...and their high opinion of the world, according to the Syrians if you can trust Voltaire.
Les Syriens imaginèrent que l'homme et la femme ayant été créés dans le quatrième ciel, ils s'avisèrent de manger d'une galette au lieu de l'ambroisie qui était leur mets naturel. L'ambroisie s'exhalait par les pores; mais, après avoir mangé de la galette, il fallait aller à la selle. L'homme et la femme prièrent un ange de leur enseigner où était la garde-robe. «Voyez-vous," leur dit l'ange, "cette petite planète, grande comme rien, qui est à quelque soixante millions de lieues d'ici, c'est là le privé de l'univers; allez-y au plus vite.» Ils y allèrent, on les y laissa; et c'est depuis ce temps que notre monde fut ce qu'il est.
From the "It's all good" (Bien (Tout est)) entry in the Dictionnaire Philosophique portatif, tome premier, the 1892 edition from the Oeuvres choisies de Voltaire edited by Georges Bengesco, pp. 65-66.
Myself, I'd be inclined to render it
The Syrians imagined that man and woman, having been created in the fourth heaven, decided to eat a pastry instead of the ambrosia that was their natural food. Whereas the ambrosia was exhaled through the pores, after eating the pastry they had to find a bathroom. The man and woman prayed an angel to tell them where to find the toilet. "You see," the angel said to them, "this tiny planet, hardly a speck, which is about sixty million miles from here, that is the privy of the universe; go there as quickly as possible." They went there; they were left there. And our world has been so ever since.
Having recently been rereading Dr. Dee's diaries from the 1580s, it seems some of his angels frequently had the same opinion of the Earth.
I confess, watching too much of the news these days, I begin to agree with them.
