Accordingly we find in common life, that men are principally concerned about those objects, which are not much removed either in space or time, enjoying the present, and leaving what is afar off to the care of chance and fortune.

Talk to a man of his condition thirty years hence, and he will not regard you.

Speak of what is to happen tomorrow, and he will lend you attention.

The breaking of a mirror gives us more concern when at home, than the burning of a house, when abroad, and some hundred leagues distant.
But farther; though distance both in space and time has a considerable effect on the imagination, and by that means on the will and passions, yet the consequence of a removal in space are much inferior to those of a removal in time.

Twenty years are certainly but a small distance of time in comparison of what history and even the memory of some may inform them of, and yet I doubt if a thousand leagues, or even the greatest distance of place this globe can admit of, will so remarkably weaken our ideas, and diminish our passions.