Headlines ring with fear today as a global flu pandemic threatens to wipe out substantial portions of human populace. Suddenly we feel a little frail. Whether or not our fears are realized, disease, unlike falling stock markets, forces us to face our fragility. Ozymandias , written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818, portrays the temporal nature of man and his achievements: I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command In its former glory the statue must have stood tall, impressive to all who saw it. But now the head lies half buried in the sand, a symbol of passing back into the dust like the emperor himself. The “sneer of cold command” declaring its dominance and pride are telling of the model, but also of the artist. We can yet admire the sculptor who, as Shelley points out, read his man well. ...