24/32 This very being of yours that you now enjoy is equally divided betwixt life and death. The day of your birth is one day's advance towards the grave: "Prima, qux vitam dedit, hora carpsit." ["The first hour that gave us life took away also an hour." -- Seneca, Her. 874.] "Nascentes morimur, finisque ab origine pendet." ["As we are born we die, and the end commences with the beginning." -- Manilius, Ast., iv. 16.] "All the whole time you live, you purloin from life and live at the expense of life itself. |