Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1876-02-25

Van Sicklen's farm, three miles or more
from Burlington. Yours, truly,
ALBERT WADHANs.
The FEAR OF DEATH IN ANCIENT AND
MODERN TMEs.-ln comparing the grounds
for fearing death in ancient and in modern
times, it may be said roughly that the ply
steal tsrrors are constant, while the moral
terrors are variable Not, indeed,
that the mere physical terrors have been,
strictly speaking, unchanged. For it i
probable that the al ,ients, being used
To hardship and suffering, We're less sensitive
to the sting of death than We are. On the
other hand, il is certain that the progress
Of medicine, including the use Of su1sthetlcs,
has done something toward extracting that
sting, and will in time do much more. No
doubt our medical improvements often in
crease the immediate fear Of death which
is felt by the dying if the dying suffered
more, their minds would he distracted, and
they would shrink less from the final relief.
But, at any rate, those medical improve
pIents tend to mitigaes the apprehension
which the mere pain of dying excltes in the
world at large. And it Is enough for my
purpose that this pain of dying can hardly
be worse with us than it was with our fore
fathers the balance if balance there Is is pro-
baby in our favor. Yet, strange t. say, the
entire terrors of death seem to be greater in
our time than in that Of the great classical
writers. To prove this assertion would not be
easy but scholars Will hardly dispute it.
1t Is remarkable that Bacon, when main
tanning the paradox that the fear OF death
Is the weakest Of emotions. chooses all his
examples from among pagans. lie mentions,
among Other instances, the DYING Jest Of
Vespasian II Pizo, Deus TO. 1t would be
unfair to judge Of the ancient Indifference
to death IRON this exceptional utterance
lust as, on the other hand it would be unfair
u Judge OF the modern alarm at death from
the case of johnson, who, when the surgeon
made slight scarifcations in his swollen leg,
exclaimed, Deeper deeper | want length
of lie and you are afraid Of giving Inc pain,
which DO not value Yet it is hard not
to think that these opposite frames OF mind
exhibit the ancient and modern tendencies
in regard to death, though they exhibit
them writ large" The best Of the ancients
knew, a. we do not know, how to obey the
maxim of the great poet Of stocism, and TO
take a negative view of death a. the mere
end of life, the goal in the course Of na-
ture; if infrm or suffering they could even
20 the length of DryGen's rendering of that
maxim
And count 1t ratuTe's privilege to die"
Hence they managed to take death easily,
through thinking OF it as a matter Of course,
and thinking but little OF it even thus
while with Us on the other hand, death is
Just what Byron called it the doom We
troaH var IualI t,,,,v, ~ owl = 1ffa x-biel,
now DIV indies into being the accident of our
-i'Gnh-ohGmbre de "a mort. or
rather, de IctTnIte In truth, the ancients
Tor, more properly, the Greek and Roman
free citizens,) in seeking forteDl onmllnH,
BlOrtiS lerr0re oarentem, acted by anticipa-
tion on my friends rule, not 10 regret the
inevitable and 10 this unregretiulness, this
dislike Of breaking their wings against the
bars OF their cage, they owed much Of that
light-hearted jOyousness which formed
real side of their character, though less
important side than We are apt to think.
1t is observed By Lessing that, in comparing
the views entertained by different ages or
races concerning death, their art proves
safer guide than their literature. Perhaps
We may explain the grounds of this Judge
ment by saying that literature Is able, and
is therefore expected, to give diorama of
what it depicts, while art can give only
panorama. Thus, in describing death,
writer's, especially poets, have to ring the
changes of eyer-varying, yet monotonous,
details concerning the divers modes and
stages, and the unexhIlarating appendages
of dying. On the other hand, painter or
scul ptor il in the strictest manner bound to
the unities of space and time. Thus, If he
seeks to represent death in the abstract, he
can only give momentary and concentrated
view oi it. His representation must $50 far
as it goes) include everything. and yet must
include nothing that needs to be explained
50 that he must conine himself to the es-
sential and constant features OF death, as
distinguished from those which are accidental,
and which vary in individual cases. What,
then are the essential ideas of death that EN-;
are bodied in ancient and in modern art To
this Lessing replies that ancient art general
ly symbolic death by embems of repose and
nsensibility-modern art by skeleton. Ii
is true that he deprecates and denounces
this tendency of modern art Being him
self on the side of the angels, be would have
agreed with Coleridge that good mans
surest friends should be himself, his Maker,
and the angel Death" And as an angel
rather than a. skeleton, he would fain
have seen death typifed. Still, in dealing
with things, not as he wished them to be,
but as they are, he emphatically declares
that ancient art and ancient thought repre-
sented death more favorably than modern
art OF modern thought. Hence it appears
that his authority in this matter, being
given with reluctance, should carry all the
more weight, and that this authority is dis
tinctlv on the side of the view for which we
have been contending Rerieso.