This he never did, except by his speech last written down; from which as he mentioned grandchildren, a lawyer perhaps might have argued it.

Not but what he may have meant to bestow on us his blessing; only that he died next day, without taking the trouble to do it.
He called indeed for his box of snuff, which was a very high thing to take; and which he never took without being in very good humour, at least for him.

And though it would not go up his nostrils, through the failure of his breath, he was pleased to have it there, and not to think of dying.
'Will your honour have it wiped ?' I asked him very softly, for the brown appearance of it spoiled (to my idea) his white mostacchio; but he seemed to shake his head; and I thought it kept his spirits up.

I had never before seen any one do, what all of us have to do some day; and it greatly kept my spirits down, although it did not so very much frighten me.
For it takes a man but a little while, his instinct being of death perhaps, at least as much as of life (which accounts for his slaying his fellow men so, and every other creature), it does not take a man very long to enter into another man's death, and bring his own mood to suit it.

He knows that his own is sure to come; and nature is fond of the practice.