But ought the ardor to render immortal services--ought the noble ambition to be useful, to be stifled? Are not these the source of pleasures as pure as they are ravishing? I contemplate an immense and indestructible republic, composed of all those men who devote themselves to the happiness of their kind. Occupied without relaxation or abatement in continuing the works which their predecessors have begun, they bequeath to their successors the care of pursuing and crowning their labors. Men of genius are the chiefs of this republic. As they have talents which separate them from the rest of the human race; they have also pleasures reserved for themselves alone. What a sublime sentiment must have elevated the spirit of Newton when a part of the mysterious laws of the universe first dawned on his mind! A glow still more delightful must have pervaded the bosom of Fenelon when meditating the most beautiful lessons which wisdom ever announced to the powerful and the rulers of the people. To these privileged beings it belongs, to give a powerful impulse to minds, and to trace a new path for the generations to come. I shall have attained my humble ambition if, docile to the voice of the wise, I shall be able, in any degree, to indicate the way in which these lessons may be put in practice. I shall thus have contributed my aid to dissipate the night of prejudice and vice. LETTER XX. THE PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION. If these words denote pleasures which have no reality, let us no longer use them.[47] The person who, during the twelve hours of every day that he passed in sleep, believed himself clothed with royal authority, shared a lot exactly similar to the king who, dreaming through the same number of hours, imagined that he suffered cold and hunger, and asked the pity of the peasants in the streets. All our pleasures are fugitive, and they are all real. That wonderful faculty, the imagination, awakens past pleasures, charms the instant that is flowing, and either veils the future, or embellishes it in the radiance of hope. Let us banish that vulgar prejudice which represents reason and imagination as two enemies which cannot coëxist. The severest reason ought to disdain no easy and pure pleasures. The happy paintings even of a dream bring joy, until their rainbow hues melt away. The dreams of the imagination have greatly the advantage over those of sleep. Our will gives them birth. We prolong, dissipate and renew them at pleasure.[48] All, who have learned to multiply these happy moments, know, at the same time, how to enjoy these agreeable visions, and paint with enchantment those dreamy hours which they owe to the effervescence of a gay imagination.