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consider youth and age with Tully, regarding the affinity to death, youth has many more chances to be near it than age; what you can say more than an old man, (He shall live until night?) Youth catches distempers more easily, its sickness is more violent, and its recovery more doubtful. The youth indeed hopes for many more days, so cannot the old man. The youth's hopes are ill-grounded; for what is more foolish than to place any confidence upon an uncertainty? But the old man has not room so much as for hope; he is still happier than the youth, he has already enjoyed what the other does but hope for: One wishes to live long, the other has lived long. But alas, in there any thing in human life, the duration of which can be called long? There is nothing which must end to be valued for its continuance. If hours, days, months, and years, pass away, it is no matter what hour, what day, what month, or what year we die. The applause of a good Actor is due to him at whatever scene of the play he makes his exit. It is thus in the life of a man of sense, a short life is sufficient to manifest himself as a man of honour and virtue; when he ceases to be such he has lived to long, and while he is such, it is of no consequence to him how long he shall be so, provided he is so to his life's end.
