James Pethel

Excerpt from Book:

I was shocked this morning when I saw in my newspaper a paragraph
announcing his sudden death. I do not say that the shock was very
disagreeable. One reads a newspaper for the sake of news. Had I never met
James Pethel, belike I should never have heard of him: and my knowledge
of his death, coincident with my knowledge that he had existed, would
have meant nothing at all to me. If you learn suddenly that one of your friends is dead, you are wholly distressed. If the death is that of a mere
acquaintance whom you have recently seen, you are disconcerted, pricked
is your sense of mortality; but you do find great solace in telling other
people that you met "the poor fellow" only the other day, and that he was
"so full of life and spirits," and that you remember he said—whatever you
may remember of his sayings. If the death is that of a mere acquaintance
whom you have not seen for years, you are touched so lightly as to find
solace enough in even such faded reminiscence as is yours to offer. Seven
years have passed since the day when last I saw James Pethel, and that day
was the morrow of my first meeting with him.