inharmonious prelude to the last quietude and desertion of
the grave; in this dulness of the senses there is a gentle preparation
for the final insensibility of death. And to him the idea of mortality
comes in a shape less violent and harsh than is its wont, less as an
abrupt catastrophe than as a thing of infinitesimal gradation, and the
last step on a long decline of way. As we turn to and fro in bed, and
every moment the movements grow feebler and smaller and the attitude
more restful and easy, until sleep overtakes us at a stride and we move
no more, so desire after desire leaves him; day by day his strength
decreases, and the circle of his activity grows ever narrower; and he
feels, if he is to be thus tenderly weaned from the passion of life,
thus gradually inducted into the slumber of death, that when at last the
end comes, it will come quietly and fitly. If anything is to reconcile
poor spirits to the coming of the last enemy, surely it should be such a
mild approach as this; not to hale us forth with violence, but to
persuade us from a place we have no further pleasure in. It is not so
much, indeed, death that approaches as life that withdraws and withers
up from round about him. He has outlived his own usefulness, and almost
his own enjoyment; and if there is to be no recovery; if never again
will he be young and strong and passionate, if the actual present shall
be to him always like a thing read in a book or remembered out of the
far-away past; if, in fact, this be veritably nightfall, he will not
wish greatly for the continuance of a twilight that only strains and
disappoints the eyes, but steadfastly await the perfect darkness. He
will pray for Medea: when she comes, let her either rejuvenate or slay.

And yet the ties that still attach him to the world are many and kindly.
The sight of children has a significance for him such as it may have for
the aged also, but not for others. If he has been used to feel humanely,
and to look upon life somewhat more widely than from the narrow loophole
of personal pleasure and advancement, it is strange how small a portion
of his thoughts will be changed or embittered by this proximity of
death. He knows that already, in English counties, the sower follows the
ploughman up the face of the field, and the rooks follow the sower; and
he knows also that he may not live to go home again and see the corn
spring and ripen, and be cut down at last, and brought home with
gladness