Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for
this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably
feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer.
But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was
in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it-
so at least it seems to me-is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until
bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the
universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river-small at first, narrowly
contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually
the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end without
any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death,
since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness
increases, the thought of rest will be not unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work,
knowing that other will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what
was possible has been done.