Jonathan Swift[76] describes the _Struldbruggs_ or immortals whom he met in a far country. They were distinguished by being born with a red circle over the left eye, which changed in color and grew in size with age. These beings, he thought, must be a great blessing, and he described to those who had first told him of them what he would do were it his great good fortune to be born a Struldbrugg. First of all, he would amass wealth so that in two hundred years he would be the richest man in the realm. Next he would apply himself to learning, which in the course of time would make him wisest of all men. Then he would note all events and become a living treasury of knowledge and the oracle of the nation. He would be able to warn rising generations against all impending evils and thus prevent degeneration. Having heard his ideals, he was told that in fact the state of these immortals was very different; indeed, so pitiful was it that their example mitigated the universal desire to live, so that death was no longer the greatest evil but, on the contrary, undue prolongation of life was a far greater one. The Struldbruggs acted like mortals till about thirty, then grew melancholy until four-score, when they had “not only the follies and infirmities of other old men but had many more which arose from the dreadful prospects of never dying.” “They were not only opinionative, peevish, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friendship and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their grandchildren.” “Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passion, but the objects against which their envy seems principally directed are the vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure, and whenever they see a funeral they lament and repine that others are gone to a harbor of rest to which they themselves can never hope to arrive.” “They have no remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth and middle age and even that is very imperfect, and for the truth or particulars of any fact it is safer to depend on the common traditions than upon their best recollections.” “The less miserable among them appear to be those who turn to dotage and entirely lose their memories; they meet with more pity and assistance because they lack many bad qualities which abound in others.” If they marry one of their own kind, the marriage is dissolved as soon as the younger comes to be four-score, for they “should not have their misery doubled by the load of a wife.”