Just as the same chain joins the prisoner and the guard, so do these two things, which are so dissimilar, keep pace with each other: fear follows hope. I do not find this surprising. Each is the mark of a mind in suspense, a mind troubled by awaiting the future. The principal cause of either hope or fear is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts far ahead. Thus foresight – the greatest blessing of the human condition – is turned into an evil. Seneca, Epistles 5.7–8
