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Essay XXI: Of Delays
Essay XXI: Of Delays
Fortune is like the market; where many times, if you can stay a little,
the price will fall. And again, it is sometimes like Sibylla`s offer; which at
first offereth the commodity at full, then consumeth part and part, and still
holdeth up the price. For occasion (as it is in the common verse) turneth a
bald noddle, after she hath presented her locks in front, and no hold taken;
or at least turneth the handle of the bottle first to be received, and after
the belly, which is hard to clasp. There is surely no greater wisdom than well
to time the beginnings and onsets of things. Dangers are no more light, if
they once seem light; and more dangers have deceived men than forced them.
Nay, it were better to meet some dangers half way, though they come nothing
near, than to keep too long a watch upon their approaches; for if a man watch
too long, it is odds he will fall asleep. On the other side, to be deceived
with too long shadows (as some have been when the moon was low and shone on
their enemies` back), and so to shoot off before the time; or to teach dangers
to come on, by over early buckling towards them; is another extreme. The
ripeness or unripeness of the occasion (as we said) must ever be well weighed;
and generally it is good to commit the beginnings of all great actions to
Argus with his hundred eyes, and the ends to Briareus with his hundred hands;
first to watch, and then to speed. For the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the
politic man ^1 go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel and celerity in the
execution. For when things are once come to the execution, there is no
secrecy comparable to celerity; like the motion of a bullet in the air, which
flieth so swift as it outruns the eye.
[Footnote 1: Politician.]
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