"Sometimes he said to himself: "When I was still a man, strong and free, commanding other men, I have seen the heavens open, the sea rage and foam, the storm rise in a patch of sky and like a gigantic eagle beat the two horizons with it's wings. Then I felt that my ship was but a weak refuge from the tempest, for did it not shiver and shake like a feather in the hands of a giant? Soon the sight of the sharp rocks, coupled with the frightful noise of the waves announced to me that death was near, and death terrified me. I exerted all my efforts to escape it, and I combined all my man's strength with all my sailor's skill in that terrible fight against God! For to me life was happy then, and to escape from the jaws of death was to return to happiness. I had no use for death; I loathed the thought of sleeping my last sleep on a bed of hard rocks and seaweed, of of serving after my death as food for gulls and cultures, I who was made in the image of God! Now, however, it is quite a different matter. I have lost all that bound me to life; now death smiles on me as a nurse smiles on the child she is about to rock to sleep; now welcome death!" - Edmond Dantes, The Count of Monte Cristo