Dying of Too Much Life

While reading Will and Ariel Durant’s history of Queen Elizabeth, I came across a beautiful passage:

Rumors moved across Europe that she was dying of cancer. But she was dying of too much life. Her frame could not bear any more the joys and sorrows, the burdens and blows of the relentless years. When her godson, Sir John Harington, tried to amuse her with witty verses, she sent him off, saying, “When thou dost feel creeping time at thy gate, these fooleries will please thee less.” 

Insight of the Day: Even if you are writing something as dry as 16^thcentury history you can still make the prose enchanting.