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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