It
is equally as absurd to try the effect of self-esteem
and to think it will enable us to count as naught
what will of necessity destroy it. And the mind in
which we trust to find so many resources will be far
too weak in the struggle to persuade us in the way we
wish. For it is this which betrays us so frequently,
and which, instead of filling us with contempt of death,
serves but to show us all that is frightful and fearful.
The most it can do for us is to persuade us to avert
our gaze and fix it on other objects. Cato and Brutus
each selected noble ones. A lackey sometime ago
contented himself by dancing on the scaffold when
he was about to be broken on the wheel. So however
diverse the motives they but realize the same result.
For the rest it is a fact that whatever difference there
may be between the peer and the peasant, we have
constantly seen both the one and the other meet death
with the same composure. Still there is always this
difference, that the contempt the peer shows for death
is but the love of fame which hides death from his
sight; in the peasant it is but the result of his limited
vision that hides from him the extent of the evil, end
leaves him free to reflect on other things.
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