III. Though all the brilliant
intellects of the ages were to concentrate upon this one theme, never could
they adequately express their wonder at this dense darkness of the human mind. Men
do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms
if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they
allow others to trespass upon their life—nay, they themselves even lead in
those who will eventually possess it. No one is to be found who is willing to
distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his
life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes
to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is
right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal. And so I should like
to lay hold upon someone from the company of older men and say: "I see
that you have reached the farthest limit of human life, you are pressing hard
upon your hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now, recall your life and
make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a
moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a
client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your
slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases
which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and
unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you count. Look
back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have
passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your
face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed,
what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life
when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in
useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of
society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are
dying before your season!"7 What, then, is the reason of this? You
live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever
enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You
squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the
while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You
have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear
many men saying: "After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my
sixtieth year shall release me from public duties." And what guarantee,
pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to
be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the
remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be
devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must
cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome
plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point
to which few have attained!
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