Some people make it a question, whether is the greatest delight, the enjoying of an old friendship,
or the acquiring of a new one? but it is in the preparing of a friendship , and in the possesion of it,
as it is with the husbandman is sowing and reaping; his delight is the hope of his labor in the one
case, and the fruit of it in the other.
True friends are the whole world to none another; and he that is a friend to himself is also a friend
to mankind. Even in my very studies, the greatest delight I take in what I learn is the teaching of it
to others; for there is no relish, methinks, in the possession of anything without a partner; nay, if
wisdom itself were offered me upon condition only of keeping to myself, I should undoubtedly
refuse it.
It is a preposterous weakness to love a man before we know him, and not to care for him after. It
requires time to consider of a friendship, but the resolution once taken, entitles him to my very
heart: I look upon my thoughts to be as safe in his breast as in my own; I shall, without any
scruple, make him the confident of my most secret cares and counsels.
When I am my friend, methinks I am alone, and as much at liberty to speak anything as to think:
and as our hearts are one, so must be our interest and convenience; for friendship lays all things in
common, and ntohing can be good to the one that is ill to the other.
He that loves a man for his own sake is in error. A friendship of interest cannot last any longer
than the interest itself; and this is the reason that men in prosperity are so much followed, and
when a man goes down the wind, nobody comes near him. Temporary friends will never stand the
test. One man is forsaked for fear of profit, another is betrayed. It is a negotiation, not a
friednship, that has an eye to advantages; only, through the corruption of times, that which was
formerly a friendship is now become a design upon booty: alter your testament, and you lose your
friend. But my end of friendship is to have one dearer to me than myself, and for the saving of
whose life I would cheerfully lay down my own; taking this along with me, that only wise men can
be friends, others are but companions; and that there is a geat difference also betwixt love and
friendshio; the one may sometimes do us hurt, the othere always does us good, for the one frined
is hopeful to antoher in all cases, as well in prosperity as in affliction. We receive comfort, even at
a sitance, from those we love, but then it is light and faint; whereas, presence and conversation
touches us to the quick, especially if we find the man we love to be such a person as we
wish.
XIX
In the distribution of human life, we find that a great part of it passes away in evil doing; a greater
yet in doing just nothing at all; and effectually the whole in doing things beside our business. Some
hours we bestow upon ceremony and servile attendances; some upon our pleasures, and the
remainder runs at waste. What a deal of time is it that we spend in hopes and fears, love and
revenge, in balls, treats, making of interests, suing for offices, soliticing of causes, and slavish
flatteries1 The shortness of life, I know, is the time we have were not sufficient for our duties. But
it is with our lives as with our estates, a good husband makes a little go a great way; whereas, let
the revenue of a prince fall into the hands of a prodigal, it is gone in a moment. So that the time
allotted us, if it were well employed, were abundantly enough to answer all the ends and purposes
of mankind. But we squander it away in avarice, drink, sleep, luxury, ambition, fawning
addresses, envy, rambling, voyages, impertinent studies, change of councils, and the like; and
when our portion is spent, we find the want of it, though we gave no heed to it in the passage:
insomuch, that we have rather made our life short than found it so. You shall have some people
perpetually playing with their fingers, whistling, humming, and talking to themselves; and others
consume their days in the composing, hearing, or reciting of songs and lampoons. How many
precious mornings do we spend in consultaion with barbers, tailors, and tire-women, patching and
painting, betwixt the comb and the glass? A council must be called upon every hair we cut; and
one curl amiss is as much as a body's life is worth. The truth is, we are more soliticious about our
dress than our manners, and about the order of our perriwigs than that of the government. At this
rate, let us but sicount, out of a life of a hundred years, that time which has been spent upon
popular negotiations, frivolous amours, domestic brawls, sauntering up and down to no purpose,
diseases that we have brought upon ourselves, and this large extent of life will not amount perhaps
to the minority of another man. It is a long being, but perchance a short life. And what is the
reason of thought of human frailty, when yet the very moment we bestow upon this man or thing,
may, peradventure, be ourlast. But the greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which
depends upon the future. We let fo the present, which we have in our power; we look forward to
that which depends upon Fortune; and so quit a certainty for an uncertainty. We should do by
time as we do by a torrent, make use of it while we may have it, for it will not last
always.
The calamities of human nature may be divided into the fear of death, and the miseries and errors
of life. ANd it is the great work of mankinf to master the one, and to rectify the other.
Time runs on, and all things have their fate, though it lies in thedark.
Why should we wonder to have that befal us today which might have happened to us any minute
since we were born? Let us therefore live as if every moment were to be out last; and set our
accounts right every day that passes over our heads. We are not ready for death, and therefore
we fear it, because we do not know what will become of us when we are gone; and that
consideration strikes us with inexplicable terror. The way to avoid this distraction is to contract
our business and our thoughts: when the mind is once settled, a day or an age is all one to us; and
the series of time, which is now our trouble, will be then our delight; for he that is steadily resolved
against all uncertainties, shall never be disturbed with the variety of them. Let us make haste,
therefore, to live, since every day to a wise man is a new life: for he has done his business the day
before, and so prepared himself for the nest, that if it be not fis last, he knows yet that it might have
been so. No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he that is willing and ready to quit it.
We consume our lives in providing the very instruments of life, and govern ourselves still with a
regard to the future; so that we do not properly live, but we are about to live.
Time runs on, and all things have their fate, though it lies in the dark.
Why should we wonder to have that befal us today which might have happened to us any moment
since we were born? Let us therefore live as if every moment were to be our last; and set our
accounts right every day that passes over our heads. We are not ready for death, and therefore
we fear it, because we do not know what will become of us when we are gone; and that
considerationstrikes us with an inexplicable terror. The way to avoid this distraction is to contract
our business and our thoughts: when the mind is once settled, a day or an age is all one to us; and
the series of time, which is now our trouble, will be then our delight: for he that is steadily resolved
against all uncertainties, shall never be disturbed with the variety of them. Let us make haste,
therefore, to live, since every day to a wise man is a new life; for he has done his business the day
before, and so prepared himself for the next, that if it be not his last, he knows yet that it might
have been so. No man enjoys the true taste of life, but he that is willing and ready to quit
it.
We consume our lives in providing the very instrumetns of life, and govern ourselves still with a
regard to the future; so that we do not prperly live, but we are about to live.
... at last we leave the world as ignorant as we came into it: only we die worse than we were
born; which is none of Nature's fault, but ours; for our fears, suspicions, perfidy, etc. are from
ourselves.
If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our
best hours escape us, the worst are to come.
If death be necessary, why should any man fear it? We should therefore first prepare ourselves by
a virtuous life against the dread of an inevitable death; and it is not for us to put off being good until
such or such a business is over, for one business fraws or another, and we do as good as sow it,
one grain produces more. It is not enough to philosophize when we have nothing else to do, but
we must attend wisdom even to the neglect of all things else; for we are so far from having time to
spare, that the age of the world would be yet too narrow for our business; nor is it sufficient not to
omit it, but we must not so much as intermit it.
There is nothing that we can properly call our own but time....
He that takes away a day from me, takes away what he can never restore me. But our time is
either forced away from us, or stolen from us, or lost; of which the last is the foulest miscarriage.
It is in life as in ajournet: a book or a companion brings us to our lodging before we thought we
were halfway. Upon the whole matter we consume ourselves one upon another, without any
regard at all to our own particular.
Comapny and business are great devourers of time, and our vices destroy our lives as well as our
fortunes.
Alas! what is time to eternity? the age of a man to the age of the world? And how much of this
little do we spend in fears, anxieties, tears, childhood! nay, we sleep away the one half. How
great a part of it runs away in luxury and excess: the ranging of our guests, our servants, and
dishes? As if we were to eat and drink not for satiety, but ambition. The nights may well seem
short that are so dear bought, and bestowed upon wine and women; the day is lost in expectation
of the night, and the night in the apprehension of the morning.
A wise man is never so busy as in the solitary contemplation of God and the works of
Nature.
He that is well employed in his study, though he may seem to do nothing at all, does the greatest
things yet of all others, in affairs both human and divine.
There is scarce any government to be found that will either endure a wise man, or which a wise
man will endure; so that privacy is made necessary, because the only thing which is better is no
where to be had.
As a busy life is always a miserable life, so is it the greatest of all miseries to be perpetually
employed upon other people's business; for to sleep, to eat, to drink, at their hours; to walk their
pace, and to love and hate as they do, is the vilest of servitudes.
It is not that solitude, or a country life, teaches innocence or frugality; but vice falls of itself, without
witnesses and spectators, for the thing it designs is to be taken notice of.
When the door is open, the thief passes it by, as not worht his while; but when it is bolted and
sealed, it is a temptation for people to be prying.
Business is the drudgery of the world, and only fit for slaves, but contempltaionis the work of wise
man. Not but that solitude and company may be allowed to take their turns; the one creates in us
the love of mankind, the other that of ourselves; solitude relieves us when we are sick of company,
and conversation when we are weary of being alone; so that the one cures the other. "There is no
man," in fine, "so miserable as he that is at a loss how to spend his time." He is restless in his
thoughts, unsteady in his counsels, dissatisfied with the present, solicitous for the future; whereas
he that prudently computes his hours and his business, does not only fortifiy himself against the
common accidents of life, but improves the most rigorous dispensations of Providence to his
comfort, and stands firm under all trials of human weakness.
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