Page:The Naval Officer (1829), vol. 2.djvu/244

 strength, and was able to sit at the table, where I found thirty-five young officers, living for the day, careless of the morrow; and, beyond that never bestowing a thought. It is a singular fact, that where life is most precarious, men are most indifferent about its preservation; and, where death is constantly before our eyes, as in this country, eternity is seldom in our thoughts: but so it is; and the rule extends still further in despotic countries. Where the union between the head and shoulders may be dissolved in a moment by the sword of a tyrant, life is not so valued, and death loses its terrors; hence the apathy and indifference with which men view their executioners in that state of society. It seems as if existence, like estates, was valuable in proportion to the validity of the title-deeds by which they are held.

To digress he more. Although I was far from being even commonly virtuous, which is about tantamount to absolute wickedness, I was no longer the thoughtless mortal I had ever