Ah! Lucian, what have you done to me?
You have proved my priceless pearl to be but ashes, and all my past labour to have been in vain.
-- Reflect, my friend, that you are not the first person who has thus failed of the good thing he hoped for.

All philosophers, so to speak, are but fighting about the 'ass's shadow.' To me you seem like one who should weep, and reproach fortune because he is not able to climb up into heaven, or go down into the sea by Sicily and come up at Cyprus, or sail on wings in one day from Greece to India.

And the true cause of his trouble is that he has based his hope on what he has seen in a dream, or his own fancy has put together; without previous thought whether what he desires is in itself attainable and within the compass of human nature.

Even so, methinks, has it happened with you.

As you dreamed, so largely, of those wonderful things, came Reason, and woke you up from sleep, a little roughly: and then you are angry with Reason, your eyes being still but half open, and find it hard to shake off sleep for the pleasure of what you saw therein.