"But," he continued, "when any one
is cowardly or mean, one ought obviously in writing letters about such a
person to speak of him as a corpse, and to say, 'Favour us with the
corpse and blood of So-and-so,' For? in fact, such a man _is_ a mere
corpse, and nothing more; for if he were anything more, he would have
perceived that no man ever suffers any real misfortunes by another's
means." I do not know whether Mr. Ruskin is a student of Epictetus, but
he, among others, has forcibly expressed the same truth. "My friends, do
you remember that old Scythian custom, when the head of a house died?
How he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and
carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his
table's head, and all feasted in his presence? Suppose it were offered
to you, in plain words, as it _is_ offered to you in dire facts, that
you should gain this Scythian honour gradually, while you yet thought
yourself alive.... Would you take the offer verbally made by the
death-angel? Would the meanest among us take it, think you? Yet
practically and verily we grasp at it, every one of us, in a measure;
many of us grasp at it in the fulness of horror.
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