1979. DEATH, Life and.—
When all our
faculties have left, or are leaving us, one by
one, sight, hearing, memory, every avenue of
pleasing sensation is closed, and athymy, debility,
and malaise left in their places; when
friends of our youth are all gone, and a new
generation is risen around us whom we know
not, is death an evil? * * * I think not. I
have ever dreaded a doting old age; and my
health has been generally so good, and is
now so good, that I dread it still.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 243.
Ford ed., x, 216.
(M.
1822)
