past
Actions reproach us, they cannot be attoned for by our own severe
Reflections so effectually as by a contrary Behaviour. If they are
praiseworthy, the Memory of them is of no use but to act suitably to
them. Thus a good present Behaviour is an implicit Repentance for any
Miscarriage in what is past; but present Slackness will not make up for
past Activity. Time has swallowed up all that we Contemporaries did
Yesterday, as irrevocably as it has the Actions of the Antediluvians:
But we are again awake, and what shall we do to-Day, to-Day which passes
while we are yet speaking? Shall we remember the Folly of last Night, or
resolve upon the Exercise of Virtue tomorrow? Last Night is certainly
gone, and To-morrow may never arrive: This Instant make use of. Can you
oblige any Man of Honour and Virtue? Do it immediately. Can you visit a
sick Friend? Will it revive him to see you enter, and suspend your own
Ease and Pleasure to comfort his Weakness, and hear the Impertinencies
of a Wretch in Pain? Don't stay to take Coach, but be gone. Your
Mistress will bring Sorrow, and your Bottle Madness: Go to
neither.--Such Virtues and Diversions as these are mentioned because
they occur to all Men. But every Man is sufficiently convinced, that to
suspend the use of the present Moment, and resolve better for the future
only, is an unpardonable Folly: What I attempted to consider, was the
Mischief of setting such a Value upon what is past, as to think we have
done enough. Let a Man have filled all the Offices of Life with the
highest Dignity till Yesterday, and begin to live only to himself
to-Day, he must expect he will in the Effects upon his Reputation be
considered as the Man who died Yesterday. The Man who distinguishes
himself from the rest, stands in a Press of People; those before him
intercept his Progress, and those behind him, if he does not urge on,
will tread him down. Caesar, of whom it was said, that he thought nothing
done while there was anything left for him to do, went on in performing
the greatest Exploits, without assuming to himself a Privilege of taking
Rest upon the Foundation of the Merit of his former Actions. It was the
manner of that glorious Captain to write down what Scenes he passed
through, but it was rather to keep his Affairs in Method, and capable of
a clear Review in case they should be examined by others, than that he
built a Renown upon any thing which was past. I shall produce two
Fragments of hi