All of us have read thrilling stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified time to live.Sometimes it was as long as a year, sometimes as short as 24 hours.But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed hero chose to spend his last days or his last hours.I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited.Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances.What events,what experiences,what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings, what regrets?Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow.Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life.We should live each day with gentleness, vigor and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama of more days and months and years to come.There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of “Eat, drink, and be merry”.But most people would be chastened by the certainty of impending death.