Diary of Samuel Pepys — Volume 27: March 1663-64 by Samuel Pepys
page 16 of 33 (48%)
page 16 of 33 (48%)
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again, where Madam Turner and her company, and Mrs. Croxton, my wife, and
Mrs. Holding. About 8 o'clock my brother began to fetch his spittle with more pain, and to speak as much but not so distinctly, till at last the phlegm getting the mastery of him, and he beginning as we thought to rattle, I had no mind to see him die, as we thought he presently would, and so withdrew and led Mrs. Turner home, but before I came back, which was in half a quarter of an hour, my brother was dead. I went up and found the nurse holding his eyes shut, and he poor wretch lying with his chops fallen, a most sad sight, and that which put me into a present very great transport of grief and cries, and indeed it was a most sad sight to see the poor wretch lie now still and dead, and pale like a stone. I staid till he was almost cold, while Mrs. Croxton, Holden, and the rest did strip and lay him out, they observing his corpse, as they told me afterwards, to be as clear as any they ever saw, and so this was the end of my poor brother, continuing talking idle and his lips working even to his last that his phlegm hindered his breathing, and at last his breath broke out bringing a flood of phlegm and stuff out with it, and so he died. This evening he talked among other talk a great deal of French very plain and good, as, among others: 'quand un homme boit quand il n'a poynt d'inclination a boire il ne luy fait jamais de bien.' I once begun to tell him something of his condition, and asked him whither he thought he should go. He in distracted manner answered me--"Why, whither should I go? there are but two ways: If I go, to the bad way I must give God thanks for it, and if I go the other way I must give God the more thanks for it; and I hope I have not been so undutifull and unthankfull in my life but I hope I shall go that way." This was all the sense, good or bad, that I could get of him this day. I left my wife to see him laid out, and I by coach home carrying my brother's papers, all I could find, with me, and having wrote a letter to, my father telling him what hath been said I returned by coach, it being very late, and dark, to my brother's, but all |
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