Behold it aforetime
No eye ever did;
So soon it forever
From all eyes is hid.
Here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Carlyle
FORTUNE AND THE BEGGAR
One day a ragged beggar was creeping along from house to house. He carried an old wallet in his hand, and was asking at every door for a few cents to buy something to eat. As he was grumbling at his lot, he kept wondering why it was that folks who had so much money were never satisfied but were always wanting more.
"Here," said he, "is the master of this house—I know him well. He was always a good business man, and he made himself wondrously rich a long time ago. Had he been wise he would have stopped then. He would have turned over his business to some one else, and then he could have spent the rest of his life in ease. But what did he do instead? He built ships and sent them to sea to trade with foreign lands. He thought he would get mountains of gold.
"But there were great storms on the water; his ships were wrecked, and his riches were swallowed up by the waves. Now all his hopes lie at the bottom of the sea, and his great wealth has vanished.
"There are many such cases. Men seem to be never satisfied unless they gain the whole world.
"As for me, if I had only enough to eat and to wear, I would not want anything more."