Among coincident forms of expression, on the part of writers who have spoken of the “Present Time” in its more precise and philosophical sense, is the following by Cowley, in a note to one of his “Pindarique Odes:” “There are two sorts of Eternity; from the Present backwards to Eternity, and from the present forwards, called by the Schoolmen Æternitas à parte ante, and Æternitas à parte post. These two make up the whole circle of Eternity, which Present Time cuts like a Diameter.”
Carlyle, in his Essays (“Signs of the Times”), has this knowledgeful passage: “We admit that the present is an important time; as all present time necessarily is. The poorest day that passes over us is the conflux of two Eternities, and is made up of currents that issue from the remotest Past, and flow onwards into the remotest Future. We were wise, indeed, could we discover truly the signs of our own times; and, by knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in it. Let us, then, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look calmly around us for a little on the perplexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on a more serious inspection, something of its perplexity may disappear, some of its distinctive characters and deeper tendencies more clearly reveal themselves; whereby our own relations to it, our own true aims and endeavours in it, may also become clearer.”[[1]]
Lord Strangford has left these pathetic stanzas:
Time was—when all was fresh, and fair, and bright,
My heart was bounding with delight,
It knew no pain, it felt no aching:
But o’er it all its airy woes
As lightly passed, or briefly staid,
Like the fleet summer-cloud which throws
On sunny lands a moment’s shade,