IF you should see a man who were to cross from Dover to Calais, run about
very busy and solicitous, and trouble himself many weeks before in making
provisions for the voyage, would you commend him for a cautious and
discreet person, or laugh at him for a timorous and impertinent coxcomb?
A man who is excessive in his pains and diligence, and who consumes the
greatest part of his time in furnishing the remainder with all
conveniences and even superfluities, is to angels and wise men no less
ridiculous; he does as little consider the shortness of his passage that
he might proportion his cares accordingly. It is, alas, so narrow a
strait betwixt the womb and the grave, that it might be called the _Pas
de Vie_, as well as the _Pas de Calais_. We are all ἐφήμειροι as
_Pindar_ calls us, creatures of a day, and therefore our Saviour bounds
our desires to that little space; as if it were very probable that every
day should be our last, we are taught to demand even bread for no longer
a time. The sun ought not to set upon our covetousness; no more than
upon our anger; but as to God Almighty a thousand years are as one day,
so, in direct opposition, one day to the covetous man is as a thousand
years, _tam brevi fortis jaculatur ævo multa_, so far he shoots beyond
his butt. One would think he were of the opinion of the _Millenaries_,
and hoped for so long a reign upon earth. The patriarchs before the
flood, who enjoyed almost such a life, made, we are sure, less stores for
the maintaining of it; they who lived nine hundred years scarcely
provided for a few days; we who live but a few days, provide at least for
nine hundred years. What a strange alteration is this of human life and
manners! and yet we see an imitation of it in every man’s particular
experience, for we begin not the cares of life till it be half spent, and
still increase them as that decreases. What is there among the actions
of beasts so illogical and repugnant to reason? When they do anything
which seems to proceed from that which we call reason, we disdain to
allow them that perfection, and attribute it only to a natural instinct.
If we could but learn to number our days (as we are taught to pray that
we might) we should adjust much better our other accounts, but whilst we
never consider an end of them, it is no wonder if our cares for them be
without end too. Horace advises very wisely, and in excellent good
words, _spatio brevi spem longam reseces_; from a short life cut off all
hopes that grow too long. They must be pruned away like suckers that
choke the mother-plant, and hinder it from bearing fruit. And in another
place to the same sense, _Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare
longam_, which Seneca does not mend when he says, _Oh quanta dementia est
spes longas inchoantium_! but he gives an example there of an
acquaintance of his named Senecio, who from a very mean beginning by
great industry in turning about of money through all ways of gain, had
attained to extraordinary riches, but died on a sudden after having
supped merrily, _In ipso actu bené cedentium rerum_, _in ipso
procurrentis fortunæ impetu_; in the full course of his good fortune,
when she had a high tide and a stiff gale and all her sails on; upon
which occasion he cries, out of Virgil:
_Insere nunc Melibæe pyros_, _pone ordine vites_:
Go to, Melibæus, now,
Go graff thy orchards and thy vineyards plant;
Behold the fruit!
For this Senecio I have no compassion, because he was taken, as we say,
in _ipso facto_, still labouring in the work of avarice; but the poor
rich man in St. Luke (whose case was not like this) I could pity,
methinks, if the Scripture would permit me, for he seems to have been
satisfied at last; he confesses he had enough for many years; he bids his
soul take its ease; and yet for all that, God says to him, “Thou fool,
this night thy soul shall be required of thee, and the things thou hast
laid up, whom shall they belong to?” Where shall we find the causes of
this bitter reproach and terrible judgment; we may find, I think, two,
and God perhaps saw more. First, that he did not intend true rest to the
soul, but only to change the employments of it from avarice to luxury;
his design is to eat and to drink, and to be merry. Secondly, that he
went on too long before he thought of resting; the fulness of his old
barns had not sufficed him, he would stay till he was forced to build new
ones, and God meted out to him in the same measure; since he would have
more riches than his life could contain, God destroyed his life and gave
the fruits of it to another.
Thus God takes away sometimes the man from his riches, and no less
frequently riches from the man: what hope can there be of such a marriage
where both parties are so fickle and uncertain; by what bonds can such a
couple be kept long together?