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Unit 12: Steele-On The Death of Friend: Introduction

a real understanding why nobody was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the room Notes
where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and
fell a-beating the coffin, and calling Papa; for, I know not how, I had some slight idea that he was
locked up there. My mother caught me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience of the
silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her embraces; and told me in a flood of
tears, Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him
under ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a very beautiful woman, of a
noble spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief amidst all the wildness of her transport, which,
methought, struck me with an instinct of sorrow, that, before I was sensible of what it was to
grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness of my heart ever since. The mind in
infancy is, methinks, like the body in embryo; and receives impressions so forcible, that they are
as hard to be removed by reason, as any mark with which a child is born is to be taken away by
any future application. Hence it is, that good-nature in me is no merit; but having been so frequently
overwhelmed with her tears before I knew the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from
my own judgement, I imbibed commiseration, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind,
which has since ensnared me into ten thousand calamities; from whence I can reap no advantage,
except it be, that, in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the softnesses
of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arises from the memory of past afflictions.
We that are very old are better able to remember things which befell us in our distant youth, than
the passages of later days. For this reason it is that the companions of my strong and vigorous
years present themselves more immediately to me in this office of sorrow. Untimely and unhappy
deaths are what we are most apt to lament; so little are we able to make it indifferent when a thing
happens, though we know it must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are
relieved from it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different passions, according
to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious hour
reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men that might long have flourished in the arts of peace,
and not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widows on the tyrant to whose ambition
they fell sacrifices? But gallant men, who are cut off by the sword, move rather our veneration
than our pity; and we gather relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make that no evil,
which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so much honour. But when
we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occasions, and, instead of lamenting
those who stood ready to give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it; I say,
when we let our thoughts wander from such noble objects, and consider the havoc which is made
among the tender and the innocent, pity enters with an unmixed softness, and possesses all our
souls at once.
Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper tenderness) I should record the
beauty, innocence, and untimely death, of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The
beauteous virgin! how ignorantly did she charm, how carelessly excel! Oh death! thou hast right
to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty; but why this cruelty to the humble,
to the meek, to the undiscerning, to the thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase
the dear image from my imagination. In the same week I saw her dressed for a ball, and in a
shroud. How ill did the habit of death become the pretty trifler! I still behold the smiling earth—
-A large train of disasters were coming on to my memory, when my servant knocked at my closet-
door, and interrupted me with a letter, attended with a hamper of wine, of the same sort with that
which is to be put to sale on Thursday next, at Garraway’s coffee-house. Upon the receipt of it, I
sent for three of my friends. We are so intimate, that we can be company in whatever state of mind
we meet, and can entertain each other without expecting always to rejoice. The wine we found to
be generous and warming, but with such a heat as moved us rather to be cheerful than frolicsome.
It revived the spirits, without firing the blood. We commended it until two of the clock this

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