It is a well-known saying that the longer a man has lived the more he wishes to live. Charles Renouvier,[100] a French philosopher who died a few years ago, has left a definite proof of the truth of the saying. When he was eighty-eight years old, and knew that he was dying, he recorded his impressions in his last days. Let me quote from what he wrote four days before his death. “I have no illusions about my condition; I know quite well that I am going to die, perhaps in a week, perhaps in a fortnight. And I have still so much to say on my subject.” “At my age I have no longer the right to hope: my days are numbered, and perhaps my hours. I must resign myself.” “I do not die without regrets. I regret that I cannot foresee in any way the fate of my views.” “And I am leaving the world before I have said my last word. A man always dies before he has finished his work, and that is the saddest of the sorrows of life.” “But that is not the whole trouble, when a man is old, very old, and accustomed to life, it is very difficult to die. I think that young men accept the idea of dying more easily, perhaps more willingly than old men. When one is more than eighty years old, one is cowardly and shrinks from death. And when one knows and can no longer doubt that death is coming near, deep bitterness falls on the soul.” “I have faced the question from all sides in the last few days; I turn the one idea over in my mind; I _know_ that I am going to die, but I cannot _persuade_ myself that I am going to die. It is not the philosopher in me that protests. The philosopher does not fear death; it is the _old man_. The old man has not the courage to submit, and yet I have to submit to the inevitable.” I know a lady, a hundred and two years old, who is so oppressed by the idea of death, that those about her have to conceal from her the death of any of her acquaintances. Mde. Robineau, however, when between one hundred and four and one hundred and five years old, became quite indifferent to the close approach of her own death. She often expressed a wish for it, thinking herself useless in the world.