But what changes occur! It is only by comparing the pains of actual being with the joys of the assumed existence, that you would desire to live no longer, but to dream thus forever.

When you return to this mundane sphere from your visionary world, you would seem to leave a Neapolitan spring for a Lapland winter--to quit paradise for earth--heaven for hell! Taste the hashish, guest of mine--taste the hashish." Franz's only reply was to take a teaspoonful of the marvellous preparation, about as much in quantity as his host had eaten, and lift it to his mouth.

"Diable!" he said, after having swallowed the divine preserve.

"I do not know if the result will be as agreeable as you describe, but the thing does not appear to me as palatable as you say." "Because your palate his not yet been attuned to the sublimity of the substances it flavors.

Tell me, the first time you tasted oysters, tea, porter, truffles, and sundry other dainties which you now adore, did you like them?
Could you comprehend how the Romans stuffed their pheasants with assafoetida, and the Chinese eat swallows' nests?
Eh?
no! Well, it is the same with hashish; only eat for a week, and nothing in the world will seem to you to equal the delicacy of its flavor, which now appears to you flat and distasteful.