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diff --git a/652-h/652-h.htm b/652-h/652-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b2ae4d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/652-h/652-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4562 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Rasselas, by Samuel Johnson, Edited by Henry +Morley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Rasselas + Prince of Abyssinia + + +Author: Samuel Johnson + +Editor: Henry Morley + +Release Date: January 31, 2013 [eBook #652] +[This file was first posted on September 17, 1996] +[Last updated September 8, 2020] + + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RASSELAS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell & Company edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" +src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL’S NATIONAL +LIBRARY.</p> +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<h1><span class="smcap">Rasselas</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA</span></h1> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">BY</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative image" +title= +"Decorative image" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CASSELL & COMPANY, <span +class="smcap">Limited</span>:<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE.</span><br +/> +1889.</p> +<h2><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>INTRODUCTION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Rasselas</span> was written by Samuel +Johnson in the year 1759, when his age was fifty. He had +written his <i>London</i> in 1738; his <i>Vanity of Human +Wishes</i> in 1740; his <i>Rambler</i> between March, 1750, and +March, 1752. In 1755 his <i>Dictionary</i> had appeared, +and Dublin, by giving him its honorary LL.D., had enabled his +friends to call him “Doctor” Johnson. His +friends were many, and his honour among men was great. He +owed them to his union of intellectual power with unflinching +probity. But he had worked hard, battling against the wolf +without, and the black dog within—poverty and +hypochondria. He was still poor, though his personal wants +did not exceed a hundred pounds a year. His wife had been +seven years dead, and he missed her sorely. His old mother, +who lived to the age of ninety, died poor in January of this +year, 1759. In her old age, Johnson had sought to help her +from his earnings. At her death there were some little +debts, and there were costs of burial. That he might earn +enough to pay them he wrote <i>Rasselas</i>.</p> +<p><i>Rasselas</i> was written in the evenings of one week, and +sent to press while being written. Johnson earned by it a +hundred pounds, with <a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +6</span>twenty-five pounds more for a second edition. It +was published in March or April; Johnson never read it after it +had been published until more than twenty years afterwards. +Then, finding it in a chaise with Boswell, he took it up and read +it eagerly.</p> +<p>This is one of Johnson’s letters to his mother, written +after he knew that her last illness had come upon her. It +is dated about ten days before her death. The +“Miss” referred to in it was a faithful friend. +“Miss” was his home name for an affectionate +step-daughter, Lucy Porter:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Honoured +Madam</span>,—</p> +<p>“The account which Miss gives me of your health pierces +my heart. God comfort and preserve you, and save you, for +the sake of Jesus Christ.</p> +<p>“I would have Miss read to you from time to time the +Passion of our Saviour; and sometimes the sentences in the +Communion Service beginning—’Come unto me, all ye +that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you +rest.’</p> +<p>“I have just now read a physical book which inclines me +to think that a strong infusion of the bark would do you +good. Do, dear mother, try it.</p> +<p>“Pray, send me your blessing, and forgive all that I +have done amiss to you. And whatever you would have done, +and what debts you would have paid first, or anything else that +you would direct, let Miss put it down; I shall endeavour to obey +you.</p> +<p>“I have got twelve guineas to send you” [six were +borrowed. There was a note in Johnson’s Diary of six +guineas repaid to Allen, the printer, who had lent them when he +wanted to send money to his dying mother], “but unhappily +<a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 7</span>am at a loss +how to send it to-night. If I cannot send it to-night, it +will come by the next post.</p> +<p>“Pray, do not omit anything mentioned in this +letter. God bless you for ever and ever.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“I am,<br /> +“Your dutiful Son,<br /> +“<span class="smcap">Sam. Johnson</span>.</p> +<p>“<i>Jan.</i> 13, 1759.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That is the personal side of the tale of +<i>Rasselas</i>. In that way Johnson suddenly, on urgent +pressure, carried out a design that had been in his mind. +The success of Eastern tales, written as a form of moral essay, +in the <i>Rambler</i> and <i>Adventurer</i>, upon suggestion, no +doubt, of Addison’s <i>Vision of Mirza</i>, had prompted +him to express his view of life more fully than in essay form by +way of Oriental apologue; and his early work on Father +Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia, caused him to choose Abyssinia +for the land in which to lay his fable.</p> +<p>But Johnson’s <i>Rasselas</i> has also a close relation +to the time when it was written, as Johnson himself had to the +time in which he lived. From the beginning of the +century—and especially, in England, since the beginning of +the reign of George the Second—there had been a growing +sense of the ills of life, associated in some minds with doubt +whether there could be a just God ruling this unhappy +world. Hard problems of humanity pressed more and more on +earnest minds. The feeling expressed in Johnson’s +<i>Vanity of Human </i><a name="page8"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 8</span><i>Wishes</i> had deepened everywhere +by the year 1759. This has intense expression in +<i>Rasselas</i>, where all the joys of life, without active use +of the energies of life, can give no joy; and where all uses of +the energies of men are for the attainment of ideals worthless or +delusive. This life was to Johnson, and to almost all the +earnest thinkers of his time, unhappy in itself—a +school-house where the rod was ever active. But in its +unhappiness Johnson found no power that could overthrow his +faith. To him this world was but a place of education for +the happiness that would be to the faithful in the world to +come. There was a great dread for him in the question, Who +shall be found faithful? But there was no doubt in his mind +that the happiness of man is to be found only beyond the +grave. This was a feeling spread through Europe in the +darkness gathering before the outburst of the storm of the great +French Revolution. Even Gray, in his <i>Ode on a Distant +Prospect of Eton College</i>, regarded Eton boys at their sports +as “little victims,” unconscious of the doom of +miseries awaiting them in life. Thus Johnson’s +<i>Rasselas</i> is a book doubly typical. We have in it the +spirit of the writer when it best expressed the spirit of his +time.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">H. M.</p> +<h2><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>CHAPTER +I<br /> +DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE IN A VALLEY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Ye</span> who listen with credulity to the +whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of +hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and +that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the +morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of +Abyssinia.</p> +<p>Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty Emperor in whose +dominions the father of waters begins his course—whose +bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over the +world the harvests of Egypt.</p> +<p>According to the custom which has descended from age to age +among the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a +private palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian +royalty, till the order of succession should call him to the +throne.</p> +<p>The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined +for the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a spacious valley +in the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, +of which the summits overhang the middle part. The only +passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that passed +under a rock, of which it had long been disputed whether it was +the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the +cavern was concealed by a thick wood, and the mouth which opened +into the valley was closed with gates of iron, forged by the +artificers of ancient days, so massive that no man, without the +help of engines, could open or shut them.</p> +<p>From the mountains on every side rivulets descended that +filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a +lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and +frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing +in water. This lake discharged its superfluities by a +stream, which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the +northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to +precipice till it was heard no more.</p> +<p>The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks +of the brooks were diversified with flowers; every blast shook +spices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the +ground. All animals that bite the grass or browse the +shrubs, whether wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, +secured from beasts of prey by the mountains which confined +them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the +pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking in the +lawns, the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the subtle +monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing +in the shade. All the diversities of the world were brought +together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its evils +extracted and excluded.</p> +<p>The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with +all the necessaries of life, and all delights and superfluities +were added at the annual visit which the Emperor paid his +children, when the iron gate was opened to the sound of music, +and during eight days every one that resided in the valley was +required to propose whatever might contribute to make seclusion +pleasant, to fill up the vacancies of attention, and lessen the +tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately +granted. All the artificers of pleasure were called to +gladden the festivity; the musicians exerted the power of +harmony, and the dancers showed their activity before the +princes, in hopes that they should pass their lives in blissful +captivity, to which those only were admitted whose performance +was thought able to add novelty to luxury. Such was the +appearance of security and delight which this retirement +afforded, that they to whom it was new always desired that it +might be perpetual; and as those on whom the iron gate had once +closed were never suffered to return, the effect of longer +experience could not be known. Thus every year produced new +scenes of delight, and new competitors for imprisonment.</p> +<p>The palace stood on an eminence, raised about thirty paces +above the surface of the lake. It was divided into many +squares or courts, built with greater or less magnificence +according to the rank of those for whom they were designed. +The roofs were turned into arches of massive stone, joined by a +cement that grew harder by time, and the building stood from +century to century, deriding the solstitial rains and equinoctial +hurricanes, without need of reparation.</p> +<p>This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none +but some ancient officers, who successively inherited the secrets +of the place, was built as if Suspicion herself had dictated the +plan. To every room there was an open and secret passage; +every square had a communication with the rest, either from the +upper storeys by private galleries, or by subterraneous passages +from the lower apartments. Many of the columns had +unsuspected cavities, in which a long race of monarchs had +deposited their treasures. They then closed up the opening +with marble, which was never to be removed but in the utmost +exigences of the kingdom, and recorded their accumulations in a +book, which was itself concealed in a tower, not entered but by +the Emperor, attended by the prince who stood next in +succession.</p> +<h2><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>CHAPTER II<br /> +THE DISCONTENT OF RASSELAS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Here</span> the sons and daughters of +Abyssinia lived only to know the soft vicissitudes of pleasure +and repose, attended by all that were skilful to delight, and +gratified with whatever the senses can enjoy. They wandered +in gardens of fragrance, and slept in the fortresses of +security. Every art was practised to make them pleased with +their own condition. The sages who instructed them told +them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and described +all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where discord +was always racing, and where man preyed upon man. To +heighten their opinion of their own felicity, they were daily +entertained with songs, the subject of which was the Happy +Valley. Their appetites were excited by frequent +enumerations of different enjoyments, and revelry and merriment +were the business of every hour, from the dawn of morning to the +close of the evening.</p> +<p>These methods were generally successful; few of the princes +had ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but passed their lives +in full conviction that they had all within their reach that art +or nature could bestow, and pitied those whom nature had excluded +from this seat of tranquillity as the sport of chance and the +slaves of misery.</p> +<p>Thus they rose in the morning and lay down at night, pleased +with each other and with themselves, all but Rasselas, who, in +the twenty-sixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from +the pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and +silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered with +luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before +him; he rose abruptly in the midst of the song, and hastily +retired beyond the sound of music. His attendants observed +the change, and endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure. +He neglected their officiousness, repulsed their invitations, and +spent day after day on the banks of rivulets sheltered with +trees, where he sometimes listened to the birds in the branches, +sometimes observed the fish playing in the streams, and anon cast +his eyes upon the pastures and mountains filled with animals, of +which some were biting the herbage, and some sleeping among the +bushes. The singularity of his humour made him much +observed. One of the sages, in whose conversation he had +formerly delighted, followed him secretly, in hope of discovering +the cause of his disquiet. Rasselas, who knew not that any +one was near him, having for some time fixed his eyes upon the +goats that were browsing among the rocks, began to compare their +condition with his own.</p> +<p>“What,” said he, “makes the difference +between man and all the rest of the animal creation? Every +beast that strays beside me has the same corporal necessities +with myself: he is hungry, and crops the grass; he is thirsty, +and drinks the stream; his thirst and hunger are appeased; he is +satisfied, and sleeps; he rises again, and is hungry; he is again +fed, and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty, like him, but +when thirst and hunger cease, I am not at rest. I am, like +him, pained with want, but am not, like him, satisfied with +fulness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloomy; I +long again to be hungry that I may again quicken the +attention. The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fly +away to the groves, where they sit in seeming happiness on the +branches, and waste their lives in tuning one unvaried series of +sounds. I likewise can call the lutist and the singer; but +the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me to-day, and will +grow yet more wearisome to-morrow. I can discover in me no +power of perception which is not glutted with its proper +pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man surely +has some latent sense for which this place affords no +gratification; or he has some desire distinct from sense, which +must be satisfied before he can be happy.”</p> +<p>After this he lifted up his head, and seeing the moon rising, +walked towards the palace. As he passed through the fields, +and saw the animals around him, “Ye,” said he, +“are happy, and need not envy me that walk thus among you, +burdened with myself; nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your +felicity; for it is not the felicity of man. I have many +distresses from which you are free; I fear pain when I do not +feel it; I sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and sometimes +start at evils anticipated: surely the equity of Providence has +balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.”</p> +<p>With observations like these the Prince amused himself as he +returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look +that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own +perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life +from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt and the +eloquence with which he bewailed them. He mingled +cheerfully in the diversions of the evening, and all rejoiced to +find that his heart was lightened.</p> +<h2><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>CHAPTER III<br /> +THE WANTS OF HIM THAT WANTS NOTHING.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the next day, his old +instructor, imagining that he had now made himself acquainted +with his disease of mind, was in hope of curing it by counsel, +and officiously sought an opportunity of conference, which the +Prince, having long considered him as one whose intellects were +exhausted, was not very willing to afford. +“Why,” said he, “does this man thus intrude +upon me? Shall I never be suffered to forget these +lectures, which pleased only while they were new, and to become +new again must be forgotten?” He then walked into the +wood, and composed himself to his usual meditations; when, before +his thoughts had taken any settled form, he perceived his pursuer +at his side, and was at first prompted by his impatience to go +hastily away; but being unwilling to offend a man whom he had +once reverenced and still loved, he invited him to sit down with +him on the bank.</p> +<p>The old man, thus encouraged, began to lament the change which +had been lately observed in the Prince, and to inquire why he so +often retired from the pleasures of the palace to loneliness and +silence. “I fly from pleasure,” said the +Prince, “because pleasure has ceased to please: I am lonely +because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my +presence the happiness of others.” “You, +sir,” said the sage, “are the first who has +complained of misery in the Happy Valley. I hope to +convince you that your complaints have no real cause. You +are here in full possession of all the Emperor of Abyssinia can +bestow; here is neither labour to be endured nor danger to be +dreaded, yet here is all that labour or danger can procure or +purchase. Look round and tell me which of your wants is +without supply: if you want nothing, how are you +unhappy?”</p> +<p>“That I want nothing,” said the Prince, “or +that I know not what I want, is the cause of my complaint: if I +had any known want, I should have a certain wish; that wish would +excite endeavour, and I should not then repine to see the sun +move so slowly towards the western mountains, or to lament when +the day breaks, and sleep will no longer hide me from +myself. When I see the kids and the lambs chasing one +another, I fancy that I should be happy if I had something to +pursue. But, possessing all that I can want, I find one day +and one hour exactly like another, except that the latter is +still more tedious than the former. Let your experience +inform me how the day may now seem as short as in my childhood, +while nature was yet fresh, and every moment showed me what I +never had observed before. I have already enjoyed too much: +give me something to desire.” The old man was +surprised at this new species of affliction, and knew not what to +reply, yet was unwilling to be silent. “Sir,” +said he, “if you had seen the miseries of the world, you +would know how to value your present state.” +“Now,” said the Prince, “you have given me +something to desire. I shall long to see the miseries of +the world, since the sight of them is necessary to +happiness.”</p> +<h2><a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>CHAPTER IV<br /> +THE PRINCE CONTINUES TO GRIEVE AND MUSE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> this time the sound of music +proclaimed the hour of repast, and the conversation was +concluded. The old man went away sufficiently discontented +to find that his reasonings had produced the only conclusion +which they were intended to prevent. But in the decline of +life, shame and grief are of short duration: whether it be that +we bear easily what we have borne long; or that, finding +ourselves in age less regarded, we less regard others; or that we +look with slight regard upon afflictions to which we know that +the hand of death is about to put an end.</p> +<p>The Prince, whose views were extended to a wider space, could +not speedily quiet his emotions. He had been before +terrified at the length of life which nature promised him, +because he considered that in a long time much must be endured: +he now rejoiced in his youth, because in many years much might be +done. The first beam of hope that had been ever darted into +his mind rekindled youth in his cheeks, and doubled the lustre of +his eyes. He was fired with the desire of doing something, +though he knew not yet, with distinctness, either end or +means. He was now no longer gloomy and unsocial; but +considering himself as master of a secret stock of happiness, +which he could only enjoy by concealing it, he affected to be +busy in all the schemes of diversion, and endeavoured to make +others pleased with the state of which he himself was +weary. But pleasures can never be so multiplied or +continued as not to leave much of life unemployed; there were +many hours, both of the night and day, which he could spend +without suspicion in solitary thought. The load of life was +much lightened; he went eagerly into the assemblies, because he +supposed the frequency of his presence necessary to the success +of his purposes; he retired gladly to privacy, because he had now +a subject of thought. His chief amusement was to picture to +himself that world which he had never seen, to place himself in +various conditions, to be entangled in imaginary difficulties, +and to be engaged in wild adventures; but, his benevolence always +terminated his projects in the relief of distress, the detection +of fraud, the defeat of oppression, and the diffusion of +happiness.</p> +<p>Thus passed twenty months of the life of Rasselas. He +busied himself so intensely in visionary bustle that he forgot +his real solitude; and amidst hourly preparations for the various +incidents of human affairs, neglected to consider by what means +he should mingle with mankind.</p> +<p>One day, as he was sitting on a bank, he feigned to himself an +orphan virgin robbed of her little portion by a treacherous +lover, and crying after him for restitution. So strongly +was the image impressed upon his mind that he started up in the +maid’s defence, and ran forward to seize the plunderer with +all the eagerness of real pursuit. Fear naturally quickens +the flight of guilt. Rasselas could not catch the fugitive +with his utmost efforts; but, resolving to weary by perseverance +him whom he could not surpass in speed, he pressed on till the +foot of the mountain stopped his course.</p> +<p>Here he recollected himself, and smiled at his own useless +impetuosity. Then raising his eyes to the mountain, +“This,” said he, “is the fatal obstacle that +hinders at once the enjoyment of pleasure and the exercise of +virtue. How long is it that my hopes and wishes have flown +beyond this boundary of my life, which yet I never have attempted +to surmount?”</p> +<p>Struck with this reflection, he sat down to muse, and +remembered that since he first resolved to escape from his +confinement, the sun had passed twice over him in his annual +course. He now felt a degree of regret with which he had +never been before acquainted. He considered how much might +have been done in the time which had passed, and left nothing +real behind it. He compared twenty months with the life of +man. “In life,” said he, “is not to be +counted the ignorance of infancy or imbecility of age. We +are long before we are able to think, and we soon cease from the +power of acting. The true period of human existence may be +reasonably estimated at forty years, of which I have mused away +the four-and-twentieth part. What I have lost was certain, +for I have certainly possessed it; but of twenty months to come, +who can assure me?”</p> +<p>The consciousness of his own folly pierced him deeply, and he +was long before he could be reconciled to himself. +“The rest of my time,” said he, “has been lost +by the crime or folly of my ancestors, and the absurd +institutions of my country; I remember it with disgust, yet +without remorse: but the months that have passed since new light +darted into my soul, since I formed a scheme of reasonable +felicity, have been squandered by my own fault. I have lost +that which can never be restored; I have seen the sun rise and +set for twenty months, an idle gazer on the light of heaven; in +this time the birds have left the nest of their mother, and +committed themselves to the woods and to the skies; the kid has +forsaken the teat, and learned by degrees to climb the rocks in +quest of independent sustenance. I only have made no +advances, but am still helpless and ignorant. The moon, by +more than twenty changes, admonished me of the flux of life; the +stream that rolled before my feet upbraided my inactivity. +I sat feasting on intellectual luxury, regardless alike of the +examples of the earth and the instructions of the planets. +Twenty months are passed: who shall restore them?”</p> +<p>These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind; he passed +four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves, +and was awakened to more vigorous exertion by hearing a maid, who +had broken a porcelain cup, remark that what cannot be repaired +is not to be regretted.</p> +<p><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>This +was obvious; and Rasselas reproached himself that he had not +discovered it—having not known, or not considered, how many +useful hints are obtained by chance, and how often the mind, +hurried by her own ardour to distant views, neglects the truths +that lie open before her. He for a few hours regretted his +regret, and from that time bent his whole mind upon the means of +escaping from the Valley of Happiness.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V<br /> +THE PRINCE MEDITATES HIS ESCAPE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> now found that it would be very +difficult to effect that which it was very easy to suppose +effected. When he looked round about him, he saw himself +confined by the bars of nature, which had never yet been broken, +and by the gate through which none that had once passed it were +ever able to return. He was now impatient as an eagle in a +grate. He passed week after week in clambering the +mountains to see if there was any aperture which the bushes might +conceal, but found all the summits inaccessible by their +prominence. The iron gate he despaired to open for it was +not only secured with all the power of art, but was always +watched by successive sentinels, and was, by its position, +exposed to the perpetual observation of all the inhabitants.</p> +<p>He then examined the cavern through which the waters of the +lake were discharged; and, looking down at a time when the sun +shone strongly upon its mouth, he discovered it to be full of +broken rocks, which, though they permitted the stream to flow +through many narrow passages, would stop any body of solid +bulk. He returned discouraged and dejected; but having now +known the blessing of hope, resolved never to despair.</p> +<p>In these fruitless researches he spent ten months. The +time, however, passed cheerfully away—in the morning he +rose with new hope; in the evening applauded his own diligence; +and in the night slept soundly after his fatigue. He met a +thousand amusements, which beguiled his labour and diversified +his thoughts. He discerned the various instincts of animals +and properties of plants, and found the place replete with +wonders, of which he proposed to solace himself with the +contemplation if he should never be able to accomplish his +flight—rejoicing that his endeavours, though yet +unsuccessful, had supplied him with a source of inexhaustible +inquiry. <a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>But his original curiosity was not yet abated; he +resolved to obtain some knowledge of the ways of men. His +wish still continued, but his hope grew less. He ceased to +survey any longer the walls of his prison, and spared to search +by new toils for interstices which he knew could not be found, +yet determined to keep his design always in view, and lay hold on +any expedient that time should offer.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI<br /> +A DISSERTATION ON THE ART OF FLYING.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Among</span> the artists that had been +allured into the Happy Valley, to labour for the accommodation +and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man eminent for his +knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had contrived many engines +both of use and recreation. By a wheel which the stream +turned he forced the water into a tower, whence it was +distributed to all the apartments of the palace. He erected +a pavilion in the garden, around which he kept the air always +cool by artificial showers. One of the groves, appropriated +to the ladies, was ventilated by fans, to which the rivulets that +ran through it gave a constant motion; and instruments of soft +music were played at proper distances, of which some played by +the impulse of the wind, and some by the power of the stream.</p> +<p>This artist was sometimes visited by Rasselas who was pleased +with every kind of knowledge, imagining that the time would come +when all his acquisitions should be of use to him in the open +world. He came one day to amuse himself in his usual +manner, and found the master busy in building a sailing +chariot. He saw that the design was practicable upon a +level surface, and with expressions of great esteem solicited its +completion. The workman was pleased to find himself so much +regarded by the Prince, and resolved to gain yet higher +honours. “Sir,” said he, “you have seen +but a small part of what the mechanic sciences can perform. +I have been long of opinion that, instead of the tardy conveyance +of ships and chariots, man might use the swifter migration of +wings, that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that +only ignorance and idleness need crawl upon the +ground.”</p> +<p>This hint rekindled the Prince’s desire of passing the +mountains. Having seen what the mechanist had already +performed, he was willing to fancy that he could do more, yet +resolved to inquire further before he suffered hope to afflict +him by disappointment. “I am afraid,” said he +to the artist, “that your imagination prevails over your +skill, and that you now tell me rather what you wish than what +you know. Every animal has his element assigned him; the +birds have the air, and man and beasts the earth.” +“So,” replied the mechanist, “fishes have the +water, in which yet beasts can swim by nature and man by +art. He that can swim needs not despair to fly; to swim is +to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a +subtler. We are only to proportion our power of resistance +to the different density of matter through which we are to +pass. You will be necessarily up-borne by the air if you +can renew any impulse upon it faster than the air can recede from +the pressure.”</p> +<p>“But the exercise of swimming,” said the Prince, +“is very laborious; the strongest limbs are soon +wearied. I am afraid the act of flying will be yet more +violent; and wings will be of no great use unless we can fly +further than we can swim.”</p> +<p>“The labour of rising from the ground,” said the +artist, “will be great, as we see it in the heavier +domestic fowls; but as we mount higher the earth’s +attraction and the body’s gravity will be gradually +diminished, till we shall arrive at a region where the man shall +float in the air without any tendency to fall; no care will then +be necessary but to move forward, which the gentlest impulse will +effect. You, sir, whose curiosity is so extensive, will +easily conceive with what pleasure a philosopher, furnished with +wings and hovering in the sky, would see the earth and all its +inhabitants rolling beneath him, and presenting to him +successively, by its diurnal motion, all the countries within the +same parallel. How must it amuse the pendent spectator to +see the moving scene of land and ocean, cities and deserts; to +survey with equal security the marts of trade and the fields of +battle; mountains infested by barbarians, and fruitful regions +gladdened by plenty and lulled by peace. How easily shall +we then trace the Nile through all his passages, pass over to +distant regions, and examine the face of nature from one +extremity of the earth to the other.”</p> +<p>“All this,” said the Prince, “is much to be +desired, but I am afraid that no man will be able to breathe in +these regions of speculation and tranquillity. I have been +told that respiration is difficult upon lofty mountains, yet from +these precipices, though so high as to produce great tenuity of +air, it is very easy to fall; therefore I suspect that from any +height where life can be supported, there may be danger of too +quick descent.”</p> +<p>“Nothing,” replied the artist, “will ever be +attempted if all possible objections must be first +overcome. If you will favour my project, I will try the +first flight at my own hazard. I have considered the +structure of all volant animals, and find the folding continuity +of the bat’s wings most easily accommodated to the human +form. Upon this model I shall begin my task to-morrow, and +in a year expect to tower into the air beyond the malice and +pursuit of man. But I will work only on this condition, +that the art shall not be divulged, and that you shall not +require me to make wings for any but ourselves.”</p> +<p>“Why,” said Rasselas, “should you envy +others so great an advantage? All skill ought to be exerted +for universal good; every man has owed much to others, and ought +to repay the kindness that he has received.”</p> +<p>“If men were all virtuous,” returned the artist, +“I should with great alacrity teach them to fly. But +what would be the security of the good if the bad could at +pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing +through the clouds neither walls, mountains, nor seas could +afford security. A flight of northern savages might hover +in the wind and light with irresistible violence upon the capital +of a fruitful reason. Even this valley, the retreat of +princes, the abode of happiness, might be violated by the sudden +descent of some of the naked nations that swarm on the coast of +the southern sea!”</p> +<p>The Prince promised secrecy, and waited for the performance, +not wholly hopeless of success. He visited the work from +time to time, observed its progress, and remarked many ingenious +contrivances to facilitate motion and unite levity with +strength. The artist was every day more certain that he +should leave vultures and eagles behind him, and the contagion of +his confidence seized upon the Prince. In a year the wings +were finished; and on a morning appointed the maker appeared, +furnished for flight, on a little promontory; he waved his +pinions awhile to gather air, then leaped from his stand, and in +an instant dropped into the lake. His wings, which were of +no use in the air, sustained him in the water; and the Prince +drew him to land half dead with terror and vexation.</p> +<h2><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>CHAPTER VII<br /> +THE PRINCE FINDS A MAN OF LEARNING.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Prince was not much afflicted +by this disaster, having suffered himself to hope for a happier +event only because he had no other means of escape in view. +He still persisted in his design to leave the Happy Valley by the +first opportunity.</p> +<p>His imagination was now at a stand; he had no prospect of +entering into the world, and, notwithstanding all his endeavours +to support himself, discontent by degrees preyed upon him, and he +began again to lose his thoughts in sadness when the rainy +season, which in these countries is periodical, made it +inconvenient to wander in the woods.</p> +<p>The rain continued longer and with more violence than had ever +been known; the clouds broke on the surrounding mountains, and +the torrents streamed into the plain on every side, till the +cavern was too narrow to discharge the water. The lake +overflowed its banks, and all the level of the valley was covered +with the inundation. The eminence on which the palace was +built, and some other spots of rising ground, were all that the +eye could now discover. The herds and flocks left the +pasture, and both the wild beasts and the tame retreated to the +mountains.</p> +<p>This inundation confined all the princes to domestic +amusements, and the attention of Rasselas was particularly seized +by a poem (which Imlac rehearsed) upon the various conditions of +humanity. He commanded the poet to attend him in his +apartment, and recite his verses a second time; then entering +into familiar talk, he thought himself happy in having found a +man who knew the world so well, and could so skilfully paint the +scenes of life. He asked a thousand questions about things +to which, though common to all other mortals, his confinement +from childhood had kept him a stranger. The poet pitied his +ignorance, and loved his curiosity, and entertained him from day +to day with novelty and instruction so that the Prince regretted +the necessity of sleep, and longed till the morning should renew +his pleasure.</p> +<p>As they were sitting together, the Prince commanded Imlac to +relate his history, and to tell by what accident he was forced, +or by what motive induced, to close his life in the Happy +Valley. As he was going to begin his narrative, Rasselas +was called to a concert, and obliged to restrain his curiosity +till the evening.</p> +<h2><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +THE HISTORY OF IMLAC.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> close of the day is, in the +regions of the torrid zone, the only season of diversion and +entertainment, and it was therefore midnight before the music +ceased and the princesses retired. Rasselas then called for +his companion, and required him to begin the story of his +life.</p> +<p>“Sir,” said Imlac, “my history will not be +long: the life that is devoted to knowledge passes silently away, +and is very little diversified by events. To talk in +public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and +answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar. He wanders +about the world without pomp or terror, and is neither known nor +valued but by men like himself.</p> +<p>“I was born in the kingdom of Goiama, at no great +distance from the fountain of the Nile. My father was a +wealthy merchant, who traded between the inland countries of +Africa and the ports of the Red Sea. He was honest, frugal, +and diligent, but of mean sentiments and narrow comprehension; he +desired only to be rich, and to conceal his riches, lest he +should be spoiled by the governors of the province.”</p> +<p>“Surely,” said the Prince, “my father must +be negligent of his charge if any man in his dominions dares take +that which belongs to another. Does he not know that kings +are accountable for injustice permitted as well as done? If +I were Emperor, not the meanest of my subjects should be +oppressed with impunity. My blood boils when I am told that +a merchant durst not enjoy his honest gains for fear of losing +them by the rapacity of power. Name the governor who robbed +the people that I may declare his crimes to the +Emperor!”</p> +<p>“Sir,” said Imlac, “your ardour is the +natural effect of virtue animated by youth. The time will +come when you will acquit your father, and perhaps hear with less +impatience of the governor. Oppression is, in the +Abyssinian dominions, neither frequent nor tolerated; but no form +of government has been yet discovered by which cruelty can be +wholly prevented. Subordination supposes power on one part +and subjection on the other; and if power be in the hands of men +it will sometimes be abused. The vigilance of the supreme +magistrate may do much, but much will still remain undone. +He can never know all the crimes that are committed, and can +seldom punish all that he knows.”</p> +<p>“This,” said the Prince, “I do not +understand; but I had rather hear thee than dispute. +Continue thy narration.”</p> +<p>“My father,” proceeded Imlac, “originally +intended that I should have no other education than such as might +qualify me for commerce; and discovering in me great strength of +memory and quickness of apprehension, often declared his hope +that I should be some time the richest man in +Abyssinia.”</p> +<p>“Why,” said the Prince, “did thy father +desire the increase of his wealth when it was already greater +than he durst discover or enjoy? I am unwilling to doubt +thy veracity, yet inconsistencies cannot both be true.”</p> +<p>“Inconsistencies,” answered Imlac, “cannot +both be right; but, imputed to man, they may both be true. +Yet diversity is not inconsistency. My father might expect +a time of greater security. However, some desire is +necessary to keep life in motion; and he whose real wants are +supplied must admit those of fancy.”</p> +<p>“This,” said the Prince, “I can in some +measure conceive. I repent that I interrupted +thee.”</p> +<p>“With this hope,” proceeded Imlac, “he sent +me to school. But when I had once found the delight of +knowledge, and felt the pleasure of intelligence and the pride of +invention, I began silently to despise riches, and determined to +disappoint the purposes of my father, whose grossness of +conception raised my pity. I was twenty years old before +his tenderness would expose me to the fatigue of travel; in which +time I had been instructed, by successive masters, in all the +literature of my native country. As every hour taught me +something new, I lived in a continual course of gratification; +but as I advanced towards manhood, I lost much of the reverence +with which I had been used to look on my instructors; because +when the lessons were ended I did not find them wiser or better +than common men.</p> +<p>“At length my father resolved to initiate me in +commerce; and, opening one of his subterranean treasuries, +counted out ten thousand pieces of gold. ‘This, young +man,’ said he, ‘is the stock with which you must +negotiate. I began with less than a fifth part, and you see +how diligence and parsimony have increased it. This is your +own, to waste or improve. If you squander it by negligence +or caprice, you must wait for my death before you will be rich; +if in four years you double your stock, we will thenceforward let +subordination cease, and live together as friends and partners, +for he shall be always equal with me who is equally skilled in +the art of growing rich.’</p> +<p>“We laid out our money upon camels, concealed in bales +of cheap goods, and travelled to the shore of the Red Sea. +When I cast my eye on the expanse of waters, my heart bounded +like that of a prisoner escaped. I felt an inextinguishable +curiosity kindle in my mind, and resolved to snatch this +opportunity of seeing the manners of other nations, and of +learning sciences unknown in Abyssinia.</p> +<p>“I remembered that my father had obliged me to the +improvement of my stock, not by a promise, which I ought not to +violate, but by a penalty, which I was at liberty to incur; and +therefore determined to gratify my predominant desire, and, by +drinking at the fountain of knowledge, to quench the thirst of +curiosity.</p> +<p>“As I was supposed to trade without connection with my +father, it was easy for me to become acquainted with the master +of a ship, and procure a passage to some other country. I +had no motives of choice to regulate my voyage. It was +sufficient <a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>for me that, wherever I wandered, I should see a country +which I had not seen before. I therefore entered a ship +bound for Surat, having left a letter for my father declaring my +intention.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX<br /> +THE HISTORY OF IMLAC (<i>continued</i>).</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">When</span> I first entered upon +the world of waters, and lost sight of land, I looked round about +me in pleasing terror, and thinking my soul enlarged by the +boundless prospect, imagined that I could gaze around me for ever +without satiety; but in a short time I grew weary of looking on +barren uniformity, where I could only see again what I had +already seen. I then descended into the ship, and doubted +for awhile whether all my future pleasures would not end, like +this, in disgust and disappointment. ‘Yet +surely,’ said I, ‘the ocean and the land are very +different. The only variety of water is rest and +motion. But the earth has mountains and valleys, deserts +and cities; it is inhabited by men of different customs and +contrary opinions; and I may hope to find variety in life, though +I should miss it in nature.’</p> +<p>“With this thought I quieted my mind, and amused myself +during the voyage, sometimes by learning from the sailors the art +of navigation, which I have never practised, and sometimes by +forming schemes for my conduct in different situations, in not +one of which I have been ever placed.</p> +<p>“I was almost weary of my naval amusements when we +safely landed at Surat. I secured my money and, purchasing +some commodities for show, joined myself to a caravan that was +passing into the inland country. My companions, for some +reason or other, conjecturing that I was rich, and, by my +inquiries and admiration, finding that I was ignorant, considered +me as a novice whom they had a right to cheat, and who was to +learn, at the usual expense, the art of fraud. They exposed +me to the theft of servants and the exaction of officers, and saw +me plundered upon false pretences, without any advantage to +themselves but that of rejoicing in the superiority of their own +knowledge.”</p> +<p>“Stop a moment,” said the Prince; “is there +such depravity in man as that he should injure another without +benefit to himself? I can easily conceive that all are +pleased with superiority; but your ignorance was merely +accidental, which, being neither your crime nor your folly, could +afford them no reason to applaud themselves; and the knowledge +which they had, and which you wanted, they might as effectually +have shown by warning as betraying you.”</p> +<p>“Pride,” said Imlac, “is seldom delicate; it +will please itself with very mean advantages, and envy feels not +its own happiness but when it may be compared with the misery of +others. They were my enemies because they grieved to think +me rich, and my oppressors because they delighted to find me +weak.”</p> +<p>“Proceed,” said the Prince; “I doubt not of +the facts which you relate, but imagine that you impute them to +mistaken motives.”</p> +<p>“In this company,” said Imlac, “I arrived at +Agra, the capital of Hindostan, the city in which the Great Mogul +commonly resides. I applied myself to the language of the +country, and in a few months was able to converse with the +learned men; some of whom I found morose and reserved, and others +easy and communicative; some were unwilling to teach another what +they had with difficulty learned themselves; and some showed that +the end of their studies was to gain the dignity of +instructing.</p> +<p>“To the tutor of the young princes I recommended myself +so much that I was presented to the Emperor as a man of uncommon +knowledge. The Emperor asked me many questions concerning +my country and my travels, and though I cannot now recollect +anything that he uttered above the power of a common man, he +dismissed me astonished at his wisdom and enamoured of his +goodness.</p> +<p>“My credit was now so high that the merchants with whom +I had travelled applied to me for recommendations to the ladies +of the Court. I was surprised at their confidence of +solicitation and greatly reproached them with their practices on +the road. They heard me with cold indifference, and showed +no tokens of shame or sorrow.</p> +<p>“They then urged their request with the offer of a +bribe, but what I would not do for kindness I would not do for +money, and refused them, not because they had injured me, but +because I would not enable them to injure others; for I knew they +would have made use of my credit to cheat those who should buy +their wares.</p> +<p>“Having resided at Agra till there was no more to be +learned, I travelled into Persia, where I saw many remains of +ancient magnificence and observed many new accommodations of +life. The Persians <a name="page44"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 44</span>are a nation eminently social, and +their assemblies afforded me daily opportunities of remarking +characters and manners, and of tracing human nature through all +its variations.</p> +<p>“From Persia I passed into Arabia, where I saw a nation +pastoral and warlike, who lived without any settled habitation, +whose wealth is their flocks and herds, and who have carried on +through ages an hereditary war with mankind, though they neither +covet nor envy their possessions.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X<br /> +IMLAC’S HISTORY (<i>continued</i>)—A DISSERTATION +UPON POETRY.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Wherever</span> I went I found that +poetry was considered as the highest learning, and regarded with +a veneration somewhat approaching to that which man would pay to +angelic nature. And yet it fills me with wonder that in +almost all countries the most ancient poets are considered as the +best; whether it be that every other kind of knowledge is an +acquisition greatly attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at +once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised them as +a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received +by accident at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to +describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first +writers took possession of the most striking objects for +description and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and +left nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the +same events and new combinations of the same images. +Whatever be the reason, it is commonly observed that the early +writers are in possession of nature, and their followers of art; +that the first excel in strength and invention, and the latter in +elegance and refinement.</p> +<p>“I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious +fraternity. I read all the poets of Persia and Arabia, and +was able to repeat by memory the volumes that are suspended in +the mosque of Mecca. But I soon found that no man was ever +great by imitations. My desire of excellence impelled me to +transfer my attention to nature and to life. Nature was to +be my subject, and men to be my auditors. I could never +describe what I had not seen. I could not hope to move +those with delight or terror whose interests and opinions I did +not understand.</p> +<p>“Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with +a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified; no +kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains +and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my +mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I +observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles +of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the +rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer +clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is +beautiful and whatever is dreadful must be familiar to his +imagination; he must be conversant with all that is awfully vast +or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals +of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, +must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety; for +every idea is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral +or religious truth, and he who knows most will have most power of +diversifying his scenes and of gratifying his reader with remote +allusions and unexpected instruction.</p> +<p>“All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful +to study, and every country which I have surveyed has contributed +something to my poetical powers.”</p> +<p>“In so wide a survey,” said the Prince, “you +must surely have left much unobserved. I have lived till +now within the circuit of the mountains, and yet cannot walk +abroad without the sight of something which I had never beheld +before, or never heeded.”</p> +<p>“This business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is +to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark +general properties and large appearances. He does not +number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades +of the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his +portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as +recall the original to every mind, and must neglect the minuter +discriminations, which one may have remarked and another have +neglected, for those characteristics which are alike obvious to +vigilance and carelessness.</p> +<p>“But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a +poet; he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of +life. His character requires that he estimate the happiness +and misery of every condition, observe the power of all the +passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of the +human mind, as they are modified by various institutions and +accidental influences of climate or custom, from the +sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. +He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age and country; +he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and +invariable state; he must disregard present laws and opinions, +and rise to general and transcendental truths, which will always +be the same. He must, therefore, content himself with the +slow progress of his name, contemn the praise of his own time, +and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must +write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, +and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners +of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.</p> +<p>“His labour is not yet at an end. He must know +many languages and many sciences, and, that his style may be +worthy of his thoughts, must by incessant practice familiarise to +himself every delicacy of speech and grace of harmony.”</p> +<h2><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>CHAPTER XI<br /> +IMLAC’S NARRATIVE (<i>continued</i>)—A HINT OF +PILGRIMAGE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Imlac</span> now felt the enthusiastic +fit, and was proceeding to aggrandise his own profession, when +then Prince cried out: “Enough! thou hast convinced me that +no human being can ever be a poet. Proceed with thy +narration.”</p> +<p>“To be a poet,” said Imlac, “is indeed very +difficult.”</p> +<p>“So difficult,” returned the Prince, “that I +will at present hear no more of his labours. Tell me +whither you went when you had seen Persia.”</p> +<p>“From Persia,” said the poet, “I travelled +through Syria, and for three years resided in Palestine, where I +conversed with great numbers of the northern and western nations +of Europe, the nations which are now in possession of all power +and all knowledge, whose armies are irresistible, and whose +fleets command the remotest parts of the globe. When I +compared these men with the natives of our own kingdom and those +that surround us, they appeared almost another order of +beings. In their countries it is difficult to wish for +anything that may not be obtained; a thousand arts, of which we +never heard, are continually labouring for their convenience and +pleasure, and whatever their own climate has denied them is +supplied by their commerce.”</p> +<p>“By what means,” said the Prince, “are the +Europeans thus powerful? or why, since they can so easily visit +Asia and Africa for trade or conquest, cannot the Asiatics and +Africans invade their coast, plant colonies in their ports, and +give laws to their natural princes? The same wind that +carries them back would bring us thither.”</p> +<p>“They are more powerful, sir, than we,” answered +Imlac, “because they are wiser; knowledge will always +predominate over ignorance, as man governs the other +animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours I know +not what reason can be given but the unsearchable will of the +Supreme Being.”</p> +<p>“When,” said the Prince with a sigh, “shall +I be able to visit Palestine, and mingle with this mighty +confluence of nations? Till that happy moment shall arrive, +let me fill up the time with such representations as thou canst +give me. I am not ignorant of the motive that assembles +such numbers in that place, and cannot but consider it as the +centre of wisdom and piety, to which the best and wisest men of +every land must be continually resorting.”</p> +<p>“There are some nations,” said Imlac, “that +send few visitants to Palestine; for many numerous and learned +sects in Europe concur to censure pilgrimage as superstitious, or +deride it as ridiculous.”</p> +<p>“You know,” said the Prince, “how little my +life has made me acquainted with diversity of opinions; it will +be too long to hear the arguments on both sides; you, that have +considered them, tell me the result.”</p> +<p>“Pilgrimage,” said Imlac, “like many other +acts of piety, may be reasonable or superstitious, according to +the principles upon which it is performed. Long journeys in +search of truth are not commanded. Truth, such as is +necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it is +honestly sought. Change of place is no natural cause of the +increase of piety, for it inevitably produces dissipation of +mind. Yet, since men go every day to view the fields where +great actions have been performed, and return with stronger +impressions of the event, curiosity of the same kind may +naturally dispose us to view that country whence our religion had +its beginning, and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes +without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the +Supreme Being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in +another is the dream of idle superstition, but that some places +may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon manner is an +opinion which hourly experience will justify. He who +supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in +Palestine, will perhaps find himself mistaken; yet he may go +thither without folly; he who thinks they will be more freely +pardoned, dishonours at once his reason and religion.”</p> +<p>“These,” said the Prince, “are European +distinctions. I will consider them another time. What +have you found to be the effect of knowledge? Are those +nations happier than we?”</p> +<p>“There is so much infelicity,” said the poet, +“in the world, that scarce any man has leisure from his own +distresses to estimate the comparative happiness of others. +Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is +confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of +increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere privation, by which +nothing can be produced; it is a vacuity in which the soul sits +motionless and torpid for want of attraction, and, without +knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we +forget. I am therefore inclined to conclude that if nothing +counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow more +happy as out minds take a wider range.</p> +<p>“In enumerating the particular comforts of life, we +shall find many advantages on the side of the Europeans. +They cure wounds and diseases with which we languish and +perish. We suffer inclemencies of weather which they can +obviate. They have engines for the despatch of many +laborious works, which we must perform by manual industry. +There is such communication between distant places that one +friend can hardly be said to be absent from another. Their +policy removes all public inconveniences; they have roads cut +through the mountains, and bridges laid over their rivers. +And, if we descend to the privacies of life, their habitations +are more commodious and their possessions are more +secure.”</p> +<p>“They are surely happy,” said the Prince, +“who have all these conveniences, of which I envy none so +much as the facility with which separated friends interchange +their thoughts.”</p> +<p>“The Europeans,” answered Imlac, “are less +<a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>unhappy +than we, but they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a +state in which much is to be endured and little to be +enjoyed.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII<br /> +THE STORY OF IMLAC (<i>continued</i>).</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">am</span> not willing,” +said the Prince, “to suppose that happiness is so +parsimoniously distributed to mortals, nor can I believe but +that, if I had the choice of life, I should be able to fill every +day with pleasure. I would injure no man, and should +provoke no resentments; I would relieve every distress, and +should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose +my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and +therefore should be in no danger from treachery or +unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and +pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had +received. What would dare to molest him who might call on +every side to thousands enriched by his bounty or assisted by his +power? And why should not life glide away in the soft +reciprocation of protection and reverence? All this may be +done without the help of European refinements, which appear by +their effects to be rather specious than useful. Let us +leave them and pursue our journey.”</p> +<p>“From Palestine,” said Imlac, “I passed +through many regions of Asia; in the more civilised kingdoms as a +trader, and among the barbarians of the mountains as a +pilgrim. At last I began to long for my native country, +that I might repose after my travels and fatigues in the places +where I had spent my earliest years, and gladden my old +companions with the recital of my adventures. Often did I +figure to myself those with whom I had sported away the gay hours +of dawning life, sitting round me in its evening, wondering at my +tales and listening to my counsels.</p> +<p>“When this thought had taken possession of my mind, I +considered every moment as wasted which did not bring me nearer +to Abyssinia. I hastened into Egypt, and, notwithstanding +my impatience, was detained ten months in the contemplation of +its ancient magnificence and in inquiries after the remains of +its ancient learning. I found in Cairo a mixture of all +nations: some brought thither by the love of knowledge, some by +the hope of gain; many by the desire of living after their own +manner without observation, and of lying hid in the obscurity of +multitudes; for in a city populous as Cairo it is possible to +obtain at the same time the gratifications of society and the +secrecy of solitude.</p> +<p>“From Cairo I travelled to Suez, and embarked on the Red +Sea, passing along the coast till I arrived at the port from +which I had departed twenty years before. Here I joined +myself to a caravan, and re-entered my native country.</p> +<p>“I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen and the +congratulations of my friends, and was not without hope that my +father, whatever value he had set upon riches, would own with +gladness and pride a son who was able to add to the felicity and +honour of the nation. But I was soon convinced that my +thoughts were vain. My father had been dead fourteen years, +having divided his wealth among my brothers, who were removed to +some other provinces. Of my companions, the greater part +was in the grave; of the rest, some could with difficulty +remember me, and some considered me as one corrupted by foreign +manners.</p> +<p>“A man used to vicissitudes is not easily +dejected. I forgot, after a time, my disappointment, and +endeavoured to recommend myself to the nobles of the kingdom; +they admitted me to their tables, heard my story, and dismissed +me. I opened a school, and was prohibited to teach. I +then resolved to sit down in the quiet of domestic life, and +addressed a lady that was fond of my conversation, but rejected +my suit because my father was a merchant.</p> +<p>“Wearied at last with solicitation and repulses, I +resolved to hide myself for ever from the world, and depend no +longer on the opinion or caprice of others. I waited for +the time when the gate of the Happy Valley should open, that I +might bid farewell to hope and fear; the day came, my performance +was distinguished with favour, and I resigned myself with joy to +perpetual confinement.”</p> +<p>“Hast thou here found happiness at last?” said +Rasselas. “Tell me, without reserve, art thou content +with thy condition, or dost thou wish to be again wandering and +inquiring? All the inhabitants of this valley celebrate +their lot, and at the annual visit of the Emperor invite others +to partake of their felicity.”</p> +<p>“Great Prince,” said Imlac, “I shall speak +the truth. I know not one of all your attendants who does +not lament the hour when he entered this retreat. I am less +unhappy than the rest, because I have a mind replete with images, +which I can vary and combine at pleasure. I can amuse my +solitude by the renovation of the knowledge which begins to fade +from my memory, and by recollection of the accidents of my past +life. Yet all this ends in the sorrowful consideration that +my acquirements are now useless, and that none of my pleasures +can be again enjoyed. The rest, whose minds have no +impression but of the present moment, are either corroded by +malignant passions or sit stupid in the gloom of perpetual +vacancy.”</p> +<p>“What passions can infest those,” said the Prince, +“who have no rivals? We are in a place where +impotence precludes malice, and where all envy is repressed by +community of enjoyments.”</p> +<p>“There may be community,” said Imlac, “of +material possessions, but there can never be community of love or +of esteem. It must happen that one will please more than +another; he that knows himself despised will always be envious, +and still more envious and malevolent if he is condemned to live +in the presence of those who despise him. The invitations +by which they allure others to a state which they feel to be +wretched, proceed from the natural malignity of hopeless +misery. They are weary of themselves and of each other, and +expect to find relief in new companions. They envy the +liberty which their folly has forfeited, and would gladly see all +mankind imprisoned like themselves.</p> +<p>“From this crime, however, I am wholly free. No +man can say that he is wretched by my persuasion. I look +with pity on the crowds who are annually soliciting admission to +captivity, and wish that it were lawful for me to warn them of +their danger.”</p> +<p>“My dear Imlac,” said the Prince, “I will +open to thee my whole heart. I have long meditated an +escape from the Happy Valley. I have examined the mountain +on every side, but find myself insuperably barred—teach me +the way to break my prison; thou shalt be the companion of my +flight, the guide of my rambles, the partner of my fortune, and +my sole director in the <i>choice of life</i>.</p> +<p>“Sir,” answered the poet, “your escape will +be difficult, and perhaps you may soon repent your +curiosity. The world, which you figure to yourself smooth +and quiet as the lake in the valley, you will find a sea foaming +with tempests and boiling with whirlpools; you will be sometimes +overwhelmed by the waves of violence, and sometimes dashed +against the rocks of treachery. Amidst wrongs and frauds, +competitions and anxieties, you will wish a thousand <a +name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 60</span>times for +these seats of quiet, and willingly quit hope to be free from +fear.”</p> +<p>“Do not seek to deter me from my purpose,” said +the Prince. “I am impatient to see what thou hast +seen; and since thou art thyself weary of the valley, it is +evident that thy former state was better than this. +Whatever be the consequence of my experiment, I am resolved to +judge with mine own eyes of the various conditions of men, and +then to make deliberately my <i>choice of life</i>.”</p> +<p>“I am afraid,” said Imlac, “you are hindered +by stronger restraints than my persuasions; yet, if your +determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. +Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br /> +RASSELAS DISCOVERS THE MEANS OF ESCAPE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Prince now dismissed his +favourite to rest; but the narrative of wonders and novelties +filled his mind with perturbation. He revolved all that he +had heard, and prepared innumerable questions for the +morning.</p> +<p>Much of his uneasiness was now removed. He had a friend +to whom he could impart his thoughts, and whose experience could +assist him in his designs. His heart was no longer +condemned to swell with silent vexation. He thought that +even the Happy Valley might be endured with such a companion, and +that if they could range the world together he should have +nothing further to desire.</p> +<p>In a few days the water was discharged, and the ground +dried. The Prince and Imlac then walked out together, to +converse without the notice of the rest. The Prince, whose +thoughts were always on the wing, as he passed by the gate said, +with a countenance of sorrow, “Why art thou so strong, and +why is man so weak?”</p> +<p>“Man is not weak,” answered his companion; +“knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The +master of mechanics laughs at strength. I can burst the +gate, but cannot do it secretly. Some other expedient must +be tried.”</p> +<p>As they were walking on the side of the mountain they observed +that the coneys, which the rain had driven from their burrows, +had taken shelter among the bushes, and formed holes behind them +tending upwards in an oblique line. “It has +been the opinion of antiquity,” said Imlac, “that +human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals; let +us, therefore, not think ourselves degraded by learning from the +coney. We may escape by piercing the mountain in the same +direction. We will begin where the summit hangs over the +middle part, and labour upward till we shall issue out beyond the +prominence.”</p> +<p>The eyes of the Prince, when he heard this proposal, sparkled +with joy. The execution was easy and the success +certain.</p> +<p>No time was now lost. They hastened early in the morning +to choose a place proper for their mine. They clambered +with great fatigue among crags and brambles, and returned without +having discovered any part that favoured their design. The +second and the third day were spent in the same manner, and with +the same frustration; but on the fourth day they found a small +cavern concealed by a thicket, where they resolved to make their +experiment.</p> +<p>Imlac procured instruments proper to hew stone and remove +earth, and they fell to their work on the next day with more +eagerness than vigour. They were presently exhausted by +their efforts, and sat down to pant upon the grass. The +Prince for a moment appeared to be discouraged. +“Sir,” said his companion, “practice will +enable us to continue our labour for a longer time. Mark, +however, how far we have advanced, and ye will find that our toil +will some time have an end. Great works are performed not +by strength, but perseverance; yonder palace was raised by single +stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that +shall walk with vigour three hours a day, will pass in seven +years a space equal to the circumference of the globe.”</p> +<p>They returned to their work day after day, and in a short time +found a fissure in the rock, which enabled them to pass far with +very little obstruction. This Rasselas considered as a good +omen. “Do not disturb your mind,” said Imlac, +“with other hopes or fears than reason may suggest; if you +are pleased with the prognostics of good, you will be terrified +likewise with tokens of evil, and your whole life will be a prey +to superstition. Whatever facilitates our work is more than +an omen; it is a cause of success. This is one of those +pleasing surprises which often happen to active resolution. +Many things difficult to design prove easy to +performance.”</p> +<h2><a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>CHAPTER XIV<br /> +RASSELAS AND IMLAC RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED VISIT.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> had now wrought their way to +the middle, and solaced their toil with the approach of liberty, +when the Prince, coming down to refresh himself with air, found +his sister Nekayah standing at the mouth of the cavity. He +started, and stood confused, afraid to tell his design, and yet +hopeless to conceal it. A few moments determined him to +repose on her fidelity, and secure her secrecy by a declaration +without reserve.</p> +<p>“Do not imagine,” said the Princess, “that I +came hither as a spy. I had long observed from my window +that you and Imlac directed your walk every day towards the same +point, but I did not suppose you had any better reason for the +preference than a cooler shade or more fragrant bank, nor +followed you with any other design than to partake of your +conversation. Since, then, not suspicion, but fondness, has +detected you, let me not lose the advantage of my +discovery. I am equally weary of confinement with yourself, +and not less desirous of knowing what is done or suffered in the +world. Permit me to fly with you from this tasteless +tranquillity, which will yet grow more loathsome when you have +left me. You may deny me to accompany you, but cannot +hinder me from following.”</p> +<p>The Prince, who loved Nekayah above his other sisters, had no +inclination to refuse her request, and grieved that he had lost +an opportunity of showing his confidence by a voluntary +communication. It was, therefore, agreed that she should +leave the valley with them; and that in the meantime she should +watch, lest any other straggler should, by chance or curiosity, +follow them to the mountain.</p> +<p>At length their labour was at an end. They saw light +beyond the prominence, and, issuing to the top of the mountain, +beheld the Nile, yet a narrow current, wandering beneath +them.</p> +<p>The Prince looked round with rapture, anticipated all the +pleasures of travel, and in thought was already transported +beyond his father’s dominions. Imlac, though very +joyful at his escape, had less expectation of pleasure in the +world, which he had before tried and of which he had been +weary.</p> +<p>Rasselas was so much delighted with a wider horizon, that he +could not soon be persuaded to <a name="page66"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 66</span>return into the valley. He +informed his sister that the way was now open, and that nothing +now remained but to prepare for their departure.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV<br /> +THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS LEAVE THE VALLEY, AND SEE MANY +WONDERS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Prince and Princess had jewels +sufficient to make them rich whenever they came into a place of +commerce, which, by Imlac’s direction, they hid in their +clothes, and on the night of the next full moon all left the +valley. The Princess was followed only by a single +favourite, who did not know whither she was going.</p> +<p>They clambered through the cavity, and began to go down on the +other side. The Princess and her maid turned their eyes +toward every part, and seeing nothing to bound their prospect, +considered themselves in danger of being lost in a dreary +vacuity. They stopped and trembled. “I am +almost afraid,” said the Princess, “to begin a +journey of which I cannot perceive an end, and to venture into +this immense plain where I may be approached on every side by men +whom I never saw.” The Prince felt nearly the same +emotions, though he thought it more manly to conceal them.</p> +<p>Imlac smiled at their terrors, and encouraged them to +proceed. But the Princess continued irresolute till she had +been imperceptibly drawn forward too far to return.</p> +<p>In the morning they found some shepherds in the field, who set +some milk and fruits before them. The Princess wondered +that she did not see a palace ready for her reception and a table +spread with delicacies; but being faint and hungry, she drank the +milk and ate the fruits, and thought them of a higher flavour +than the products of the valley.</p> +<p>They travelled forward by easy journeys, being all +unaccustomed to toil and difficulty, and knowing that, though +they might be missed, they could not be pursued. In a few +days they came into a more populous region, where Imlac was +diverted with the admiration which his companions expressed at +the diversity of manners, stations, and employments. Their +dress was such as might not bring upon them the suspicion of +having anything to conceal; yet the Prince, wherever he came, +expected to be obeyed, and the Princess was frighted because +those who came into her presence did not prostrate +themselves. Imlac was forced to observe them with great +vigilance, lest they should betray their rank by their unusual +behaviour, and detained them several weeks in the first village +to accustom them to the sight of common mortals.</p> +<p>By degrees the royal wanderers were taught to understand that +they had for a time laid aside their dignity, and were to expect +only such regard as liberality and courtesy could procure. +And Imlac having by many admonitions prepared them to endure the +tumults of a port and the ruggedness of the commercial race, +brought them down to the sea-coast.</p> +<p>The Prince and his sister, to whom everything was new, were +gratified equally at all places, and therefore remained for some +months at the port without any inclination to pass further. +Imlac was content with their stay, because he did not think it +safe to expose them, unpractised in the world, to the hazards of +a foreign country.</p> +<p>At last he began to fear lest they should be discovered, and +proposed to fix a day for their departure. They had no +pretensions to judge for themselves, and referred the whole +scheme to his direction. He therefore took passage in a +ship to Suez, and, when the time came, with great difficulty <a +name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 69</span>prevailed on +the Princess to enter the vessel. They had a quick and +prosperous voyage, and from Suez travelled by land to Cairo.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI<br /> +THEY ENTER CAIRO, AND FIND EVERY MAN HAPPY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">As</span> they approached the city, which +filled the strangers with astonishment, “This,” said +Imlac to the Prince, “is the place where travellers and +merchants assemble from all corners of the earth. You will +here find men of every character and every occupation. +Commerce is here honourable. I will act as a merchant, and +you shall live as strangers who have no other end of travel than +curiosity; it will soon be observed that we are rich. Our +reputation will procure us access to all whom we shall desire to +know; you shall see all the conditions of humanity, and enable +yourselves at leisure to make your <i>choice of +life</i>.”</p> +<p>They now entered the town, stunned by the noise and offended +by the crowds. Instruction had not yet so prevailed over +habit but that they wondered to see themselves pass +undistinguished along the streets, and met by the lowest of the +people without reverence or notice. The Princess could not +at first bear the thought of being levelled with the vulgar, and +for some time continued in her chamber, where she was served by +her favourite Pekuah, as in the palace of the valley.</p> +<p>Imlac, who understood traffic, sold part of the jewels the +next day, and hired a house, which he adorned with such +magnificence that he was immediately considered as a merchant of +great wealth. His politeness attracted many acquaintances, +and his generosity made him courted by many dependants. His +companions, not being able to mix in the conversation, could make +no discovery of their ignorance or surprise, and were gradually +initiated in the world as they gained knowledge of the +language.</p> +<p>The Prince had by frequent lectures been taught the use and +nature of money; but the ladies could not for a long time +comprehend what the merchants did with small pieces of gold and +silver, or why things of so little use should be received as an +equivalent to the necessaries of life.</p> +<p>They studied the language two years, while Imlac was preparing +to set before them the various ranks and conditions of +mankind. He grew acquainted with all who had anything +uncommon in their fortune or conduct. He frequented the +voluptuous and the frugal, the idle and the busy, the merchants +and the men of learning.</p> +<p>The Prince now being able to converse with fluency, and having +learned the caution necessary to be observed in his intercourse +with strangers, began to accompany Imlac to places of resort, and +to enter into all assemblies, that he might make his <i>choice of +life</i>.</p> +<p>For some time he thought choice needless, because all appeared +to him really happy. Wherever he went he met gaiety and +kindness, and heard the song of joy or the laugh of +carelessness. He began to believe that the world overflowed +with universal plenty, and that nothing was withheld either from +want or merit; that every hand showered liberality and every +heart melted with benevolence: “And who then,” says +he, “will be suffered to be wretched?”</p> +<p>Imlac permitted the pleasing delusion, and was unwilling to +crush the hope of inexperience: till one day, having sat awhile +silent, “I know not,” said the Prince, “what +can be the reason that I am more unhappy than any of our +friends. I see them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, +but feel my own mind restless and uneasy. I am unsatisfied +with those pleasures which I seem most to court. I live in +the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun +myself, and am only loud and merry to conceal my +sadness.”</p> +<p>“Every man,” said Imlac, “may by examining +his own mind guess what passes in the minds of others. When +you feel that your own gaiety is counterfeit, it may justly lead +you to suspect that of your companions not to be sincere. +Envy is commonly reciprocal. We are long before we are +convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes +it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it +for himself. In the assembly where you passed the last +night there appeared such sprightliness of air and volatility of +fancy as might have suited beings of a higher order, formed to +inhabit serener regions, inaccessible to care or sorrow; yet, +believe me, Prince, was there not one who did not dread the +moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of +reflection.”</p> +<p>“This,” said the Prince, “may be true of +others since it is true of me; yet, whatever be the general +infelicity of man, one condition is more happy than another, and +wisdom surely directs us to take the least evil in the <i>choice +of life</i>.”</p> +<p>“The causes of good and evil,” answered Imlac, +“are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each +other, so diversified by various relations, and so much subject +to accidents which cannot be foreseen, that he who would fix his +condition upon incontestable reasons of preference must live and +die inquiring and deliberating.”</p> +<p>“But, surely,” said Rasselas, “the wise men, +to whom we listen with reverence and wonder, chose that mode of +life for themselves which they thought most likely to make them +happy.”</p> +<p>“Very few,” said the poet, “live by +choice. Every man is placed in the present condition by +causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did +not always willingly co-operate, and therefore you will rarely +meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbour better than +his own.”</p> +<p>“I am pleased to think,” said the Prince, +“that my birth has given me at least one advantage over +others by enabling me to determine for myself. I have here +the world before me. I will review it at leisure: surely +happiness is somewhere to be found.”</p> +<h2><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>CHAPTER XVII<br /> +THE PRINCE ASSOCIATES WITH YOUNG MEN OF SPIRIT AND GAIETY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Rasselas</span> rose next day, and +resolved to begin his experiments upon life. +“Youth,” cried he, “is the time of gladness: I +will join myself to the young men whose only business is to +gratify their desires, and whose time is all spent in a +succession of enjoyments.”</p> +<p>To such societies he was readily admitted, but a few days +brought him back weary and disgusted. Their mirth was +without images, their laughter without motive; their pleasures +were gross and sensual, in which the mind had no part; their +conduct was at once wild and mean—they laughed at order and +at law, but the frown of power dejected and the eye of wisdom +abashed them.</p> +<p>The Prince soon concluded that he should never be happy in a +course of life of which he was ashamed. He thought it +unsuitable to a reasonable being to act without a plan, and to be +sad or cheerful only by chance. “Happiness,” +said he, “must be something solid and permanent, without +fear and without uncertainty.”</p> +<p>But his young companions had gained so much of his regard by +their frankness and courtesy that he could not leave them without +warning and remonstrance. “My friends,” said +he, “I have seriously considered our manners and our +prospects, and find that we have mistaken our own interest. +The first years of man must make provision for the last. He +that never thinks, never can be wise. Perpetual levity must +end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it may fire the +spirits for an hour, will make life short or miserable. Let +us consider that youth is of no long duration, and that in mature +age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of +delight dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts but the +esteem of wise men and the means of doing good. Let us +therefore stop while to stop is in our power: let us live as men +who are some time to grow old, and to whom it will be the most +dreadful of all evils to count their past years by follies, and +to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the +maladies which riot has produced.”</p> +<p>They stared awhile in silence one upon another, and at last +drove him away by a general chorus of continued laughter.</p> +<p><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>The +consciousness that his sentiments were just and his intention +kind was scarcely sufficient to support him against the horror of +derision. But he recovered his tranquillity and pursued his +search.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII<br /> +THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">As</span> he was one day walking in the +street he saw a spacious building which all were by the open +doors invited to enter. He followed the stream of people, +and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which professors +read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye upon a +sage raised above the rest, who discoursed with great energy on +the government of the passions. His look was venerable, his +action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction +elegant. He showed with great strength of sentiment and +variety of illustration that human nature is degraded and debased +when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when +fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, +nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful government, +perturbation, and confusion; that she betrays the fortresses of +the intellect to rebels, and excites her children to sedition +against their lawful sovereign. He compared reason to the +sun, of which the light is constant, uniform, and lasting; and +fancy to a meteor, of bright but transitory lustre, irregular in +its motion and delusive in its direction.</p> +<p>He then communicated the various precepts given from time to +time for the conquest of passion, and displayed the happiness of +those who had obtained the important victory, after which man is +no longer the slave of fear nor the fool of hope; is no more +emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emasculated by tenderness, +or depressed by grief; but walks on calmly through the tumults or +privacies of life, as the sun pursues alike his course through +the calm or the stormy sky.</p> +<p>He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or +pleasure, who looked with indifference on those modes or +accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and +evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay aside their +prejudices, and arm themselves against the shafts of malice or +misfortune, by invulnerable patience: concluding that this state +only was happiness, and that this happiness was in every +one’s power.</p> +<p>Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to the +instructions of a superior being, and waiting for him at the +door, humbly implored the liberty of visiting so great a master +of true wisdom. The lecturer hesitated a moment, when +Rasselas put a purse of gold into his hand, which he received +with a mixture of joy and wonder.</p> +<p>“I have found,” said the Prince at his return to +Imlac, “a man who can teach all that is necessary to be +known; who, from the unshaken throne of rational fortitude, looks +down on the scenes of life changing beneath him. He speaks, +and attention watches his lips. He reasons, and conviction +closes his periods. This man shall be my future guide: I +will learn his doctrines and imitate his life.”</p> +<p>“Be not too hasty,” said Imlac, “to trust or +to admire the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, +but they live like men.”</p> +<p>Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so +forcibly without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid +his visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He had +now learned the power of money, and made his way by a piece of +gold to the inner apartment, where he found the philosopher in a +room half darkened, with his eyes misty and his face pale. +“Sir,” said he, “you are come at a time when +all human friendship is useless; what I suffer cannot be +remedied: what I have lost cannot be supplied. My daughter, +my only daughter, from whose tenderness I expected all the +comforts of my age, died last night of a fever. My views, +my purposes, my hopes, are at an end: I am now a lonely being, +disunited from society.”</p> +<p>“Sir,” said the Prince, “mortality is an +event by which a wise man can never be surprised: we know that +death is always near, and it should therefore always be +expected.” “Young man,” answered the +philosopher, “you speak like one that has never felt the +pangs of separation.” “Have you then forgot the +precepts,” said Rasselas, “which you so powerfully +enforced? Has wisdom no strength to arm the heart against +calamity? Consider that external things are naturally +variable, but truth and reason are always the same.” +“What comfort,” said the mourner, “can truth +and reason afford me? Of what effect are they now, but to +tell me that my daughter will not be restored?”</p> +<p>The Prince, whose humanity would not suffer him to insult +misery with reproof, went away, convinced of the emptiness of +rhetorical sounds, and the inefficacy of polished periods and +studied sentences.</p> +<h2><a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +80</span>CHAPTER XIX<br /> +A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">He</span> was still eager upon the same +inquiry; and having heard of a hermit that lived near the lowest +cataract of the Nile, and filled the whole country with the fame +of his sanctity, resolved to visit his retreat, and inquire +whether that felicity which public life could not afford was to +be found in solitude, and whether a man whose age and virtue made +him venerable could teach any peculiar art of shunning evils or +enduring them.</p> +<p>Imlac and the Princess agreed to accompany him, and after the +necessary preparations, they began their journey. Their way +lay through the fields, where shepherds tended their flocks and +the lambs were playing upon the pasture. +“This,” said the poet, “is the life which has +been often celebrated for its innocence and quiet; let us pass +the heat of the day among the shepherds’ tents, and know +whether all our searches are not to terminate in pastoral +simplicity.”</p> +<p>The proposal pleased them; and they induced the shepherds, by +small presents and familiar questions, to tell the opinion of +their own state. They were so rude and ignorant, so little +able to compare the good with the evil of the occupation, and so +indistinct in their narratives and descriptions, that very little +could be learned from them. But it was evident that their +hearts were cankered with discontent; that they considered +themselves as condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich, and +looked up with stupid malevolence towards those that were placed +above them.</p> +<p>The Princess pronounced with vehemence that she would never +suffer these envious savages to be her companions, and that she +should not soon be desirous of seeing any more specimens of +rustic happiness; but could not believe that all the accounts of +primeval pleasures were fabulous, and was in doubt whether life +had anything that could be justly preferred to the placid +gratification of fields and woods. She hoped that the time +would come when, with a few virtuous and elegant companions, she +should gather flowers planted by her own hands, fondle the lambs +of her own ewe, and listen without care, among brooks and +breezes, to one of her maidens reading in the shade.</p> +<h2><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>CHAPTER XX<br /> +THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">On</span> the next day they continued +their journey till the heat compelled them to look round for +shelter. At a small distance they saw a thick wood, which +they no sooner entered than they perceived that they were +approaching the habitations of men. The shrubs were +diligently cut away to open walks where the shades ware darkest; +the boughs of opposite trees were artificially interwoven; seats +of flowery turf were raised in vacant spaces; and a rivulet that +wantoned along the side of a winding path had its banks sometimes +opened into small basins, and its stream sometimes obstructed by +little mounds of stone heaped together to increase its +murmurs.</p> +<p>They passed slowly through the wood, delighted with such +unexpected accommodations, and entertained each other with +conjecturing what or who he could be that in those rude and +unfrequented regions had leisure and art for such harmless +luxury.</p> +<p>As they advanced they heard the sound of music, and saw youths +and virgins dancing in the grove; and going still farther beheld +a stately palace built upon a hill surrounded by woods. The +laws of Eastern hospitality allowed them to enter, and the master +welcomed them like a man liberal and wealthy.</p> +<p>He was skilful enough in appearances soon to discern that they +were no common guests, and spread his table with +magnificence. The eloquence of Imlac caught his attention, +and the lofty courtesy of the Princess excited his respect. +When they offered to depart, he entreated their stay, and was the +next day more unwilling to dismiss them than before. They +were easily persuaded to stop, and civility grew up in time to +freedom and confidence.</p> +<p>The Prince now saw all the domestics cheerful and all the face +of nature smiling round the place, and could not forbear to hope +that he should find here what he was seeking; but when he was +congratulating the master upon his possessions he answered with a +sigh, “My condition has indeed the appearance of happiness, +but appearances are delusive. My prosperity puts my life in +danger; the Bassa of Egypt is my enemy, incensed only by my +wealth and popularity. I have been hitherto protected +against him by the princes of the country; but as the favour of +the great is uncertain I know <a name="page84"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 84</span>not how soon my defenders may be +persuaded to share the plunder with the Bassa. I have sent +my treasures into a distant country, and upon the first alarm am +prepared to follow them. Then will my enemies riot in my +mansion, and enjoy the gardens which I have planted.”</p> +<p>They all joined in lamenting his danger and deprecating his +exile; and the Princess was so much disturbed with the tumult of +grief and indignation that she retired to her apartment. +They continued with their kind inviter a few days longer, and +then went to find the hermit.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI<br /> +THE HAPPINESS OF SOLITUDE—THE HERMIT’S HISTORY.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> came on the third day, by the +direction of the peasants, to the hermit’s cell. It +was a cavern in the side of a mountain, overshadowed with palm +trees, at such a distance from the cataract that nothing more was +heard than a gentle uniform murmur, such as composes the mind to +pensive meditation, especially when it was assisted by the wind +whistling among the branches. The first rude essay of +Nature had been so much improved by human labour that the cave +contained several apartments appropriated to different uses, and +often afforded lodging to travellers whom darkness or tempests +happened to overtake.</p> +<p>The hermit sat on a bench at the door, to enjoy the coolness +of the evening. On one side lay a book with pens and paper; +on the other mechanical instruments of various kinds. As +they approached him unregarded, the Princess observed that he had +not the countenance of a man that had found or could teach the +way to happiness.</p> +<p>They saluted him with great respect, which he repaid like a +man not unaccustomed to the forms of Courts. “My +children,” said he, “if you have lost your way, you +shall be willingly supplied with such conveniences for the night +as this cavern will afford. I have all that Nature +requires, and you will not expect delicacies in a hermit’s +cell.”</p> +<p>They thanked him; and, entering, were pleased with the +neatness and regularity of the place. The hermit set flesh +and wine before them, though he fed only upon fruits and +water. His discourse was cheerful without levity, and pious +without enthusiasm. He soon gained the esteem of his +guests, and the Princess repented her hasty censure.</p> +<p>At last Imlac began thus: “I do not now wonder that your +reputation is so far extended: we have heard at Cairo of your +wisdom, and came hither to implore your direction for this young +man and maiden in the <i>choice of life</i>.”</p> +<p>“To him that lives well,” answered the hermit, +“every form of life is good; nor can I give any other rule +for choice than to remove all apparent evil.”</p> +<p>“He will most certainly remove from evil,” said +the Prince, “who shall devote himself to that solitude +which you have recommended by your example.”</p> +<p>“I have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude,” +said the hermit, “but have no desire that my example should +gain any imitators. In my youth I professed arms, and was +raised by degrees to the highest military rank. I have +traversed wide countries at the head of my troops, and seen many +battles and sieges. At last, being disgusted by the +preferments of a younger officer, and feeling that my vigour was +beginning to decay, I resolved to close my life in peace, having +found the world full of snares, discord, and misery. I had +once escaped from the pursuit of the enemy by the shelter of this +cavern, and therefore chose it for my final residence. I +employed artificers to form it into chambers, and stored it with +all that I was likely to want.</p> +<p>“For some time after my retreat I rejoiced like a +tempest-beaten sailor at his entrance into the harbour, being +delighted with the sudden change of the noise and hurry of war to +stillness and repose. When the pleasure of novelty went +away, I employed my hours in examining the plants which grow in +the valley, and the minerals which I collected from the +rocks. But that inquiry is now grown tasteless and +irksome. I have been for some time unsettled and +distracted: my mind is disturbed with a thousand perplexities of +doubt and vanities of imagination, which hourly prevail upon me, +because I have no opportunities of relaxation or diversion. +I am sometimes ashamed to think that I could not secure myself +from vice but by retiring from the exercise of virtue, and begin +to suspect that I was rather impelled by resentment than led by +devotion into solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly, +and I lament that I have lost so much, and have gained so +little. In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, I +want likewise the counsel and conversation of the good. I +have been long comparing the evils with <a +name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>the +advantages of society, and resolve to return into the world +to-morrow. The life of a solitary man will be certainly +miserable, but not certainly devout.”</p> +<p>They heard his resolution with surprise, but after a short +pause offered to conduct him to Cairo. He dug up a +considerable treasure which he had hid among the rocks, and +accompanied them to the city, on which, as he approached it, he +gazed with rapture.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXII<br /> +THE HAPPINESS OF A LIFE LED ACCORDING TO NATURE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Rasselas</span> went often to an assembly +of learned men, who met at stated times to unbend their minds and +compare their opinions. Their manners were somewhat coarse, +but their conversation was instructive, and their disputations +acute, though sometimes too violent, and often continued till +neither controvertist remembered upon what question he +began. Some faults were almost general among them: every +one was pleased to hear the genius or knowledge of another +depreciated.</p> +<p>In this assembly Rasselas was relating his interview with the +hermit, and the wonder with which he heard him censure a course +of life which he had so deliberately chosen and so laudably +followed. The sentiments of the hearers were various. +Some were of opinion that the folly of his choice had been justly +punished by condemnation to perpetual perseverance. One of +the youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced him a +hypocrite. Some talked of the right of society to the +labour of individuals, and considered retirement as a desertion +of duty. Others readily allowed that there was a time when +the claims of the public were satisfied, and when a man might +properly sequester himself, to review his life and purify his +heart.</p> +<p>One who appeared more affected with the narrative than the +rest thought it likely that the hermit would in a few years go +back to his retreat, and perhaps, if shame did not restrain or +death intercept him, return once more from his retreat into the +world. “For the hope of happiness,” said he, +“is so strongly impressed that the longest experience is +not able to efface it. Of the present state, whatever it +be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery; yet when the +same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as +desirable. But the time will surely come when desire will +no longer be our torment and no man shall be wretched but by his +own fault.</p> +<p>“This,” said a philosopher who had heard him with +tokens of great impatience, “is the present condition of a +wise man. The time is already come when none are wretched +but by their own fault. Nothing is more idle than to +inquire after happiness which Nature has kindly placed within our +reach. The way to be happy is to live according to Nature, +in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which +every heart is originally impressed; which is not written on it +by precept, but engraven by destiny; not instilled by education, +but infused at our nativity. He that lives according to +Nature will suffer nothing from the delusions of hope or +importunities of desire; he will receive and reject with +equability of temper; and act or suffer as the reason of things +shall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse themselves +with subtle definitions or intricate ratiocination. Let +them learn to be wise by easier means: let them observe the hind +of the forest and the linnet of the grove: let them consider the +life of animals, whose motions are regulated by instinct; they +obey their guide, and are happy. Let us therefore at length +cease to dispute, and learn to live: throw away the encumbrance +of precepts, which they who utter them with so much pride and +pomp do not understand, and carry with us this simple and +intelligible maxim: that deviation from Nature is deviation from +happiness.”</p> +<p>When he had spoken he looked round him with a placid air, and +enjoyed the consciousness of his own beneficence.</p> +<p>“Sir,” said the Prince with great modesty, +“as I, like all the rest of mankind, am desirous of +felicity, my closest attention has been fixed upon your +discourse: I doubt not the truth of a position which a man so +learned has so confidently advanced. Let me only know what +it is to live according to Nature.”</p> +<p>“When I find young men so humble and so docile,” +said the philosopher, “I can deny them no information which +my studies have enabled me to afford. To live according to +Nature is to act always with due regard to the fitness arising +from the relations and qualities of causes and effects; to concur +with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity; to +co-operate with the general disposition and tendency of the +present system of things.”</p> +<p><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>The +Prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should +understand less as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed +and was silent; and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied and +the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man +that had co-operated with the present system.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIII<br /> +THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN THEM THE WORK OF +OBSERVATION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Rasselas</span> returned home full of +reflections, doubting how to direct his future steps. Of +the way to happiness he found the learned and simple equally +ignorant; but as he was yet young, he flattered himself that he +had time remaining for more experiments and further +inquiries. He communicated to Imlac his observations and +his doubts, but was answered by him with new doubts and remarks +that gave him no comfort. He therefore discoursed more +frequently and freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope +with himself, and always assisted him to give some reason why, +though he had been hitherto frustrated, he might succeed at +last.</p> +<p><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>“We have hitherto,” said she, “known +but little of the world; we have never yet been either great or +mean. In our own country, though we had royalty, we had no +power; and in this we have not yet seen the private recesses of +domestic peace. Imlac favours not our search, lest we +should in time find him mistaken. We will divide the task +between us; you shall try what is to be found in the splendour of +Courts, and I will range the shades of humbler life. +Perhaps command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as +they afford the most opportunities of doing good; or perhaps what +this world can give may be found in the modest habitations of +middle fortune—too low for great designs, and too high for +penury and distress.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIV<br /> +THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OF HIGH STATIONS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Rasselas</span> applauded the design, and +appeared next day with a splendid retinue at the Court of the +Bassa. He was soon distinguished for his magnificence, and +admitted, as a Prince whose curiosity had brought him from +distant countries, to an intimacy with the great officers and +frequent conversation with the Bassa himself.</p> +<p>He was at first inclined to believe that the man must be +pleased with his own condition whom all approached with reverence +and heard with obedience, and who had the power to extend his +edicts to a whole kingdom. “There can be no +pleasure,” said he, “equal to that of feeling at once +the joy of thousands all made happy by wise administration. +Yet, since by the law of subordination this sublime delight can +be in one nation but the lot of one, it is surely reasonable to +think that there is some satisfaction more popular and +accessible, and that millions can hardly be subjected to the will +of a single man, only to fill his particular breast with +incommunicable content.”</p> +<p>These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no +solution of the difficulty. But as presents and civilities +gained him more familiarity, he found that almost every man who +stood high in his employment hated all the rest and was hated by +them, and that their lives were a continual succession of plots +and detections, stratagems and escapes, faction and +treachery. Many of those who surrounded the Bassa were sent +only to watch and <a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>report his conduct: every tongue was muttering censure, +and every eye was searching for a fault.</p> +<p>At last the letters of revocation arrived: the Bassa was +carried in chains to Constantinople, and his name was mentioned +no more.</p> +<p>“What are we now to think of the prerogatives of +power?” said Rasselas to his sister: “is it without +efficacy to good, or is the subordinate degree only dangerous, +and the supreme safe and glorious? Is the Sultan the only +happy man in his dominions, or is the Sultan himself subject to +the torments of suspicion and the dread of enemies?”</p> +<p>In a short time the second Bassa was deposed. The Sultan +that had advanced him was murdered by the Janissaries, and his +successor had other views or different favourites.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXV<br /> +THE PRINCESS PURSUES HER INQUIRY WITH MORE DILIGENCE THAN +SUCCESS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Princess in the meantime +insinuated herself into many families; for there are few doors +through which liberality, joined with good humour, cannot find +its way. The daughters of many houses were airy and +cheerful; but Nekayah had been too long accustomed to the +conversation of Imlac and her brother to be much pleased with +childish levity and prattle which had no meaning. She found +their thoughts narrow, their wishes low, and their merriment +often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as they were, could +not be preserved pure, but were embittered by petty competitions +and worthless emulation. They were always jealous of the +beauty of each other, of a quality to which solicitude can add +nothing, and from which detraction can take nothing away. +Many were in love with triflers like themselves, and many fancied +that they were in love when in truth they were only idle. +Their affection was not fixed on sense or virtue, and therefore +seldom ended but in vexation. Their grief, however, like +their joy, was transient; everything floated in their mind +unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily +gave way to another, as a second stone, cast into the water, +effaces and confounds the circles of the first.</p> +<p>With these girls she played as with inoffensive animals, and +found them proud of her countenance and weary of her company.</p> +<p>But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her affability +easily persuaded the hearts that were swelling with sorrow to +discharge their secrets in her ear, and those whom hope flattered +or prosperity delighted often courted her to partake their +pleasure.</p> +<p>The Princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in a +private summerhouse on the banks of the Nile, and related to each +other the occurrences of the day. As they were sitting +together the Princess cast her eyes upon the river that flowed +before her. “Answer,” said she, “great +father of waters, thou that rollest thy goods through eighty +nations, to the invocations of the daughter of thy native +king. Tell me if thou waterest through all thy course a +single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of +complaint.”</p> +<p>“You are then,” said Rasselas, “not more +successful in private houses than I have been in +Courts.” “I have, since the last partition of +our provinces,” said the Princess, “enabled myself to +enter familiarly into many families, where there was the fairest +show of prosperity and peace, and know not one house that is not +haunted by some fury that destroys their quiet.</p> +<p>“I did not seek ease among the poor, because I concluded +that there it could not be found. But I saw many poor whom +I had supposed to live in affluence. Poverty has in large +cities very different appearances. It is often concealed in +splendour and often in extravagance. It is the care of a +very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the +rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and +every day is lost in contriving for the morrow.</p> +<p>“This, however, was an evil which, though frequent, I +saw with less pain, because I could relieve it. Yet some +have refused my bounties; more offended with my quickness to +detect their wants than pleased with my readiness to succour +them; and others, whose exigencies compelled them to admit my +kindness, have never been able to forgive their +benefactress. Many, however, have been sincerely grateful +without the ostentation of gratitude or the hope of other +favours.”</p> +<h2><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>CHAPTER XXVI<br /> +THE PRINCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS UPON PRIVATE LIFE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Nekayah</span>, perceiving her +brother’s attention fixed, proceeded in her narrative.</p> +<p>“In families where there is or is not poverty there is +commonly discord. If a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a +great family, a family likewise is a little kingdom, torn with +factions and exposed to revolutions. An unpractised +observer expects the love of parents and children to be constant +and equal. But this kindness seldom continues beyond the +years of infancy; in a short time the children become rivals to +their parents. Benefits are allowed by reproaches, and +gratitude debased by envy.</p> +<p>“Parents and children seldom act in concert; each child +endeavours to appropriate the esteem or the fondness of the +parents; and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each +other to their children. Thus, some place their confidence +in the father and some in the mother, and by degrees the house is +filled with artifices and feuds.</p> +<p>“The opinions of children and parents, of the young and +the old, are naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope +and despondency, of expectation and experience, without crime or +folly on either side. The colours of life in youth and age +appear different, as the face of Nature in spring and +winter. And how can children credit the assertions of +parents which their own eyes show them to be false?</p> +<p>“Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce +their maxims by the credit of their lives. The old man +trusts wholly to slow contrivance and gradual progression; the +youth expects to force his way by genius, vigour, and +precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the +youth reverences virtue. The old man deifies prudence; the +youth commits himself to magnanimity and chance. The young +man, who intends no ill, believes that none is intended, and +therefore acts with openness and candour; but his father; having +suffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to suspect and too +often allured to practise it. Age looks with anger on the +temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of +age. Thus parents and children for the greatest part live +on to love less and less; and if those whom Nature has thus +closely united are the torments of each other, where shall we +look for tenderness and consolations?”</p> +<p>“Surely,” said the Prince, “you must have +been unfortunate in your choice of acquaintance. I am +unwilling to believe that the most tender of all relations is +thus impeded in its effects by natural necessity.”</p> +<p>“Domestic discord,” answered she, “is not +inevitably and fatally necessary, but yet it is not easily +avoided. We seldom see that a whole family is virtuous; the +good and the evil cannot well agree, and the evil can yet less +agree with one another. Even the virtuous fall sometimes to +variance, when their virtues are of different kinds and tending +to extremes. In general, those parents have most reverence +who most deserve it, for he that lives well cannot be +despised.</p> +<p>“Many other evils infest private life. Some are +the slaves of servants whom they have trusted with their +affairs. Some are kept in continual anxiety by the caprice +of rich relations, whom they cannot please and dare not +offend. Some husbands are imperious and some wives +perverse, and, as it is always more easy to do evil than good, +though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many +happy, the folly or vice of one makes many miserable.”</p> +<p>“If such be the general effect of marriage,” said +the Prince, “I shall for the future think it dangerous to +connect my interest with that of another, lest I should be +unhappy by my partner’s fault.”</p> +<p>“I have met,” said the Princess, “with many +who live single for that reason, but I never found that their +prudence ought to raise envy. They dream away their time +without friendship, without fondness, and are driven to rid +themselves of the day, for which they have no use, by childish +amusements or vicious delights. They act as beings under +the constant sense of some known inferiority that fills their +minds with rancour and their tongues with censure. They are +peevish at home and malevolent abroad, and, as the outlaws of +human nature, make it their business and their pleasure to +disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. +To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate +without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without +tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude; +it is not retreat but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has +many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.”</p> +<p>“What then is to be done?” said Rasselas. +“The more we inquire the less we can resolve. Surely +he is most likely to please himself that has no other inclination +to regard.”</p> +<h2><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>CHAPTER XXVII<br /> +DISQUISITION UPON GREATNESS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> conversation had a short +pause. The Prince, having considered his sister’s +observation, told her that she had surveyed life with prejudice +and supposed misery where she did not find it. “Your +narrative,” says he, “throws yet a darker gloom upon +the prospects of futurity. The predictions of Imlac were +but faint sketches of the evils painted by Nekayah. I have +been lately convinced that quiet is not the daughter of grandeur +or of power; that her presence is not to be bought by wealth nor +enforced by conquest. It is evident that as any man acts in +a wider compass he must be more exposed to opposition from enmity +or miscarriage from chance. Whoever has many to please or +to govern must use the ministry of many agents, some of whom will +be wicked and some ignorant, by some he will be misled and by +others betrayed. If he gratifies one he will offend +another; those that are not favoured will think themselves +injured, and since favours can be conferred but upon few the +greater number will be always discontented.”</p> +<p>“The discontent,” said the Princess, “which +is thus unreasonable, I hope that I shall always have spirit to +despise and you power to repress.”</p> +<p>“Discontent,” answered Rasselas, “will not +always be without reason under the most just and vigilant +administration of public affairs. None, however attentive, +can always discover that merit which indigence or faction may +happen to obscure, and none, however powerful, can always reward +it. Yet he that sees inferior desert advanced above him +will naturally impute that preference to partiality or caprice, +and indeed it can scarcely be hoped that any man, however +magnanimous by Nature or exalted by condition, will be able to +persist for ever in fixed and inexorable justice of distribution; +he will sometimes indulge his own affections and sometimes those +of his favourites; he will permit some to please him who can +never serve him; he will discover in those whom he loves +qualities which in reality they do not possess, and to those from +whom he receives pleasure he will in his turn endeavour to give +it. Thus will recommendations sometimes prevail which were +purchased by money or by the more destructive bribery of flattery +and servility.</p> +<p>“He that hath much to do will do something wrong, and of +that wrong must suffer the consequences, and if it were possible +that he should always act rightly, yet, when such numbers are to +judge of his conduct, the bad will censure and obstruct him by +malevolence and the good sometimes by mistake.</p> +<p>“The highest stations cannot therefore hope to be the +abodes of happiness, which I would willingly believe to have fled +from thrones and palaces to seats of humble privacy and placid +obscurity. For what can hinder the satisfaction or +intercept the expectations of him whose abilities are adequate to +his employments, who sees with his own eyes the whole circuit of +his influence, who chooses by his own knowledge all whom he +trusts, and whom none are tempted to deceive by hope or +fear? Surely he has nothing to do but to love and to be +loved; to be virtuous and to be happy.”</p> +<p>“Whether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect +goodness,” said Nekayah, “this world will never +afford an opportunity of deciding. But this, at least, may +be maintained, that we do not always find visible happiness in +proportion to visible virtue. All natural and almost all +political evils are incident alike to the bad and good; they are +confounded in the misery of a famine, and not much distinguished +in the fury of a faction; they <a name="page106"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 106</span>sink together in a tempest and are +driven together from their country by invaders. All that +virtue can afford is quietness of conscience and a steady +prospect of a happier state; this may enable us to endure +calamity with patience, but remember that patience must oppose +pain.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /> +RASSELAS AND NEKAYAH CONTINUE THEIR CONVERSATION.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear</span> Princess,” said +Rasselas, “you fall into the common errors of exaggeratory +declamation, by producing in a familiar disquisition examples of +national calamities and scenes of extensive misery which are +found in books rather than in the world, and which, as they are +horrid, are ordained to be rare. Let us not imagine evils +which we do not feel, nor injure life by +misrepresentations. I cannot bear that querulous eloquence +which threatens every city with a siege like that of Jerusalem, +that makes famine attend on every flight of locust, and suspends +pestilence on the wing of every blast that issues from the +south.</p> +<p>“On necessary and inevitable evils which overwhelm +kingdoms at once all disputation is vain; when they happen they +must be endured. But it is evident that these bursts of +universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and tens +of thousands flourish in youth and wither in age, without the +knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same +pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild or cruel, +whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or +retreat before them. While Courts are disturbed with +intestine competitions and ambassadors are negotiating in foreign +countries, the smith still plies his anvil and the husbandman +drives his plough forward; the necessaries of life are required +and obtained, and the successive business of the season continues +to make its wonted revolutions.</p> +<p>“Let us cease to consider what perhaps may never happen, +and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at human +speculation. We will not endeavour to modify the motions of +the elements or to fix the destiny of kingdoms. It is our +business to consider what beings like us may perform, each +labouring for his own happiness by promoting within his circle, +however narrow, the happiness of others.</p> +<p>“Marriage is evidently the dictate of Nature; men and +women were made to be the companions of each other, and therefore +I cannot be persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of +happiness.”</p> +<p>“I know not,” said the Princess, “whether +marriage be more than one of the innumerable modes of human +misery. When I see and reckon the various forms of +connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of lasting discord, +the diversities of temper, the oppositions of opinion, the rude +collisions of contrary desire where both are urged by violent +impulses, the obstinate contest of disagreeing virtues where both +are supported by consciousness of good intention, I am sometimes +disposed to think, with the severer casuists of most nations, +that marriage is rather permitted than approved, and that none, +but by the instigation of a passion too much indulged, entangle +themselves with indissoluble compact.”</p> +<p>“You seem to forget,” replied Rasselas, +“that you have, even now represented celibacy as less happy +than marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot +both be worse. Thus it happens, when wrong opinions are +entertained, that they mutually destroy each other and leave the +mind open to truth.”</p> +<p>“I did not expect,” answered, the Princess, +“to hear that imputed to falsehood which is the consequence +only of frailty. To the mind, as to the eye, it is +difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent +and various in their parts. When we see or conceive the +whole at once, we readily note the discriminations and decide the +preference, but of two systems, of which neither can be surveyed +by any human being in its full compass of magnitude and +multiplicity of complication, where is the wonder that, judging +of the whole by parts, I am alternately affected by one and the +other as either presses on my memory or fancy? We differ +from ourselves just as we differ from each other when we see only +part of the question, as in the multifarious relations of +politics and morality, but when we perceive the whole at once, as +in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment, and none +ever varies in his opinion.”</p> +<p>“Let us not add,” said the Prince, “to the +other evils of life the bitterness of controversy, nor endeavour +to vie with each other in subtilties of argument. We are +employed in a search of which both are equally to enjoy the +success or suffer by the miscarriage; it is therefore fit that we +assist each other. You surely conclude too hastily from the +infelicity of marriage against its institution; <a +name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 110</span>will not +the misery of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of +Heaven? The world must be peopled by marriage or peopled +without it.”</p> +<p>“How the world is to be peopled,” returned +Nekayah, “is not my care and need not be yours. I see +no danger that the present generation should omit to leave +successors behind them; we are not now inquiring for the world, +but for ourselves.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXIX<br /> +THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE (<i>continued</i>).</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">The</span> good of the +whole,” says Rasselas, “is the same with the good of +all its parts. If marriage be best for mankind, it must be +evidently best for individuals; or a permanent and necessary duty +must be the cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed +to the convenience of others. In the estimate which you +have made of the two states, it appears that the incommodities of +a single life are in a great measure necessary and certain, but +those of the conjugal state accidental and avoidable. I +cannot forbear to flatter myself that prudence and benevolence +will make marriage happy. The general folly of mankind is +the cause of general complaint. What can be expected but +disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the +immaturity of youth, in the ardour of desire, without judgment, +without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of opinions, +similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of +sentiment?</p> +<p>“Such is the common process of marriage. A youth +and maiden, meeting by chance or brought together by artifice, +exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and dream of +one another. Having little to divert attention or diversify +thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and +therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They +marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before +had concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge +Nature with cruelty.</p> +<p>“From those early marriages proceeds likewise the +rivalry of parents and children: the son is eager to enjoy the +world before the father is willing to forsake it, and there is +hardly room at once for two generations. The daughter +begins to bloom before the mother can be content to fade, and +neither can forbear to wish for the absence of the other.</p> +<p>“Surely all these evils may be avoided by that +deliberation and delay which prudence prescribes to irrevocable +choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures, +life may be well enough supported without the help of a +partner. Longer time will increase experience, and wider +views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection; +one advantage at least will be certain, the parents will be +visibly older than their children.”</p> +<p>“What reason cannot collect,” said Nekayah, +“and what experiment has not yet taught, can be known only +from the report of others. I have been told that late +marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question too +important to be neglected; and I have often proposed it to those +whose accuracy of remark and comprehensiveness of knowledge made +their suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally +determined that it is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend +their fate upon each other at a time when opinions are fixed and +habits are established, when friendships have been contracted on +both sides, when life has been planned into method, and the mind +has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own prospects.</p> +<p>“It is scarcely possible that two travelling through the +world under the conduct of chance should have been both directed +to the same path, and it will not often happen that either will +quit the track which custom has made pleasing. When the +desultory levity of youth has settled into regularity, it is soon +succeeded by pride ashamed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to +contend. And even though mutual esteem produces mutual +desire to please, time itself, as it modifies unchangeably the +external mien, determines likewise the direction of the passions, +and gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners. Long +customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the +course of his own life very often labours in vain, and how shall +we do that for others which we are seldom able to do for +ourselves?”</p> +<p>“But surely,” interposed the Prince, “you +suppose the chief motive of choice forgotten or neglected. +Whenever I shall seek a wife, it shall be my first question +whether she be willing to be led by reason.”</p> +<p>“Thus it is,” said Nekayah, “that +philosophers are deceived. There are a thousand familiar +disputes which reason never can decide; questions that elude +investigation, and make logic ridiculous; cases where something +must be done, and where little can be said. Consider the +state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed to act upon +any occasions, whether small or great, with all the reasons of +action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair, +above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust +by reason every morning all the minute details of a domestic +day.</p> +<p>“Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape +the encroachments of their children, but in the diminution of +this advantage they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and +helpless, to a guardian’s mercy; or if that should not +happen, they must at least go out of the world before they see +those whom they love best either wise or great.</p> +<p>“From their children, if they have less to fear, they +have less also to hope; and they lose without equivalent the joys +of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant +and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away +their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies by +continual attrition conform their surfaces to each other.</p> +<p>“I believe it will be found that those who marry late +are best pleased with their children, and those who marry early +with their partners.”</p> +<p>“The union of these two affections,” said +Rasselas, “would produce all that could be wished. +Perhaps there is a time when marriage might unite them—a +time neither too early for the father nor too late for the +husband.”</p> +<p>“Every hour,” answered the Princess, +“confirms my prejudice in favour of the position so often +uttered by the mouth of Imlac, that ‘Nature sets her gifts +on the right hand and on the left.’ Those conditions +which flatter hope and attract desire are so constituted that as +we approach one we recede from another. There are goods so +opposed that we cannot seize both, but by too much prudence may +pass between them at too great a distance to reach either. +This is often the fate of long consideration; he does nothing who +endeavours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter +not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the +blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. +No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his +scent with the flowers of the spring; no man can at the same time +fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the +Nile.”</p> +<h2><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>CHAPTER XXX<br /> +IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Here</span> Imlac entered, and interrupted +them. “Imlac,” said Rasselas, “I have +been taking from the Princess the dismal history of private life, +and am almost discouraged from further search.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me,” said Imlac, “that while +you are making the choice of life you neglect to live. You +wander about a single city, which, however large and diversified, +can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a +country famous among the earliest monarchies for the power and +wisdom of its inhabitants—a country where the sciences +first dawned that illuminate the world, and beyond which the arts +cannot be traced of civil society or domestic life.</p> +<p>“The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments of +industry and power before which all European magnificence is +confessed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are +the schools of modern builders; and from the wonders which time +has spared we may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has +destroyed.”</p> +<p>“My curiosity,” said Rasselas, “does not +very strongly lead me to survey piles of stone or mounds of +earth. My business is with man. I came hither not to +measure fragments of temples or trace choked aqueducts, but to +look upon the various scenes of the present world.”</p> +<p>“The things that are now before us,” said the +Princess, “require attention, and deserve it. What +have I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient +times—with times which can never return, and heroes whose +form of life was different from all that the present condition of +mankind requires or allows?”</p> +<p>“To know anything,” returned the poet, “we +must know its effects; to see men, we must see their works, that +we may learn what reason has dictated or passion has excited, and +find what are the most powerful motives of action. To judge +rightly of the present, we must oppose it to the past; for all +judgment is comparative, and of the future nothing can be +known. The truth is that no mind is much employed upon the +present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our +moments. Our passions are joy and grief, love and hatred, +hope and fear. Of joy and grief, the past is the object, +and the future of hope and fear; even love and hatred respect the +past, for the cause must have been before the effect.</p> +<p>“The present state of things is the consequence of the +former; and it is natural to inquire what were the sources of the +good that we enjoy, or the evils that we suffer. If we act +only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not +prudent. If we are entrusted with the care of others, it is +not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and +he may properly be charged with evil who refused to learn how he +might prevent it.</p> +<p>“There is no part of history so generally useful as that +which relates to the progress of the human mind, the gradual +improvement of reason, the successive advances of science, the +vicissitudes of learning and ignorance (which are the light and +darkness of thinking beings), the extinction and resuscitation of +arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If +accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of +princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected; +those who have kingdoms to govern have understandings to +cultivate.</p> +<p>“Example is always more efficacious than precept. +A soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy +pictures. In this, contemplative life has the +advantage. Great actions are seldom seen, but the labours +of art are always at hand for those who desire to know what art +has been able to perform.</p> +<p>“When the eye or the imagination is struck with any +uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the +means by which it was performed. Here begins the true use +of such contemplation. We enlarge our comprehension by new +ideas, and perhaps recover some art lost to mankind, or learn +what is less perfectly known in our own country. At least +we compare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our +improvements, or, what is the first motion towards good, discover +our defects.”</p> +<p>“I am willing,” said the Prince, “to see all +that can deserve my search.”</p> +<p>“And I,” said the Princess, “shall rejoice +to learn something of the manners of antiquity.”</p> +<p>“The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness, and +one of the most bulky works of manual industry,” said +Imlac, “are the Pyramids: fabrics raised before the time of +history, and of which the earliest narratives afford us only +uncertain traditions. Of these the greatest is still +standing, very little injured by time.”</p> +<p><a name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +120</span>“Let us visit them to-morrow,” said +Nekayah. “I have often heard of the Pyramids, and +shall not rest till I have seen them, within and without, with my +own eyes.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXI<br /> +THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> resolution being thus taken, +they set out the next day. They laid tents upon their +camels, being resolved to stay among the Pyramids till their +curiosity was fully satisfied. They travelled gently, +turned aside to everything remarkable, stopped from time to time +and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed the various +appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated +nature.</p> +<p>When they came to the Great Pyramid they were astonished at +the extent of the base and the height of the top. Imlac +explained to them the principles upon which the pyramidal form +was chosen for a fabric intended to co-extend its duration with +that of the world: he showed that its gradual diminution gave it +such stability as defeated all the common attacks of the +elements, and could scarcely be overthrown by earthquakes +themselves, the least resistible of natural violence. A +concussion that should shatter the pyramid would threaten the +dissolution of the continent.</p> +<p>They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their tents at +its foot. Next day they prepared to enter its interior +apartments, and having hired the common guides, climbed up to the +first passage; when the favourite of the Princess, looking into +the cavity, stepped back and trembled. +“Pekuah,” said the Princess, “of what art thou +afraid?”</p> +<p>“Of the narrow entrance,” answered the lady, +“and of the dreadful gloom. I dare not enter a place +which must surely be inhabited by unquiet souls. The +original possessors of these dreadful vaults will start up before +us, and perhaps shut us in for ever.” She spoke, and +threw her arms round the neck of her mistress.</p> +<p>“If all your fear be of apparitions,” said the +Prince, “I will promise you safety. There is no +danger from the dead: he that is once buried will be seen no +more.”</p> +<p>“That the dead are seen no more,” said Imlac, +“I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent +and unvaried testimony of all ages and of all nations. +There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of +the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which +perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become +universal only by its truth: those that never heard of one +another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but +experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single +cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence, and some +who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears.</p> +<p>“Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which +have already seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason why +spectres should haunt the Pyramid more than other places, or why +they should have power or will to hurt innocence and +purity. Our entrance is no violation of their privileges: +we can take nothing from them; how, then, can we offend +them?”</p> +<p>“My dear Pekuah,” said the Princess, “I will +always go before you, and Imlac shall follow you. Remember +that you are the companion of the Princess of +Abyssinia.”</p> +<p>“If the Princess is pleased that her servant should +die,” returned the lady, “let her command some death +less dreadful than enclosure in this horrid cavern. You +know I dare not disobey you—<a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>I must go if you command me; but if +I once enter, I never shall come back.”</p> +<p>The Princess saw that her fear was too strong for +expostulation or reproof, and, embracing her, told her that she +should stay in the tent till their return. Pekuah was not +yet satisfied, but entreated the Princess not to pursue so +dreadful a purpose as that of entering the recesses of the +Pyramids. “Though I cannot teach courage,” said +Nekayah, “I must not learn cowardice, nor leave at last +undone what I came hither only to do.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXII<br /> +THEY ENTER THE PYRAMID.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Pekuah</span> descended to the tents, and +the rest entered the Pyramid. They passed through the +galleries, surveyed the vaults of marble, and examined the chest +in which the body of the founder is supposed to have been +deposited. They then sat down in one of the most spacious +chambers to rest awhile before they attempted to return.</p> +<p>“We have now,” said Imlac, “gratified our +minds with an exact view of the greatest work of man, except the +wall of China.</p> +<p>“Of the wall it is very easy to assign the motive. +It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of +barbarians, whose unskilfulness in the arts made it easier for +them to supply their wants by rapine than by industry, and who +from time to time poured in upon the inhabitants of peaceful +commerce as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. Their +celerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and their +ignorance made it efficacious.</p> +<p>“But for the Pyramids, no reason has ever been given +adequate to the cost and labour of the work. The narrowness +of the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from +enemies, and treasures might have been reposited at far less +expense with equal security. It seems to have been erected +only in compliance with that hunger of imagination which preys +incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some +employment. Those who have already all that they can enjoy +must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use till +use is supplied must begin to build for vanity, and extend his +plan to the utmost power of human performance that he may not be +soon reduced to form another wish.</p> +<p>“I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the +insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king <a +name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 125</span>whose power +is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all real and imaginary +wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a pyramid, the +satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse +the tediousness of declining life by seeing thousands labouring +without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon +another. Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate +condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and +dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty +with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess +thy folly!”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII<br /> +THE PRINCESS MEETS WITH AN UNEXPECTED MISFORTUNE.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> rose up, and returned through +the cavity at which they had entered; and the Princess prepared +for her favourite a long narrative of dark labyrinths and costly +rooms, and of the different impressions which the varieties of +the way had made upon her. But when they came to their +train, they found every one silent and dejected: the men +discovered shame and fear in their countenances, and the women +were weeping in their tents.</p> +<p>What had happened they did not try to conjecture, but +immediately inquired. “You had scarcely entered into +the Pyramid,” said one of the attendants, “when a +troop of Arabs rushed upon us: we were too few to resist them, +and too slow to escape. They were about to search the +tents, set us on our camels, and drive us along before them, when +the approach of some Turkish horsemen put them to flight: but +they seized the Lady Pekuah with her two maids, and carried them +away: the Turks are now pursuing them by our instigation, but I +fear they will not be able to overtake them.”</p> +<p>The Princess was overpowered with surprise and grief. +Rasselas, in the first heat of his resentment, ordered his +servants to follow him, and prepared to pursue the robbers with +his sabre in his hand. “Sir,” said Imlac, +“what can you hope from violence or valour? The Arabs +are mounted on horses trained to battle and retreat; we have only +beasts of burden. By leaving our present station we may +lose the Princess, but cannot hope to regain Pekuah.”</p> +<p>In a short time the Turks returned, having not been able to +reach the enemy. The Princess burst <a +name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 127</span>out into +new lamentations, and Rasselas could scarcely forbear to reproach +them with cowardice; but Imlac was of opinion that the escape of +the Arabs was no addition to their misfortune, for perhaps they +would have killed their captives rather than have resigned +them.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV<br /> +THEY RETURN TO CAIRO WITHOUT PEKUAH.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was nothing to be hoped from +longer stay. They returned to Cairo, repenting of their +curiosity, censuring the negligence of the government, lamenting +their own rashness, which had neglected to procure a guard, +imagining many expedients by which the loss of Pekuah might have +been prevented, and resolving to do something for her recovery, +though none could find anything proper to be done.</p> +<p>Nekayah retired to her chamber, where her women attempted to +comfort her by telling her that all had their troubles, and that +Lady Pekuah had enjoyed much happiness in the world for a long +time, and might reasonably expect a change of fortune. They +hoped that some good would befall her wheresoever she was, and +that their mistress would find another friend who might supply +her place.</p> +<p>The Princess made them no answer; and they continued the form +of condolence, not much grieved in their hearts that the +favourite was lost.</p> +<p>Next day the Prince presented to the Bassa a memorial of the +wrong which he had suffered, and a petition for redress. +The Bassa threatened to punish the robbers, but did not attempt +to catch them; nor indeed could any account or description be +given by which he might direct the pursuit.</p> +<p>It soon appeared that nothing would be done by +authority. Governors being accustomed to hear of more +crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can +redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and +presently forget the request when they lose sight of the +petitioner.</p> +<p>Imlac then endeavoured to gain some intelligence by private +agents. He found many who pretended to an exact knowledge +of all the haunts of the Arabs, and to regular correspondence +with their chiefs, and who readily undertook the recovery of +Pekuah. Of these, some were furnished with money for their +journey, and came back no more; some were liberally paid for +accounts which a few days discovered to be false. But the +Princess would not suffer any means, however improbable, to be +left untried. While she was doing something, she kept her +hope alive. As one expedient failed, another was suggested; +when one messenger returned unsuccessful, another was despatched +to a different quarter.</p> +<p>Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing had been +heard; the hopes which they had endeavoured to raise in each +other grew more languid; and the Princess, when she saw nothing +more to be tried, sunk down inconsolable in hopeless +dejection. A thousand times she reproached herself with the +easy compliance by which she permitted her favourite to stay +behind her. “Had not my fondness,” said she, +“lessened my authority, Pekuah had not dared to talk of her +terrors. She ought to have feared me more than +spectres. A severe look would have overpowered her; a +peremptory command would have compelled obedience. Why did +foolish indulgence prevail upon me? Why did I not speak, +and refuse to hear?”</p> +<p>“Great Princess,” said Imlac, “do not +reproach yourself for your virtue, or consider that as blameable +by which evil has accidentally been caused. Your tenderness +for the timidity of Pekuah was generous and kind. When we +act according to our duty, we commit the events to Him by whose +laws our actions are governed, and who will suffer none to be +finally punished for obedience. When, in prospect of some +good, whether natural or moral, we break the rules prescribed us, +we withdraw from the direction of superior wisdom, and take all +consequences upon ourselves. Man cannot so far know the +connection of causes and events as that he may venture to do +wrong in order to do right. When we pursue our end by +lawful means, we may always console our miscarriage by the hope +of future recompense. When we consult only our own policy, +and attempt to find a nearer way to good by over-leaping the +settled boundaries of right and wrong, we cannot be happy even by +success, because we cannot escape the consciousness of our fault; +but if we miscarry, the disappointment is irremediably +embittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him who feels +at once the pangs of guilt and the vexation of calamity which +guilt has brought upon him!</p> +<p>“Consider, Princess, what would have been your condition +if the Lady Pekuah had entreated to accompany you, and, being +compelled to stay in the tents, had been carried away; or how +would you have borne the thought if you had forced her <a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>into the +Pyramid, and she had died before you in agonies of +terror?”</p> +<p>“Had either happened,” said Nekayah, “I +could not have endured life till now; I should have been tortured +to madness by the remembrance of such cruelty, or must have pined +away in abhorrence of myself.”</p> +<p>“This, at least,” said Imlac, “is the +present reward of virtuous conduct, that no unlucky consequence +can oblige us to repent it.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXV<br /> +THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEKUAH.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Nekayah</span>, being thus reconciled to +herself, found that no evil is insupportable but that which is +accompanied with consciousness of wrong. She was from that +time delivered from the violence of tempestuous sorrow, and sunk +into silent pensiveness and gloomy tranquillity. She sat +from morning to evening recollecting all that had been done or +said by her Pekuah, treasured up with care every trifle on which +Pekuah had set an accidental value, and which might recall to +mind any little incident or careless conversation. The +sentiments of her whom she now expected to see no more were +treasured in her memory as rules of life, and she deliberated to +no other end than to conjecture on any occasion what would have +been the opinion and counsel of Pekuah.</p> +<p>The women by whom she was attended knew nothing of her real +condition, and therefore she could not talk to them but with +caution and reserve. She began to remit her curiosity, +having no great desire to collect notions which she had no +convenience of uttering. Rasselas endeavoured first to +comfort and afterwards to divert her; he hired musicians, to whom +she seemed to listen, but did not hear them; and procured masters +to instruct her in various arts, whose lectures, when they +visited her again, were again to be repeated. She had lost +her taste of pleasure and her ambition of excellence; and her +mind, though forced into short excursions, always recurred to the +image of her friend.</p> +<p>Imlac was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew his +inquiries, and was asked every night whether he had yet heard of +Pekuah; till, not being able to return the Princess the answer +that she desired, he was less and less willing to come into her +presence. She observed his backwardness, and commanded him +to attend her. “You are not,” said she, +“to confound impatience with resentment, or to suppose that +I charge you with negligence because I repine at your +unsuccessfulness. I do not much wonder at your +absence. I know that the unhappy are never pleasing, and +that all naturally avoid the contagion of misery. To hear +complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy; for +who would cloud by adventitious grief the short gleams of gaiety +which life allows us, or who that is struggling under his own +evils will add to them the miseries of another?</p> +<p>“The time is at hand when none shall be disturbed any +longer by the sighs of Nekayah: my search after happiness is now +at an end. I am resolved to retire from the world, with all +its flatteries and deceits, and will hide myself in solitude, +without any other care than to compose my thoughts and regulate +my hours by a constant succession of innocent occupations, till, +with a mind purified from earthly desires, I shall enter into +that state to which all are hastening, and in which I hope again +to enjoy the friendship of Pekuah.”</p> +<p>“Do not entangle your mind,” said Imlac, “by +irrevocable determinations, nor increase the burden of life by a +voluntary accumulation of misery. The weariness of +retirement will continue to increase when the loss of Pekuah is +forgot. That you have been deprived of one pleasure is no +very good reason for rejection of the rest.”</p> +<p>“Since Pekuah was taken from me,” said the +Princess, “I have no pleasure to reject or to retain. +She that has no one to love or trust has little to hope. +She wants the radical principle of happiness. We may +perhaps allow that what satisfaction this world can afford must +arise from the conjunction of wealth, knowledge, and +goodness. Wealth is nothing but as it is bestowed, and +knowledge nothing but as it is communicated. They must +therefore be imparted to others, and to whom could I now delight +to impart them? Goodness affords the only comfort which can +be enjoyed without a partner, and goodness may be practised in +retirement.”</p> +<p>“How far solitude may admit goodness or advance it, I +shall not,” replied Imlac, “dispute at present. +Remember the confession of the pious hermit. You will wish +to return into the world when the image of your companion has +left your thoughts.”</p> +<p>“That time,” said Nekayah, “will never +come. The generous frankness, the modest obsequiousness, +and the faithful secrecy of my dear Pekuah will always be more +missed as I shall live longer to see vice and folly.”</p> +<p>“The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden +calamity,” said Imlac, “is like that of the fabulous +inhabitants of the new-created earth, who, when the first night +came upon them, supposed that day would never return. When +the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, +nor can imagine how they will be dispelled; yet a new day +succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn +of ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiving +comfort do as the savages would have done had they put out their +eyes when it was dark. Our minds, like our bodies, are in +continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something +acquired. To lose much at once is inconvenient to either, +but while the vital power remains uninjured, nature will find the +means of reparation. Distance has the same effect on the +mind as on the eye; and while we glide along the stream of time, +whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which +we approach increasing in magnitude. Do not suffer life to +<a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>stagnate: it will grow muddy for want of motion; commit +yourself again to the current of the world; Pekuah will vanish by +degrees; you will meet in your way some other favourite, or learn +to diffuse yourself in general conversation.”</p> +<p>“At least,” said the Prince, “do not despair +before all remedies have been tried. The inquiry after the +unfortunate lady is still continued, and shall be carried on with +yet greater diligence, on condition that you will promise to wait +a year for the event, without any unalterable +resolution.”</p> +<p>Nekayah thought this a reasonable demand, and made the promise +to her brother, who had been obliged by Imlac to require +it. Imlac had, indeed, no great hope of regaining Pekuah; +but he supposed that if he could secure the interval of a year, +the Princess would be then in no danger of a cloister.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI<br /> +PEKUAH IS STILL REMEMBERED. THE PROGRESS OF SORROW.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Nekayah</span>, seeing that nothing was +omitted for the recovery of her favourite, and having by her +promise set her intention of retirement at a distance, began +imperceptibly to return to common cares and common +pleasures. She rejoiced without her own consent at the +suspension of her sorrows, and sometimes caught herself with +indignation in the act of turning away her mind from the +remembrance of her whom yet she resolved never to forget.</p> +<p>She then appointed a certain hour of the day for meditation on +the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and for some weeks retired +constantly at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes swollen +and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew less +scrupulous, and suffered any important and pressing avocation to +delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less +occasions, and sometimes forgot what she was indeed afraid to +remember, and at last wholly released herself from the duty of +periodical affliction.</p> +<p>Her real love of Pekuah was not yet diminished. A +thousand occurrences brought her back to memory, and a thousand +wants, which nothing but the confidence of friendship can supply, +made her frequently regretted. She therefore solicited +Imlac never to desist from inquiry, and to leave no art of +intelligence untried, that at least she might have the comfort of +knowing that she did not suffer by <a name="page138"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 138</span>negligence or sluggishness. +“Yet what,” said she, “is to be expected from +our pursuit of happiness, when we find the state of life to be +such that happiness itself is the cause of misery? Why +should we endeavour to attain that of which the possession cannot +be secured? I shall henceforward fear to yield my heart to +excellence, however bright, or to fondness, however tender, lest +I should lose again what I have lost in Pekuah.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII<br /> +THE PRINCESS HEARS NEWS OF PEKUAH.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> seven mouths one of the +messengers who had been sent away upon the day when the promise +was drawn from the Princess, returned, after many unsuccessful +rambles, from the borders of Nubia, with an account that Pekuah +was in the hands of an Arab chief, who possessed a castle or +fortress on the extremity of Egypt. The Arab, whose revenue +was plunder, was willing to restore her, with her two attendants, +for two hundred ounces of gold.</p> +<p>The price was no subject of debate. The Princess was in +ecstasies when she heard that her favourite was alive, and might +so cheaply be ransomed. She could not think of delaying for +a moment Pekuah’s happiness or her own, but entreated her +brother to send back the messenger with the sum required. +Imlac, being consulted, was not very confident of the veracity of +the relater, and was still more doubtful of the Arab’s +faith, who might, if he were too liberally trusted, detain at +once the money and the captives. He thought it dangerous to +put themselves in the power of the Arab by going into his +district; and could not expect that the rover would so much +expose himself as to come into the lower country, where he might +be seized by the forces of the Bassa.</p> +<p>It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. +But Imlac, after some deliberation, directed the messenger to +propose that Pekuah should be conducted by ten horsemen to the +monastery of St. Anthony, which is situated in the deserts of +Upper Egypt, where she should be met by the same number, and her +ransom should be paid.</p> +<p>That no time might be lost, as they expected that the proposal +would not be refused, they immediately began their journey to the +monastery; and when they arrived, Imlac went forward with the +former messenger to the Arab’s fortress. Rasselas was +desirous to go with them; but neither his sister nor Imlac would +consent. The Arab, according to the custom of his nation, +observed the laws of hospitality with great exactness to those +who put themselves into his power, and in a few days brought +Pekuah, with her maids, by easy journeys, to the place appointed, +where, receiving the stipulated price, he restored her, with +great respect, to liberty and her friends, and undertook to +conduct them back towards Cairo beyond all danger of robbery or +violence.</p> +<p>The Princess and her favourite embraced each other with +transport too violent to be expressed, and went out together to +pour the tears of tenderness in secret, and exchange professions +of kindness and gratitude. After a few hours they returned +into the refectory of the convent, where, in the presence of the +prior and his brethren, the Prince required of Pekuah the history +of her adventures.</p> +<h2><a name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +141</span>CHAPTER XXXVIII<br /> +THE ADVENTURES OF THE LADY PEKUAH.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">At</span> what time and in what +manner I was forced away,” said Pekuah, “your +servants have told you. The suddenness of the event struck +me with surprise, and I was at first rather stupefied than +agitated with any passion of either fear or sorrow. My +confusion was increased by the speed and tumult of our flight, +while we were followed by the Turks, who, as it seemed, soon +despaired to overtake us, or were afraid of those whom they made +a show of menacing.</p> +<p>“When the Arabs saw themselves out of danger, they +slackened their course; and as I was less harassed by external +violence, I began to feel more uneasiness in my mind. After +some time we stopped near a spring shaded with trees, in a +pleasant meadow, where we were set upon the ground, and offered +such refreshments as our masters were partaking. I was +suffered to sit with my maids apart from the rest, and none +attempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first began to +feel the full weight of my misery. The girls sat weeping in +silence, and from time to time looked on me for succour. I +knew not to what condition we were doomed, nor could conjecture +where would be the place of our captivity, or whence to draw any +hope of deliverance. I was in the hands of robbers and +savages, and had no reason to suppose that their pity was more +than their justice, or that they would forbear the gratification +of any ardour of desire or caprice of cruelty. I, however, +kissed my maids, and endeavoured to pacify them by remarking that +we were yet treated with decency, and that since we were now +carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence to our +lives.</p> +<p>“When we were to be set again on horseback, my maids +clung round me, and refused to be parted; but I commanded them +not to irritate those who had us in their power. We +travelled the remaining part of the day through an unfrequented +and pathless country, and came by moonlight to the side of a +hill, where the rest of the troop was stationed. Their +tents were pitched and their fires kindled, and our chief was +welcomed as a man much beloved by his dependents.</p> +<p>“We were received into a large tent, where we found +women who had attended their husbands in the expedition. +They set before us the supper which they had provided, and I ate +it rather to encourage my maids than to comply with any appetite +of my own. When the meat was taken away, they spread the +carpets for repose. I was weary, and hoped to find in sleep +that remission of distress which nature seldom denies. +Ordering myself, therefore, to be undressed, I observed that the +women looked very earnestly upon me, not expecting, I suppose, to +see me so submissively attended. When my upper vest was +taken off, they were apparently struck with the splendour of my +clothes, and one of them timorously laid her hand upon the +embroidery. She then went out, and in a short time came +back with another woman, who seemed to be of higher rank and +greater authority. She did, at her entrance, the usual act +of reverence, and, taking me by the hand placed me in a smaller +tent, spread with finer carpets, where I spent the night quietly +with my maids.</p> +<p>“In the morning, as I was sitting on the grass, the +chief of the troop came towards me. I rose up to receive +him, and he bowed with great respect. ‘Illustrious +lady,’ said he, ‘my fortune is better than I had +presumed to hope: I am told by my women that I have a princess in +my camp.’ ‘Sir,’ answered I, ‘your +women have deceived themselves and you; I am not a princess, but +an unhappy stranger who intended soon to have left this country, +in which I am now to be imprisoned for ever.’ +‘Whoever or whencesoever you are,’ returned the Arab, +‘your dress and that of your servants show your rank to be +high and your wealth to be great. Why should you, who can +so easily procure your ransom, think yourself in danger of +perpetual captivity? The purpose of my incursions is to +increase my riches, or, more properly, to gather tribute. +The sons of Ishmael are the natural and hereditary lords of this +part of the continent, which is usurped by late invaders and +low-born tyrants, from whom we are compelled to take by the sword +what is denied to justice. The violence of war admits no +distinction: the lance that is lifted at guilt and power will +sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.’</p> +<p>“‘How little,’ said I, ‘did I expect +that yesterday it should have fallen upon me!’</p> +<p>“’Misfortunes,’ answered the Arab, +‘should always be expected. If the eye of hostility +could learn reverence or pity, excellence like yours had been +exempt from injury. But the angels of affliction spread +their toils alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the mighty +and the mean. Do not be disconsolate; I am not one of the +lawless and cruel rovers of the desert; I know the rules of civil +life; I will fix your ransom, give a passport to your messenger, +and perform my stipulation with nice punctuality.’</p> +<p>“You will easily believe that I was pleased with his +courtesy, and finding that his predominant passion was desire for +money, I began now to think my danger less, for I knew that no +sum would be thought too great for the release of Pekuah. I +told him that he should have no reason to charge me with +ingratitude if I was used with kindness, and that any ransom +which could be expected for a maid of common rank would be paid, +but that he must not persist to rate me as a princess. He +said he would consider what he should demand, and then, smiling, +bowed and retired.</p> +<p>“Soon after the women came about me, each contending to +be more officious than the other, and my maids themselves were +served with reverence. We travelled onward by short +journeys. On the fourth day the chief told me that my +ransom must be two hundred ounces of gold, which I not only +promised him, but told him that I would add fifty more if I and +my maids were honourably treated.</p> +<p>“I never knew the power of gold before. From that +time I was the leader of the troop. The march of every day +was longer or shorter as I commanded, and the tents were pitched +where I chose to rest. We now had camels and other +conveniences for travel; my own women were always at my side, and +I amused myself with observing the manners of the vagrant +nations, and with viewing remains of ancient edifices, with which +these deserted countries appear to have been in some distant age +lavishly embellished.</p> +<p>“The chief of the band was a man far from illiterate: he +was able to travel by the stars or the compass, and had marked in +his erratic expeditions such places as are most worthy the notice +of a passenger. He observed to me that buildings are always +best preserved in places little frequented and difficult of +access; for when once a country declines from its primitive +splendour, the more inhabitants are left, the quicker ruin will +be made. Walls supply stones more easily than quarries; and +palaces and temples will be demolished to make stables of granite +and cottages of porphyry.’”</p> +<h2><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +147</span>CHAPTER XXXIX<br /> +THE ADVENTURES OF PEKUAH (<i>continued</i>).</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">We</span> wandered about in this +manner for some weeks, either, as our chief pretended, for my +gratification, or, as I rather suspected, for some convenience of +his own. I endeavoured to appear contented where sullenness +and resentment would have been of no use, and that endeavour +conduced much to the calmness of my mind; but my heart was always +with Nekayah, and the troubles of the night much overbalanced the +amusements of the day. My women, who threw all their cares +upon their mistress, set their minds at ease from the time when +they saw me treated with respect, and gave themselves up to the +incidental alleviations of our fatigue without solicitude or +sorrow. I was pleased with their pleasure, and animated +with their confidence. My condition had lost much of its +terror, since I found that the Arab ranged the country merely to +get riches. Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice: other +intellectual distempers are different in different constitutions +of mind; that which soothes the pride of one will offend the +pride of another; but to the favour of the covetous there is a +ready way—bring money, and nothing is denied.</p> +<p>“At last we came to the dwelling of our chief; a strong +and spacious house, built with stone in an island of the Nile, +which lies, as I was told, under the tropic. +‘Lady,’ said the Arab, ‘you shall rest after +your journey a few weeks in this place, where you are to consider +yourself as Sovereign. My occupation is war: I have +therefore chosen this obscure residence, from which I can issue +unexpected, and to which I can retire unpursued. You may +now repose in security: here are few pleasures, but here is no +danger.’ He then led me into the inner apartments, +and seating me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground.</p> +<p>“His women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me +with malignity; but being soon informed that I was a great lady +detained only for my ransom, they began to vie with each other in +obsequiousness and reverence.</p> +<p>“Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy +liberty, I was for some days diverted from impatience by the +novelty of the place. The turrets overlooked the country to +a great distance, and afforded a view of many windings of the +stream. In the day I wandered from one place to another, as +the course of the sun varied the splendour of the prospect, and +saw many things which I had never seen before. The +crocodiles and river-horses are common in this unpeopled region; +and I often looked upon them with terror, though I knew they +could not hurt me. For some time I expected to see mermaids +and tritons, which, as Imlac has told me, the European travellers +have stationed in the Nile; but no such beings ever appeared, and +the Arab, when I inquired after them, laughed at my +credulity.</p> +<p>“At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set +apart for celestial observations, where he endeavoured to teach +me the names and courses of the stars. I had no great +inclination to this study; but an appearance of attention was +necessary to please my instructor, who valued himself for his +skill, and in a little while I found some employment requisite to +beguile the tediousness of time, which was to be passed always +amidst the same objects. I was weary of looking in the +morning on things from which I had turned away weary in the +evening: I therefore was at last willing to observe the stars +rather than do nothing, but could not always compose my thoughts, +and was very often thinking on Nekayah when others imagined me +contemplating the sky. Soon after, the Arab went upon +another expedition, and then my only pleasure was to talk with my +maids about the accident by which we were carried away, and the +happiness we should all enjoy at the end of our +captivity.”</p> +<p>“There were women in your Arab’s fortress,” +said the Princess; “why did you not make them your +companions, enjoy their conversation, and partake their +diversions? In a place where they found business or +amusement, why should you alone sit corroded with idle +melancholy? or why could not you bear for a few months that +condition to which they were condemned for life?”</p> +<p>“The diversions of the women,” answered Pekuah, +“were only childish play, by which the mind accustomed to +stronger operations could not be kept busy. I could do all +which they delighted in doing by powers merely sensitive, while +my intellectual faculties were flown to Cairo. They ran +from room to room, as a bird hops from wire to wire in his +cage. They danced for the sake of motion, as lambs frisk in +a meadow. One sometimes pretended to be hurt that the rest +might be alarmed, or hid herself that another might seek +her. Part of their time passed in watching the progress of +light bodies that floated on the river, and part in marking the +various forms into which clouds broke in the sky.</p> +<p>“Their business was only needlework, in which I and my +maids sometimes helped them; but you know that the mind will +easily straggle from the fingers, nor will you suspect that +captivity and absence from Nekayah could receive solace from +silken flowers.</p> +<p>“Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their +conversation: for of what could they be expected to talk? +They had seen nothing, for they had lived from early youth in +that narrow spot: of what they had not seen they could have no +knowledge, for they could not read. They had no idea but of +the few things that were within their view, and had hardly names +for anything but their clothes and their food. As I bore a +superior character, I was often called to terminate their +quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could. If it +could have amused me to hear the complaints of each against the +rest, I might have been often detained by long stories; but the +motives of their animosity were so small that I could not listen +without interrupting the tale.”</p> +<p>“How,” said Rasselas, “can the Arab, whom +you represented as a man of more than common accomplishments, +take any pleasure in his seraglio, when it is filled only with +women like these? Are they exquisitely +beautiful?”</p> +<p>“They do not,” said Pekuah, “want that +unaffecting and ignoble beauty which may subsist without +sprightliness or sublimity, without energy of thought or dignity +of virtue. But to a man like the Arab such beauty was only +a flower casually plucked and carelessly thrown away. +Whatever pleasures he might find among them, they were not those +of friendship or society. When they were playing about him +he looked on them with inattentive superiority; when they vied +for his regard he sometimes turned away disgusted. As they +had no knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the +tediousness of life; as they had no choice, their fondness, or +appearance of fondness, excited in him neither pride nor +gratitude. He was not exalted in his own esteem by the +smiles of a woman who saw no other man, nor was much obliged by +that regard of which he could never know the sincerity, and which +he might often perceive to be exerted not so much to delight him +as to pain a rival. That which he gave, and they received, +as love, was only a careless distribution of superfluous time, +such love as man can bestow upon that which he despises, such as +has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow.”</p> +<p>“You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy,” +said Imlac, “that you have been thus easily +dismissed. How could a mind, hungry for knowledge, be +willing, in an intellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as +Pekuah’s conversation?”</p> +<p>“I am inclined to believe,” answered Pekuah, +“that he was for some time in suspense; for, +notwithstanding his promise, whenever I proposed to despatch a +messenger to Cairo he found some excuse for delay. While I +was detained in his house he made many incursions into the +neighbouring countries, and perhaps he would have refused to +discharge me had his plunder been equal to his wishes. He +returned always courteous, related his adventures, delighted to +hear my observations, and endeavoured to advance my acquaintance +with the stars. When I importuned him to send away my +letters, he soothed me with professions of honour and sincerity; +and when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop +again in motion, and left me to govern in his absence. I +was much afflicted by this studied procrastination, and was +sometimes afraid that I should be forgotten; that you would leave +Cairo, and I must end my days in an island of the Nile.</p> +<p>“I grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so +little to entertain him, that he for a while more frequently +talked with my maids. That he should fall in love with them +or with me, might have been equally fatal, and I was not much +pleased with the growing friendship. My anxiety was not +long, for, as I recovered some degree of cheerfulness, he +returned to me, and I could not forbear to despise my former +uneasiness.</p> +<p>“He still delayed to send for my ransom, and would +perhaps never have determined had not your agent found his way to +him. The gold, which he would not fetch, he could not +reject when it was offered. He hastened to prepare for our +journey hither, like a man delivered from the pain of an +intestine conflict. I took leave of my companions in the +house, who dismissed me with cold indifference.”</p> +<p>Nekayah having heard her favourite’s relation, rose and +embraced her, and Rasselas gave her a hundred ounces of gold, +which she presented to the Arab for the fifty that were +promised.</p> +<h2><a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +155</span>CHAPTER XL<br /> +THE HISTORY OF A MAN OF LEARNING.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">They</span> returned to Cairo, and were so +well pleased at finding themselves together that none of them +went much abroad. The Prince began to love learning, and +one day declared to Imlac that he intended to devote himself to +science and pass the rest of his days in literary solitude.</p> +<p>“Before you make your final choice,” answered +Imlac, “you ought to examine its hazards, and converse with +some of those who are grown old in the company of +themselves. I have just left the observatory of one of the +most learned astronomers in the world, who has spent forty years +in unwearied attention to the motion and appearances of the +celestial bodies, and has drawn out his soul in endless +calculations. He admits a few friends once a month to hear +his deductions and enjoy his discoveries. I was introduced +as a man of knowledge worthy of his notice. Men of various +ideas and fluent conversation are commonly welcome to those whose +thoughts have been long fixed upon a single point, and who find +the images of other things stealing away. I delighted him +with my remarks. He smiled at the narrative of my travels, +and was glad to forget the constellations and descend for a +moment into the lower world.</p> +<p>“On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, and was +so fortunate as to please him again. He relaxed from that +time the severity of his rule, and permitted me to enter at my +own choice. I found him always busy, and always glad to be +relieved. As each knew much which the other was desirous of +learning, we exchanged our notions with great delight. I +perceived that I had every day more of his confidence, and always +found new cause of admiration in the profundity of his +mind. His comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and +retentive, his discourse is methodical, and his expression +clear.</p> +<p>“His integrity and benevolence are equal to his +learning. His deepest researches and most favourite studies +are willingly interrupted for any opportunity of doing good by +his counsel or his riches. To his closest retreat, at his +most busy moments, all are admitted that want his assistance; +‘For though I exclude idleness and pleasure, I will +never,’ says he, ‘bar my doors against charity. +To man is permitted the contemplation of the skies, but the +practice of virtue is commanded.’”</p> +<p>“Surely,” said the Princess, “this man is +happy.”</p> +<p>“I visited him,” said Imlac, “with more and +more frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his +conversation; he was sublime without haughtiness, courteous +without formality, and communicative without ostentation. I +was at first, great Princess, of your opinion, thought him the +happiest of mankind, and often congratulated him on the blessing +that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with +indifference but the praises of his condition, to which he always +returned a general answer, and diverted the conversation to some +other topic.</p> +<p>“Amidst this willingness to be pleased and labour to +please, I had quickly reason to imagine that some painful +sentiment pressed upon his mind. He often looked up +earnestly towards the sun, and let his voice fall in the midst of +his discourse. He would sometimes, when we were alone, gaze +upon me in silence with the air of a man who longed to speak what +he was yet resolved to suppress. He would often send for me +with vehement injunction of haste, though when I came to him he +had nothing extraordinary to say; and sometimes, when I was +leaving him, would call me back, pause a few moments, and then +dismiss me.”</p> +<h2><a name="page158"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +158</span>CHAPTER XLI<br /> +THE ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS THE CAUSE OF HIS UNEASINESS.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">At</span> last the time came when +the secret burst his reserve. We were sitting together last +night in the turret of his house watching the immersion of a +satellite of Jupiter. A sudden tempest clouded the sky and +disappointed our observation. We sat awhile silent in the +dark, and then he addressed himself to me in these words: +‘Imlac, I have long considered thy friendship as the +greatest blessing of my life. Integrity without knowledge +is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous +and dreadful. I have found in thee all the qualities +requisite for trust—benevolence, experience, and +fortitude. I have long discharged an office which I must +soon quit at the call of Nature, and shall rejoice in the hour of +imbecility and pain to devolve it upon thee.’</p> +<p>“I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and +protested that whatever could conduce to his happiness would add +likewise to mine.</p> +<p>“‘Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without +difficulty credit. I have possessed for five years the <a +name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 159</span>regulation +of the weather and the distribution of the seasons. The sun +has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by +my direction; the clouds at my call have poured their waters, and +the Nile has overflowed at my command. I have restrained +the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervours of the +crab. The winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have +hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by +equinoctial tempests which I found myself unable to prohibit or +restrain. I have administered this great office with exact +justice, and made to the different nations of the earth an +impartial dividend of rain and sunshine. What must have +been the misery of half the globe if I had limited the clouds to +particular regions, or confined the sun to either side of the +equator?’”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLII<br /> +THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED.</h2> +<p>“I <span class="smcap">suppose</span> he discovered in +me, through the obscurity of the room, some tokens of amazement +and doubt, for after a short pause he proceeded thus:—</p> +<p>“‘Not to be easily credited will neither surprise +nor offend me, for I am probably the first of human beings to +whom this trust has been imparted. Nor do I know whether to +deem this distinction a reward or punishment. Since I have +possessed it I have been far less happy than before, and nothing +but the consciousness of good intention could have enabled me to +support the weariness of unremitted vigilance.’</p> +<p>“‘How long, sir,’ said I, ‘has this +great office been in your hands?’</p> +<p>“‘About ten years ago,’ said he, ‘my +daily observations of the changes of the sky led me to consider +whether, if I had the power of the seasons, I could confer +greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the earth. This +contemplation fastened on my mind, and I sat days and nights in +imaginary dominion, pouring upon this country and that the +showers of fertility, and seconding every fall of rain with a due +proportion of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do good, +and did not imagine that I should ever have the power.</p> +<p>“‘One day as I was looking on the fields withering +with heat, I felt in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain +on the southern mountains, and raise the Nile to an +inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I commanded rain +to fall; and by comparing the time of my command with that of the +inundation, I found that the clouds had listened to my +lips.’</p> +<p>“‘Might not some other cause,’ said I, +‘produce this concurrence? The Nile does not always +rise on the same day.’</p> +<p>“‘Do not believe,’ said he, with impatience, +‘that such objections could escape me. I reasoned +long against my own conviction, and laboured against truth with +the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of +madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret but to a +man like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the +impossible, and the incredible from the false.’</p> +<p>“‘Why, sir,’ said I, ‘do you call that +incredible which you know, or think you know, to be +true?’</p> +<p>“‘Because,’ said he, ‘I cannot prove +it by any external evidence; and I know too well the laws of +demonstration to think that my conviction ought to influence +another, who cannot, like me, be conscious of its force. I +therefore shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. +It is sufficient that I feel this power that I have long +possessed, and every day exerted it. But the life of man is +short; the infirmities of age increase <a +name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>upon me, +and the time will soon come when the regulator of the year must +mingle with the dust. The care of appointing a successor +has long disturbed me; the night and the day have been spent in +comparisons of all the characters which have come to my +knowledge, and I have yet found none so worthy as +thyself.’”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLIII<br /> +THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.</h2> +<p>“‘<span class="smcap">Hear</span>, therefore, what +I shall impart with attention, such as the welfare of a world +requires. If the task of a king be considered as difficult, +who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he cannot do +much good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him on whom +depends the action of the elements and the great gifts of light +and heat? Hear me, therefore, with attention.</p> +<p>“‘I have diligently considered the position of the +earth and sun, and formed innumerable schemes, in which I changed +their situation. I have sometimes turned aside the axis of +the earth, and sometimes varied the ecliptic of the sun, but I +have found it impossible to make a disposition by which the world +may be advantaged; what one region gains another loses by an +imaginable alteration, even without considering the distant parts +of the solar system with which we are acquainted. Do not, +therefore, in thy administration of the year, indulge thy pride +by innovation; do not please thyself with thinking that thou +canst make thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the +seasons. The memory of mischief is no desirable fame. +Much less will it become thee to let kindness or interest +prevail. Never rob other countries of rain to pour it on +thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.’</p> +<p>“I promised that when I possessed the power I would use +it with inflexible integrity; and he dismissed me, pressing my +hand. ‘My heart,’ said he, ‘will be now +at rest, and my benevolence will no more destroy my quiet; I have +found a man of wisdom and virtue, to whom I can cheerfully +bequeath the inheritance of the sun.’”</p> +<p>The Prince heard this narration with very serious regard; but +the Princess smiled, and Pekuah convulsed herself with +laughter. “Ladies,” said Imlac, “to mock +the heaviest of human afflictions is neither charitable nor +wise. Few can attain this man’s knowledge and few +practise his virtues, but all may suffer his calamity. Of +the uncertainties <a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span>of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is +the uncertain continuance of reason.”</p> +<p>The Princess was recollected, and the favourite was +abashed. Rasselas, more deeply affected, inquired of Imlac +whether he thought such maladies of the mind frequent, and how +they were contracted.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLIV<br /> +THE DANGEROUS PREVALENCE OF IMAGINATION.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Disorders</span> of +intellect,” answered Imlac, “happen much more often +than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps if +we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right +state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes +predominate over his reason who can regulate his attention wholly +by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his +command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do +not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to hope or fear beyond the +limits of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason +is a degree of insanity, but while this power is such as we can +control and repress it is not visible to others, nor considered +as any deprivation of the mental faculties; it is not pronounced +madness but when it becomes ungovernable, and apparently +influences speech or action.</p> +<p>“To indulge the power of fiction and send imagination +out upon the wing is often the sport of those who delight too +much in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not +always busy; the labour of excogitation is too violent to last +long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness +or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him +must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself +what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then +expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable +conditions that which for the present moment he should most +desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyments, and +confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind +dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all +combinations, and riots in delights which Nature and fortune, +with all their bounty, cannot bestow.</p> +<p>“In time some particular train of ideas fixes the +attention; all other intellectual gratifications are rejected; +the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the +favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood +whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By +degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first +imperious and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to +operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and +life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.</p> +<p>“This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the +hermit has confessed not always to promote goodness, and the +astronomer’s misery has proved to be not always propitious +to wisdom.”</p> +<p>“I will no more,” said the favourite, +“imagine myself the Queen of Abyssinia. I have often +spent the hours which the Princess gave to my own disposal in +adjusting ceremonies and regulating the Court; I have repressed +the pride of the powerful and granted the petitions of the poor; +I have built new palaces in more happy situations, planted groves +upon the tops of mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence +of royalty, till, when the Princess entered, I had almost +forgotten to bow down before her.”</p> +<p>“And I,” said the Princess, “will not allow +myself any more to play the shepherdess in my waking +dreams. I have often soothed my thoughts with the quiet and +innocence of pastoral employments, till I have in my chamber +heard the winds whistle and the sheep bleat; sometimes freed the +lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes with my crook +encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of the +village maids, which I put on to help my imagination, and a pipe +on which I play softly, and suppose myself followed by my +flocks.”</p> +<p>“I will confess,” said the Prince, “an +indulgence of fantastic delight more dangerous than yours. +I have frequently endeavoured to imagine the possibility of a +perfect government, by which all wrong should be restrained, all +vice reformed, and all the subjects preserved in tranquillity and +innocence. This thought produced innumerable schemes of +reformation, and dictated many useful regulations and salutary +effects. This has been the sport and sometimes the labour +of my solitude, and I start when I think with how little anguish +I once supposed the death of my father and my +brothers.”</p> +<p>“Such,” said Imlac, “are the effects of +visionary schemes. When we first form them, we know them to +be absurd, but familiarise them by degrees, and in time lose +sight of their folly.”</p> +<h2><a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>CHAPTER XLV<br /> +THEY DISCOURSE WITH AN OLD MAN.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> evening was now far past, and +they rose to return home. As they walked along the banks of +the Nile, delighted with the beams of the moon quivering on the +water, they saw at a small distance an old man whom the Prince +had often heard in the assembly of the sages. +“Yonder,” said he, “is one whose years have +calmed his passions, but not clouded his reason. Let us +close the disquisitions of the night by inquiring what are his +sentiments of his own state, that we may know whether youth alone +is to struggle with vexation, and whether any better hope remains +for the latter part of life.”</p> +<p>Here the sage approached and saluted them. They invited +him to join their walk, and prattled awhile as acquaintance that +had unexpectedly met one another. The old man was cheerful +and talkative, and the way seemed short in his company. He +was pleased to find himself not disregarded, accompanied them to +their house, and, at the Prince’s request, entered with +them. They placed him in the seat of honour, and set wine +and conserves before him.</p> +<p>“Sir,” said the Princess, “an evening walk +must give to a man of learning like you pleasures which ignorance +and youth can hardly conceive. You know the qualities and +the causes of all that you behold—the laws by which the +river flows, the periods in which the planets perform their +revolutions. Everything must supply you with contemplation, +and renew the consciousness of your own dignity.”</p> +<p>“Lady,” answered he, “let the gay and the +vigorous expect pleasure in their excursions: it is enough that +age can attain ease. To me the world has lost its +novelty. I look round, and see what I remember to have seen +in happier days. I rest against a tree, and consider that +in the same shade I once disputed upon the annual overflow of the +Nile with a friend who is now silent in the grave. I cast +my eyes upwards, fix them on the changing moon, and think with +pain on the vicissitudes of life. I have ceased to take +much delight in physical truth; for what have I to do with those +things which I am soon to leave?”</p> +<p>“You may at least recreate yourself,” said Imlac, +“with the recollection of an honourable and useful life, +and enjoy the praise which all agree to give you.”</p> +<p>“Praise,” said the sage with a sigh, “is to +an old man an empty sound. I have neither mother to be +delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to partake the +honours of her husband. I have outlived my friends and my +rivals. Nothing is now of much importance; for I cannot +extend my interest beyond myself. Youth is delighted with +applause, because it is considered as the earnest of some future +good, and because the prospect of life is far extended; but to +me, who am now declining to decrepitude, there is little to be +feared from the malevolence of men, and yet less to be hoped from +their affection or esteem. Something they may yet take +away, but they can give me nothing. Riches would now be +useless, and high employment would be pain. My retrospect +of life recalls to my view many opportunities of good neglected, +much time squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness and +vacancy. I leave many great designs unattempted, and many +great attempts unfinished. My mind is burdened with no +heavy crime, and therefore I compose myself to tranquillity; +endeavour to abstract my thoughts from hopes and cares which, +though reason knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old +possession of the heart; expect, with serene humility, that hour +which nature cannot long delay, and hope to possess in a better +state that happiness which here I could not find, and that virtue +which here I have not attained.”</p> +<p>He arose and went away, leaving his audience not much elated +with the hope of long life. The Prince consoled himself +with remarking that it was not reasonable to be disappointed by +this account; for age had never been considered as the season of +felicity, and if it was possible to be easy in decline and +weakness, it was likely that the days of vigour and alacrity +might be happy; that the noon of life might be bright, if the +evening could be calm.</p> +<p>The Princess suspected that age was querulous and malignant, +and delighted to repress the expectations of those who had newly +entered the world. She had seen the possessors of estates +look with envy on their heirs, and known many who enjoyed +pleasures no longer than they could confine it to themselves.</p> +<p>Pekuah conjectured that the man was older than he appeared, +and was willing to impute his complaints to delirious dejection; +or else supposed that he had been unfortunate, and was therefore +discontented. “For nothing,” said she, +“is more common than to call our own condition the +condition of life.”</p> +<p><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +172</span>Imlac, who had no desire to see them depressed, smiled +at the comforts which they could so readily procure to +themselves; and remembered that at the same age he was equally +confident of unmingled prosperity, and equally fertile of +consolatory expedients. He forbore to force upon them +unwelcome knowledge, which time itself would too soon +impress. The Princess and her lady retired; the madness of +the astronomer hung upon their minds; and they desired Imlac to +enter upon his office, and delay next morning the rising of the +sun.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLVI<br /> +THE PRINCESS AND PEKUAH VISIT THE ASTRONOMER.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Princess and Pekuah, having +talked in private of Imlac’s astronomer, thought his +character at once so amiable and so strange that they could not +be satisfied without a nearer knowledge, and Imlac was requested +to find the means of bringing them together.</p> +<p>This was somewhat difficult. The philosopher had never +received any visits from women, though he lived in a city that +had in it many Europeans, who followed the manners of their own +countries, and many from other parts of the world, that lived +there with European liberty. The ladies would not be +refused, and several schemes were proposed for the accomplishment +of their design. It was proposed to introduce them as +strangers in distress, to whom the sage was always accessible; +but after some deliberation it appeared that by this artifice no +acquaintance could be formed, for their conversation would be +short, and they could not decently importune him often. +“This,” said Rasselas, “is true; but I have yet +a stronger objection against the misrepresentation of your +state. I have always considered it as treason against the +great republic of human nature to make any man’s virtues +the means of deceiving him, whether on great or little +occasions. All imposture weakens confidence and chills +benevolence. When the sage finds that you are not what you +seemed, he will feel the resentment natural to a man who, +conscious of great abilities, discovers that he has been tricked +by understandings meaner than his own, and perhaps the distrust +which he can never afterwards wholly lay aside may stop the voice +of counsel and close the hand of charity; and where will you find +the power of restoring his benefactions to mankind, or his peace +to himself?”</p> +<p>To this no reply was attempted, and Imlac began to hope that +their curiosity would subside; but next day Pekuah told him she +had now found an honest pretence for a visit to the astronomer, +for she would solicit permission to continue under him the +studies in which she had been initiated by the Arab, and the +Princess might go with her, either as a fellow-student, or +because a woman could not decently come alone. “I am +afraid,” said Imlac, “that he will soon be weary of +your company. Men advanced far in knowledge do not love to +repeat the elements of their art, and I am not certain that even +of the elements, as he will deliver them, connected with +inferences and mingled with reflections, you are a very capable +auditress.” “That,” said Pekuah, +“must be my care. I ask of you only to take me +thither. My knowledge is perhaps more than you imagine it, +and by concurring always with his opinions I shall make him think +it greater than it is.”</p> +<p>The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was told that +a foreign lady, travelling in search of knowledge, had heard of +his reputation, and was desirous to become his scholar. The +uncommonness of the proposal raised at once his surprise and +curiosity, and when after a short deliberation he consented to +admit her, he could not stay without impatience till the next +day.</p> +<p>The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and were attended +by Imlac to the astronomer, who was pleased to see himself +approached with respect by persons of so splendid an +appearance. In the exchange of the first civilities he was +timorous and bashful; but when the talk became regular, he +recollected his powers, and justified the character which Imlac +had given. Inquiring of Pekuah what could have turned her +inclination towards astronomy, he received from her a history of +her adventure at the Pyramid, and of the time passed in the +Arab’s island. She told her tale with ease and +elegance, and her conversation took possession of his +heart. The discourse was then turned to astronomy. +Pekuah displayed what she knew. He looked upon her as a +prodigy of genius, and entreated her not to desist from a study +which she had so happily begun.</p> +<p>They came again and again, and were every time more welcome +than before. The sage endeavoured to amuse them, that they +might prolong their visits, for he found his thoughts grow +brighter in their company; the clouds of solitude vanished by +degrees as he forced himself to entertain them, and he grieved +when he was left, at their departure, to his old employment of +regulating the seasons.</p> +<p>The Princess and her favourite had now watched his lips for +several months, and could not catch a single word from which they +could judge whether he continued or not in the opinion of his +preternatural commission. They often contrived to bring him +to an open declaration; but he easily eluded all their attacks, +and, on which side soever they pressed him, escaped from them to +some other topic.</p> +<p>As their familiarity increased, they invited him often to the +house of Imlac, where they distinguished him by extraordinary +respect. He began gradually to delight in sublunary +pleasures. He came early and departed late; laboured to +recommend himself by assiduity and compliance; excited their +curiosity after new arts, that they might still want his +assistance; and when they made any excursion of pleasure or +inquiry, entreated to attend them.</p> +<p>By long experience of his integrity and wisdom, the Prince and +his sister were convinced that he might be trusted without +danger; and lest he should draw any false hopes from the +civilities which he received, discovered to him their condition, +with the motives of their journey, and required his opinion on +the choice of life.</p> +<p>“Of the various conditions which the world spreads +before you which you shall prefer,” said the sage, “I +am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have +chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without +experience—in the attainment of sciences which can for the +most part be but remotely useful to mankind. I have +purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of +life; I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, +and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. If I have +obtained any prerogatives above other students, they have been +accompanied with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity; but even of +these prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, since my thoughts +have been diversified by more intercourse with the world, begun +to question the reality. When I have been for a few days +lost in pleasing dissipation, I am always tempted to think that +my inquiries have ended in error, and that I have suffered much, +and suffered it in vain.”</p> +<p>Imlac was delighted to find that the sage’s +understanding was breaking through its mists, and resolved to +detain him from the planets till he should forget his task of +ruling them, and reason should recover its original +influence.</p> +<p>From this time the astronomer was received into familiar +friendship, and partook of all their projects and pleasures; his +respect kept him attentive, and the activity of Rasselas did not +leave much time unengaged. Something was always to be done; +the day was spent in making observations, which furnished talk +for the evening, and the evening was closed with a scheme for the +morrow.</p> +<p>The sage confessed to Imlac that since he had mingled in the +gay tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession of +amusements, he found the conviction of his authority over the +skies fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less to an +opinion which he never could prove to others, and which he now +found subject to variation, from causes in which reason had no +part. “If I am accidentally left alone for a few +hours,” said he, “my inveterate persuasion rushes +upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some +irresistible violence; but they are soon disentangled by the +Prince’s conversation, and instantaneously released at the +entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually afraid of +spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at the dread +which harassed him in the dark; yet, if his lamp be extinguished, +feels again the terrors which he knows that when it is light he +shall feel no more. But I am sometimes afraid, lest I +indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget +the great charge with which I am entrusted. If I favour +myself in a known error, or am determined by my own ease in a +doubtful question of this importance, how dreadful is my +crime!”</p> +<p>“No disease of the imagination,” answered Imlac, +“is so difficult of cure as that which is complicated with +the dread of guilt; fancy and conscience then act interchangeably +upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of +one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other. +If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives +them away when they give it pain; but when melancholy notions +take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without +opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish +them. For this reason the superstitious are often +melancholy, and the melancholy almost always superstitious.</p> +<p>“But do not let the suggestions of timidity overpower +your better reason; the danger of neglect <a +name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>can be but +as the probability of the obligation, which, when you consider it +with freedom, you find very little, and that little growing every +day less. Open your heart to the influence of the light, +which from time to time breaks in upon you; when scruples +importune you, which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, +do not stand to parley, but fly to business or to Pekuah; and +keep this thought always prevalent, that you are only one atom of +the mass of humanity, and have neither such virtue nor vice as +that you should be singled out for supernatural favours or +afflictions.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLVII<br /> +THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOPIC.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">All</span> this,” said the +astronomer, “I have often thought; but my reason has been +so long subjugated by an uncontrollable and overwhelming idea, +that it durst not confide in its own decisions. I now see +how fatally I betrayed my quiet, by suffering chimeras to prey +upon me in secret; but melancholy shrinks from communication, and +I never found a man before to whom I could impart my troubles, +though I had been certain of relief. I rejoice to find my +own sentiments confirmed by yours, who are not easily deceived, +and can have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope that +time and variety will dissipate the gloom that has so long +surrounded me, and the latter part of my days will be spent in +peace.”</p> +<p>“Your learning and virtue,” said Imlac, “may +justly give you hopes.”</p> +<p>Rasselas then entered, with the Princess and Pekuah, and +inquired whether they had contrived any new diversion for the +next day. “Such,” said Nekayah, “is the +state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of +change; the change itself is nothing; when we have made it the +next wish is to change again. The world is not yet +exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw +before.”</p> +<p>“Variety,” said Rasselas, “is so necessary +to content, that even the Happy Valley disgusted me by the +recurrence of its luxuries; yet I could not forbear to reproach +myself with impatience when I saw the monks of St. Anthony +support, without complaint, a life, not of uniform delight, but +uniform hardship.”</p> +<p>“Those men,” answered Imlac, “are less +wretched in their silent convent than the Abyssinian princes in +their prison of pleasure. Whatever is done by the monks is +incited by an adequate and reasonable motive. Their labour +supplies them with necessaries; it therefore cannot be omitted, +and is certainly rewarded. Their devotion prepares them for +another state, and reminds them of its approach while it fits +them for it. Their time is regularly distributed; one duty +succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the +distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of +listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be +performed at an appropriated hour, and their toils are cheerful, +because they consider them as acts of piety by which they are +always advancing towards endless felicity.”</p> +<p>“Do you think,” said Nekayah, “that the +monastic rule is a more holy and less imperfect state than any +other? May not he equally hope for future happiness who +converses openly with mankind, who succours the distressed by his +charity, instructs the ignorant by his learning, and contributes +by his industry to the general system of life, even though he +should omit some of the mortifications which are practised in the +cloister, and allow himself such harmless delights as his +condition may place within his reach?”</p> +<p>“This,” said Imlac, “is a question which has +long divided the wise and perplexed the good. I am afraid +to decide on either part. He that lives well in the world +is better than he that lives well in a monastery. But +perhaps everyone is not able to stem the temptations of public +life, and if he cannot conquer he may properly retreat. +Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little +strength to resist evil. Many are weary of the conflicts +with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions which +have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed by +age and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. +In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, +the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those +retreats of prayer and contemplation have something so congenial +to the mind of man, that perhaps there is scarcely one that does +not purpose to close his life in pious abstraction, with a few +associates serious as himself.”</p> +<p>“Such,” said Pekuah, “has often been my +wish, and I have heard the Princess declare that she should not +willingly die in a crowd.”</p> +<p>“The liberty of using harmless pleasures,” +proceeded Imlac, “will not be disputed, but it is still to +be examined what pleasures are harmless. The evil of any +pleasure that Nekayah can image is not in the act itself but in +its consequences. Pleasure in itself harmless may become +mischievous by endearing to us a state which we know to be +transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that +of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of +which no length of time will bring us to the end. +Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use +but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In +the state of future perfection to which we all aspire there will +be pleasure without danger and security without +restraint.”</p> +<p>The Princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to the +astronomer, asked him whether he could not delay her retreat by +showing her something which she had not seen before.</p> +<p>“Your curiosity,” said the sage, “has been +so general, and your pursuit of knowledge so vigorous, that +novelties are not now very easily to be found; but what you can +no longer procure from the living may be given by the dead. +Among the wonders of this country are the catacombs, or the +ancient repositories in which the bodies of the earliest +generations were lodged, and where, by the virtue of the gums +which embalmed them, they yet remain without +corruption.”</p> +<p><a name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span>“I know not,” said Rasselas, “what +pleasure the sight of the catacombs can afford; but, since +nothing else is offered, I am resolved to view them, and shall +place this with my other things which I have done because I would +do something.”</p> +<p>They hired a guard of horsemen, and the next day visited the +catacombs. When they were about to descend into the +sepulchral caves, “Pekuah,” said the Princess, +“we are now again invading the habitations of the dead; I +know that you will stay behind. Let me find you safe when I +return.” “No, I will not be left,” +answered Pekuah, “I will go down between you and the +Prince.”</p> +<p>They then all descended, and roved with wonder through the +labyrinth of subterraneous passages, where the bodies were laid +in rows on either side.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLVIII<br /> +IMLAC DISCOURSES ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL.</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">What</span> reason,” said the +Prince, “can be given why the Egyptians should thus +expensively preserve those carcases which some nations consume +with fire, others lay to mingle with the earth, and all agree to +remove from their sight as soon as decent rites can be +performed?”</p> +<p>“The original of ancient customs,” said Imlac, +“is commonly unknown, for the practice often continues when +the cause has ceased; and concerning superstitious ceremonies it +is vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason +cannot explain. I have long believed that the practice of +embalming arose only from tenderness to the remains of relations +or friends; and to this opinion I am more inclined because it +seems impossible that this care should have been general; had all +the dead been embalmed, their repositories must in time have been +more spacious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose +only the rich or honourable were secured from corruption, and the +rest left to the course of nature.</p> +<p>“But it is commonly supposed that the Egyptians believed +the soul to live as long as the body continued undissolved, and +therefore tried this method of eluding death.”</p> +<p>“Could the wise Egyptians,” said Nekayah, +“think so grossly of the soul? If the soul could once +survive its separation, what could it afterwards receive or +suffer from the body?”</p> +<p>“The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneously,” +said the astronomer, “in the darkness of heathenism and the +first dawn of philosophy. The nature of the soul is still +disputed amidst all our opportunities of clearer knowledge; some +yet say that it may be material, who, nevertheless, believe it to +be immortal.”</p> +<p>“Some,” answered Imlac, “have indeed said +that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any +man has thought it who knew how to think; for all the conclusions +of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices +of sense and investigations of science concur to prove the +unconsciousness of matter.</p> +<p>“It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in +matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet if +any part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose +to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, +density, bulk, motion, and direction of motion. To which of +these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be +annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be +great or little, to be moved slowly or swiftly, one way or +another, are modes of material existence all equally alien from +the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without +thought, it can only be made to think by some new modification; +but all the modifications which it can admit are equally +unconnected with cogitative powers.”</p> +<p>“But the materialists,” said the astronomer, +“urge that matter may have qualities with which we are +unacquainted.”</p> +<p>“He who will determine,” returned Imlac, +“against that which he knows because there may be something +which he knows not; he that can set hypothetical possibility +against acknowledged certainty, is not to be admitted among +reasonable beings. All that we know of matter is, that +matter is inert, senseless, and lifeless; and if this conviction +cannot he opposed but by referring us to something that we know +not, we have all the evidence that human intellect can +admit. If that which is known may be overruled by that +which is unknown, no being, not omniscient, can arrive at +certainty.”</p> +<p>“Yet let us not,” said the astronomer, “too +arrogantly limit the Creator’s power.”</p> +<p>“It is no limitation of Omnipotence,” replied the +poet, “to suppose that one thing is not consistent with +another, that the same proposition cannot be at once true and +false, that the same number cannot be even and odd, that +cogitation cannot be conferred on that which is created incapable +of cogitation.”</p> +<p>“I know not,” said Nekayah, “any great use +of this question. Does that immateriality, which in my +opinion you have sufficiently proved, necessarily include eternal +duration?”</p> +<p>“Of immateriality,” said Imlac, “our ideas +are negative, and therefore obscure. Immateriality seems to +imply a natural power of perpetual duration as a consequence of +exemption from all causes of decay: whatever perishes is +destroyed by the solution of its contexture and separation of its +parts; nor can we conceive how that which has no parts, and +therefore admits no solution, can be naturally corrupted or +impaired.”</p> +<p>“I know not,” said Rasselas, “how to +conceive anything without extension: what is extended must have +parts, and you allow that whatever has parts may be +destroyed.”</p> +<p>“Consider your own conceptions,” replied Imlac, +“and the difficulty will be less. You will find +substance without extension. An ideal form is no less real +than material bulk; yet an ideal form has no extension. It +is no less certain, when you think on a pyramid, that your mind +possesses the idea of a pyramid, than that the pyramid itself is +standing. What space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more +than the idea of a grain of corn? or how can either idea suffer +laceration? As is the effect, such is the cause; as +thought, such is the power that thinks, a power impassive and +indiscerptible.”</p> +<p>“But the Being,” said Nekayah, “whom I fear +to name, the Being which made the soul, can destroy +it.”</p> +<p>“He surely can destroy it,” answered Imlac, +“since, however imperishable, it receives from a superior +nature its power of duration. That it will not perish by +any inherent cause of decay or principle of corruption, may be +shown by philosophy; but philosophy can tell no more. That +it will not be annihilated by Him that made it, we must humbly +learn from higher authority.”</p> +<p>The whole assembly stood awhile silent and collected. +“Let us return,” said Rasselas, “from this +scene of mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions of +the dead to him who did not know that he should never die; that +what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks +shall think on for ever. Those that lie here stretched +before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to +remember the shortness of our present state; they were perhaps +snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the <i>choice of +life</i>.”</p> +<p>“To me,” said the Princess, “the choice of +life is become less important; I hope hereafter to think only on +the choice of eternity.”</p> +<p>They then hastened out of the caverns, and under the +protection of their guard returned to Cairo.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XLIX<br /> +THE CONCLUSION, IN WHICH NOTHING IS CONCLUDED.</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was now the time of the +inundation of the Nile. A few days after their visit to the +catacombs the river began to rise.</p> +<p>They were confined to their house. The whole region +being under water, gave them no invitation to any excursions; and +being well supplied with materials for talk, they diverted +themselves with comparisons of the different forms of life which +they had observed, and with various schemes of happiness which +each of them had formed.</p> +<p>Pekuah was never so much charmed with any place as the Convent +of St. Anthony, where the Arab restored her to the Princess, and +wished only to fill it with pious maidens and to be made prioress +of the order. She was weary of expectation and disgust, and +would gladly be fixed in some unvariable state.</p> +<p>The Princess thought that, of all sublunary things, knowledge +was the best. She desired first to learn all sciences, and +then proposed to found a college of learned women, in which she +would preside, that, by conversing with the old and educating the +young, she might divide her time between the acquisition and +communication of wisdom, and raise up for the next age models of +prudence and patterns of piety.</p> +<p>The Prince desired a little kingdom in which he might +administer justice in his own person and see all the parts of +government with his own eyes; but he could never fix the limits +of his dominion, and was always adding to the number of his +subjects.</p> +<p>Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be driven along the +stream of life without directing their course to any particular +port.</p> +<p>Of those wishes that they had formed they well knew that none +could be obtained. They deliberated awhile what was to be +done, and resolved, when the inundation should cease, to return +to Abyssinia.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed by Cassell & Company, +Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RASSELAS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 652-h.htm or 652-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/5/652 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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