Strange in a man who had, I should have said, so little to attach him to this world, and so firm a belief in another; in a man with an impaired fortune, a weak spine, and a worn-out stomach! What is this fascination which makes us cling to existence in spite of present sufferings and of religious hopes?
Yesterday evening I called at the house in Cadogan Place, where the body is lying.

I was truly fond of him; that is, "je l'aimais comme l'on aime." And how is that?
How very little one human being generally cares for another! How very little the world misses anybody! How soon the chasm left by the best and wisest men closes! I thought, as I walked back from Cadogan Place, that our own selfishness when others are taken away ought to teach us how little others will suffer at losing us.

I thought that, if I were to die to-morrow, not one of the fine people, whom I dine with every week, will take a cotelette aux petits pois the less on Saturday at the table to which I was invited to meet them, or will smile less gaily at the ladies over the champagne.

And I am quite even with them.

What are those pretty lines of Shelley?
Oh, world, farewell! Listen to the passing bell.
It tells that thou and I must part With a light and heavy heart.
There are not ten people in the world whose deaths would spoil my dinner; but there are one or two whose deaths would break my heart.