Thought is a key to all treasures; the
miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above
this world, where my enjoyments have been intellectual joys. I have
reveled in the contemplation of seas, peoples, forests, and mountains!
I have seen all things, calmly, and without weariness; I have set my
desires on nothing; I have waited in expectation of everything. I have
walked to and fro in the world as in a garden round about my own
dwelling. Troubles, loves, ambitions, losses, and sorrows, as men call
them, are for me ideas, which I transmute into waking dreams; I
express and transpose instead of feeling them; instead of permitting
them to prey upon my life, I dramatize and expand them; I divert
myself with them as if they were romances which I could read by the
power of vision within me. As I have never overtaxed my constitution,
I still enjoy robust health; and as my mind is endowed with all the
force that I have not wasted, this head of mine is even better
furnished than my galleries. The true millions lie here," he said,
striking his forehead. "I spend delicious days in communings with the
past; I summon before me whole countries, places, extents of sea, the
fair faces of history. In my imaginary seraglio I have all the women
that I have never possessed.
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