Guard yourself, guard yourself against the dismal lime rods
that threaten the free flight of your thoughts.
Elsje and I had frequently spoken of dying, but only when a vigorous
mood permitted us to do so without sadness or apprehension. For the
worst thing about death is not the actual dying, but the breath of
horror that it sometimes casts upon our sensibilities.
That our age permits so few to live beautifully is sad, but it is far
worse that it gives to so few the opportunity and the courage to die
worthily. Our generation ill understands how to lives but it knows even
less how to die. Most die, not the quite unappalling death of the hero,
but the horrible Philistine's death, as Goethe called it.
To die beautifully and worthily had been the dearest wish of both of
us, after that of a long life in happy unison. And Elsje attained this
desire as nearly as our wretched circumstances allowed.
"It is good after all now," she said when she felt the certainty of
what was about to take place, "that our darling baby did not live.
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