"at the windows and doors of their houses, where their dearest relations were perhaps dying, or just dead, were so frequent to be heard...that it was enough to pierce the stoutest heart in the world to hear them...for towards the latter end men's hearts were hardened, and death was so always before their eyes. Tears and lamentations were seen in every house, especially in the first part...that they did not so much concern themselves for the loss of their friends, expecting that themselves should be summoned the next hour."
excerpts from "A Journal of the Plague Year"
by Daniel Defoe