we came out of the grove. men (said i to the prefect) are highly indebted to you for preserving love, degenerated as it is. if you did but know what a void there is among them now-a-days! their amusements are so few, that the least of all must be to them very valuable. love no longer makes their happiness; but it diverts them at least. what would the babylonians do, if love did not put in motion all those walking statues, which you see so busy about the women? they sigh, they complain, they request, they press, they 229obtain, they are happy or dupes; it is just the same thing: but time passes, and that is enough for the babylonians.
“in the beginning (continued the prefect) nature, ever attentive to the welfare of men, begot voluptas. she was an unadorned native beauty, but full of those charms which characterises whatever comes out of the hands of the common parent of all beings. nature gave her a golden cup, and said: go among men; draw pleasure out of my works; present it without distinction to all mortals; quench their thirst, but make them not drunk.”
230voluptas appeared upon earth. men flocked together in crowds; all drank largely of her cup; all quenched their thirst, none were intoxicated. voluptas made herself desired, presented herself seasonably, and was always received with joy. as she offered herself with restriction, she was always cherished and never cloyed. men, not being enervated by excess, preserved to a very advanced age, all their organs in vigor; their taste remained; and old age still drank of voluptas’s cup.
nature has a rival, called art, who, incessantly employed in rendering himself useful or agreeable to society, strives to supply what nature cannot or will not do for men. he resumes nature’s 231works, retouches them, sometimes embellishes, often disguises and degrades them.
art failed not to observe the conduct of voluptas, and to refine whatever she offered to mankind. he could not bear an interval between pleasures, and would have them succeed one another without intermission. he ransacked all the countries of the world, united all the objects of sensuality, and multiplied a thousand ways the pleasures of sense. men, surrounded with so many alluring objects, thought themselves happy, and in their intoxication, said: without art, nature is nothing. but very soon their senses were cloyed; satiety bred disgust, and disgust made 232them indifferent to all kinds of pleasure. neither art nor nature could affect them to any degree. from that time, they have hardly been able to amuse or divert themselves. voluptas has no longer any charms for them.
