"IT is not true that the close of a life which ends in a natural fashion—life which is permitted to put on the pomp of death and to go out in glory—inclines the mind to repose. It is not true of a day ending, nor the passing of the year, nor of the fall of the leaves. Whatever permanent, uneasy question is native to men, comes forward most insistent and most loud at such times.
~Hilaire Belloc: Hills and the Sea.
