N’a pas accordez aux humains.”
Often enchanted by the ’luring charms
Of phantoms gay, our reason all seduc’d,
With pleasure roams thro’ endless desarts wild,
Enjoys the objects which herself has form’d.
And this illusion for some time repairs
The want of real joys, which niggard Nature
Never has granted to unhappy man.
“Enjoyment,” says Montaigne[6], “and possession, belong principally to imagination, which embraces more eagerly that which it is in pursuit of, than that which we have in our power.”
And certainly, one may pronounce them happy, who thus amuse themselves, and believe themselves to be so. And indeed, when a man is so far gone in this persuasion, every thing that is alleged to the contrary is rejected as a fable.