“What are the possessions most eagerly courted among mankind? Which are the divinities by mortals most assiduously adored? This goodly universe was intended for the seat of pleasure, unmixed pleasure. But a sportive, malicious divinity sent among men a gaudy phantom, an empty bubble,fake uggs boots, and called the shadow Honour. In pursuit of a fancied distinction and a sounding name, the children of the earth have deserted all that is bland and all that is delicious. Labour, naked, deformed,nike shox torch ii, and offensive, they willingly embrace. They brave hardship and severity. They laugh at danger. From hence they derive the virtue of resolution, the merit of self-denial, and the excellence of mortification.
“But heaven did not open wide its hand,nike shox torch 2, and scatter delight through every corner of the universe, without intending that they should be enjoyed. Enjoyment, indulgence, and felicity are not crimes. Abstinence, self-denial and mortification have only a specious mien and a fictitious merit. Did all mankind obey their fallacious dictates, the unlimited bounties of nature would become a burden to the earth, and fill it with pestilence and contagion. The soil would be oppressed with her own fertility; the herds would overmultitude their lords; and the crouded air would be darkened with the plumes of its numerous inhabitants. The very gems that now lie buried in the bosom of the ocean, would then bespangle its surface, and the dumb tenants of the watery tracts, inured to their blaze, would learn to leave the caverns of the sea and gaze upon the sun.
“Mortals, open your hearts to the divinity of pleasure! Why should he be in love with labour, who has a capacious hoard of choice delights within his reach? Why should we fly from a present good that we possess, to a future that we do not comprehend? Is this the praise we owe the bounteous Gods? Can neglect and indifference to their gifts be gratitude? This were to serve them like a timorous and trembling slave beneath the eye of an austere and capricious tyrant; and not with that generosity, that enthusiasm, that liberal self-confidence, which are worthy of a father, a patron and a friend.
“Ye that are wise, ye that are favoured of propitious heaven, drink deep of the cup of pleasure. The sun has now withdrawn his splendid lustre, and his flaring beams. The period of exercise is past, and the lids of prying curiosity is [are] closed. Night is the season of feast and the season of gaiety. In the graver hours of activity and industry, sobriety may be proper,fake uggs online store. It may then be fit to listen to the dictates of prudence, and pay some attention to the prejudices of mankind. The sternness of age and the austerity of censoriousness are now silent. Now pleasure wears a freer garb; and the manners of enjoyment are more frank and unrestrained. The thinness of indiscretion and the airy forms of inadvertence are lost and annihilated amid the shadows of the night.
“Now the numerous inhabitants of the waters come forth from their oozy beds and play and flounce in the beams of the moon. Round the luminary of the night the stars lead up the mystic dance, and compose the music of the spheres. The deities of the woods and the deities of the rivers come out from their secret haunts, and keep their pastimes unapprehensive of human intrusion. The elves and the fairies repair to their sports, and trip along the velvet green with many-twinkling feet. Let us imitate their amiable alacrity and their cheerful amusements.
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