hat a cheap purchase of happiness is made by
the strength of fancy. For whereas many things even of inconsiderable
value, would cost a great deal of pains and perhaps pelf, to procure;
opinion spares charges, and yet gives us them in as ample a manner by
conceit, as if we possessed them in reality. Thus he who feeds on such
a stinking dish of fish, as another must hold his nose at a yard's
distance from, yet if he feed heartily, and relish them palateably, they
are to him as good as if they were fresh caught: whereas on the other
hand, if any one be invited to never so dainty a joul of sturgeon, if
it go against his stomach to eat any, he may sit a hungry, and bite his
nails with greater appetite than his victuals. If a woman be never so
ugly and nauseous, yet if her husband can but think her handsome, it
is all one to him as if she really were so: if any man have never so
ordinary and smutty a draught, yet if he admires the excellency of it,
and can suppose it to have been drawn by some old Apelles, or modern
Vandyke, he is as proud of it as if it had really been done by one
of their hands. I knew a friend of mine that presented his bride with
several false and counterfeit stones, making her believe that they were
right jewels, and cost him so many hundred thousand crowns; under his
mistake the poor woman was as choice of pebbles, and painted glass, as
if they had been so many natural rubies and diamonds, while the subtle
husband saved a great deal in his pocket, and yet made his wife as well
pleased as if he had been at ten hundred times the cost What difference
is there between them that in the darkest dungeon, can with a platonic
brain survey the whole world in idea, and him that stands in the open
air, and takes a less deluding prospect of the universe? If the beggar
in Lucian, that dreamt he was a prince, had never waked, his imaginary
kingdom had been as great as a real one. Between him therefore that
truly is happy, and him that thinks himself so, there is no perceivable
distinction; or if any, the fool has the better of it: first, because
his happiness costs him less, standing him only in the price of a single
thought; and then, secondly, because he has more fellow-companions and
partakers of his good fortune: for no enjoyment is comfortable where
the benefit is not imparted to others; nor is any one station of life
desirable, where we can have no converse with persons of the same
condition with ourselves: and ye