he dimensions of a mere
funeral procession, so short as to be hardly decent; and melancholy
unbelievers yearning for the tomb as if it were a world too far away.
Both sides must feel a little ashamed of their performances now and
again when they draw in their chairs to dinner. Indeed, a good meal and
a bottle of wine is an answer to most standard works upon the question.
When a man's heart warms to his viands, he forgets a great deal of
sophistry, and soars into a rosy zone of contemplation. Death may be
knocking at the door, like the Commander's statue; we have something
else in hand, thank God, and let him knock. Passing-bells are ringing
all the world over. All the world over, and every hour, some one is
parting company with all his aches and ecstasies. For us also the trap
is laid. But we are so fond of life that we have no leisure to entertain
the terror of death. It is a honeymoon with us all through, and none of
the longest. Small blame to us if we give our whole hearts to this
glowing bride of ours, to the appetites, to honour, to the hungry
curiosity of the mind, to the pleasure of the eyes in nature, and the
pride of our own nimble bodies.

We all of us appreciate the sensations; but as for caring about the
Permanence of the Possibility, a man's head is generally very bald, and
his senses very dull, before he comes to that. Whether we regard life as
a lane leading to a dead wall--a mere bag's end, as the French say--or
whether we think of it as a vestibule or gymnasium, where we wait our
turn and prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny; whether we
thunder in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic poetry-books, about its
vanity and brevity; whether we look justly for years of health and
vigour, or are about to mount into a bath-chair, as a step towards the
hearse; in each and all of these views and situations there is but one
conclusion possible: that a man should stop his ears against paralysing
terror, and run the race that is set before him with a single mind. No
one surely could have recoiled with more heartache and terror from the
thought of death than our respected lexicographer; and yet we know how
little it affected his conduct, how wisely and boldly he walked, and in
what a fresh and lively vein he spoke of life. Already an old man, he
ventured on his Highland tour; and his heart, bound with triple brass,
did not recoil before twenty-seven individual cups of tea. As courage
and intelligence ar