Most persons have died before they expire—died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as itwere, the locking of the door of the already deserted mansion.

译文：

多数人在断气之前就已经死亡——万念俱灰，生无可恋矣！此刻的躯体恰似一座废弃宅第，最后一口气似乎只是把门关上而已。

No human being can rest for any time in a state of equilibrium, where the

desire to live and that to depart just balance each other. If one has a

house, which he has lived and always means to live in, he pleases himself

with the thought of all the conveniences it offers him, and thinks little

of its wants and imperfections.  But once having made up his mind to move

to a better, every incommodity starts out upon him, until the very

ground-plan of it seems to have changed in his mind, and his thoughts and

affections, each one of them packing up its little bundle of

circumstances, have quitted their several chambers and nooks and migrated

to the new home, long before its apartments are ready to receive their

coming tenant.  It is so with the body.  Most persons have died before

they expire,--died to all earthly longings, so that the last breath is

only, as it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted

mansion.  The fact of the tranquillity with which the great majority of

dying persons await this locking of those gates of life through which its

airy angels have been going and coming, from the moment of the first cry,

is familiar to those who have been often called upon to witness the last

period of life.  Almost always there is a preparation made by Nature for

unearthing a soul, just as on the smaller scale there is for the removal

of a milktooth.  The roots which hold human life to earth are absorbed

before it is lifted from its place.  Some of the dying are weary and want

rest, the idea of which is almost inseparable in the universal mind from

death.  Some are in pain, and want to be rid of it, even though the

anodyne be dropped, as in the legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel.

Some are stupid, mercifully narcotized that they may go to sleep without

long tossing about.  And some are strong in faith and hope, so that, as

they draw near the next world, they would fair hurry toward it, as the

caravan moves faster over the sands when the foremost travellers send

word along the file that water is in sigh