The following passage comes from Jeremy Taylor's book titled, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying. It is a serious look at the shortness of life, the vanities of life and the joy and purpose of living with God: so, when death approaches, we will be prepared to face it. Now in this passage he is laying the ground-work and takes a cynical peek into the lives of many. I just love his style and his underlying humor makes me smile, without missing the lesson.

  "Life is like a bubble and some of us die before we reach seven years, but if the bubble stands the shock of a bigger drop, and outlives the chances of a child, of a careless nurse, of drowning in a pail of water, of being overlaid by a sleepy servant, or such little accidents, then the young man dances like a bubble empty and gay, and shines like a doves neck or the image of a rainbow, which has no substance, and whose very imagery and colors are fantastical; and so he dances out the gaiety of his youth, and is all the while in a storm, and endures only because his is not knocked on the head by a drop of bigger rain, or crushed by the pressure of a load of indigested meat, or quenched by the disorder of an ill-placed humor: and to preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities is as great a miracle as to create him...." Jeremy Taylor