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Long hope to cherish in so short a span

Befits not man. (Med. Sacre, Spedding, vii. 248.)
Out, out, brief candle! (Macb. v. 5.)

O gentlemen, the time of life is short. (1 Hen. IV. v. 2.)
Brief nature. (Cymb. v. 5, 165.)

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By my short life, I am glad! Let my life be now as short as my leave taking. (Tw. N. Kins. v. 4.)

1285. Spes facit animos leves tumidos inæquales perigrinantes.

(This) hope makes the mind light, frothy, unequal, wandering. (Med. Sacra, Spedding, vii. 248.)

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended,

By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. (Oth. i. 3.)
The ample proposition, that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below,

Fails in the promised largeness

In the reproof of chance

Lies the true proof men.

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(See Tr. Cr. i. iii. 2, 54, where the contrast is drawn between the fallacious propositions of hope and the 'persistive constancy' which 'retorts to chiding Fortune'; Ib. iv. 5, 1, 2; All's W. i. 1, 14; iv. 2, 38.)

1286. Vidi ambulantes sub sole cum adolescente secundo qui consurget post eum.-Eccles. iv. 15.

beheld all that walk under the sun with the next youth that shall rise after him.)

(See the apparitions of Banquo's posterity, Macb. iv. 1, 77-124.)

1287. Imaginationes omnia turbant, timores multiplicant, voluptates corrumpunt. (Everything is disordered by imaginations, multiplied by fears, corrupted by pleasures.)

It is the nature of the human mind . . the moment it receives an impression of anything. .. to expect to find everything else in harmony with it: if it be an impression of good, then it is prone to indefinite hope. But in hope there seems

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the event being equal and answerable to the hope,

yet the flower of it, having been by that hope already gathered, you find it a stale thing and almost distasteful.

Compare with this:

(Med. Sacra, Spedding, vii. 247.)

O God! God!

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't, 'tis an unweeded garden,

That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. (Ham. i. 2.)

(See the disturbing force of imagination described in First Essay Of Death.)

Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as the natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.

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The fear of death is most in apprehension.
Ay, but to die and go we know not where
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods. . . . 'Tis horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
is a paradise

To what we fear in death. (M. M. iii. 1.

(See Rich. III. v. 3, 214-220; Macb. iv. 2, 15-20; Cymb. iv. 2, 110.)

1288. Anticipatio timor est salubris ob inventionem remedij spes inutilis. (Fear is a wholesome anticipation on account of its invention of a remedy. Hope is useless.) In fear there is some advantage; it prepares endurance and sharpens industry.

The task can show no face that's strange to me:

Each chance I pondered, and in thought rehearsed.

(Med. Sacra, Spedding, vii. 247.)

You cast the event of war, my noble lord,

And summ'd the account of chance. (2 H. IV. i. 1.)

(See how in this scene [1. 136-106, 212-215] news of the loss of a battle and the approach of the enemy prepares endurance and sharpens industry. Compare also 2 H. IV. i. 3, 1. 1, 67.)

Blind fear, that, seeing reason leads, finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear to fear the worst oft cures the worst. (Tr. Cr. iii. 2; Lear, iv. 1, 19.)

I will despair, and be at enmity
With cozening Hope-he is a flatterer,

A parasite, a keeper back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bond of life,

Which false Hope lingers in extremity. (Tw. N. Kins. ii. 2.)

1289. Imminens futuro ingratus in præteritum. (Springing forward to the future, ungrateful toward the past.)

It is the nature of the human mind to . . . the future. . and to be thankless for the past.

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spring forward to

(Med. Sacra, Spedding, vii. 247.)

Great Glamis! worthy Cawdor!

Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter !

Thy letters have transported me beyond

The ignorant present. I feel now

The future in the instant.

(Macb. i. 5; Tr. Cr. iii. 3, 145-180; 2 Hen. IV. i. 3, 107, 108.)

From the table of my memory

I'll wipe all trivial fond records. (Ham. i. 5.)

Vines .. whereof ungrateful man greases his

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pure mind. (Tim. Ath. iv. 3.)

All germens spill at once

That make ungrateful man! (Lear, iii. 2.)

1290. Semper adolescentes. (Ever youthful.)

Nevertheless, most men give themselves up entirely to imaginations of hope, and, ... ever young, hang merely upon the future. (Med. Sacræ, Spedding, vii. 248 ; Pref. to Gt. Instauration.) L. Bard. It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury . . Who lined himself with hope,

Eating the air on promise of supply

And so with great imagination,

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Proper to madmen, led his powers to death.

Hast. But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt

To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope. (2 H. IV. i. 3.)
We were two lads that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day, and to be boy eternal.

(W. T. i. 2; Tr. Cr. iv. 5, 1, 2; Cor. iv. 6, 93–95;
H. VIII. iii. 2, 352-364; Rich. III. i. 2, 199, 200.)

1291. Vitam sua sponte fluxam magis fluxam reddimus per continuationes spei. (Life, which is fleeting enough of

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itself, we render more fleeting by a constant succession of hopes.)

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If the good be beyond the hope, there is a sense of gain and such is the effect of hope in prosperity. But in adversity it enervates the mind. For matter of hope cannot always be forthcoming; and if it fail, though but for a moment, the whole strength and support of the mind goes with it.

(Med. Sacra, Spedding, vii. 247.)

Adam. Dear master, I can go no further: O I die for food! Here I lie down and measure out my grave! Farewell, kind

master.

Orl. Why, how now, Adam! no greater heart in thee? Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it, or bring it food to thee. The conceit is nearer death than thy powers.

Well said! thou look'st cheerly, and I will be with thee quickly. Yet thou liest in the bleak air; come, I will bear thee to some shelter; and thou shall not die for lack of a dinner if there be any in this forest. Cheerly, good Adam! (As Y. L. ii. 5 ; 3 H.

81, &c.)

VI. iii. 3, 21; Cor. ii. 3, 116; Oth. ii. 1,

[Dr. Bucknill's note on the above: When Adam is suffering from starvation in the forest, Orlando leaves him to seek for food, with an exhortation, proving that Shakespeare well knew the power of the mind to sustain the failing functions of the body.'Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge. This appears to be through hope, which Bucknill says is the whole strength and support of the mind.]

1292. Præsentia erunt futura non contra. (The future will be present, not the contrary.)

We ought to be creatures of to-day by reason of the shortness of life, not of to-morrow... seizing the present time: for tomorrow will have its turn and become to-day; and therefore it is enough if we take thought for the present.

(Med. Sacra, Spedding, vii. 246.) Be a child of the time. (Ant. Cl. ii. 7, 106.) To-morrow, Cæsar,

I shall be furnished to inform you rightly

Both what by sea and land I can be able

To front this present time. (Ib. i. 4; 1 Hen. IV. v. 2, 81, &c.)

We'll put the matter to the present push. (Ham. v. 1.)

I do hate him as I do hell-pains;

Yet for necessity of present life

I must show ... signs of love. (Oth. i. 1; Tr. Cr. iii. 3, 1, &c.)

Folio 120.

1293. The fallaces of ye 3 and ye assurance of Erophie : to fall well everye waye.

King. It falls right.

(Ham. iv. 7, 70.)

Now whether he kill Cassio,

Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,

Every way makes my gain. (Oth. v. 1.)

Wishes fall out as they are willed. (Per. v. 3.)

(See Jul. Cæs. iii. 2, 142–146.)

1294. Watery impressions.

Glory is like a circle in the water,

Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself

Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought. (1 H. VI. i. 3.)
Their virtues we write in water. (Hen. VIII. iv. 2.)

As waters false. (W. T. i. 2, 132.)

Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water. (R. II. iii. 3.)
Indistinct as water is in water. (Ant. Cl. iv. 14.)
False as water. (Oth. v. 2.)

1295. Fier Elemental-fier Ethereal.

Methinks King Richard and myself should meet
With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water, when their thundering shock
At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.
Be he the fire, I'll be the yielding water:
The rage be his, while on the earth I rain

My waters. (R. II. iii. 3; Ant. Cl. v. 2, 273–289.)

Does not our life consist of the four elements? (Tw. N. ii. 3.) I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ça, ha! he bounds from the earth as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu ! ... he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him. (H. V. iii. 7.)

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