"From men you will scarcely derive any advantage whatever from your
glory. You will therefore look within you for consolation, and in
your solitude will nerve yourself for fresh exertions, and lay the
foundation of new hopes. For like all other human benefits, literary
glory is more pleasing in anticipation than in reality, if indeed it
can ever be said to be realised. You will therefore at length console
yourself with the thought of that last hope and refuge of noble minds,
posterity. Even Cicero, richly renowned as he was in life, turned his
mind yearningly towards the future, in saying: 'Thinkest thou I should
have undertaken so many labours, during day and night, in peace and
war, had I imagined my glory was limited to this life? Far better were
a life of idleness and peace, devoid of cares and fatigue. No. My soul,
in some inexplicable way, used ever to fix its hopes on posterity, and
looked for the dawn of its true life from the hour of death.'[1] Cicero
here refers to the idea of immortality innate in the minds of men.
But the true explanation lies in the fact that all earthly benefits
are no sooner acquired than their insignificance becomes apparent;
they are unworthy of the fatigues they have cost. Glory is, above all,
an example of this; it is a dear purchase, and of little use to the
purchaser. But, as Simonides says, I Sweet hope cheers us with its
phantom beauties, and with its vain prospect stimulates us to work.
Some men await the friendly dawn, others the advance of age, and others
more auspicious seasons. Every mortal cherishes within him hopes of
coming good from Pluto and the other gods,' Thus, as we experience the
vanity of glory, hope, driven and hunted from place to place, finding
at length no spot in the whole of life whereon to rest, passes beyond
the grave and alights on posterity. For man ever turns instinctively
from the present to the future, about which he hopes much in proportion
as he knows little. Hence, they who are desirous of glory in life,
chiefly nourish themselves on that which they hope to gain after
death. For the lack of enjoyment in the present, man consoles himself
with hopes of future happiness, as vain as that of the present."
[Footnote 1: De Senectute.]