the time of death; everyone knowing that it is a bond never forfeited to God. If then we know the same to be certain and inevitable, we ought withal to take the time of his arrival in as good part as the knowledge, and not to lament at the instant of every seeming adversity; which we are assured have been on their way towards us from the beginning. It appertaineth to every man of a wise and worthy spirit to draw together into suffrance the unknown future to the known present; looking no less with the eyes of the mind than with those of the body, the one beholding afar off and the other at hand, that those things of this world in which we live be not strange unto us when they approach, as to feebleness which is moved with novelties, but that like true men participating immortality and know [ing] our destinies to be of God, we should then make our estates and wishes, our fortunes and desires all one. It is true that you have lost a good and virtuous wife and myself an honourable friend and kinswoman; but there was a time when she was unknown to you, for whom you then lamented not. She is now no more yours, nor of your acquaintance, but immortal, and not needing and knowing your love and sorrow. Therefore you shall but grieve for that which now is, as then it was when not yours: only bettered by the difference in this, that she hath past the wearisome journey of this dark world, and hath possession of her inheritance …
Another friend who wrote in a similar strain of pious exhortation and affection was Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord Admiral.
- ↑ January 24th, 1597 (Hatfield MSS., VII. 35). At this time the friendship between Cecil and Raleigh was close, Sir Walter being, of course, strongly opposed to Essex.
