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The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc by Thomas De Quincey
page 45 of 147 (30%)
willingly--poured out their noble blood as cheerfully--as ever, after a
long day's sport, when infants, they had rested their weary heads upon
their mother's knees, or had sunk to sleep in her arms." Strange it is,
yet true, that she seemed to have no fears for her son's safety, even
after this knowledge that the 23d Dragoons had been memorably engaged;
but so much was she enraptured by the knowledge that _his_ regiment,
and therefore that _he_, had rendered conspicuous service in the
dreadful conflict--a service which had actually made them, within the
last twelve hours, the foremost topic of conversation in London--so
absolutely was fear swallowed up in joy--that, in the mere simplicity
of her fervent nature, the poor woman threw her arms round my neck, as
she thought of her son, and gave to _me_ the kiss which secretly was
meant for _him_.


SECTION II--THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH


What is to be taken as the predominant opinion of man, reflective and
philosophic, upon SUDDEN DEATH? It is remarkable that, in different
conditions of society, sudden death has been variously regarded as the
consummation of an earthly career most fervently to be desired, or,
again, as that consummation which is with most horror to be deprecated.
Caesar the Dictator, at his last dinner-party (_coena_), on the very
evening before his assassination, when the minutes of his earthly
career were numbered, being asked what death, in _his_ judgment,
might be pronounced the most eligible, replied "That which should be
most sudden." On the other hand, the divine Litany of our English
Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some
representative character, for the whole human race prostrate before
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