In his weekly Takimag column, Theodore Dalrymple recalls the death of an old friend many decades ago and his reaction to the tragic event.

The death of M…… D…… taught me the unfairness of existence, indeed the distinction between unfairness and injustice. People often don’t make the distinction, just as they don’t make the distinction between inequity and inequality. There is no cosmic force handing out rewards strictly according to merit. His death intimated to me the tragic nature of human existence. But there was more.