“Audit iter, numeratque dies, spatioque viarum Metitur vitam; torquetur peste futura.”
[“He considers the route, computes the time of travelling, measuring his life by the length of the journey; and torments himself by thinking of the blow to come.”—Claudianus, in Ruf., ii. 137.]
The end of our race is death; ‘tis the necessary object of our aim, which, if it fright us, how is it possible to advance a step without a fit of ague? The remedy the vulgar use is not to think on’t; but from what brutish stupidity can they derive so gross a blindness?
Young and old die upon the same terms; no one departs out of life otherwise than if he had but just before entered into it; neither is any man so old and decrepit, who, having heard of Methuselah, does not think he has yet twenty good years to come. Fool that thou art! who has assured unto thee the term of life?
“Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum Grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur, hora.”
[“Think each day when past is thy last; the next day, as unexpected, will be the more welcome.”—Hor., Ep., i. 4, 13.]
Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere. The premeditation of death is the premeditation of liberty; he who has learned to die has unlearned to serve. There is nothing evil in life for him who rightly comprehends that the privation of life is no evil: to know, how to die delivers us from all subjection and constraint.
“Nemo altero fragilior est; nemo in crastinum sui certior.”
[“No man is more fragile than another: no man more certain than another of to-morrow.”—Seneca, Ep., 91.]
For anything I have to do before I die, the longest leisure would appear too short, were it but an hour’s business I had to do.
“Quid brevi fortes jaculamur avo Multa?”
[“Why for so short a life tease ourselves with so many projects?” —Hor., Od., ii. 16, 17.]
for we shall there find work enough to do, without any need of addition.
‘Tis the condition of your creation; death is a part of you, and whilst you endeavour to evade it, you evade yourselves. This very being of yours that you now enjoy is equally divided betwixt life and death. The day of your birth is one day’s advance towards the grave:
“Prima, qux vitam dedit, hora carpsit.”
[“The first hour that gave us life took away also an hour.” —Seneca, Her. Fur., 3 Chor. 874.]
“Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet.”
[“As we are born we die, and the end commences with the beginning.” —Manilius, Ast., iv. 16.]
If you have not known how to make the best use of it, if it was unprofitable to you, what need you care to lose it, to what end would you desire longer to keep it?
“‘Cur amplius addere quaeris, Rursum quod pereat male, et ingratum occidat omne?’
[“Why seek to add longer life, merely to renew ill-spent time, and be again tormented?”—Lucretius, iii. 914.]
Life in itself is neither good nor evil; it is the scene of good or evil as you make it.’ And, if you have lived a day, you have seen all: one day is equal and like to all other days.
Water, earth, air, and fire, and the other parts of this creation of mine, are no more instruments of thy life than they are of thy death. Why dost thou fear thy last day? it contributes no more to thy dissolution, than every one of the rest: the last step is not the cause of lassitude: it does not confess it. Every day travels towards death; the last only arrives at it.