And yet ye can not tell, saith St. James, what shall be to-morrow. To-day he is set up, and to-morrow he shall not be found, for he is turned into dust, and his purpose perisheth. And altho the air which compasseth adversity be very obscure, yet therein we better discern God than in that shining light which environeth worldly glory; through which, for the clearness thereof, there is no vanity which escapeth our sight. And let adversity seem what it will--to happy men, ridiculous, who make themselves merry at other men's misfortunes; and to those under the cross, grievous--yet this is true, that for all that is past, to the very instant, the portions remaining are equal to either. For, be it that we have lived many years (according to Solomon), "and in them all we have rejoiced"; or be it that we have measured the same length of days, and therein have evermore sorrowed; yet, looking back from our present being, we find both the one and the other--to wit, the joy and the wo--sailed out of sight; and death, which doth pursue us and hold us in chase from our infancy, hath gathered it. _Quicquid aetatis retro est, mors tenet_; whatsoever of our age is past, death holds it. So as, whosoever he be to whom fortune hath been a servant, and the time a friend, let him but take the account of his memory (for we have no other keeper of our pleasures past), and truly examine what it hath reserved, either of beauty and youth, or foregone delights; what it hath saved, that it might last, of his dearest affections, or of whatever else the amorous springtime gave his thoughts of contentment, then invaluable, and he shall find that all the art which his elder years have can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions than heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining but those sorrows which grow up after our fast-springing youth, overtake it when it is at a stand, and overtop it utterly when it begins to wither; insomuch as, looking back from the very instant time, and from our now being, the poor, diseased, and captive creature hath as little sense of all his former miseries and pains as he that is most blest, in common opinion, hath of his forepast pleasures and delights. For whatsoever is cast behind us is just nothing; and what is to come, deceitful hope hath it. _Omniae quae eventura sunt in incerto jacent._ Only those few black swans I must except who, having had the grace to value worldly vanities at no more than their own price, do, by retaining the comfortable memory of a well-acted life, behold death without dread, and the grave without fear, and embrace both as necessary guides to endless glory....