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OLD AGE.--Remember, old man, that you are now in the waning, and the
date of your pilgrimage well nigh expired; and now that it behoveth you
to look towards your final accounting, your force languisheth, your
senses impair, your body droops, and on every side the ruinous cottage
of your faint and feeble flesh threateneth the fall; and having so many
harbingers of death to premonish you of your end, how can you but prepare
for so dreadful a stranger? The young man may die quickly, but the old
man cannot live long; the young man’s life by casualty may be abridged,
but the old man’s term by no physic can be long adjourned; and therefore,
if green years should sometimes think of the grave and the judgment, the
thoughts of old age should continually dwell on the same.--_Remains of
Sir Walter Raleigh._