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Lubbock, Sir John, 1834-1913

"The Pleasures of Life"

"
If, then, we choose our friends for what they are, not for what they have,
and if we deserve so great a blessing, then they will be always with us,
preserved in absence, and even after death, in the "amber of memory."
[1] Ruskin.


CHAPTER VI.
THE VALUE OF TIME.

Each day is a little life.

All other good gifts depend on time for their value. What are friends,
books, or health, the interest of travel or the delights of home, if we
have not time for their enjoyment? Time is often said to be money, but it
is more-it is life; and yet many who would cling desperately to life,
think nothing of wasting time.
Ask of the wise, says Schiller in Lord Sherbrooke's translation,
"The moments we forego
Eternity itself cannot retrieve."
And, in the words of Dante,
"For who knows most, him loss of time most grieves."
Not that a life of drudgery should be our ideal. Far from it. Time spent
in innocent and rational enjoyments, in healthy games, in social and
family intercourse, is well and wisely spent.


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