Other related topics at:
Death and Mourning
5. Death; Friendship; Mourning
I have ever since [since his wife's death] seemed to myself
broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wild
of life, without any direction, or fixed point of view: a gloomy
gazer on the world to which I have little relation. Yet I would
endeavor, by the help of you and your brother, to supply the want
of a closer union, by friendship: and hope to have long the
pleasure of being, dear Sir, most affectionately yours...
Boswell: Life
Link
13. Death; Disease; Mourning;
War
I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention of
my friend, should have no part of mine. Your mind is now full of
the fate of Dury; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but
to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrours of a
violent death, which is more formidable at first glance, than on
a nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never very
painful; the only danger is, lest it should be unprovided. But
if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in war,
what can be the state which would have awakened him to the care
of futurity? When would that man have prepared himself to die,
who went to seek death without preparation? What then can be the
reason why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than him that
dies of a fever? A man that languishes with disease, ends his
life with more pain, but with less virtue: he leaves no example
to his friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The
only reason why we lament a Soldier's death, is, that we think he
might have lived longer; yet this cause of grief is common to
many other kinds of death, which are not so passionately
bewailed. The truth is, that every death is violent which is the
effect of accident; every death which is not gradually brought
on by the miseries of age, or when life is extinguished for any
other reason than that it is burnt out. He that dies before
sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent
death; yet his death is borne with patience, only because the
cause of his untimely end is silent and invisible. Let us
endeavor to see things as they are, and then enquire whether we
ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us
much consolation, I know not; but the consolation which is drawn
from truth if any there be, is solid and durable: that which may
be derived from errour, must be, like its original, fallacious
and fugitive.
Johnson: Letter to Bennet Langton
Link
83. Death; Mourning
Boswell: "But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate
friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be
hanged." Johnson: "I should do what I could to bail him,
and give him any other assistance; but if he were once fairly
hanged, I should not suffer." Boswell: "Would you eat
your dinner that day, Sir?" Johnson: "Yes, Sir, and eat
it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who is
to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him
on every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat
a slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetick feeling
goes a very little way in depressing the mind."
Boswell: Life
Link
156. Death; Mourning
The truth is, nobody suffered more from pungent sorrow at a
friend's death than Johnson, though he would suffer no one else
to complain of their losses in the same way; "for (says he) we
must either outlive our friends you know, or our friends must
outlive us; and I see no man that would hesitate about the
choice."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
Link
173. Mourning
A very ignorant young fellow, who had plagued us all for nine or
ten months, died at last consumptive: "I think (said Mr. Johnson
when he heard the news), I am afraid, I should have been more
concerned for the death of the dog; but --------
(hesitating a while) I am not wrong now in all this, for the dog
acted up to his character on every occasion that we know; but
that dunce of a fellow helped forward the general disgrace of
humanity."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
Link
189. Mourning; Sympathy
[While Johnson and Boswell were away, they heard of the death of
the son of the Thrales, who were good friends of Johsnon's...] I
saw male succession strong in his mind, even where there was no
name, no family of any long standing. I said, it was lucky he
was not present when this misfortune happened. Johnson:
"It was lucky for me. People in distress never think that
you feel enough." Boswell: "And, Sir, they will have the
hope of seeing you, which will be a relief in the mean time; and
when you get to them, the pain will be so far abated, that they
will be capable of being consoled by you, which in the first
violence of it, I believe, would not be the case."
Johnson: "No, Sir; violent pain of mind, like violent
pain of body, must be severely felt." Boswell: "I
own, Sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others,
as some people have, or pretend to have: but I know this, that I
would do all in my power to relieve them." Johnson:
"Sir, it is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of
others, as much as they do themselves. It is equally so, as if
one should pretend to feel as much pain while a friend's leg is
cutting off, as he does. No, Sir; you have expressed the
rational and just nature of sympathy. I would have gone to the
extremity of the earth to have preserved this boy."
Boswell: Life
Link
190. Diversion; Mourning
After dinner Dr. Johnson wrote a letter to Mrs. Thrale on the
death of her son. I said it would be very distressing to Thrale,
but she would soon forget it, as she had so many things to think
of. Johnson: "No, Sir, Thrale will forget it first.
She has many things that she may think of.
He has many things that he must think of."
Boswell: Life
Link
191. Mourning
[Following the death of the Thrale's son, Boswell and Johnson
happened to go to the theatre.] ...We were quite gay and merry.
I afterwards mentioned to him that I condemned myself for being
so, when poor Mr. and Mrs. Thrale were in such distress.
Johnson: "You are wrong, Sir; twenty years hence Mr. and
Mrs. Thrale will not suffer much pain from the death of their
son. Now, Sir, you are to consider, that distance of place, as
well as distance of time, operates upon the human feelings. I
would not have you be gay in the presence of the distressed,
because it would shock them; but you may be gay at a distance.
Pain for the loss of a friend, or of a relation whom we love, is
occasioned by the want which we feel. In time the vacuity is
filled with something else; or, sometimes the vacuity closes up
itself."
Boswell: Life
Link
232. Mourning
Johnson: "All grief for what cannot in the course of
nature be helped, soon wears away; in some sooner, indeed, in
some later; but it never continues very long, unless where there
is madness, such as will make a man have pride so fixed in his
mind, as to imagine himself a King; or any other passion in an
unreasonable way: for all unnecessary grief is unwise, and
therefore will not long be retained by a sound mind. If, indeed,
the cause of our grief is occasioned by our own misconduct, if
grief is mingled with remorse or conscience, it should be
lasting." Boswell: "But, Sir, we do not approve of a man
who very soon forgets the loss of a wife or a friend."
Johnson: "Sir, we disapprove of him, not because he soon
forgets his grief, for the sooner it is forgotten the better, but
because we suppose, that if he forgets his wife or his friend
soon, he has not had much affection for them."
Boswell: Life
Link
552. Mourning
"With regard to the sharpest and most melting sorrow, that which
arises from the loss of those whom we have loved with tenderness,
it may be observed, that friendship between mortals can be
contracted on no other terms than that one must some time mourn
for the other's death: and this grief will always yield to the
survivor one consolation proportionate to his affliction; for
the pain, whatever it be, the he himself feels, his friend has
escaped."
Johnson: Rambler #17 (May 15, 1750)
Link
626. Mourning
"It seems determined, by the general suffrage of mankind, that
sorrow is to a certain point laudable, as the offspring of love,
or at least pardonable as the effect of weakness; but that it
ought not to be suffered to increase by indulgence, but must give
way, after a stated time, to social duties, and the common
avocations of life. It is at first unavoidable, and therefore
must be allowed, whether with or without our choice; it may
afterwards be admitted as a decent and affectionate testimony of
kindness and esteem; something will be extorted by nature, and
something may be given to the world. But all beyond the bursts
of passion, or the forms of solemnity, is not only useless, but
culpable; for we have no right to sacrifice to the vain longings
of affection that time which Providence allows us for the task of
our station."
Johnson: Rambler #47 (August 28, 1750)
Link
658. Mourning; Regret
"When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses
for every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect
a thousand endearments which before glided off our minds without
impression, a thousand favors unrepaid, a thousand duties
unperformed, and wish, vainly wish for his return, not so much
that we may receive, as that we may bestow happiness, and
recompense that kindness which before we never understood."
Johnson: Rambler #54 (September 22, 1750)
Link
659. Mourning; Regret
"Let us ... make haste to do what we shall certainly at last wish
to have done; let us return the caresses of our friends, and
endeavour by mutual endearments to heighten that tenderness which
is the balm of life. Let us be quick to repent of injuries while
repentance may not be barren anguish, and let us open our eyes to
every rival excellence, and pay early and willingly those honours
which justice will compel us to pay at last."
Johnson: Rambler #54 (September 22, 1750)
Link
875. Death; Mourning; Familiarity
"We, to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions
of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations
of men pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of
sorrow and adjust the ceremonial of death. We can look upon
funeral pomp as a common spectacle, in which we have no concern,
and turn away from it to trifles and amusements, without
dejection of look or inquietude of heart."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
Link
879. Conversation; Fame;
Mourning
"That desire which every man feels of being remembered and
lamented is often mortified when we remark how little concern is
caused by the eternal departure even of those who have passed
their lives with public honours, and been distinguished by
extraordinary performances. It is not possible to be regarded
with tenderness except by a few. That merit which gives
greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass,
but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a
distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the
remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.
The wit, the hero, the philosopher, whom their tempers or
their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations, die,
without any other effect than that of adding a new topic to the
conversation of the day. They impress none with any fresh
conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none had any
particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a
reciprocation of endearments."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
Link
880. Fame; Mourning
"It often happens that those who in their lives were applauded
and admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common
honour of a stone; because by those excellences with which many
were delighted, none had been obliged, and, though they had many
to celebrate, they had none to love them."
Johnson: Rambler #78 (December 15, 1750)
Link
1,693. Mortality; Mourning
"Nothing is more evident than that the decays of age must
terminate in death; yet there is no man, says Tully, who does not
believe that he may yet live another year; and there is none who
does not, upon the same principle, hope for another year for his
parent or his friend: but the fallacy will be in time detected;
the last year, the last day must come. It has come, and is
passed. The life which made my own life pleasant is at an end,
and the gates of death are shut upon my prospects."
Johnson: Idler #41 (January 27, 1759)
Link
1,695. Mourning
"The loss of a friend upon whom the heart was fixed, to whom
every wish and endeavour was tended, is a state of dreary
desolation, in which the mind looks abroad impatient of itself,
and finds nothing but emptiness and horror. The blameless
life, the artless tenderness, the pious simplicity, the modest
resignation, the patient sickness, and the quiet death, are
remembered only to add value to the loss, to aggravate regret for
what cannot be amended, to deepen sorrow for what cannot be
recalled."
Johnson: Idler #41 (January 27, 1759)
Link
1,696. Mourning
"The dead cannot return, and nothing is left us here but
languishment and grief."
Johnson: Idler #41 (January 27, 1759)
Link
1,697. Mortality; Mourning
"Such is the course of nature, that whoever lives long must
outlive those whom he loves and honours. Such is the condition
of our present existence, that life must one time lose its
associations, and every inhabitant of the earth must walk
downward to the grave alone and unregarded, without any partner
of his joy or grief, without any interested witness of his
misfortunes or success."
Johnson: Idler #41 (January 27, 1759)
Link
1,700. After-Life; Faith;
Mourning
Writing on the death of a parent:
"Surely there is no man who, thus afflicted, does not seek
succour in the gospel, which has brought life and
immortality to light. The precepts of Epicurus, who teaches
us to endure what the laws of the universe make necessary,
may silence but not content us. The dictates of Zeno, who
commands us to look with indifference on external things, may
dispose us to look with indifference on external things, may
dispose us to conceal our sorrow, but cannot assuage it. Real
alleviation of the loss of friends, and rational tranquillity in
the prospect of our own dissolution, can be received only by the
promises of Him in whose hands are life and death, and from the
assurance of another and better state, in which all tears will be
wiped from the eyes, and the whole soul shall be filled with joy.
Philosophy may infuse stubbornness, but Religion only can give
patience."
Johnson: Idler #41 (January 27, 1759)
Link
