“Some, looking backward, were frightened at the thought of ascending the river, which had become so tempestuous.

“Escaping the wreckage of the boat as best they could, they entrusted themselves again to the fury of the waters.

“They had to suffer from cold and hunger, for they were far from shore, and as, in their imagination, the island was very near, they had neglected to furnish themselves with the necessities of life.

“At last, after the fatigues which forethought would have prevented, they found themselves one evening, at sundown, at the base of a great rock, bathed in the rosy light of the departing sun.

“This, then, was the island of their dreams.

“Tired out and exhausted from lack of food, they had only the strength to lie down upon the inhospitable rock, there to die!

“The disappearance of the illusion, having destroyed their courage and having struck them with the sword of despair, the rock of reality had proved destructive of their bodies and souls.

“The moral of this story easily unfolds itself.

“If the seekers after illusions had admitted common sense to their deliberations, they would certainly have learned to know the nature of the enchanted isle, and they would have taken good care not to start out on their journey which must terminate by such a deception.

“Would they not have taken the necessary precaution to prevent all the delays attendant upon travels of adventure, and would they have entrusted their lives to so frail a skiff, if they had acquired common sense?”

We must conclude, with Yoritomo, that illusion could often be transformed into happy reality if it were better understood, and if, instead of looking upon it through the dreams of our imagination, we applied ourselves to the task of eliminating the fluid vapors which envelop it, that we might clothe it anew with the garment of common sense.

Many enterprises have been considered as illusions because we have neglected to awaken the possibilities which lay dormant within them.

The initial thought, extravagant as it may appear, brings with it, at times, facilities of realization that a judgment dictated by common sense can alone make us appreciate.

He who knows how to keep a strict watch over himself will be able to escape the causes of disillusion, which lead us through fatal paths of error, to the brink of despair.

“That which is above all to be shunned,” said the philosopher, “is the encroachment of discouragement, the result of repeated failures.

“Rare are those who wish to admit their mistakes.

“In the structure of the mind, inaccuracy brings a partial deviation from the truth, and it does not take long for this slight error to generalize itself, if not corrected by its natural reformer—­common sense.

“But how many, among those who suffer from these unhappy illusions, are apt to recognize them as such?