_Lucian._ Too soon. The farther we descend into the vale of years, the fewer illusions accompany us: we have little inclination, little time, for jocularity and laughter. Light things are easily detached from us, and we shake off heavier as we can. Instead of levity, we are liable to moroseness: for always near the grave there are more briers than flowers, unless we plant them ourselves, or our friends supply them. _Timotheus._ Thinking thus, do you continue to dissemble or to distort the truth? The shreds are become a cable for the faithful. That they were miraculously turned into one entire garment who shall gainsay? How many hath it already clothed with righteousness? Happy men, casting their doubts away before it! Who knows, O Cousin Lucian, but on some future day you yourself will invoke the merciful interposition of Aulus! _Lucian._ Possibly: for if ever I fall among thieves, nobody is likelier to be at the head of them. _Timotheus._ Uncharitable man! how suspicious! how ungenerous! how hardened in unbelief! Reason is a bladder on which you may paddle like a child as you swim in summer waters: but, when the winds rise and the waves roughen, it slips from under you, and you sink; yes, O Lucian, you sink into a gulf whence you never can emerge. _Lucian._ I deem those the wisest who exert the soonest their own manly strength, now with the stream and now against it, enjoying the exercise in fine weather, venturing out in foul, if need be, yet avoiding not only rocks and whirlpools, but also shallows. In such a light, my cousin, I look on your dispensations. I shut them out as we shut out winds blowing from the desert; hot, debilitating, oppressive, laden with impalpable sands and pungent salts, and inflicting an incurable blindness. _Timotheus._ Well, Cousin Lucian! I can bear all you say while you are not witty. Let me bid you farewell in this happy interval. _Lucian._ Is it not serious and sad, O my cousin, that what the Deity hath willed to lie incomprehensible in His mysteries, we should fall upon with tooth and nail, and ferociously growl over, or ignorantly dissect? _Timotheus._ Ho! now you come to be serious and sad, there are hopes of you. Truth always begins or ends so. _Lucian._ Undoubtedly. But I think it more reverential to abstain from that which, with whatever effort, I should never understand. _Timotheus._ You are lukewarm, my cousin, you are lukewarm. A most dangerous state. _Lucian._ For milk to continue in, not for men. I would not fain be frozen or scalded. _Timotheus._ Alas! you are blind, my sweet cousin! _Lucian._ Well; do not open my eyes with pincers, nor compose for them a collyrium of spurge.