Before disappointments have enforced the dictates of philosophy, we
believe it in our power to shorten the interval between the first cause
and the last effect; we laugh at the timorous delays of plodding
industry, and fancy that, by increasing the fire, we can at pleasure
accelerate the projection.
At our entrance into the world, when health and vigour give us fair
promises of time sufficient for the regular maturation of our schemes,
and a long enjoyment of our acquisitions, we are eager to seize the
present moment; we pluck every gratification within our reach, without
suffering it to ripen into perfection, and crowd all the varieties of
delight into a narrow compass; but age seldom fails to change our
conduct; we grow negligent of time in proportion as we have less
remaining, and suffer the last part of life to steal from us in languid
preparations for future undertakings, or slow approaches to remote
advantages, in weak hopes of some fortuitous occurrence, or drowsy
equilibrations of undetermined counsel: whether it be that the aged,
having tasted the pleasures of man's condition, and found them delusive,
become less anxious for their attainment; or that frequent miscarriages
have depressed them to despair, and frozen them to inactivity; or that
death shocks them more as it advances upon them, and they are afraid to
remind themselves of their decay, or to discover to their own hearts
that the time of trifling is past.
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