nectar or ambrosia in the last meal 

 of life. 



HAL. I agree with Poietes. The higher and more 

 intense the feeling, under which death takes place 



