Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	care_n	young_a	youth_n	48	3	7.8750	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59619	Miscellany essays upon philosophy, history, poetry, morality, humanity, gallantry &c. / by Monsieur de St. Evremont ; done into English by Mr. Brown.	Saint-Evremond, 1613-1703.; Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.	1694 (1694)	Wing S306_VARIANT; ESTC R27567	181,183	477

pain the Death of Persons dear to us altho it is the first evil of Opinion is no great evil if it doth not expose us much to the evils of Nature Let us examine then at present what consequences the Death of your Friend draws after it Whether it abandons you to an indisposition of Body Whether it gives you over to Servitude Whether it reduces you to Poverty And I believe we shall soon discover that it draws down upon you none of the evils of Nature How should it abandon you to an indisposition of Body Your Friend was Old and you are Young He could not have dispensed with your cares tho you could have been without his assistance He reached the end of his Race before you arrived to the middle of yours and the time of his Death had much got the start of your Infirmities It is true if it was not impossible for you to have an infirm Youth But all possible evils are not formidable Human Prudence doth not look upon Objects that are too wandring and too remote We should not fear evils that threaten not and we should not much fear even those that threaten at a distance How should it give you over to Servitude Thanks to our Religion our Laws and our Manners we are free and if we except those whom the Service of God and the State engage to cross the Seas there are scarce any but Vagabonds that can become Slaves But tho by the Revolution of Human Affairs Servitude should come and seek after you from one end of the World to the other or should meet with you upon its own Lands would you not enjoy Consolatory means enough in all your great Qualities Would you not easily attract the veneration of your Masters And would not your Masters employ all their Power to hinder you from depriving them of your presence Yes Madam you might always render your condition supportable to your self But in case it should appear uneasy to you your Friend would never be capable of changing it Your Ransom would exceed his Power Your Merit would obstruct your Liberty and if they should exact your real value it would be impossible for you to find Redeemers In fine how should it reduce you to poverty Your Friend was not rich and it is hard that you should be poor One cannot be so with the Graces the Vertues the Sciences and Arts which you possess and the world is not yet become so insensible of merit as to give you leave fo fear extremities which would dishonour your Age. Don't apprehend then Madam any lamentable consequences from the Death of your Friend Nothing will be wanting to you in life not even such Friends as he you have lately lost There will arise some from the dust of him you lament and there is no Man of equal honour and wit with him but will love you as he did and like him will be devoted to your service But you are in pain perhaps whether there are still such perfect friends to be found Make no question of it Madam Vertue loses nothing no more than Nature The seeds of goodness circulate eternally and pass without intermission from one subject to another and the principles which contribute to the production of the wise no more annihilate than those which concur to the generation of Men. Your Friend has made room for an infinite number of others to succeed him and 't is only your province to elect him a successour in the most numerous Court that ever Sacrificed to the Graces You will find that Heaven will restore you full as much as it has ' taken from you How do you know but it will give you even more You will discover in him you shall make choice off all that was in him you have lost and perhaps something more possibly more youth and a better meen possibly a vertue less severe and a friendship more agreeable Let the things we lose be of never so great yet we must not abandon our selves to immoderate grief when we only lose what we are able to recover You need only defend your self from this popular mistake which makes us apprehend in second friendships either the jealousy of the dead or the censure of the living The dead are offended at nothing and the living are affronted at all things But the living are of a very scurvy humour when they oblige us to sacrifice our selves to the dead If the dead loved Sacrifices they would take the pains to demand them of us They must needs have lost the tast of the things of this World since they entertain no commerce with us And if they are so unmindful of us why should we be reduced to live only for them Assure your self Madam that their state is a state of Insensibility or a state of Repose and that we can do nothing to make them either happy or miserable What is it in your oppinion that has prescribed to us the duty of preserving fidelity to the Dead but the weakness and tyranny of the Living Every one would flatter himself with the thought of fixing another to himself when he is no longer fixed to any one Our Vanity is so great that it exacts veneration for our Ashes and endeavours to make our shadows triumph over our Rivals It is not just Madam to have regard to this fancy At the moment we are buried the world is quit of all obligations in relation to us The duties of interment are called the last duties and beyond the Funeral all that is given to the Dead is taken from the Living Lamentations that are too long not only hurt Nature but Society likewise They render us incapable of the duties of a civi● Life And one may say that out of complaisance to those Friends we have lost they make us wanting to those whom we still retain Observe all those people that indulge their sorrow and seek to get reputation by their Grief Is it not certain that their affliction seems to suspend their Friendship or at least that it dispenses them from acting in favour of the Friends Nay one may say that 't is an Incivility to offer a petition to them and request a service of them So much doth Grief devote them to the Dead and render them unuseful to the Living But what must there be no lamenting for the death of our friends No Madam there must be none if it were possible This passion is absolutely pernicious and if it were good in any respect it would only be in demonstrating that we knew how to Love But if tears were certain marks of love the greatest weepers would be the firmest Lovers and we are sensible of the contrary Weak Women cry more than those of stronger courages and the latter love more than the former I am not surprised to find Tears were in so great reputation with the Poets and despised by the Philosophers Poetry borrows its fineness from the Passions and the infirmity of Nature And