To give one's self up heartily to diversion one must feel himself on a solid basis, must believe in life and find it within him. And here lies our weakness. So many of us--even, alas! the younger men--are at variance with life; and I do not speak of philosophers only. How do you think a man can be amused while he has his doubts whether after all life is worth living? Besides this, one observes a disquieting depression of vital force, which must be attributed to the abuse man makes of his sensations. Excess of all kinds has blurred our senses and poisoned our faculty for happiness. Human nature succumbs under the irregularities imposed upon it. Deeply attainted at its root, the desire to live, persistent in spite of everything, seeks satisfaction in cheats and baubles. In medical science we have recourse to artificial respiration, artificial alimentation, and galvanism. So, too, around expiring pleasure we see a crowd of its votaries, exerting themselves to reawaken it, to reanimate it Most ingenious means have been invented; it can never be said that expense has been spared. Everything has been tried, the possible and the impossible. But in all these complicated alembics no one has ever arrived at distilling a drop of veritable joy. We must not confound pleasure with the instruments of pleasure. To be a painter, does it suffice to arm one's self with a brush, or does the purchase at great cost of a Stradivarius make one a musician? No more, if you had the whole paraphernalia of amusement in the perfection of its ingenuity, would it advance you upon your road. But with a bit of crayon a great artist makes an immortal sketch. It needs talent or genius to paint; and to amuse one's self, the faculty of being happy: whoever possesses it is amused at slight cost. This faculty is destroyed by scepticism, artificial living, over-abuse; it is fostered by confidence, moderation and normal habits of thought and action. An excellent proof of my proposition, and one very easily encountered, lies in the fact that wherever life is simple and sane, true pleasure accompanies it as fragrance does uncultivated flowers. Be this life hard, hampered, devoid of all things ordinarily considered as the very conditions of pleasure, the rare and delicate plant, joy, flourishes there. It springs up between the flags of the pavement, on an arid wall, in the fissure of a rock. We ask ourselves how it comes, and whence: but it lives; while in the soft warmth of conservatories or in fields richly fertilized you cultivate it at a golden cost to see it fade and die in your hand.