Some say that old men fear death. It is the theme of the debased and the vulgar. It is not true. Those who have imperfectly served are ready enough; those who have served more perfectly are glad--as though there stood before them a natural transition and a condition of their being. So it says in a book “all good endings are but shining transitions.” And, again, there is a sonnet which says: We will not whisper: we have found the place Of silence and the ancient halls of sleep, And that which breathes alone throughout the deep The end and the beginning; and the face Between the level brows of whose blind eyes Lie plenary contentment, full surcease Of violence, and the ultimate great peace Wherein we lose our human lullabies. Look up and tell the immeasurable height Between the vault of the world and your dear head; That’s Death, my little sister, and the Night That was our Mother beckons us to bed: Where large oblivion in her house is laid For us tired children now our games are played. Indeed, one might quote the poets (who are the teachers of mankind) indefinitely in this regard. They are all agreed. What did Sleep and Death to the body of Sarpedon? They took it home. And every one who dies in all the Epics is better for the dying. Some complain of it afterwards I will admit; but they are hard to please. Roland took it as the end of battle; and there was a Scandinavian fellow caught on the north-east coast, I think, who in dying thanked God for all the joy he had had in his life--as you may have heard before. And St. Anthony of Assisi (not of Padua) said, “Welcome, little sister Death!” as was his way. And one who stands right up above most men who write or speak said it was the only port after the tide-streams and bar-handling of this journey. So it is; let us be off to the hills. The silence and the immensity that inhabit them are the simulacra of such things. WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH FOOTNOTE: [1] Mr. H. Abrahims, of Eastcheap and The Firs, Guildford, Surrey. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of On Everything, by Hilaire Belloc