Plato’s Dream - Voltaire

Plato dreamed a lot, and people have dreamed no less since. It has seemed to him that human nature was once double, and that as a punishment for its faults it was divided into male and female.
    He had proved that there can be only five perfect worlds, because there are only five regular bodies in mathematics. His Republic was one of his great dreams. He had also dreamed that sleep is born out of waking and waking out of sleep, and that we are sure to lose our eyesight if we look at an eclipse elsewhere than in a pool of water. In those days dreams gave a man a great reputation.
    Here is one of his dreams, which is not one of the least interesting. It seemed to him that the great Demiurge, the eternal Geometrician, having populated infinite space with innumerable globes, decided to test the knowledge of the genii who had been witnesses of his works. He gave each of them a little piece of matter to arrange, much as Phidias and Zeuxis might have given their disciples statues and pictures to make, if it is permissible to compare small things with great.
    Demogorgon [A mysterious, terrible, and evil divinity] had as his share the bit of mud that is called Earth; and, having arranged it in the manner that we see today, he claimed to have made a masterpiece. He thought he had triumphed over envy, and was expecting praise, even from his colleagues; he was quite surprised to be received by them with hoots.
    One of them, who was a very bad joker, said to him:
“Truly, you have worked very well: you have separated your world in two, and you have put a great space of water between the two hemispheres, so that there should be no communication between the two. They will freeze with cold at your two poles, they will die of heat at your equinoctial line. You have prudently established great deserts of sand, so that those who cross them may die of hunger and thrist. I am fairly content with your sheep, cows, and hens; but frankly I am none too much so with your snakes and spiders. Your onions and artichokes are very good things; but I don’t see what your idea was in covering the earth with so many venomous plants, unless you had the intention of poisoning the inhabitants. Moreover it seems to me that you have formed about thirty kinds of monkeys, many more kinds of dogs, and only four or five kinds of men: it is true that you have given this last animal what you call reason; but in all conscience, that reason of his is too ridiculous and comes too close to madness. Moreover it appears to me that you set no great store by that two-footed animal, since you have given him so many enemies and so little defense, so many maladies and so few remedies, so many passions and so little wisdom. Apparently you do not want many of those animals to remain on earth; for, without counting the dangers to which you expose them, you have done your calculating so well that someday the smallpox will carry off regularly every year the tenth part of this species, and the sister of this smallpox [the pox, or syphilis] will poison the source of life in the remaining nine-tenths; and as if that were still not enough, you have so arranged things that half the survivors will be occupied in pleading suits, the other half in killing each other; no doubt they will be very much obliged to you, and that’s a fine masterpiece you have made.”
    Demogorgon blushed: he fully sensed that there was moral evil and physical evil in the work he had done, but he maintained that there was more good than evil.
    “It is easy to criticize,” said he; “but do you think it is so easy to make an animal that is always reasonable, that is free, and that never abuses its liberty? Do you think that when a person has nine or ten thousand plants to cause to multiply, he can so easily keep some of these plants from having harmful qualities? Do you imagine that with a certain quantity of water, sand, mud, and fire, one can have neither sea nor desert? You, sir, who like to laugh, you have just arranged the planet Mars; we shall see how you made out with your two great bands, and what a fine effect your moonless nights make; we shall see whether among your people there is neither madness nor illness.”
    Indeed, the genii examined Mars, and they fell roughly upon the mocker. The serious genie who had molded Saturn was not spared; his colleagues, the makers of Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, each had reproaches to take.
    They wrote fat volumes and pamphlets; they said witty things; they composed songs; they made each other look ridiculous; the factions grew bitter; finally the eternal Demiurge imposed silence on them all:
    “You have made,” he said to them, “some things good and some bad, because you have much intelligence and because you are imperfect; your works will last only a few hundreds of millions of years, after which, having learned more, you will do better: it belongs to me alone to make things perfect and immortal.”
    This is what Plato was teaching his disciples. When he had finished speaking, one of them said to him: “And then you awoke.”

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August is almost here! To celebrate the 1 year anniversary of the blog (and my birthday month!), there will be one giveaway each week. Also stay tuned for an announcement about the store!

Here is a sneak peek at what you could win next week!

Boudoir - Fan - kirby

There will also be giveaways from the following gracious donors:

darksadie 
UneekDollDesigns
ElizabethOcean  

Stay tuned! Also, started the exclusive Facebook section - 18th Century in the 21st! Hope you all are having a lovely week.

July 26, 1775

The Second Continental Congress establishes the Post Office and assigns Benjamin Franklin as the first US postmaster general.

Send out a handwritten letter today!

To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, July 28, 1765

The less one is disposed, if one has any sense, to talk of oneself to people that inquire only out of compliment, and do not listen to the answer, the more satisfaction one feels in indulging a self-complacency, by sighing to those that really sympathise with our griefs. Do not think it is pain that makes me give this low-spirited air to my letter. No, it is the prospect of what is to come, not the sensation of what is passing, that affects me. The loss of youth is melancholy enough; but to enter into old age through the gate of infirmity most disheartening. My health and spirits make me take but slight notice of the transition, and, under the persuasion of temperance being a talisman, I marched boldly on towards the descent of the hill, knowing I must fall at last, but not suspecting that I should stumble by the way. This confession explains the mortification I feel. A month’s confinement to one who never kept his bed a day is a stinging lesson, and has humbled my insolence to almost indifference. Judge, then know little I interest myself about public events. I know nothing of them since I came hither, where I had not only the disappointment of not growing better, but a bad return in one of my feet, so that I am still wrapped up and upon a couch. It was the more unlucky as Lord Hertford is come to England for a very few days. He has offered to come to me; but as I then should see him for only some minutes, I propose being carried to town to-morrow. It will be so long before I can expect to be able to travel, that my French journey will certainly not take place so soon as I intended, and if Lord Hertford goes to Ireland, I shall be still more fluctuating; for though the Duke and Duchess of Richmond will replace them at Paris, and are as eager to have me with them, I have had so many more years heaped upon me within this month, that I have not the conscience to trouble young people, when I can no longer be as juvenile as they are. Indeed I shall think myself decrepit, till I again saunter into the garden in my slippers and without my hat in all weathers,- a point I am determined to regain if possible; for even this experience cannot make me resign my temperance and my hardiness. I am tired of the world, its politics, its pursuits, and its pleasures; but it will cost me some struggles before I submit to be tender and careful. Christ! can I ever stoop to the regimen of old age? I do not wish to dress up a withered person, nor drag it about to public places; but to sit in one’s room, clothed warmly, expecting visits from folks I don’t wish to see, and tended and flattered by relations impatient for one’s death! let the gout do its worst as expeditiously as it can; it would be more welcome in my stomach than in my limbs. I am not made to bear a course of nonsense and advice, but must play the fool in my own way to the last, alone with all my heart, if I cannot be with the very few I wished to see: but, to depend for comfort on others, who would be no comfort to me; this surely is not a state to be preferred to death: and nobody can have truly enjoyed the advantages of youth, health, and spirits, who is content to exist without the two last, which alone bear any resemblance to the first.

You see how difficult it is to conquer my proud spirit: low and weak as I am, I think my resolution and perseverance will get the better, and that I shall still be a gay shadow; at least, I will impose any severity upon myself, rather than humour the gout, and sink into that indulgence with which most people treat it. Bodily liberty is as dear to me as mental, and I would as soon flatter any other tyrant as the gout, my Whiggism extending as much to my health as to my principles, and being as willing to part with life, when I cannot preserve it, as your uncle Algernon when his freedom was at stake. Adieu!
- Horace Walpole

 
Horace Walpole - Sir Joshua Reynolds 

Thanks for the interview, HistoricalDirectory!

Giveaway - Keys To The Fleas

The fabulous Claudia, from the paris apartment, recently launched an iPhone app called Keys To The Fleas. This guide will help you navigate the Paris flea markets in search for your favorite 18th Century (or other) treasures! I am completely jealous that I don’t have an iPhone for this fun and useful app! 

Claudia has given us one to give away! If you have an iPhone and are going to Paris (or just want to day-dream about it), then leave a comment here  and a winner will be chosen on Sunday!