1980. DEATH, Meeting after.—
Our
next meeting must be in the country to which
[those years] have flown,—a country for us
not now very distant. For this journey we
shall need neither gold nor silver in our purse,
nor scrip, nor coats, nor staves. Nor is the
provision for it more easy than the preparation
has been kind. Nothing proves more
than this, that the Being who presides over
the world is essentially benevolent. Stealing
from us, one by one, the faculties of enjoyment,
searing our sensibilities, leading us, like
the horse in his mill, round and round the
same beaten circle,
—To see what we have seen,
To taste the tasted, and at each return
Less tasteful; o'er our palates to decant
Another vintage—
Until satiated and fatigued with this leaden
iteration, we ask our own congé. I heard
once a very old friend, who had troubled himself
with neither poets nor philosophers, say
the same thing in plain prose, that he was
tired of pulling off his shoes and stockings at
night and putting them on again in the morning.—
To Mrs. John Adams. Washington ed. vii, 53.
Ford ed., x, 70.
(M.
1817)
