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All of us have read thrilling stories in which the herohad only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes it was as long as ayear; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours, but always we were interested indiscovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his lasthours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemnedcriminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.

Such stories set up thinking, wondering what we should dounder similar circumstances. What associations should we crowd into those lasthours as mortal beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past,what regrets?

Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule tolive each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasizesharply the values of life. We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor,and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches beforeus in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come. There arethose, of course, who would adopt the epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and bemerry,” most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.