How few persons, favored by every element, safely make the promised port
with swelling sails, and with all their wishes freighted! Yet even these
few persons who do safely make the promised port with all their wishes
freighted, soon complain. Though they are free from misfortunes, yet
(_though_ and _yet_, corresponding conjunctions, form only _one_
connexion) they are not free from the course of nature, for they still
are men; and when is man secure? Time is as fatal to him, as a storm is
to the mariner.--The rush of years beats down their strength; (_that is,
the strength of these few_;) and their numberless escapes end in ruin:
and then their proud success only plants new terrors on the victor's
brow. What pain it is to them to quit the world, just as they have made
it to be their own world; when their nests are built so high, and when
they are downed so deeply!--They who build beneath the stars, build too
low for their own safety.