I disengage myself throughout from all worldly relations; my leave is soon taken of all but myself.

Never did any one prepare to bid adieu to the world more absolutely and unreservedly, and to shake hands with all manner of interest in it, than I expect to do.

The deadest deaths are the best: "'Miser, O miser,' aiunt, 'omnia ademit Una dies infesta mihi tot praemia vitae.'" ["'Wretch that I am,' they cry, 'one fatal day has deprived me of all joys of life.'"-- Lucretius, iii.

911.] And the builder, "Manuet," says he, "opera interrupta, minaeque Murorum ingentes." ["The works remain incomplete, the tall pinnacles of the walls unmade."-- AEneid, iv.

88.] A man must design nothing that will require so much time to the finishing, or, at least, with no such passionate desire to see it brought to perfection.