And since death must be the
Lucinaof life, and even Pagans<6> could doubt, whether
thus to live were to die; since our longest sun sets
at right descensions, and makes but winter arches,
and therefore it cannot be long before we lie down
in darkness, and have our light in ashes; since the
brother of death daily haunts us with dying memen-
toes, and time that grows old in itself, bids us hope
no long duration;--diuturnity is a dream and folly
of expectation.
Darkness and light divide the course of time, and
oblivion shares with memory a great part even of our
living beings; we slightly remember our felicities, and
the smartest strokes of affliction leave but short smart
upon us. Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows
destroy us or themselves. To weep into stones are
fables. Afflictions induce callosities; miseries are slip-
pery, or fall like snow upon us, which notwithstanding
is no unhappy stupidity. To be ignorant of evils to
come, and forgetful of evils past, is a merciful provision
in nature, whereby we digest the mixture of our few
and evil days, and, our delivered senses not relapsing
into cutting remembrances, our sorrows are not kept
raw by the edge of repetitions.
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