1832-37. FEELINGS OF THE DYING. 89 



palpitation of my heart, which up to the moment of my enter- 

 ing the room had troubled me exceedingly, ceased as soon as 

 the first question was asked, and I was calm and collected 

 throughout the whole scene ; so let it pass. It has at least, I 

 think, given me a clearer view of the sad state of feelings which 

 a dying man may be believed to have, especially one who has 

 to prepare for eternity. The fond hope, the eagerly entertained 

 expectation, the gloomy doubt, the oppressive despondence, 

 commingling in the mind, and shifting its purposes in the most 

 fantastic, lawless, and painful fashion, were, I doubt not, the 

 very same in kind as those which the anticipation of immediate 

 dissolution must produce, though, of course, greatly different in 

 degree. I felt that abandoning of the mind to one subject, that 

 thorough occupation of it by the one engrossing idea, which has 

 been so beautifully described by J. B. Patterson as the charac- 

 teristic of the dying, even when they appear most delighted 

 with the attention of their friendly ministrants. I wish to ex- 

 press what I am afraid I have not done sufficiently, that I con- 

 ceive the doubts of fitness to undergo an examination are 

 exactly of a kind with the dread of an insufficiency of prepara- 

 tion for the tribunal of the Almighty, which haunts the mind 

 of the most holy and Christian saint." 



"September 20th. I am not in a scribbling humour to-night 

 at all, but anxious to write down a thought or two before going 

 off to the country, so as to leave a clear way for marking down 

 whatsoever of interest may happen there. . . . Monday, saw 

 some good ladies at tea with us, and, fortunately, thanks to a 

 long post-prandial walk, I was merry and frolicsome. I greatly 

 edified Miss B. by proving how many quaint and passed-over 

 virtues repose in the folds of a brown coat. She answered me 

 gravely in my own ftishion, but soon gave in, in a fit of glee- 

 some laughter. What I said of the coat I cannot now remem- 

 ber. I never can remember what I have said when I ruminate 

 over a night of fun and folly, and as for sitting to coin, or 

 gravely to rehearse a joke, I never dreamed of it. Anything of 

 that kind is with me the unbidden impulse of the moment. 

 Yet I feel the love of the thing, and the power of excelling daily 

 increasing, and I don't see any good reason for nipping it in the 



