I have neither long visits to pay nor to receive, nor ladies to spend hours in telling me that which might be told in five minutes; yet often find myself obliged to be an economist of time, and to make the most of a short opportunity. Let our station be as retired as it may, there is no want of playthings and avocations, nor much need to seek them, in this world of ours. Business, or what presents itself to us under that imposing character, will find us out even in the stillest retreat, and plead its importance, however trivial in reality, as a just demand upon our attention.
　　It is wonderful how by means of such real or seeming necessities my time is stolen away. I have just time to observe that time is short, and by the time I have made the observation time is gone.
　　I have wondered in former days at the patience of the antediluvian world, that they could endure a life almost millenary, and with so little variety as seems to have fallen to their share. It is probable that they had much fewer employments than we. Their affairs lay in a narrower compass; their libraries were indifferently furnished; philosophical researches were carried on with much less industry and acuteness of penetration, and fiddles perhaps were not even invented. How then could seven or eight hundred years of life be supported? I have asked this question formerly, and been at a loss to resolve it; but I think I can answer it now. I will suppose myself born a thousand years before Noah was born or thought of. I rise with the sun; I worship; I prepare my breakfast; I swallow a bucket of goat’s milk and a dozen good sizable cakes. I fasten a new string to my bow, and my youngest boy, a lad of about thirty years of age, having played with my arrows till he has stript off all the feathers, I find myself obliged to repair them. The morning is thus spent in preparing for the chase, and it is become necessary that I should dine. I dig up my roots; I wash them; boil them; I find them not done enough, I boil them again; my wife is angry; we dispute; we settle the point; but in the mean time the fire goes out, and must be kindled again. All this is very amusing.
　　I hunt; I bring home the prey; with the skin of it I mend an old coat, or I make a new one. By this time the day is far spent; I feel myself fatigued, and retire to rest. Thus, what with tilling the ground and eating the fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and running, and mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising again, I can suppose an inhabitant of the primeval world so much occupied as to sigh over the shortness of life, and to find, at the end of many centuries, that they had all slipt through his fingers and were passing away like a shadow. What wonder then that I, who live in a day of so much greater refinement, when there is so much more to be wanted and wished, and to be enjoyed, should feel myself now and then pinched in point of opportunity, and at some loss for leisure to fill four sides of a sheet like this?
　　我既没有谁要去拜访，也没有远道而来的客人需要招待，更没有女士花上几小时来给我讲述几分钟就可能说清楚的事儿；但我还是总感觉不得不在时间上精打细算，并充分利用每一个短暂的时机。在这个世界上，无论我们身处如何偏僻的地方，都不缺少赏玩之物和娱乐消遣，而且也很容易找到。事情，或者说任何以这样一种堂而皇之的面目出现的事情，一定会把我们从即使是最僻静的休憩处寻出来，宣告其重要性，理直气壮地要求我们予以关注，而不管它实际上有多么微不足道。
　　我的时间就这样被这些必要的或看似必要的事情偷走了，这真让人惊讶。我仅有时间发现时间的短暂，而每当有此发现，时间却已然过去。
　　我从前曾惊讶于上古世界人们的耐心，他们能忍受长达近千年而分配到单个的人生却几乎没有什么变化的生活。他们的工作很可能比我们少很多。他们的事情范围比较窄，图书馆很寒碜，哲学研究也远没有像现在这样作得孜孜以求和深刻敏锐，而小提琴或许都还没有发明出来。那么，七八百年的生活是怎么支撑下来的呢？我从前就问过这个问题，但一直无从解决它；不过，我想我现在找到答案了。我假设自己在诺亚诞生或是被想出来的一千年以前出生。我日出而起，祭拜神灵，准备早餐，大口喝下一桶羊奶，吃掉一摞大块儿的饼。我把一根新弦绑到我的弓上，我那最小的儿子，大概三十岁吧，一直在拿我的箭玩，直到把箭上的羽毛都弄了下来，我只好将这些箭再一一修好。于是，这个上午就花在了狩猎准备上，而到这时我也该吃饭了。我把土豆什么的挖出来，洗一洗，把它们煮上；发现它们没煮好，就接着煮。我老婆生气了，我们吵架，最后解决了问题，可是此时火也灭了，又得重新生火。这一切都很有趣。
　　我打猎，把猎物带回家，用猎物的皮修补一件旧外套，或是做一件新衣裳。到这个时候，一天的绝大部分已经过去，我感到很疲惫，便去睡觉。就这样，耕种土地，吃地里产出的果实，打猎，走路，奔跑，修补旧衣裳，睡觉，再起床，我可以想象所有这些事情让上古世界的先民忙碌不已，以至于感慨生命的短暂，以至于在许多世纪以后发现，几千年的时间就这样从指缝间溜走，像影子一样逝去。如此看来，我现在的生活比那个时候要精致得多，想要的、渴望的和可以享受的也多得多，所以我时不时地感到机会难得，时间紧张，并且缺少闲暇来写满一张面前这样的
　　纸，也就不足为奇了。