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considering our ultimate responsibility, have we none that is immediate? For ourselves only do we exist? No, generous Elinor, such has not been your plan. For ourselves alone, then, should we die? Shall we seek to serve and to please merely when present, that we may be served and pleased again? Is there no disinterested attachment, that would suffer, to spare pain to others? that would endure sooner than inflict?
"If to die be, as you hold, though as I firmly disbelieve, eternal sleep, would you wish the traces that may remain of that period in which you thought yourself awake, to be marked, for others,by blessings, or by misfortunes? Would you desire those whom you have known and favoured whilst amongst them, gratefully to cherish your remembrance, or to shrink with horrour from its recollection? Would you bequeath to them the pleasing image of your liberal kindness, or the terrific one of your despairing vengeance?
