PROMPTNESS IN ACTION.

91

That we would do,

We should do when we would; for this 'would' changes
And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents;1
And then this should' is like a spendthrift sigh,
That hurts by easing.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. 7, l. 119.

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune :

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat ;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.

Julius Cæsar, Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 218.

Fearful commenting

Is leaden servitor to dull delay;

Delay leads impotent and snail-paced beggary.

Richard III., Act iv. Sc. 3, 1. 51.

Beware;

Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves :

Omission to do what is necessary

Seals a commission to a blank of danger;

And danger, like an ague, subtly taints

Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

Troilus and Cressida, Act iii. Sc. 3, 1. 228.

1 The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns: but the way of the righteous is made plain. - Prov. xv. 19.

Our doubts are traitors

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt.

Measure for Measure, Act 1. Sc. 4, 1. 77.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.

Impossible be strange attempts to those
That weigh their pains in sense and do suppose
What hath been cannot be.

All's Well that Ends Well, Act i. Sc. 1, 1. 231.

The flighty purpose never is o'ertook

Unless the deed go with it.

Macbeth, Act iv. Sc. 1, 1. 145.

The Folly of Rashness.

I knew a wise man, that had it for a by-word, when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, "Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner." SIR FRANCIS BACON, Apothegms, 14.

Over-zeal

That still will meddle, little wisdom shows.

SOPHOCLES, Antigone, 1. 67.

Affected dispatch is one of the most dangerous things to business that can be: it is like that which the physicians call predigestion, or hasty digestion, which is sure to fill the body of crudities and secret seeds of diseases. Therefore measure not dispatch by the time of sitting, but by the advancement of the business: and as in races it is not the large stride, or high lift, that makes the speed, so in business, the keeping close to the matter, and not taking of it too much at once, procureth dispatch.

SIR FRANCIS BACON, Essay of Dispatch.

Norfolk.

STAY, my lord,

And let your reason with your choler question1
What 'tis you go about: to climb steep hills
Requires slow pace at first: anger is like
A full-hot horse, who being allow'd his way,
Self-mettle tires him.

King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc. I, 1. 129.

1 He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly. — Prov. xiv. 29.

Edile.

Worthy tribunes,

There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,
Reports, the Volsces with two several powers
Are enter'd in the Roman territories,

And with the deepest malice of the war
Destroy what lies before 'em. . . ..

Brutus.

Go see this rumourer whipped. It cannot be

The Volsces dare break with us.

Meninius.

Cannot be !

We have record that very well it can,
And three examples of the like have been
But reason with the fellow,

Within my age.

Before you punish him, where he heard this,

Lest you shall chance to whip your information
And beat the messenger who bids beware
Of what is to be dreaded.

Coriolanus, Act iv. Sc. 6, l. 37.

Norfolk.

Be advised;

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself. We may outrun,
By violent swiftness, that which we run at,
And lose by over-running.

King Henry VIII., Act i. Sc. I, l. 140.

The Walue of Recreation.

No mortal nature can endure, either in the actions of religion or study of wisdom, without sometime slackening the cords of intense thought and labor.... We cannot, therefore, always be contemplative or pragmatical abroad, but have need of some delightful intermissions, wherein the enlarged (freed) soul may leave off awhile her severe schooling, and, like a glad youth in wandering vacancy, may keep her holidays to joy and harmless pastime. JOHN MILTON, Tetrachordon.

THESE should be hours for necessities,
Not for delights; times to repair our nature
With comforting repose, and not for us
To waste.1

King Henry VIII., Act v. Sc. I, 1. 2.

Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue
But moody and dull melancholy,

Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,
And at her heels a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures and foes to life?

The Comedy of Errors, Act v. Sc. I, 1. 78.

1 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. Mark vi. 31.