Webster & Tourneur (Volume 12) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888. Excerpt: ... His being's excellency, 'twould not yield To nature's weakness. D'Am. Then, if Death casts up Our total sum of joy and happiness, Let me have all my senses feasted in The abundant fulness of delight at once, And, with a sweet insensible increase Of pleasing surfeit, melt into my dust. Bor. That revolution is too short, methinks. If this life comprehends our happiness, How foolish to desire to die so soon And if our time runs home unto the length Of nature, how improvident it were To spend our substance on a minute's pleasure, And after, live an age in misery D'Am. So thou conclud'st that pleasure only flows Upon the stream of riches? Bor. Wealth is lord Of all felicity. D'Am. 'Tis, oracle. For what's a man that's honest without wealth? Bor. Both miserable and contemptible. D'Am. He's worse, Borachio. For if charity Be an essential part of honesty, And should be practised first upon ourselves, Which must be granted, then your honest man That's poor, is most dishonest, for he is Uncharitable to the man whom he Should most respect. But what doth this touch me That seem to have enough?--thanks industry. 'Tis true, had not my body spread itself Into posterity, perhaps I should Desire no more increase of substance, than Would hold proportion with mine own dimensions. Yet even in that sufficiency of state, A man has reason to provide and add. For what is he hath such a present eye, And so prepared a strength, that can foresee, And fortify his substance and himself Against those accidents, the least whereof May rob him of an age's husbandry? And for my children, they are as near to me As branches to the tree whereon they grow; And may as numerously be multiplied. As they increase, so should my providence; For from my substance they receive the sap, Whereby they...