Are we? Yes, I suppose so—it cannot be helped, perhaps, when the Queen has herself made an art of wearing mourning for over twenty years. Life is all too easily cut off in our day as well, and death cannot be kept at a far distance in such circumstances.

In truth, death is the only thing that terrifies me—for can survive anything else. [He says it quite lightly, a drawing-room quip, although it's also absolutely true.]