"I have never yet failed," returned I, "to have the honour of hearing your conceptions and imaginations communicated to me; will you not now still let me enjoy them ?" "I would indeed," he answered; "but, my brother, I am not able to do so; they are admirable, infinite, and unspeakable." We stopped short there, for he could not go on.

A little before, indeed, he had shown a desire to speak to his wife, and had told her, with as gay a countenance as he could contrive to assume, that he had a story to tell her.

And it seemed as if he was making an attempt to gain utterance; but, his strength failing him, he begged a little wine to resuscitate it.
It was of no avail, for he fainted away suddenly, and was for some time insensible.

Having become so near a neighbour to death, and hearing the sobs of Mademoiselle de la Boetie, he called her, and said to her thus: "My own likeness, you grieve yourself beforehand; will you not have pity on me?
take courage.

Assuredly, it costs me more than half the pain I endure, to see you suffer; and reasonably so, because the evils which we ourselves feel we do not actually ourselves suffer, but it certain sentient faculties which God plants in us, that feel them: whereas what we feel on account of others, we feel by consequence of a certain reasoning process which goes on within our minds.