"
(4) Sir Thomas More's first wife, Jane Colt, was originally a young
country girl, whom he himself instructed in letters, and moulded
to his own tastes and manners. She died young, leaving a son and
three daughters, of whom the noble Margaret Roper most resembled
More himself. His second wife was Alice Middleton, a widow, some
seven years older than More, not beautiful--for he characterized
her as "NEC BELLA, NEC PUELLA"--but a shrewd worldly woman, not
by any means disposed to sacrifice comfort and good cheer for
considerations such as those which so powerfully influenced the
mind of her husband.
(5)Before being beheaded, Eliot said, "Death is but a little word;
but ''tis a great work to die.'" In his 'Prison Thoughts' before
his execution, he wrote: "He that fears not to die, fears
nothing.... There is a time to live, and a time to die. A good
death is far better and more eligible than an ill life. A wise
man lives but so long as his life is worth more than his death.
The longer life is not always the better."
(6) Mr. J. S. Mill, in his book 'On Liberty,' describes "the masses,"
as "collective mediocrity." "The initiation of all wise or noble
things," he says, "comes, and must come, from individuals--
generally at first from some one individual. The honour and glory
of the average man is that he is capable of following that
imitation; that he can respond internally to wise and noble
things, and be led to them with his eyes open.
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