* * * * *
TIME.--Time is the most undefinable yet most paradoxical of things: the
past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past
even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning,
at once exists and expires. Time is the measure of all things, but is
itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself
undisclosed. Like space, it is incomprehensible, because it has no limit,
and it would be still more so, if it had. It is more in its source than
the Nile, and its termination, than the Niger; and advances like the
slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent. It gives wings of
lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead to pain, and lends expectation
a curb, but enjoyment a spur. It robs beauty of her charms, to bestow
them on her picture, and builds a monument to merit, but denies it a
house; it is the transient and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but the
tried and final friend of truth. Time is the most subtle, yet the most
insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing, is permitted
to take all, nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from
us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things
by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future
conqueror of death. Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition,
is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counsellor of the wise,
bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other;
like Cassandra, it warns us with a voice that even the sages discredit
too long, and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks before it,
opportunity with it, and repentance behind it; he that has made it his
friend, will have little to fear from his enemies; but he that has
made it his enemy, will have little to hope from his friends.--_Burn’s
Youthful Piety._
* * * * *
DIFFIDENCE.--A man gets along faster with a sensible married woman in
hours than with a young girl in whole days. It is next to impossible to
make them talk, or to reach them. They are like a green walnut: there are
half a dozen outer coats to be pulled off, one by one and slowly, before
you reach the kernel of their characters.
APOLOGUES AND FABLES, IN PROSE AND VERSE, FROM THE GERMAN AND OTHER
LANGUAGES.
No. IV.--THE EAGLE AND THE DOVE.