_Spirit_. Compose yourself. This very night you shall dream of her. I will lead her to you, beautiful as youth, and so kindly disposed that you will be encouraged to speak to her much more freely and readily than in former times. You will be induced at length to take her by the hand, and she, looking intently at you, will surfeit your soul with sweetness. And to-morrow, whenever you think of the dream, your heart will overflow with affection. _Tasso_. What a consolation! A dream instead of the truth. _Spirit_. What is truth? _Tasso_. I am as ignorant on the subject as Pilate was. _Spirit_. Well, I will tell you. Between truth or reality, and a dream there is this difference--the latter is much the finer thing of the two. _Tasso_. What! The pleasure of a dream worth more than a real pleasure? _Spirit_. It is. As an instance, I know a man who studiously avoids meeting his sweetheart the following day after she has appeared to him in a dream. He knows full well that he would not find in her all the charms with which she was endowed in the dream, and that reality, dispelling the illusion, would deprive him of the pleasure he felt. The ancients too, who were much more diligent and skilful in their search after all the enjoyments possible for man to have, did wisely in endeavouring by various means to realise the sweetness and pleasure of dreams. Pythagoras also was right when he forbad the eating of beans for supper; these vegetables producing a dreamless or troubled sleep.[2] I could also find excuse for those superstitious people who were wont, before going to bed, to invoke the aid of Mercury, the president of dreams. They offered sacrifice to him that he might grant them happy dreams, and used to keep an image of the god at the foot of their bed. Thus it was that being unable to procure any happiness during the day, people sought it in the night-time. I am of opinion that they were in a measure successful, and that Mercury paid more attention to their prayers than was the custom of the other gods. _Tasso_. But, since men live for nothing but pleasure, whether of mind or body, if this pleasure can only be found when we dream, it follows that we live for no other purpose but to dream. Now I really cannot admit that. _Spirit_. You already admit it, inasmuch as you live, and are willing to live. But what is pleasure? _Tasso_. My acquaintance with it is too slight to enable me to answer you.