Let me tell you I am better acquainted with you for a long absence, as men are with themselves for a long affliction: absence does but hold off a friend, to make one see him the truer.
Ere land and sea and the all-covering sky Were made, in the whole world the countenance Of nature was the same, all one, well named Chaos, a raw and undivided mass, Naught but a lifeless bulk, with warring seeds Of ill-joined elements compressed together.