Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/109

likes best that which another most mislikes, and even deems worthy of heavy punishment. Hence no man can have equal fame in every land, the likings of nations being so different. Therefore let every man be content to be well esteemed in his own country, for, even if he desire more, he cannot attain to it, since a number of men seldom agree in liking the same thing. This is why the fame of a man remains confined to the country where he hath his dwelling, and likewise because it hath often cruelly happened, through the sloth and neglect and carelessness of unlucky historians, that the character and deeds of the foremost and most ambitious men of their day have been left unwritten. And even if the writers had written anything of their lives and deeds, as they would have done if good for anything, would not their writings sooner or later have grown too old, and perished out of mind, as certain writers and the men they wrote of have done? And yet ye men think to have eternal honour, if ye can by lifelong effort earn glory after your days! If thou wilt compare the moments of this present fleeting life with those of the life unending, what do they come to? Compare the length of time in which thine eye can wink with ten thousand years, and there is some likeness, though not much, since each hath a term. Now compare ten thousand years, or more if thou wilt, with everlasting and eternal life; here thou findest nothing in common, for ten thousand years, though it seem long, doth come to an end, while of the other there is no end. Thus then the finite and the infinite cannot be