‘They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women more horrible than the men. Besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, which is not to be described; and among half a dozen, I soon distinguished who was the oldest, although there was not above a century or two between them. ‘The reader will easily believe, from what I have heard and seen, that my keen appetite for perpetuity and life was much abated. I grew heartily ashamed of the pleasing visions I had formed, and thought no tyrant could invent a death into which I would not run with pleasure, from such a life. The king heard all that had passed between me and my friends upon this occasion, and rallied me very pleasantly, wishing I could send a couple of Struldbrugs to my own country, to arm our people against the fear of death.’ Note 61, page 171. Fear, absolutely useless, gratuitous fear, probably constitutes much the largest proportion of the whole mass of human misery; and of this proportion the fear of death is the principal part. There are but very few people who, in examining the feeling of revulsion and horror, most constantly present to their minds, will not find it to be the dread of death. The whole observation, which I have made upon human nature, has only enlightened me the more as to the universality and extent of the influence of this evil. I see it infusing bitterness into the bosoms of the young, before they are as yet capable of reflection; and ceasing not to inspire its terrors into the heart, which has experienced the sorrows of fourscore winters. I see little difference in the alarm with which it darkens the mind of the heir, elate with youthful hope, and the galley slave--those apparently the most happy, and the tenants of penitentiaries and lazar-houses. All cling alike convulsively to life, and shudder at the thought of death.