Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

ON PROVIDENCE, vi. 8-9great dominion over you. Let every season, everyplace, teach you how easy it is to renounce Nature andHing her gift back in her face. In the very presence(tf the altars and the solemn rites of sacrifice, while\(iu pray for life, learn well concerning death. Thefatted bodies of bulls fall from a paltry wound, andcreatures of mighty strength are felled by one strokeof a man's hand ; a tiny blade mil sever the sutures(if the neck, and when that joint, which binds togetherhead and neck, is cut, the body's mightymass crmnples in a heap. No deep retreat concealstlie soul, you need no knife at all to root it out, notleeply driven wound to find the vital parts ; deathlies near at hand. For these mortal strokes I haveSt t no definite spot ; anywhere you wish, the way isopen. Even that which we call dying, the momentM lien the breath forsakes the body, is so brief thatit< fleetness cannot come within the ken. Whetherthe throat is strangled by a knot, or water stops thebreathing, or the hard ground crushes in the skull ofone falling headlong to its surface, or flame inhaledcuts off the course of respiration,—be it what it may,tlie end is swift. Do you not blush for shame ?You "dread so long what comes so quickly !)\^47