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Now that every man hath a storehouse of trouble
and contentment in his own bosom, and that the vessels
which contain good and evil are not placed at Jupiter's
threshold,1 but in the recesses of the mind, the variety of
our passions is an abundant demonstration. The fool
doth not discern, and consequently cannot mind, the good
that is obvious to him, for his thoughts are still intent
upon the future; but the prudent man retrieves things
that were lost out of their oblivion, by strength of recollection renders them perspicuous, and enjoys them as if they
were present. Happiness having only a few coy minutes
to be courted in, the man that hath no intellect neglects
[p. 157]
this opportunity, and so it slides away from his sense and
no more belongs to him. But like him that is painted in
hell twisting a rope, and who lets the ass that is by him
devour all the laborious textures as fast as he makes them,
so most men hate such a lethargy of forgetfulness upon
them, that they lose the remembrance of all great actions,
and no more call to mind their pleasant intervals of leisure
and repose. The relish of their former banquets is grown
insipid, and delight hath left no piquant impression upon
their palates; by this means they break as it were the continuity of life, and destroy the union of present things to
the past; and dividing yesterday from to-day and to-day
from to-morrow, they utterly efface all events, as if they
had never been. For, as those who are dogmatical in the
schools, and deny the augmentation of bodies by reason of
the perpetual flux of all substance, do strip us out of ourselves and make no man to be the same to-day that he was
yesterday; so those who bury all things that have preceded
them in oblivion, who lose all the notices of former times
and let them all be shattered carelessly out of their minds,
do every day make themselves void and empty; and they
become utterly dependent on the morrow, as if those
things which happened last year and yesterday and the
day before were not to affect their cognizance and be
occurrences worthy their observation.
1 See Il. XXIV. 527.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 1.
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