Lateness

“ We think of a small motion of the dial as of an eternity; yet ages have past, and they are but hours; the present moment will soon be only a memory, an unseen atom in the night of by-gone time. A hundred years hence, and young and old we shall all be gathered to the dust, and I shall no longer feel the coil that is at work in my heart, or any longer struggle within the inextricable bonds of fate. ”

“ She did not know, poor girl, in her ignorance, of the changes and chances that are continually going on in the world, where the greatest pleasures and the severest pains and trials last but for a season, and they are gone, and old Time keeps on the even tenor of his way, and pains and pleasures live only in the memory, and fade away as time rolls on, leaving, in the end, but a faint shadow of the past. ”

“ When the pain is hardest to bear, when the past, oh, the past—with all its immeasurable losses, begins to crush my very soul, I turn my dim eyes upward and repeat to myself, 'There is a Heaven of eternal rest and joy,' and so I grow serene in my waiting. ”

“ That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence,
Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee Time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, [Pg 50]
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me;
How can I then be elder than thou art? ”

“ Years passed on, many silent years, for we heard no sounds to tell us that time was threading the mazy thoroughfares of human life, stealing noiselessly through our dwellings, and pressing his way with us to the ocean of eternity, hastening on to the period when he shall come to an end, and the great angel shall swear there shall be time no longer. ”

“ Late, however, as the hour is, there yet remains sufficient time, if well improved, to remove the embarrassments under which you may have laboured, and to embellish your minds with jewels that will render you distinguished, whether destined to move in the humble or more elevated walks of life. ”

“ So, every instant, the distance lessened between the old man and the young one, both weary of life. It was broad daylight now, though the sun was still low on the horizon. The mystery of dawn had left the world, the very pilgrims, between their recurring cries, were chattering, laughing, over the every-day details of life which would make to-day as trivial as yesterday, to-morrow as trivial as to-day. ”

“ The logical consequence was to make dying the chief end of living. Who cannot remember being told to despise the present, to consider how brief it is, like a cloud before the dawn of the endless day? It was compared to the short waiting outside some door beyond which was warmth, cheer, and unending bliss. So that the pious soul thought of life only in terms of waiting, watching, enduring. ”

“ Although years have rolled past—and time, as it has flown onward, has hurried with them into the vast abyss of eternity, pleasures, sins and sorrows—the events of that fearful night, that fatal hour, are concentrated in one burning spot within my brain. ”

“ Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. Thou knowest how to wait.
Thy centuries follow each other perfecting a small wild flower.
We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for our chances. We are too poor to be late. ”

“ But not of late years are we about to speak; we are going back to the beginning of this century; late years—present years are dusty, sun-burnt, hot, arid; we will evade the noon, forget it in siesta, pass the mid-day in slumber, and dream of dawn. ”

“ THE CONSENT.
It is the past that maketh my despair;
The dark, the sad, the irrevocable past.
Alas! why should our lot in life be made,
Before we know that life? Experience comes,
But comes too late. ”

“ I say at the right time, because there may be a time when it is too late. There is a time when, under the weight of long wearisome years, the human soul has become inflexible, and has no longer the power to raise itself from the slough into which it has sunk. ”

“ Oh the slow agony of waiting! the torture of enumerating minutes—each minute seemingly an age—the dull, heart-sickening suspense of awaiting tidings—tidings which the heart tells us—the heart, too faithful prophet of the future—cannot by possibility be good; while reason interposes her vain veto to the heart’s decision, and hope uplifts her false and siren song. ”

“ I'm wiser now, I do not ask what Father Time will bring to-morrow; for each day has its play and task; its joy and e'en its sorrow. And each awakening has this thrill: I wonder what To-day will bring? ”

“ Time itself was a nightmare of running, falling, rising, staggering, running again until the blood pounded in her temples, drummed in her ears. The cry came again, as near as before—nearer? Throughout the night as she struggled on she could always fancy the stealthy, silent feet following her, keeping time with her own. ”

“ Yet Time, forsooth, wrests even this anchorage from you. Comes an hour when, confronted by the inevitable, helpless in its grip, unreconciled even in your resignation, you dully stand by a bedside and wait—wait—wait. ”

“ We were told that the days and years pass more quickly as we advance in age. What could be more false! Not only do the nights, of which sound sleep once made us unconscious, often drag slowly through their watches but each day is so long that we often find time hanging heavily on our hands; and when we have done all the work we can, we turn to our friends to amuse us and seek and perhaps invent pastimes or fresh occupations to kill it. Sermons, lectures, meetings of all kinds, even383 the drama, seem long. ”

“ Let one sit with closed eyes and, abstracting entirely from the outer world, attend exclusively to the passage of time, like one who wakes, as the poet says, "to hear time flowing in the middle of the night, and all things moving to a day of doom." ”

“ The Job has stopped groaning, and wants to know if I'm "writing all night just because, or, for the reason that."
It's night now—big night, and so still down-town here. Sometimes I stay up late to realize that I'm alive. The days are so crammed with happenings. And late at night seems so wide and everlasting. You've got the idea that I do things. Well, I don't. There are whole rows of days when it seems just a muddle of half-started attempts—a manner of hopeless confusion. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII.
"The tears of youth dry as quickly as the dews in summer; and the young heart rebounds from grief as quickly as the arrow from the bow."
⁠The Buccaneer.
Time passed as time ever does when passed monotonously, that is, with a degree of rapidity which only astonishes us when it is recalled to mind by some chance circumstance. ”

“ Times to be, conceived such hopes as time discrowns.
These we loved of old: but now for me the blasting
Breath of death makes dull the bright small seaward towns,
Clothes with human change these all but everlasting
⁠Cliffs and downs. ”

“ There is no standard by which time can be measured, but the succession of our thoughts, and the changes that take place in the external world: from the latter I was totally excluded; the former made the lapse of some hours appear like the tediousness of weeks and months. At length a new sensation recalled my rambling meditations, and gave substance to my fears: I now felt the cravings of hunger, and perceived that, unless my deliverance were speedily effected, I must suffer a tedious and lingering death. ”

“ A good portion of my life is already mingled with the past eternity; and, for the future, it is a dim scene, on which my eyes are fixed as calmly and intensely as possible,—to no purpose. The probability of my doing any service in my day and generation is certainly not very strong. ”

“ The ten years from forty to fifty—the best ten years of his life! And if one counted the years before, the silent years of dreams, assimilation, preparation—then call it half a man's life-time: half a man's life-time thrown away! ”

“ I dread the long, slow years—the long, slow days and sleepless nights—old people sleep very little—in which there is nothing but thought, an endless-web of miserable thoughts, going slowly round and round, never stopping, never changing. ”

“ For delay there was, though of a few hours only; and this delay was caused by my uncomfortable new habit—pausing for the guidance and the "thrill." Intuition, waiting upon the thrill of Beauty that guided it, at first lay inactive. ”

“ My heart is sick with longing, tho' I feed
On hope; Time goes with such a heavy pace
That neither brings nor takes from thy embrace,
As if he slept—forgetting his old speed:
For, as in sunshine only we can read
The march of minutes on the dial's face,
So in the shadows of this lonely place
There is no love, and Time is dead indeed. ”

“ And will the time ever come when we shall be resigned for a few hours tranquilly to represent in this world an interesting form of material activity; and then, our few hours over, to assume, without surprise and without regret, that other form which is the unconscious, the unknown, the slumbering, and the eternal? ”

“ Yes, the hour may not be far distant, when you may be called away from that circle in which you are now moving, and from those scenes of pleasure which now captivate and hold you in subjection; to bid farewell to lover and to friend, and let go your hold of life. Yes, the hour may not be far distant, when you will feel yourself entering an eternal world, when the solemnities of the final judgment will open upon you in all their awful grandeur, and when conscience, roused from her long repose of guilty quietude, will speak to condemn. ”

“ It was as if old age had come upon them lightly, bringing with it no burden of sadness, and that their days of work long over, they were content to lie idle in the kind warm sun, and to tell stories of the past. ”

“ We despair of the future, for one reason, because we attribute to the future our own growing sense of fatigue, the feelings of evening. But the future will, for those to whom it belongs, be morning, with the vigour and buoyancy of the awakening. ”

“ Your life’s journey may extend far away over the unexplored future, and may in some cases be a very long one; but, although this is possible, we are not allowed to forget that it is always precarious—unexpected graves are constantly reminding us how short may be the time of any one of us—how the night cometh. ”

“ It is a strange reflection that at forty-five, when we are just entering upon the most enjoyable period of life, you already began to think of growing old and to look backward. With you it was the forenoon, with us it is the afternoon, which is the brighter half of life. ”

“ It is always upon the wing, hastening to its period; it stays for no man. What little need have we of pastimes, and what great need to redeem time, when time runs out, runs on so fast towards eternity, which comes as time goes! 2. How vain the enjoyments of time are, which we may be quite deprived of while yet time continues. Our day may be longer than the sun-shine of our prosperity ”

“ Even if a long life lies before us, let us consider that thirty-five years is high noon with us,—the meridian of that arc which comprehends but threescore years and ten!
But we may be more vividly impressed with the fact of the brevity of life, if we adopt some criterion wider than these familiar measurements. The narrative, the story, engages our ears, in the pauses of care and labor. We listen to it in the noonday rest, and around the evening fire. It is a slight break in the monotony of our business,—an interlude in the solemn march of life. And thus, in some respects, is life itself. ”

“ And this truth is not at all a speculative, unpractical theory: it is vital. For now there is a fashion of speaking about the tendency of the age, the time-spirit, as an irresistible force which moulds men like potters’ clay, crowning those who discern and help it, but grinding to powder all who resist its course. ”

“ In the same act by which I feel that this passing minute is a new pulse of my life, I feel that the old life continues into it, and the feeling of continuance in no wise jars upon the simultaneous feeling of a novelty. ”

“ What are the moments loaded with passion, intense, and never-dying—years, ages upon earth! Away with the divisions of time, whilst one short breath—the smallest particle or measure of duration, shall outweigh ages. ”

“ For that is the test of their power—they must first of all rise out of the illness of their epoch to reach their own health. A late spring-time is their mark of distinction; also, let us add, late merriment, late folly, the late exuberance of joy! ”

“ But on these instructive complications I must not enlarge more than to say that they could all be resumed in the one word: Delay.
A mankind which has invented the proverb, “Time is money,” will understand my vexation. ”

“ Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions—where explanations of consolation must be made.... ”

“ Compared with that eternal duration which is without beginning or end; time, in its most extended sense, stretching out its line from the dawn of creation to the final consummation of all things, is short. ”

“ Only let us try for them, and they will certainly be ours; and what is still a comfort, shortly too; for if we look back on a past life, it appears but a very short span; and whatever we may think of the rest of life, it will yet be found of less duration: as we grow older the days seem to grow shorter, and our intimacy with Time ever lessens the perception of his stay. ”

“ How else could we tell about the time of the departure of trains and steamboats, the hours to go to work in the factory or to go to school, when to go to church? And the enjoyment of many other things depends upon knowing accurately what moment we should be on hand. You should learn never to be late, but always to be prompt. Suppose that, with an audience of six hundred people, the preacher should be five minutes late. ”