HE THAT WOULD BE HAPPY MUST TAKE AN ACCOUNT OF HIS TIME.
In the distribution of human life, we find that a great part of it
passes away in _evil doing_; a greater yet in doing just _nothing at
all_: and effectually the whole in doing things _beside our business_.
Some hours we bestow upon ceremony and servile attendances; some upon
our pleasures, and the remainder runs at waste. What a deal of time
is it that we spend in hopes and fears, love and revenge, in balls,
treats, making of interests, suing for offices, soliciting of causes,
and slavish flatteries! The shortness of life, I know, is the common
complaint both of fools and philosophers; as if the time we have were
not sufficient for our duties. But it is with our lives as with our
estates, a good husband makes a little go a great way; whereas, let
the revenue of a prince fall into the hands of a prodigal, it is gone
in a moment. So that the time allotted us, if it were well employed,
were abundantly enough to answer all the ends and purposes of mankind.
But we squander it away in avarice, drink, sleep, luxury, ambition,
fawning addresses, envy, rambling, voyages, impertinent studies,
change of counsels, and the like; and when our portion is spent, we
find the want of it, though we gave no heed to it in the passage:
insomuch, that we have rather _made_ our life short than _found_ it
so. You shall have some people perpetually playing with their fingers,
whistling, humming, and talking to themselves; and others consume their
days in the composing, hearing, or reciting of songs and lampoons. How
many precious morning hours do we spend in consultation with barbers,
tailors, and tire-women, patching and painting betwixt the comb and
the glass! A council must be called upon every hair we cut; and one
curl amiss is as much as a body’s life is worth. The truth is, we are
more solicitous about our dress than our manners, and about the order
of our periwigs than that of the government. At this rate, let us but
discount, out of a life of a hundred years, that time which has been
spent upon popular negotiations, frivolous amours, domestic brawls,
sauntering up and down to no purpose, diseases that we have brought
upon ourselves, and this large extent of life will not amount perhaps
to the minority of another man. It is a _long being_, but perchance a
_short life_. And what is the reason of all this? We live as we should
never die, and without any thought of human frailty, when yet the very
moment we bestow upon this man or thing, may, peradventure, be our
last. But the greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which
depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our
own power; we look forward to that which depends upon Fortune; and so
quit a certainty for an uncertainty. We should do by time as we do by a
torrent, make use of it while we have it, for it will not last always.
The calamities of human nature may be divided into the _fear of death_,
and the _miseries and errors of life_. And it is the great work of
mankind to master the one, and to rectify the other; and so live as
neither to make life irksome to us, nor death terrible. It should be
our care, before we are old, to live well, and when we are so, to die
well; that we may expect our end without sadness: for it is the duty of
life to prepare ourselves for death; and there is not an hour we live
that does not mind us of our mortality.
Time runs on, and all things have their fate, though it lies in the
dark. The period is certain to nature, but what am I the better for it
if it be not so to me? We propound travels, arms, adventures, without
ever considering that death lies in the way. Our term is set, and
none of us know how near it is; but we are all of us agreed that the
decree is unchangeable. Why should we wonder to have that befall us
to-day which might have happened to us any minute since we were born?
Let us therefore live as if every moment were to be our last, and set
our accounts right every day that passes over our heads. We are not
ready for death, and therefore we fear it, because we do not know what
will become of us when we are gone, and that consideration strikes us
with an inexplicable terror. The way to avoid this distraction is to
contract our business and our thoughts—when the mind is once settled,
a day or an age is all one to us; and the series of time, which is now
our trouble will be then our delight; for he that is steadily resolved
against all uncertainties, shall never be disturbed with the variety of
them. Let us make haste, therefore, to live, since every day to a wise
man is a new life—for he has done his business the day before, and so
prepared himself for the next, that if it be not his last, he knows
yet that it might have been so. No man enjoys the true taste of life
but he that is willing and ready to quit it.
The wit of man is not able to express the blindness of human folly in
taking so much more care of our fortunes, our houses, and our money,
than we do of our lives—everybody breaks in upon the one _gratis_, but
we betake ourselves to fire and sword if any man invades the other.
There is no dividing in the case of patrimony, but people share our
time with us at pleasure, so profuse are we of that only thing whereof
we may be honestly covetous. It is a common practice to ask an hour
or two of a friend for such or such a business, and it is as easily
granted, both parties only considering the occasion, and not the thing
itself. They never put time to account, which is the most valuable of
all precious things; but because they do not see it they reckon upon
it as nothing: and yet these easy men when they come to die would give
the whole world for those hours again which they so inconsiderately
cast away before; but there is no recovering of them. If they could
number their days that are yet to come as they can those that are
already past, how would those very people tremble at the apprehension
of death, though a hundred years hence, that never so much as think of
it at present, though they know not but it may take them away the next
immediate minute!
It is an usual saying “I would give my life for such or such a friend,”
when, at the same time, we do give it without so much as thinking
of it; nay, when that friend is never the better for it, and we
ourselves the worse. Our time is set, and day and night we travel on.
There is no baiting by the way, and it is not in the power of either
prince or people to prolong it. Such is the love of life, that even
those decrepit dotards that have lost the use of it will yet beg the
continuance of it, and make themselves younger than they are, as if
they could cozen even Fate itself! When they fall sick, what promises
of amendment if they escape that bout! What exclamations against the
folly of their misspent time—and yet if they recover, they relapse. No
man takes care to live well, but long; when yet it is in everybody’s
power to do the former, and in no man’s to do the latter. We consume
our lives in providing the very instruments of life, and govern
ourselves still with a regard to the future, so that we do not properly
live, but we are about to live. How great a shame is it to be laying
new foundations of life at our last gasp, and for an old man (that can
only prove his age by his beard,) with one foot in the grave, to go to
school again! While we are young we may learn; our minds are tractable
and our bodies fit for labor and study; but when age comes on, we are
seized with languor and sloth, afflicted with diseases, and at last
we leave the world as ignorant as we came into it—only we _die_ worse
than we were _born_, which is none of Nature’s fault, but ours; for our
fears, suspicions, perfidy, etc., are from ourselves.
I wish with all my soul that I had thought of my end sooner, but I must
make the more haste now and spur on like those that set out late upon
a journey—it will be better to learn late than not at all—though it be
but only to instruct me how I may leave the stage with honor.
In the division of life, there is time _present_, _past_, and _to
come_. What we _do_ is _short_, what we _shall do_ is _doubtful_, but
what we _have done_ is _certain_, and out of the power of fortune. The
passage of time is wonderfully quick, and a man must look backward to
see it; and, in that retrospect, he has all past ages at a view; but
the present gives us the slip unperceived. It is but a moment that we
live, and yet we are dividing it into _childhood_, _youth_, _man’s
estate_, and _old age_, all which degrees we bring into that narrow
compass. If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not
make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are
to come. The purest part of our life runs first, and leaves only the
dregs at the bottom; and “that time which is good for nothing else, we
dedicate to virtue;” and only propound to begin to live at an age that
very few people arrive at. What greater folly can there be in the world
than this loss of time, the future being so uncertain, and the damages
so irreparable? If death be necessary, why should any man fear it? and
if the time of it be uncertain, why should not we always expect it? We
should therefore first prepare ourselves by a virtuous life against the
dread of an inevitable death; and it is not for us to put off being
good until such or such a business is over, for one business draws on
another, and we do as good as sow it, one grain produces more. It is
not enough to philosophize when we have nothing else to do, but we must
attend wisdom even to the neglect of all things else; for we are so far
from having time to spare, that the age of the world would be yet too
narrow for our business; nor is it sufficient not to omit it, but we
must not so much as intermit it.
There is nothing that we can properly call our own but our time, and
yet every body fools us out of it that has a mind to it. If a man
borrows a paltry sum of money, there must be bonds and securities, and
every common civility is charged upon account; but he that has my time,
thinks he owes me nothing for it, though it be a debt that gratitude
itself can never repay. I cannot call any man poor that has enough
still left, be it never so little: it is good advice yet to those that
have the world before them, to play the good husbands betimes, for it
is too late to spare at the bottom, when all is drawn out to the lees.
He that takes away a day from me, takes away what he can never restore
me. But our time is either _forced away_ from us, or _stolen_ from us,
or _lost_; of which the last is the foulest miscarriage. It is in life
as in a journey; a book or a companion brings us to our lodging before
we thought we were half-way. Upon the whole matter we consume ourselves
one upon another, without any regard at all to our own particular. I
do not speak of such as live in notorious scandal, but even those men
themselves, whom the world pronounces happy, are smothered in their
felicities, servants to their professions and clients, and drowned
in their lusts. We are apt to complain of the haughtiness of _great
men_, when yet there is hardly any of them all so proud but that, at
some time or other, a man may yet have access to him, and perhaps a
good word or look into the bargain. Why do we not rather complain of
_ourselves_, for being of all others, even to ourselves, the most deaf
and inaccessible.
Company and business are great devourers of time, and our vices destroy
our lives as well as our fortunes. The present is but a moment, and
perpetually in flux; the time past, we call to mind when we please, and
it will abide the examination and inspection. But the busy man has
not leisure to look back, or if he has, it is an unpleasant thing to
reflect upon a life to be repented of, whereas the conscience of a good
life puts a man into a secure and perpetual possession of a felicity
never to be disturbed or taken away: but he that has led a wicked life
is afraid of his own memory; and, in the review of himself, he finds
only appetite, avarice, or ambition, instead of virtue. But still he
that is not at leisure many times to live, must, when his fate comes,
whether he will or not, be at leisure to die. Alas! what is time to
eternity? the age of a man to the age of the world? And how much of
this little do we spend in fears, anxieties, tears, childhood! nay, we
sleep away the one half. How great a part of it runs away in luxury
and excess: the ranging of our guests, our servants, and our dishes!
As if we were to eat and drink not for satiety, but ambition. The
nights may well seem short that are so dear bought, and bestowed upon
wine and women; the day is lost in expectation of the night, and the
night in the apprehension of the morning. There is a terror in our very
pleasures; and this vexatious thought in the very height of them, that
_they will not last always_: which is a canker in the delights, even of
the greatest and the most fortunate of men.