A CONSTANT REMINDER
John Donne was a British poet who later became a minister in the Church of England. Donne was persuaded, after he took holy orders and repudiated his former ambitious and worldly life, to have his portrait painted. He posed for the painter in a winding sheet with his body and hands arranged like those of a corpse. When the picture was completed, he had it placed beside his bed as a constant reminder of mortality. Little Brown Book of Anecdotes, ed. by Clifton Fadiman, p. 172
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