A violent death is never very painful ; the only danger is, lest it should be unprovided. But if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in war, what can be the state that would have awakened him to the care of futurity ? When would that man have prepared himself to die, who went to seek death without preparation ? What then can be the reason why we lament more, him that dies of a wound, than him that dies of a fever ? A man that languishes with disease, ends his life with more pain, but with less virtue : he leaves no example to his friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The only reason why we lament a Soldier's death, is, that we think he might have lived longer; yet this cause of grief is common to many other kinds of death, which are not so passionately bewailed. The truth is, that every death is violent which is the effect of accident ; every death, which is not gradually brought on by the miseries of age, or when life is extinguished for any other reason than that it is burnt out.

Samuel Johnson