adversity be very obscure; yet therein we better discern God, than in
that shining light which environeth worldly glory; through which, for
the clearness thereof, there is no vanity which escapeth our sight.
And let adversity seem what it will; to happy men ridiculous, who make
themselves merry at other men's misfortunes; and to those under the
cross, grievous: yet this is true, that for all that is past, to the
very instant, the portions remaining are equal to either. For be it
that we have lived many years, "and (according to Solomon) in them all
we have rejoiced;" or be it that we have measured the same length of
days and therein have evermore sorrowed: yet looking back from our
present being, we find both the one and the other, to wit, the joy and
the woe, sailed out of sight; and death, which doth pursue us and hold
us in chase, from our infancy, hath gathered it. "Quicquid aetatis
retro est, mors tenet:" "Whatsoever of our age is past, death holds
it." So as whosoever he be, to whom Fortune hath been a servant, and
the Time a friend; let him but take the account of his memory (for we
have no other keeper of our pleasures past), and truly examine what it
hath reserved either beauty and youth, or foregone delights; what
it hath saved, that it might last, of his dearest affections, or of
whatever else the amorous springtime gave his thoughts of contentment,
then unvaluable; and he shall find that all the art which his elder
years have, can draw no other vapor out of these dissolutions, than
heavy, secret, and sad sighs. He shall find nothing remaining, but
those sorrows, which grow up after our fast-springing youth; overtake
it, when it is at a stand; and overtopped it utterly, when it begins
to wither: in so much as looking back from the very instant time, and
from our now being, the poor, diseased, and captive creature, hath as
little sense of all his former miseries and pains, as he, that is
most blessed in common opinions, hath of his fore-passed pleasure and
delights. For whatsoever is cast behind us, is just nothing: and what