sing our grasp, the breaking asunder some strong tie, the
leaving some cherished purpose unfulfilled, that creates the repugnance
to go, and 'makes calamity of so long life,' as it often is.

O! thou strong heart!
There's such a covenant 'twixt the world and thee
They're loth to break!

The love of life, then, is an habitual attachment, not an abstract
principle. Simply _to be_ does not 'content man's natural desire': we
long to be in a certain time, place, and circumstance. We would much
rather be now, 'on this bank and shoal of time,' than have our choice of
any future period, than take a slice of fifty or sixty years out of the
Millennium, for instance. This shows that our attachment is not confined
either to _being_ or to _well-being_; but that we have an inveterate
prejudice in favour of our immediate existence, such as it is. The
mountaineer will not leave his rock, nor the savage his hut; neither are
we willing to give up our present mode of life, with all its advantages
and disadvantages, for any other that could be substituted for it. No
man would, I think, exchange his existence with any other man, however
fortunate. We had as lief _not be_, as _not be ourselves_. There are
some persons of that reach of soul that they would like to live two
hundred and fifty years hence, to see to what height of empire America
will have grown up in that period, or whether the English constitution
will last so long. These are points beyond me. But I confess I should
like to live to see the downfall of the Bourbons. That is a vital
question with me; and I shall like it the better, the sooner it happens!

No young man ever thinks he shall die. He may believe that others will,
or assent to the doctrine that 'all men are mortal' as an abstract
proposition, but he is far enough from bringing it home to himself
individually.(1) Youth, buoyant activity, and animal spirits, hold
absolute antipathy with old age as well as with death; nor have we, in
the hey-day of life, any more than in the thoughtlessness of childhood,
the remotest conception how

This sensible warm motion can become
A kneaded clod--

nor how sanguine, florid health and vigour, shall 'turn to withered,
weak, and grey.' Or if in a moment of idle speculation we indulge in
this notion of the close of life as a theory, it is amazing at what a
distance it seems; what a long, leisurely interval there is between;
what a contrast its slow and solemn approach afford