We were both examined. Me,
the whole assembly looked at with kindness and pity, but at the same
time with an air of welcome, and consolation: they pronounced me very
happy, who had died in innocence; and told me, a quite different place
was allotted to me, than that which was appointed for my companion;
there being a great distance from the mansions of fools and innocents:
'though at the same time,' said one of the ghosts, there is a great
affinity between an idiot who has been so for long life, and a child who
departs before maturity. But this gentleman who has arrived with you is
a fool of his own making, is ignorant out of choice, and will fare
accordingly.' The assembly began to flock about him, and one said to
him, 'Sir, I observed you came into the gate of persons murdered, and I
desire to know what brought you to your untimely end?' He said, he had
been a second. Socrates (who may be said to have been murdered by the
commonwealth of Athens) stood by, and began to draw near him, in order,
after his manner, to lead him into a sense of his error by concessions
in his own discourse. 'Sir,' said that divine and amicable spirit, 'what
was the quarrel?' He answered, 'We shall know very suddenly, when the
principal in the business comes, for he was desperately wounded before I
fell.' 'Sir,' said the sage, 'had you an estate?' 'Yes, sir,' the new
guest answered, 'I have left it in a very good condition; I made my will
the night before this occasion.' 'Did you read it before you signed it?'
'Yes sure, sir,' said the newcomer. Socrates replies, could a man that
would not give his estate without reading the instrument, dispose of his
life without asking a question? That illustrious shade turned from him,
and a crowd of impertinent goblins, who had been drolls and parasites in
their lifetime, and were knocked on the head for their sauciness, came
about my fellow-traveller, and made themselves very merry with questions
about the words 'carte' and 'terce' and other terms of fencers. But his
thoughts began to settle into reflection upon the adventure which had
robbed him of his late being; and with a wretched sigh, said he, 'How
terrible are conviction and guilt when they come too late for
penitence!'" Pacolet was going on in this strain, but he recovered from
it, and told me, it was too soon to give my discourse on this subject so
serious a turn; you have chiefly to do with that part of mankind which
must be led into reflection b