Edwin Hubble on not being afraid to die

     Edwin Hubble had no fear of death. So reported Edith Sitwell in a passage of letter to a private correspondent, 3 June 1955:

Did you, I wonder, know Dr Hubble, of the Expanding Universe - one of the greatest men I ever knew. One day, in California, he showed me slides of universes unseen by the naked eye, and millions of light-years away. I said to him ‘How terrifying!’ ‘Only when you are not used to them,’ he replied. ‘When you are used to them, they are comforting. For then you know that there is nothing to worry about - nothing at all!’

That was a few months before he died. And so I suppose now that he knows how truly he spoke. I was most deeply moved by that. I could never cease to be so. (Quoted from Edith Sitwell: Selected Letters, J. Lehmann and D. Parker, eds., Macmillan: London 1970.)
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    For a brief biography of Edwin Hubble, click here.   
    For a brief biography of Edith Sitwell, click here.