XI. In a word, do you
want to know how they do not "live long"? See how eager they are to
live long! Decrepit old men beg in their prayers for the addition of a few more
years; they pretend that they are younger than they are; they comfort
themselves with a falsehood, and are as pleased to deceive themselves as if
they deceived Fate at the same time. But when at last some infirmity has
reminded them of their mortality, in what terror do they die, feeling that they
are being dragged out of life, and not merely leaving it. They cry out that
they have been fools, because they have not really lived, and that they will
live henceforth in leisure if only they escape from this illness; then at last
they reflect how uselessly they have striven for things which they did not
enjoy, and how all their toil has gone for nothing. But for those whose life is
passed remote from all business, why should it not be ample? None of it is
assigned to another, none of it is scattered in this direction and that, none
of it is committed to Fortune, none of it perishes from neglect, none is
subtracted by wasteful giving, none of it is unused; the whole of it, so to
speak, yields income. And so, however small the amount of it, it is abundantly
sufficient, and therefore, whenever his last day shall come, the wise man will
not hesitate to go to meet death with steady step.
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