“You are mistaken, my Lord, they really exist; however they differ widely from what men generally believe to be truth and happiness.”
“Then you are going to make me acquainted with a new kind of happiness and truth, and to lead me to uncommon light by the common road of illusion?”
“Man must be treated in a human manner, and improve by degrees. A sudden transition from twilight to the radiant glare of the noon-tide sun, from the land of sweet fancies to pure paradisiacal bliss, would transport the son of dust beyond himself. For that reason, it was requisite you should experience all the intermediate degrees of illusion, but not of an ordinary one, in order to obtain possession of an extraordinary treasure. That spot, where you will find the talisman which breaks the magic charm whereby the treasure is withheld from you as yet, is the highest pinnacle of illusion, and for that very reason the last degree of it. He who has happily arrived at it, emerges from the mazy labyrinth of enchantments, beholds a new heaven and a new earth, and, as if new created, strides over into the kingdom of unadulterated truth and bliss; where he enters the sacred porch of that eternal temple from which only the grave separates him.”
“I do not entirely comprehend your emblematical language; will you explain yourself more at large?” So saying, I offered him a chair; we sat down, and he began:
“The history of all ages and nations convinces us that all men strive to be happy: but only the better and nobler part of mankind are in pursuit of truth; not as if the latter sort did not also contend for happiness, but because they find it in the contemplation of truth, and do not believe that happiness can exist, without being founded on the base of truth. The former class pursue happiness on different and opposite roads, and when they fancy they have found it, embrace an airy phantom; the latter class also go in pursuit of truth on different and opposite roads, and when they fancy they have discovered it, are enraptured at an ignis fatuus. Some of them perceive at last that they are deceived by illusions, and others do not. The former continue their pursuit by the road which they have once fallen in with, and finding nothing but new phantoms and new illusions, spread at length the rumour, that no real happiness and truth could be met with here below. But suppose a man of an extraordinary genius, who had been firmly convinced that this treasure can be found here below, should have attempted to go in search of it through uncommon and never trodden paths, and at length, after enormous deviations, which on the unbeaten paths he pursued could not be avoided, should have found truth and happiness in their natural purity and sisterly union, and entrusted the secret to his friends under the condition to communicate it only to a few, and not even to them till they should have been tried by uncommon delusions of different kinds, like himself; would you then forgive me, my Lord, if I had deceived you with that view?”
“Then I should not owe you forgiveness, but gratitude. But as the time of probation (according to your own declaration) is past, will you not be so good as to let me see only a few rays of that light, the full splendor of which I am going to behold.”
“I have orders not to disclose the secret to you before the liberation of your country should be accomplished.”
“Then my probationary time is not yet finished?”
“The time of delusion is past, and you are now to begin the epocha of acting for which the former was designed to prepare you. Strain every nerve to deliver your country, and the last trial will be finished.”