268 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. vi 



But suppose it is days, or months, or years, what 

 we lose is, surely, bound to perish. What differ- 

 ence, pray, is it whether I manage to reach them 

 or not ? Time flows on ; it leaves behind those 

 most eager to seize it. Neither what is to be is 

 mine, nor what was. I am poised upon a point 

 of fleeting time ; it is a great thing to have been 

 moderate in one's ambitions. Laelius the Wise 

 made a neat retort once to a person who said, I am 

 sixty years old : you mean, said he, the sixty you 

 no longer are. 1 We show our failure to grasp the 

 terms of this elusive life of ours, and the conditions of 

 time that is never our own, in reckoning up as ours 

 years that are now lost. Let us fix this in our 

 minds, and constantly remind ourselves, I must die. 

 When ? What matter is that to you ? Death is a 

 law of nature ; death is a tribute and a duty imposed 

 on mortals ; it is the remedy of all ills. Whoever 

 now fears it will one day long for it. Giving up all 

 else, Lucilius, make this your one meditation, not 

 to dread the name death. By long reflection make 

 death an intimate friend, that, if so required, you 

 may be able even to go forth to welcome it. 



1 It is almost impossible to express in English the play on habeo\i'a.\& ; 

 French is more amenable. "J'ai soixante ans ! Parlez-vous des soixante 

 ans que vous n'avez plus ? " NISARD. 



