But suppose we regret neither ambitious projects nor transient pleasures, may we not wish to live longer for our children? I attempt not to inculcate an impracticable or exaggerated system. There is a situation in which death is fearful. There is a period in which it would seem as if man ought not to die. It commences when one has become a parent, and terminates when his sustaining hand is no longer indispensable to his family. If nature calls us to quit life before this epoch, all consolations resemble the remedies which palliate the pains of the dying, without possessing efficacy to remove them. Still we dare not so outrage nature as to believe that there can exist a situation in which a good man can find no alleviation for his sorrows. In quitting a life which he would wish to retain longer, for the happiness of those most dear to him, he may derive force and magnanimity from the thought that he owes it to himself to leave an example of courage and decent dignity in the last act; that he may show the influence of piety, resignation, the hope of a good man, and the discipline of that philosophy which forbids its disciple to struggle against the inevitable lot. The approach of death always brings associations of gloom when it comes in advance of old age, to destroy the tender affections. In the slow and natural course of years, it is an event as simple, as little to be deprecated, as the other occurrences of life. Alas! during a short sojourn, we see those who were most dear continually falling around us. We soon retain a less number with us than exist already in another world. The family is divided. I am not surprised that it becomes a matter of indifference to a wise man to remain with his present friends, or go and rejoin those that are absent. As long as our children have need of our support, we resemble a traveller charged with business of extreme importance. As soon as these cares become useless, we resemble him who travels at leisure and by chance; and who takes up his lodging for the night wherever the setting sun surprises him. For me, I see the second epoch drawing near. If I reach it, I shall bless heaven for having awarded me a sufficient number of years, and for having diffused over them so few pains.