On Life and Death

Tags

Death, Hope, Humanity, Love, Nature, Reason

When the day is done – when the work of a life is finished – when the gold of evening meets the dusk of night, beneath the silent stars the tired laborer should fall asleep. To outlive usefulness is a double death. “Let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits.”

When the old oak is visited in vain by Spring – when light and rain no longer thrill – it is not well to stand leafless, desolate, and alone. It is better far to fall where Nature softly covers all with woven moss and creeping vine.

How little, after all, we know of what is ill or well! How little of this wondrous stream of cataracts and pools – this stream of life, that rises in a world unknown, and flows to that mysterious sea whose shore the foot of one who comes has never pressed! How little of this life we know – this struggling ray of light ‘twixt gloom and gloom – this strip of land by verdure clad, between the unknown wastes – this throbbing moment filled with love and pain – this dream that lies between the shadowy shores of sleep and death!

We stand upon this verge of crumbling time. We love, we hope, we disappear. Again we mingle with the dust, and the “knot intrinsicate” forever falls apart.

But this we know: A noble life enriches all the world.

In the drama of human life, all are actors, and no one knows his part. In this great play the scenes are shifted by unknown forces, and the commencement, plot and end are still unknown – are still unguessed. One by one the players leave the stage, and others take their places. There is no pause – the play goes on. No prompter’s voice is heard, and no one has the slightest clue to what the next scene is to be.

Will this great drama have an end? Will the curtain fall at last? Will it rise again upon some other stage? Reason says perhaps, and Hope still whispers yes.

– RGI

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Laughter is the blessed boundary line between the brute and man.

Tags

Death, Happiness, Humanity, Humor

Disguise it as we may, we live in a frightful world, with evils, with enemies, on every side. From the hedges along the path of life, leap the bandits that murder and destroy; and every human being, no matter how often he escapes, at last will fall beneath the assassin’s knife.

To put it another way: We are all passengers on the train of life. The tickets give the names of the stations where we boarded the car, but the destination is unknown. At every station some passengers, pallid, breathless, dead, are put away, and some with the light of morning in their eyes, get on.

To put it yet another way: On the wide sea of life we are all on ships or rafts or spars, and some by friendly winds are borne to the fortunate isles, and some by storms are wrecked on the cruel rocks. And yet upon the isles the same as upon the rocks, death waits for all. And death alone can truly say, “All things come to him who waits.”

And yet, strangely enough, there is in this world of misery, of misfortune and of death, the blessed spirit of mirth. The travelers on the path, on the train, on the ships, the rafts and spars, sometimes forget their perils and their doom.

All blessings on the man whose face was first illuminated by a smile!

All blessings on the man who first gave to the common air the music of laughter – the music that for the moment drove fears from the heart, tears from the eyes, and dimpled cheeks with joy!

All blessings on the man who sowed with merry hands the seeds of humor, and at the lipless skull of death snapped the reckless fingers of disdain!

Who are the friends of the human race? They who hide with vine and flower the cruel rocks of fate – the children of genius, the sons and daughters of mirth and laughter, of imagination, those whose thoughts, like moths with painted wings, fill the heaven of the mind.

– RGI

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language.

Tags

Death, Language, Love, Music

Music was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. Beneath the waves is the sea – above the clouds is the sky.

Before man found a name for any thought, or thing, he had hopes and fears and passions, and these were rudely expressed in tones.

Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is, that Music was born of Love. Had there never been any human affection, there never could have been uttered a strain of music. Possibly some mother, looking in the eyes of her babe, gave the first melody to the enraptured air.

Language is not subtle enough, tender enough, to express all that we feel; and when language fails, the highest and deepest longings are translated into music. Music is the sunshine – the climate – of the soul, and it floods the heart with a perfect June.

I am also satisfied that the greatest music is the most marvelous mingling of Love and Death. Love is the greatest of all passions, and Death is its shadow. Death gets all its terror from Love, and Love gets its intensity, its radiance, its glory and its rapture, from the darkness of Death. Love is a flower that grows on the edge of the grave.

– RGI

Sometimes I think that a world with death in it is a mistake.

Tags

Death, Happiness, Hope, Love, Philosophy

What would you think of a man who built a railroad, knowing that every passenger was to be killed – knowing that there was no escape? What would you think of the cheerfulness of the passengers if every one knew that at some station, the name of which had not been called out, there was a hearse waiting for him; backed up there, horses fighting flies, driver whistling, waiting for you? Is it not wonderful that the passengers on that train really enjoy themselves? Is it not magnificent that every one of them, under perpetual sentence of death, after all, can dimple their cheeks with laughter; that we, every one doomed to become dust, can yet meet around this table as full of joy as spring is full of life, as full of hope as the heavens are full of stars?

I tell you we have got a good deal of pluck.

And yet, after all, what would this world be without death? It may be from the fact that we are all victims, from the fact that we are all bound by common fate; it may be that friendship and love are born of that fact; but whatever the fact is, I am perfectly satisfied that the highest possible philosophy is to enjoy today, not regretting yesterday, and not fearing tomorrow. So, let us suck this orange of life dry, so that when death does come, we can politely say to him, “You are welcome to the peelings. What little there was we have enjoyed.”

But there is one splendid thing about the play called Life. Suppose that when you die, that is the end. The last thing that you will know is that you are alive, and the last thing that will happen to you is the curtain, not falling, but the curtain rising on another thought, so that as far as your consciousness is concerned you will and must live forever. No man can remember when he commenced, and no man can remember when he ends. As far as we are concerned we live both eternities, the one past and the one to come, and it is a delight to me to feel satisfied, and to feel in my own heart, that I can never be certain that I have seen the faces I love for the last time.

I almost wish I had had the making of the world. What a world I would have made! In that world unhappiness would have been the only sin; melancholy the only crime; joy the only virtue. And whether there is another world, nobody knows. Nobody can affirm it; nobody can deny it. Nobody can collect tolls from me, claiming that he owns a turnpike, and nobody can certainly say that the crooked path that I follow, beside which many roses are growing, does not lead to that place. He doesn’t know. But if there is such a place, I hope that all good fellows will be welcome.

– RGI

What is worse than death? A great many things.

Tags

Death, Happiness, Love

To be dishonored. To be worthless. To feel that you are a failure. To be insane. To be constantly afraid of the future. To lose the ones you love. All of these things are comparatively worse.

It may be that death is, after all, a great blessing. Maybe it gives zest and flavor to life, ardor and flame to love.

I want to live – I get great happiness out of life. I enjoy the company of my friends. I enjoy seeing the faces of the ones I love. I enjoy art and music. I love Shakespeare and Burns; love to hear the music of Wagner; love to see a good play. I take pleasure in eating and sleeping. The fact is, I like to breathe.

I want to get all the happiness out of life that I can. I want to suck the orange dry, so that when death comes nothing but the peelings will be left, and so I say: “Long life!”

– RGI