No one is so fortunate as not to have standing round his deathbed some people who welcome the fate coming him. Was he the earnest sage? Then maybe there will be someone at his final moment saying to himself: 'We can breathe again now, rid of this schoolmaster. He was not hard on any one of us, but I could feel his silent criticism of us all.' So much for the earnest sage: but in our own case how many other reasons are there for a general wish to be rid of us? You will think of this when you are dying, and your departure will be the easier if you reason to yourself: 'I am leaving the sort of life in which even my colleagues - on whose behalf I have expended so much effort, prayer, and thought - even they want me out of the way, doubtless hoping for some relief from my death.' So why should anyone cling to a longer stay here on earth?
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