But our respective conditions are our law; we are bound and commanded to shape our temper to the employment we have undertaken.

Voltaire in his hermitage, in a Country where is honesty and safety, can devote himself in peace to the life of the Philosopher, as Plato has described it.

But as to me, threatened with shipwreck, I must consider how, looking the tempest in the face, I can think, can live and can die as a King:-- Pour moi, menace du naufrage, Je dois, en affrontant l'orage, Penser, vivre et mourir en roi." [_OEuvres,_ xxiii.

14.] This is of October 9th; this ends, worthily, the Lamentation-Psalms; work having now turned up, which is a favorable change.

Friedrich's notion of suicide, we perceive, is by no means that of puking up one's existence, in the weak sick way of FELO DE SE; but, far different, that of dying, if he needs must, as seems too likely, in uttermost spasm of battle for self and rights to the last.