The Scythian or Consul (72)

But, my dear friend, do not feel like that towards me, if I, a friend, did not let you spend all your life in a dream, albeit a sweet one, digging up treasure, flying, inventing extravagant visions, and hoping for what was beyond reach, or if again I tell you to get up and carry out your daily tasks and adopt a course that will keep your mind in future on the trivalities of the common life. For what you have recently been working at and planning is no different from Hippocentaurs and Chimaeras and Gorgons and all the other images that belong to dreams and to poets and painters with their artistic licence—fancies that have never existed and can never exist. Nevertheless the vast majority of mankind believe them and they are enchanted when they see or hear things of this sort, because they are strange and monstrous.