Distance of time and place generally cure what they seem to aggravate; and taking leave of our friends resembles taking leave of the world, of which it has been said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible.

This reflection is commonly attributed to Henry Fielding in his epistolary novel *The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling* (1749), where the narrator frequently pauses the story to offer general observations about human feeling and conduct. The sentiment fits Fielding’s habit of moralizing on everyday experience—here, the pain of parting from friends and the way absence can initially intensify grief even as it ultimately helps to heal it. The comparison to death draws on a familiar early‑modern commonplace: that the anticipation and process (“dying”) are more frightening than death itself, a thought Fielding uses to frame leave‑taking as a kind of small rehearsal for mortality.

Fielding reflects on the paradox of separation: the immediate act of parting feels like an intensification of grief, yet the very forces that seem to worsen it—time passing and physical distance—often prove to be the agents of healing. By likening farewell to “taking leave of the world,” he draws on a familiar moral observation about death: the dread lies less in the state of being dead than in the process of dying. The comparison suggests that emotional pain is concentrated in transition and anticipation rather than in the settled reality that follows. The quote thus frames leave-taking as a kind of “little death,” where the acute suffering is in the moment of departure, not in the subsequent absence.