When thou hast seen this, if thou wilt, thou mayst go to sleep too, thou mayst lie down and dream. And this is all; for be as happy as the world can make thee, all is but sleeping and dreaming: and what is still worse, it [♦]is like sleeping in a ship, when thou shouldst be pumping for life, or dreaming thou art a prince, when thou shouldst be redeeming thyself from slavery.
[♦] ‘it’ replaced with ‘is’
XIII. This is no imaginary flight of a melancholy fancy, but the real nature of things.
*For if thou art that immortal nature, that fallen spirit which religion teaches us; if thou art to meet death, resurrection, and judgment, as the forerunners of an eternal state, what are all the little flashes of pleasure, the changing appearances of worldly happiness, but so many sorts of dreams?
*How canst thou talk of the advantage of fortune, the pleasures of food or apparel, without being in a dream?
Is the beggar asleep, when he fancies he is building himself fine houses? Is the prisoner in a dream, when he imagines himself in open fields and fine groves? And canst thou think thy immortal spirit is awake, while it is delighting itself in the shadows and bubbles of worldly happiness?
For if it be true, that man is upon his trial, if the trial is for eternity, if life is but a vapour, what is there that deserves a serious thought, but how to get well out of the world, and make it a right passage to our eternal state?
XIV. *It is the manner of some countries, in the burial of their dead, to put a staff and shoes and money in the sepulchre along with the corpse.
We see the folly and ignorance of such a poor contrivance to assist the dead: but if we did but understand what is life, we should see as much folly in the poor contrivances to assist the living.
For how many things do people labour after, break their rest and peace to get, which yet when gotten are of just as much real use to them, as a staff and shoes to a corpse under ground? They are always adding something to their life, which is only like adding another pair of shoes to a body in the grave.