"Friends," says Cicero, "though absent, are still present; though in poverty they are rich; though weak, yet in the enjoyment of health; and, what is still more difficult to assert, though dead they are alive." This seems a paradox, yet is there not much truth in his explanation? "To me, indeed, Scipio still lives, and will always live; for I love the virtue of that man, and that worth is not yet extinguished. Assuredly of all things that either fortune or time has bestowed on me, I have none which I can compare with the friendship of Scipio." If, then, we choose our friends for what they are, not for what they have, and if we deserve so great a blessing, then they will be always with us, preserved in absence, and even after death, in the "amber of memory." CHAPTER VI THE VALUE OF TIME1 their value. Each day is a little life ALL other good gifts depend on time for What are friends, books, or health, the interest of travel or the delights of home, if we have not time for their enjoyment? Time is often said to be money, but it is more-it is life; and yet many who would cling desperately to life, think nothing of wasting time. Ask of the wise, says Schiller in Lord Sherbrooke's translation, "The moments we forego Eternity itself cannot retrieve." And, in the words of Dante, "For who knows most, him loss of time most grieves." 1 The substance of this was delivered at the Polytechnic Institution. Not that a life of drudgery should be our ideal. Far from it. Time spent in innocent and rational enjoyments, in healthy games, in social and family intercourse, is well and wisely spent. Games not only keep the body in health, but give a command over the muscles and limbs which cannot be over-valued. Moreover, there are temptations which strong exercise best enables us to resist. It is the idle who complain they cannot find time to do that which they fancy they wish. In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is wanting: and the advantage of leisure is mainly that we may have the power of choosing our own work, not certainly that it confers any privilege of idleness. "Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal."1 For it is not so much the hours that tell, as the way we use them. 66 "Circles are praised, not that excel Not in much time, but acting well.” 2 "Idleness," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the greatest prodigality in the world; it throws away that which is invaluable in respect of its present use, and irreparable when it is past, being to be recovered by no power of art or nature." Life must be measured rather by depth than by length, by thought and action rather than by time. "A counted number of pulses only," says Pater, "is given to us of a variegated, aromatic, life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest 1 Shakespeare. 2 Waller. energy? To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to form habits, for habit is relation to a stereotyped world; while all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge, that seems, by a lifted horizon, to set the spirit free for a moment." I would not quote Lord Chesterfield as generally a safe guide, but there is certainly much shrewd wisdom in his advice to his son with reference to time. Every moment you now lose, is so much character and advantage lost; as, on the other hand, every moment you now employ usefully, is so much time wisely laid out, at prodigious interest.' And again, "It is astonishing that any one can squander away in absolute idleness one single moment of that small portion of time which is allotted to us in the world ... Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it.” |