“What is man?” asks one who may have watched the glory of sunset, the deepening shadows of evening, the appearance of moon and stars. What is man? who may have temporary dominion over sheep and oxen and the beast of the field, but who is only a speck in space and appear but for a moment in time? Some endowed with health and strength may enjoy life for seventy years. In exceptional cases they may survive without undue weariness to themselves or others for eighty years. To the youth with everything to learn it may seem time enough and to spare. There comes a point however, at which it seems like a watch in the night which, however monotonous to the watcher, is gone out of mind when a new day dawns, and to the sleeper is as it were non-existent. It is like a dream which however exciting is quickly forgotten; like grass which sprouts in the morning and is scorched by midday; like a flood which sweeps everything before it. Our years come to an end as a tale of old.
