There are situations in which reason has no better counsel to give us than to yield ourselves up to those illusions which mingle pleasures with our sufferings. I knew a worthy, but unfortunate man, who passed twenty months in prison. He informed me that, every night, he had a dream, in which he imagined that his wife and children visited him and restored him to liberty. This dream left a remembrance so profound, an emotion so delightful, that he determined to attempt to renew it by day. When evening came, exciting his imagination to its most vigorous action, he endeavored to persuade himself that the moment of the reunion was come. He represented to himself the transport of his wife and the caresses of his children; and he allowed no thought but these delightful visions to occupy his mind until the moment when sleep once more wrapped him in forgetfulness. The habit of concentrating his imagination for this result, he assured me, finally rendered these illusions incredibly vivid and real. He expected night with impatience; and the certainty that the close of day would bring some happy moments, threw over the tedious hours an emotion which mitigated his sufferings. These charming illusions, in misfortune, resemble those brilliant boreal lights which, in the midst of a night that lasts for weeks, present the image of dawn during the dreary winters of the polar circle. An excitable and vivid faculty, which deceives misfortune, ought to embellish happiness. To the pleasant things we possess, it adds those we desire. By its magic, we renew the hours of which the memory is dear. We taste the pleasures which a distant future promises; and see, at least, the fleeting shadow of those which are passing away. A gloomy philosopher has told us, that such illusions are the effect of a transient insanity. It seems to me that insane thoughts are those which create ennui; and that reasonable ideas are those which throw innocent charms over life. If you reject these views, be persuaded, at least, not to adopt a false and gloomy wisdom. You ought rather to prefer the conviction that everything below is folly.[50] But still, I can distinguish gay follies, frightful follies, and amiable follies; and I easily discover that there is a choice among them. Why should the morose being who perceives only bad people on the earth, and only miseries in the future, blame him who cradles flattering hopes, always springing up anew, for allowing himself to be beguiled by the illusions of his imagination? Both deceive themselves. But the one cherishes a mistake which brings hatred and suffering, and the other lives on gaily in his illusions. Wisdom does not disdain a faculty merely for being brilliant; and, to taste all the pleasures of imagination, it is indispensable that reason should be much exercised.