The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [55]
19. But that we all have had the same experience of it, and share it with you; and we wish to remind you that though we never forget, yet the scars heal.
20. Come then and rest on a seat with me in the garden; let us suffer our sorrows to slumber quietly now in our bosoms, in spite of our afflictions;
21. Nothing is ever accomplished by yielding too far to grief and painful lamentation.
22. Now is the time for courage and endurance, now is the time to turn our thoughts to the living who are dear to us too,
23. And not to take ourselves from them, but to help them with our own patience and strength to bear what must be borne; for they bear it too.
Chapter 4: Of grief: to a friend
1. I am grieved to hear that he is dead whom you loved, but I would not have you sorrow more than is fitting.
2. That you should not mourn at all I shall hardly dare insist; and yet I know that it is the better way; for he is at peace, safe from any further harms,
3. And you and his other friends will cherish the best memories of him, and speak of him, thus making him part of life still.
4. But what man will ever be so endowed with that ideal steadfastness of mind, unless he has already risen far above the reach of chance, not to mourn?
5. Even the most stoical would be stung by an event like this, though for him it were only a sting.
6. We, however, may be forgiven our tears, if only our tears have not flowed to excess.
7. We may weep, but we must not wail. Do you think that this advice is harsh?
8. Well: only consider the reason for lamentations and weeping. It is because we mourn for ourselves as well as for he who has left us; we are sad because we are bereft.
9. But what would your friend say to you, if he could? That he welcomes the love for him you thus show, but that he does not wish you to suffer too much or too long.
10. He will say, let the time not be distant that you put off the soothing of every regret, the quieting of even the bitterest grief.
11. As soon as you cease to observe yourself, the picture of sorrow which you have contemplated will fade away;
12. At present you are keeping watch over your own suffering, and that prolongs it.
13. Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we loved and have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us.
14. No man reverts with pleasure to any subject which he cannot reflect upon without pain.
15. So too it must be that the names of those whom we have lost come back to us with a grievous pang;
16. But when we recall the best and dearest things about them, and what they added to our own lives by their lives, we can even say, ‘The remembrance of lost friends is a good;
17. ‘It honours them and consoles us, and keeps them with us in our hearts.’
18. To think of friends who are alive and well is like enjoying a meal of cakes and honey; the recollection of friends who have passed away gives a pleasure that is not without a touch of bitterness.
19. Yet to me, the thought of my dead friends is a consolation nevertheless. For I have had them as if I should one day lose them; I have lost them as if I have them still.
20. Therefore act as befits your own serenity of mind, and cease to put a wrong interpretation on the chances of life and death.
21. Death has taken away, but life has given. Let us greedily enjoy our friends, because we do not know how long this privilege will be ours.
22. Let us think how often we shall leave them when we go on distant journeys, and how often we shall fail to see them even when we are in the same town;
23. We shall thus understand that we have lost too much of their time while they were alive.
24. But will you tolerate men who are most careless of their friends, and then mourn them most abjectly, and do not love anyone unless they have lost him?
25. If we have other friends, we surely deserve ill at their hands and think ill of them, if they are of so little account that they fail to console us for the loss of one friend.
26. You have buried one whom you loved; look