ey observe in us is that our desires incessantly grow young again; we
are always re-beginning to live.

Our studies and desires should sometime be sensible of age; yet we have
one foot in the grave and still our appetites and pursuits spring every
day anew within us:

"Tu secanda marmora
Locas sub ipsum funus, et, sepulcri
Immemor, struis domos."

["You against the time of death have marble cut for use, and,
forgetful of the tomb, build houses."--Horace, Od., ii. 18, 17.]

The longest of my designs is not of above a year's extent; I think of
nothing now but ending; rid myself of all new hopes and enterprises; take
my last leave of every place I depart from, and every day dispossess
myself of what I have.

"Olim jam nec perit quicquam mihi, nec acquiritur....
plus superest viatici quam viae."

["Henceforward I will neither lose, nor expect to get: I have more
wherewith to defray my journey, than I have way to go." (Or):
"Hitherto nothing of me has been lost or gained; more remains to pay
the way than there is way."--Seneca, Ep., 77. (The sense seems to
be that so far he had met his expenses, but that for the future he
was likely to have more than he required.)]

"Vixi, et, quem dederat cursum fortuna, peregi."

["I have lived and finished the career Fortune placed before me."
--AEneid, iv. 653.]

'Tis indeed the only comfort I find in my old age, that it mortifies in
me several cares and desires wherewith my life has been disturbed; the
care how the world goes, the care of riches, of grandeur, of knowledge,
of health, of myself. There are men who are learning to speak at a time
when they should learn to be silent for ever. A man may always study,
but he must not always go to school what a contemptible thing is an old
Abecedarian!--[Seneca, Ep. 36]

"Diversos diversa juvant; non omnibus annis
Omnia conveniunt."

["Various things delight various men; all things are not
for all ages."--Gall., Eleg., i. 104.]

If we must study, let us study what is suitable to our present condition,
that we may answer as he did, who being asked to what end he studied in
his decrepit age, "that I may go out better," said he, "and at greater
ease." Such a study was that of the younger Cato, feeling his end
approach, and which he met with i