Against Immoderate Sorrow for the Death of Friends

Next to the encounter of death in our own bodies, the most sensible calamity to an honest man is the death of a friend; and we are not in truth without some generous instances of those that have preferred a friend’s life before their own; and yet this affliction, which by nature is so grievous to us, is by virtue and Providence made familiar and easy.

To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow. Clamorous and public lamentations are not so much the effects of grief as of vain-glory. He that is sadder in company than alone, shows rather the ambition of his sorrow than the piety of it. Nay, and in the violence of his passion there fall out twenty things that set him a-laughing. At the long-run, time cures all, but it were better done by moderation and wisdom. Some people do as good as set a watch upon themselves, as if they were afraid that their grief would make an escape. The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself. When any body is within hearing, what groans and outcries! when they are alone and private, all is hush and quiet: so soon as any body comes in, they are at it again; and down they throw themselves upon the bed; fall to wringing of their hands, and wishing of themselves dead; which they might have executed by themselves; but their sorrow goes off with the company.