remorseless power. Nay, even great cities--Helice, Pompeii,
Herculaneum--have, so to speak, died utterly. Recall, one by one, the
names of thy friends who have died; how many of these, having closed the
eyes of their kinsmen, have in a brief time been buried also. To
conclude: keep ever before thee the brevity and vanity of human life and
all that is therein; for man is conceived to-day, and to-morrow will be
a mummy or ashes. Pass, therefore, this moment of life in accord with
the will of Nature, and depart in peace: even as does the olive, which
in its season, fully ripe, drops to the ground, blessing its mother,
the earth, which bore it, and giving thanks to the tree which put it
forth. (Book iv., § 48.)

A simple yet potent help to enable one to despise Death is to recall
those who, in their greed for life, tarried the longest here. Wherein
had they really more than those who were cut off untimely in their
bloom? Together, at last, somewhere, they all repose in death.
Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or any like them, who bore forth
so many to the tomb, were, in their turn, borne thither also. Their
longer span was but trivial! Think too, of the cares thereof, of the
people with whom it was passed, of the infirmities of the flesh! All
vanity! Think of the infinite deeps of Time in the past, of the infinite
depths to be! And in that vast profound of Time, what difference is
there between a life of three centuries and the three days' life of a
little child! (Book iv., § 50.)

* * * * *

Think of the Universe of matter!--an atom thou! Think of the eternity of
Time--thy predestined time but a moment! Reflect upon the great plan of
Fate--how trivial this destiny of thine! (Book v., § 24.)