Man may […] be master of his fate, but he has a precious poor servant. It is easier to command a lapdog or a mule for a whole day than one's own fate… - Hilaire Belloc

Physicians of the Utmost Fame
Were called at once; but when they came
They answered, as they took their Fees,
"There is no Cure for this Disease."

For there enters an element of Comedy (in the full sense of that great word) whenever we watch the death or passing of a human mood which had thought itself absolute and eternal. There is a high comedy in discovering new moods still timid or struggling, which will in their turn affirm themselves to be indestructible, and in their turn will die. To this comic interest is added another of a very practical kind: forewarned is forearmed.

Here richly, with ridiculous display, The Politician's corpse was laid away. While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.