Dying person

“ For how can they be after death if they be in death, especially when we do not even call them dying, as we call those in sleep, sleeping; and those in languor, languishing; and those in grief, grieving; and those in life, living? And yet the dead, until they rise again, are said to be in death, but cannot be called dying. ”

“ Already Aretæus, the Cappadocian, said that the mind of many dying persons was perfectly clear, penetrating and prophetic, and mentions a number of cases in which the dying had begun to converse with the dead, or foretold the fate of those who stood by their bedside. ”

“ I heard of murder and death, of sickness and sorrow, anguish and grief, and wherever I looked the hollow eyes of dying men met my own with such trusting, pleading regard, such far-away yearning looks, that it seemed to me if but one sob was uttered my heart would break. ”

“ What then will be the feelings of the dying man when he is told that he is dying? " Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die and not live." With what fear, will he not be told that his illness is mortal, that he must make his peace with God, and receive the Blessed Sacrament, and bid farewell to the world? ”

“ It was a tragical feeling, a taint or flavour in the mind, such as men often feel in hospitals when many are dying, the sense that Death was at work there, that Death lived there, that Death wandered up and down there and fed on Life. ”

“ Death meets those myriads whilst indulging the most appalling passions—their hands filled with weapons of carnage, their hearts with fratricidal hate. It is the sense of the moral death involved, searing of conscience, deadening of heart, blunting of moral faculty, fruits of death brought forth in the soul of the survivor, which are more horrifying to the enlightened consciousness than the dying groans of the stricken can be to the more bodily nerve. ”

“ Contact with death even in its least terrible shape, is solemn and appalling. How much more awful is it to reflect on this near vicinity to the dying—to men in full health and vigour, in the flower of youth or the prime of life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute and perfect as your own ”

“ When we think of dying, it is of being put in a coffin, the white shroud setting off, in loathsome contrast, the yellow palor of the face, and the indescribable expression of the human features without a soul ”

“ And, dying, he declined to die. ”

“ The composition is florid and emotional, with frequent exclamations of grief, and the intimations of mortality are so thorough and convincing that one has a feeling that many a death-bed would be alleviated if the dying man could hear what was to be printed about him. ”

“ Looking, however, on death in its purely human aspects, the mourner should consider how often in a long illness he wished the dying man could sleep; how consoling to his mind was the thought of every hour of peaceful rest; of every hour in which the patient was withdrawn from consciousness, insensible to suffering, removed for a time from the miseries of a dying life. ”

“ For never a man Dying appears to feel the soul go forth As one sure whole from all his body at once, Nor first come up the throat and into mouth; But feels it failing in a certain spot, Even as he knows the senses too dissolve Each in its own location in the frame. But were this mind of ours immortal mind, Dying 'twould scarce bewail a dissolution, But rather the going, the leaving of its coat, Like to a snake. Wherefore, when once the body Hath passed away, admit we must that soul, Shivered in all that body, perished too. ”

“ He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.' Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. ”

“ What enumerator will take for us the census of dead? And this matter of death and dying, like most things else in the world, may be exaggerated by our own fears and hopes. Death, terrible to look forward to, may be pleasant even to look back at. ”

“ Reminiscences of the time of the great sickness became the absorbing topic of conversation, until the care of the dying and the burial of the dead silenced all voices, and turned all thoughts to the overwhelming cares of the present. ”

“ Men plucked from death had testified to a supernal activity of the mind. And those who had watched had observed the dying to use words and gestures which indicated a sight and hearing beyond the capacities of life. ”

“ A shot, a cry, a struggle, and a fainting woman's kiss;
Life's blood let 'mid the grasses—and all a world was lost,
And no one may ever know how he paid the cost.
He is lost in the crowd of the dead, in the night-time of death,
A name on a stone left to tell that he ever drew breath.
So desperate body die there, with your soul's long release,
And, unhappy spirit, God grant you Eternity's peace! ”

“ A dying Mans words, if they be concerne our selves; doe usually make the deepest impression, as being spoken most feelingly, and with less affectation. Now, whom doth it not concerne to learn, both the danger, and benefit of death? Death is every mans enemy, and intends hurt to all ”

“ Death glided in at yonder door with the sick man; his grasp is already on his heart; the doctor stands aside and folds his hands—there’s no work for him to do; dark shadows gather round the dying stranger’s eyes; he presses feebly the hand of his humane host, and gasps out the last fluttering breath on that manly heart. ”

“ When the dying man sees it, he shudders and opens his mouth. The Angel of Death then lets it fall into his mouth. The sick man dies, corrupts, and becomes pale. Three days the soul flies about the body, thinking to return to it, but after it sees the appearance of the face changed, it leaves it and goes away. ”

“ Elsje and I had frequently spoken of dying, but only when a vigorous mood permitted us to do so without sadness or apprehension. For the worst thing about death is not the actual dying, but the breath of horror that it sometimes casts upon our sensibilities. ”

“ The ultimate of this picture is death from unrecognized suicide; death, a slow dying to every sense that made life worth living. There is this about these deaths that go on through the months and years: they{111} exaggerate the worst instincts of the soul as it is dragged down—down through brain-wasting largely avoidable if only understood. ”

“ Death is supposed to be, in every case, the departure of the spirit from the body, and when the sick person is approaching death the friends and relatives, led by the medicine-man, will often sit around the invalid and sing their petitions to the departing spirit in the hope that it may be led to repent and return to the body. ”

“ You may talk and talk to the grief-stricken one who bends over the corpse in the coffin about death being a transition from a world of woe to a world of weal, and the distressed one may try to cherish the thought and proclaim belief, but the tears cease not to flow, the pain and anguish written upon every feature of the mourner refuse to give place to joy and gladness. ”

“ The dying are nearly as reticent as the dead. The inferences we draw from the circumstances of death, the pallor, the sob, the glazing eye, are just as likely to mislead us as not. Manfred exclaims, "Old man, 'tis not so difficult to die!" ”

“ Death, we may remark, was always a prominent feature of annuals. Their artists and poets vied with one another in the selection of mortuary subjects. Charles Lamb was first “hooked into the ‘Gem’” with some lines on the editor’s dead infant. From a partial list, extending over a dozen years, I cull this funeral wreath:—
The Dying Child. ”

“ BURIAL ALIVE.—CREMATION FROM AN ÆSTHETIC AND RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW. Our great American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, says: “To be buried alive is beyond question the most terrific of all extremes which have ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.”
Is any death more horrible than this? To be embraced, unprepared, down in the deep dark grave! To awake again with the greatest longing for life, suffering the most severe bodily tortures, in the coffin! To realize that there is no escape from inevitable death! ”

“ It is a cruel death to die to be merely drowned, and to go through the ordinary common-places of suffocation; but to see your death gradually rising to your eyes, to feel the water rising, inch by inch, upon your shivering sides, and to anticipate the certainly coming, choking struggle for your last breath, when, with the gurgling sound of an overflowing brook taking a new direction, the cold brine pours into mouth, ears, and nostrils, usurping the seat and avenues of health and life, and, with gradual flow, stifling—smothering—suffocating! It were better to die a thousand common deaths. ”

“ In those days, even in European countries, death had a solemn social importance. It was not regarded as a moment when certain bodily organs ceased to function, but as a dramatic climax, a moment when the soul made its entrance into the next world, passing in full consciousness through a lowly door to an unimaginable scene. Among the watchers there was always the hope that the dying man might reveal something of what he alone could see; ”

“ Do the dead return? Are the dead indeed dead? You have nailed down the coffin-lid; you have seen the coffin as it sunk into the grave; you have heard the rattling of the clod,—but is that all? Is the beloved one whom you have given to the grave, indeed dead, or only more truly living in a new body, formed of refined matter, invisible to our gross organs? Is that which we call soul, only the result of a particular organization of gross matter, or is it the real, eternal substance of which all other matter is but the servant and the expression? Do the dead return? ”

“ Mortification is a word with an interesting etymology. It means literally the dying or more properly the putting to death of one part of an animal body while the rest is alive. From this it has come to mean, to quote the Century Dictionary, "The act of subduing the passions and appetites by penance, abstinence or painful severities inflicted on the body." It has had this signification from the very earliest times of Christianity, for the early Fathers spoke of dying to self to have a higher and a nobler life. ”

“ The sudden and terrific appearance of Death, who, starting from behind a curtain, significantly stares at him through an eye-glass. One of the candles is thrown down, and a wine-glass jerked out of the hand of the suicide, who, from a broken sword and a hat with a cockade, seems intended for some ruined soldier of fashion. A female servant, alarmed at the report of the pistol, rushes into the apartment. Below, these verses:
Death smiles, and seems his dart to hide,
When he beholds the suicide.
2. The Good Man, Death, and the Doctor. A young clergyman reads prayers to the dying man ”

“ He was pressed to death, as devoted husbands and fathers were, here and there, in the Middle Ages, when they chose to save their families from the consequences of attainders by dying untried. We will not sicken our readers with the details of the slow, cruel, and disgusting death. ”

“ Whenever it came, a heavy numbing throb seemed to take hold of my heart, and say, 'Dead—dead—dead.' And I cried out, 'The living, the living shall praise Thee O God; the dead cannot praise Thee. [16] There is no work in the grave; [17] in the night no man can work. ”

“ Since the period of which I now write, I have often witnessed the closing scene of mortality, and various are the opinions I have heard, as to which point of time, between the moment of death and the first appearance abroad of the survivors in their mourning apparel, is the saddest, the most afflicting, or the most trying—whether the moment of dissolution, the first appearance of the undertaker, the laying out in the apparel of death, the bringing of the coffin, the last frantic kiss and look, the screwing down, the carrying out, the dull thud of the clay upon the coffin lid. ”

“ The act of dying had always great terrors for me, until, through adverse circumstances, I seemed to have nothing worth living for, and then I could laugh at it in my own heart. Strange to say, that fearfulness of the passage through the dark valley returned with double force when I had realized a personal claim to the guiding rod and the supporting staff, and the bright inheritance beyond. ”

“ Also there is no sweetness in giving death, since the last moment of life is but as a quick, twisting lance-thrust, since the memory of pain is of the body and not of the soul, and since the man who is killed is born again in a child's body, free of wounds and blemishes. ”

“ I for one had come to that point of suffering at which I did not really care if only I could die without much pain. They talk of the heroism of the dying—they little know—it would be so easy to die, a dose of morphia, a friendly crevasse, and blissful sleep. The trouble is to go on.... ”

“ Patiently then I sat, and meekly awaited the carriage.
And I always think of the coffin whenever I see men
Running about in a state of doubtful and wild expectation."
Smilingly answered the pastor:—"Death's stirring image is neither
Unto the wise a cause of alarm,—or an end to the pious.
Back into life it urges the former, and teaches him action,
And, for the weal of the latter, it strengthens his hope in affliction.
Death is a giver of life unto both. ”

“ With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can’t control?
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin,
And that seems to say: “You may try all day, but you’ll never jam me in”? ”

“ The grief which followed the extinction of hope, by death, frequently produced it within a day or two afterwards, and that not in one person only, but often in most of the near relations of the deceased. ”

“ It was death—the final earthly end of every living creature—death, the demolition of the human form, the breaking up of the vital functions, the dissolution between soul and body, the one great event that "happeneth to all;" the doom certain, the hour uncertain; coming in infancy, youth, maturity, as often or oftener than in age. ”