hings hath had its
aim with every man, not as to the ending only, but the first beginning
of his course, and passage thither. And hath the ball any profit of
its rising, or loss as it descendeth again, or in its fall? or the
bubble, as it groweth or breaketh on the air? or the flame of the lamp,
from the beginning to the end of its brief story?

[204] "All but at this present that future is, in which nature, who
disposeth all things in order, will transform whatsoever thou now
seest, fashioning from its substance somewhat else, and therefrom
somewhat else in its turn, lest the world grow old. We are such stuff
as dreams are made of--disturbing dreams. Awake, then! and see thy
dream as it is, in comparison with that erewhile it seemed to thee.

"And for me, especially, it were well to mind those many mutations of
empire in time past; therein peeping also upon the future, which must
needs be of like species with what hath been, continuing ever within
the rhythm and number of things which really are; so that in forty
years one may note of man and of his ways little less than in a
thousand. Ah! from this higher place, look we down upon the
ship-wrecks and the calm! Consider, for example, how the world went,
under the emperor Vespasian. They are married and given in marriage,
they breed children; love hath its way with them; they heap up riches
for others or for themselves; they are murmuring at things as then they
are; they are seeking for great place; crafty, flattering, suspicious,
waiting upon the death of others:--festivals, business, war, sickness,
dissolution: and now their whole life is no longer anywhere at all.
Pass on to the reign of Trajan: all things continue the same: and that
life also is no longer anywhere at all. [205] Ah! but look again, and
consider, one after another, as it were the sepulchral inscriptions of
all peoples and times, according to one pattern.--What multitudes,
after their utmost striving--a little afterwards! were dissolved again
into their dust.

"Think again of life as it was far off in the ancient world; as it must
be when we shall be gone; as it is now among the wild heathen. How many
have never heard your names and mine, or will soon forget them! How
soon may those who shout my name to-day begin to revile it, because
glory, and the memory of men, and all things beside, are but vanity--a
sand-heap under the senseless wind, the barking of dogs, the
quarrelling of children, weep