The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complains of the malice of nature, because our life is short, and because this brief span given to us flows away so swiftly that, with very few exceptions, life extinguishes all of us just at the moment when we were preparing to live. Nor is this our only ground for just complaint against nature: after so short a time, life is wrested from us by force, and we learn not merely how to die well, but how to die before we have begun to live. Dispel, therefore, I beg you, this error of the common crowd, this most unjust lament against the kindness of our parents, the cry that we are born ungrateful to life. For what madness, what want of thought it is, to lament our lot and to reproach nature with stinginess, on the plea that we are held longer in birth than in life, and that the space given us to hasten toward living, life itself takes away! Yet life is ample, if you but will it; live, and you will find it great enough. For why should we complain of nature? She has dealt kindly: life, if you know how to use it, is long. But see: some are devoured by greed, others by ever-renewed labors; some are steeped in pleasure, others sunk in drowsy idleness; some are led by ambition, whose appetite grows keener as it is fed; others are tormented by the fear of their superiors, wretchedly obedient, spending their days at the will of another. Some have no aim but gain, wrapped up in business, blinded by the love of money; many give all their time to war, and expose themselves ever to danger, whether to grow rich by plunder or to fight for their chiefs; some, consumed by the desire to please, wear themselves out in chosen cares, steeped in a slavish dread of other men's judgment; many own nothing, yet strive to possess, and, without means, labor to acquire them. There is not one who, having no pursuit of his own, does not run after another's, trail behind some rich man, and make himself, by bitter servitude, the guest and companion of another's banquets. Some, at last, have vengeance for their only goal and resentment for their only task. And what shall I say of those who, beneath white hair, bent under the venerable weight of years, are farther than all others from the end of their troubles, trembling and hoping for a long life, in the fear that makes them wretched and the hope that deceives them? Add that, when a long and grievous sickness falls upon them, the best part of their life slips away. Add, too, death and the mourning that weighs upon every household. Indeed, if we take from life not only what has been torn from it against its will, but also what has been squandered on what we did not want, how little of so brief a span remains! How little have we truly lived! How many of our years fell before we knew life! How many have slipped by unused, while we were busy with other things! How many has grief devoured! How many, anxious care! How many, the enforced confession of our errors! How many has shameful dependence stolen from us! How much of that time which was not ours has bitter toil consumed! How much of our substance has vanished into nothing, leaving behind only regret! Half our time is spent in sleep. How much again is lost in miseries, in labors, in pleasures, in passions! And the end of life draws near before we have come back to ourselves from this confusion and uproar: death arrives in the midst of our affairs. Acknowledge, then, the truth at last: it is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and there is given abundance of it for the greatest deeds, if it were all well spent; but when it slips away and escapes on every side, when it is given over to luxury and neglect, when it is spent on nothing good, we only discover at the last, when it can no longer be stopped, that it has passed. Just as immense wealth vanishes when given into the hands of a spendthrift, while it grows if held by a frugal man, so our lifetime is lavished and dissipated in trifles. Therefore, Paulinus, seize each day, counting every hour, and hold fast your time, spending it on yourself; then only, by spending it on yourself, will you find it enough. Cast off the crowd, cast off the cares that belong to others; look toward the true end of life. Life is long, if you know how to use it.