0! 0! 3 4 4 7 / (^ybo/uu/yf^-^^- THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS, PEINCE OF ABYSSINIA. SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 90, 92 & 94 GEAND ST. 1870. NOTICE OF RASSELAS, EXTRACTED FROM BOSWELL'S "LIFE OF JOHNSON. "This Tale, with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important scenes of human life, and shows us that this stage of our being is full of ' vanity and vexation of spirit.' To those who look no further than the present life, or wlio maintain that human nature has not fallen from the state in which it was created, the in- struction of this sublime story will be of no avail. But they who think justly and feel with strong sensibility will listen with eagerness and admiration to its truth and wisdom. I, 22307' y4 VI NOTICE OP RASSELA6. " It may be considered as a more enlarged and more deeply philosophical discourse in prose, upon the interesting truth, which, in his 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' he had so suc- cessfully enforced in verse. "The fund of thinking which this woik con- tains is such, that almost every sentence of it may furnish a subject of long meditation. I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having read it through; and at every perusal, my admiration of the mind which produced it is SD highly raised, that I can scarcely believe that I had the honor of enjoying the intimacy of such a man. "1 restrain myself from quoting passages from this excellent work, or even referring to them, because I should not know what to select, or, rather, what to omit. "Notwithstanding my high adm.iration of Rasselas, I will not maintain that the ' morbid melancholy' in Johnson's constitution may not, perhaps, have made life appear to him moio insipid and unhappy than it generally is; for 1 am sure that he had less enjoyment from it NOTICE OF RASSELAS. VH thaa I have Yet, whatever additional shade hi3 own particular sensatlon^may have thrown on his representation of life, attentive observa- tion and close Inquiry have convinced me that there is loo much reality in the gloomy picture. The truth, however, is, that we judge of the happiness and misery of life differently at dif- ferent times, according to the slate of our changeable frame. I always remember a re- mark made to me by a Turkish lady educated in France: ' Ma /oi, Monsieur, notre bonheur depend de la fa^on que notre sang circule.' This have I learnt from a pretty hard course of experience, and would, from sincere benevo- lence, impress upon all who honor this book with a perusal, that, until a steady conviction is obtained, that the present life is an imperfect slate, and only a passage to a better, if we com- ply with the divine scheme of progressive im- provement ; and also that it is a part of the mysterious plan of Providence, that intellectual beings must 'be made perfect through suffer- ing ; ' there will be a continual recurrence of disappointment and uneasiness. But if we walk Tiii NOTICE OF RASSELAS. with hope in the ' mid-day sun ' of revelation, our temper and disposition will be such, that the comforts and enjoyments in our way will be relished, while we patiently support the inconveniences and pains." * CONTENTS. Cbapter Page I. Description of a Palace in a Valley 1 n. The Discontent of Rasselas in the Happy Valley .... 5 III. The wants of him that wants noth- ing . 9 IV. The Prince continues to grieve and muse 11 V. The Prince meditates hia Escape . 16 VI. A Dissertation on the Art of Flying 13 Vn. The Prince finds a Man of Learning 23 Vm. The History of Imlac . . 25 IX. The History of Imlac continued 30 X. Imlac's History continued. A Dis- sertation upon Poetry . 34 XI Imlac's Narrative continued. A Hint on Pilgrimage .... 33 Xn. The Story of Imlac continued . 42 Xm. Rasselas discovers the Means of Es- cape 43 X CONTENTS. i Chapter P..e 1 XIV Rasselas and Imlac receive an un- expected Visit .... 51 XV Tlie Prince and Princess leave the Valley and see many Wonders 53 XVI. They enter Cairo and find every ]\Ian happy .... 56 xvn. The Prince associates with Young Men Df Spirit and Gayety 61 XVIII. The Prince finds a wise and hap- py Man 63 XIX. A glimpse of Pastoral Life . 66 XX. The Danger of Prosperity , 63 XXI. The Happiness of Solitude. The Hermit's History 71 XXII. The Happiness of a Life led ac- cording to Nature . 74 XXIII. The Prince and his Sister divide between them the Work of Ob- servation 73 XXIV. The Prince examines the Happi- ness of High Stations 79 XXV. The Princess pursues her Inquiry with more Diligence than Success 81 XXVI. Tlie Princess continues her Re- marks upon private Life • 84 XXVII. Disquisition upon Greatness 83 XXVIII. Rasselas and Nekayah continue their Conversation . 91 XXIX. The Debate of Marriage continued 95 CONTENTS. xi Chapter Page XXX. Imlac enters, and chanses the Conversation .... 100 XXXI. They visit the Pyramids . 104 XXXIT. They enter the Pyramid . 107 xxxii!. The Prin&ass meets with an un- expected Misfortune 109 XXXTV. They return to Cairo without Pe- kuah 111 XXXV. The Princess languishes for want of Pekuah .... 115 XXXVI. Pekuah is still remembered. The Progress of Sorrow . 120 XXXVII. The Princess hears News of Pe- kuah 121 XXXVIIT. The Adventures of the Lady Pe- kuah 124 XXXTX. The Adventures of Pekuah con- tinued 129 XL. The History of a Man of Learn- ing 137 XLI. The Astronomer discovers the Cause of his Uneasiness . 140 XLII The Opinion of the Astronomer is explained and justified 141 XLHI The Astronomer leaves Imlac his Directions .... 144 XLIV The dangerous Prevalence of Im- agination 146 XLV Tliey Discourse with an old Man 149 XII CONTENTS. ClHipter Pa£,t! XLVI. The Princess and Pekuah visit the Astronomer . . , .153 XLVII. The Prince enters, and brings a new Topic . . . . .61 XL VIII. Imlac discourses on the Nature of the Soul 166 XLIX. The Conclusion, in which nothing is concluded , . . .171 HISTORY OF RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION OP A PALACE IN A VALLEY. Ye who listen with credulity to the whis- pers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope 3 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. Rasselas was the fourth son of the migh- ty emperor, in whose dominions the Fa- ther of Waters begins his course ; whose bounty pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over half the world the har- vests of Egypt. According to the custom which has de- scended from age to age among the mon- archs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the oth- er sons and daughters of Abyssinian royal- ty, till the order of succession should call him to the throne. RASSELAS. The place, which Ihe wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian princes, was a spacious I valley in the kingdom of Amhara, sur- rounded 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 has 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 ar- tificers of ancient days, so massy that no man without the help of engines could open or shut them. From the mountains on every side, rivu- lets descended that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the middle, inhabited by fish of ev- ery species, and frequented by every fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. This lake discharged its superflui- ties by a stream which entered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice t® precipice till it was heard no more. The sides of the mountains were cov- ered with trees, the banks of the brooks were diversified with flovver.s ; every blast shook spices from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the ground. RASSELAS. d All animak that bite the grass, or browse the shrub, whether wild or tame, wander- ed in this extensive circuit, secured from beasts of prey by the mountains which con- fined them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking in the lawns 3 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 na- ture were collected, and its evils extracted and excluded. The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitantfj with 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 open- ed 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 j the tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately granted. All the artificers of pleasure were called to gladden the festiv- ity; the musicians exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers showed their ac- tivity before the princes, in hope that they should pass their lives in this blissful cap- tivity ; to which those only were admitted whose performance was thought able to 4 RASSELAS. add novelty to luxury. Such was the ap- pearance 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 long experience could not be known. Thus every year pro- duced new schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprisonment. 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 magnifi- cence, according to the rank of those for whom they were designed. The roofs were turned into arches of massy stone, joined by a cement that grew harder by time, and the ituilding stood from century to century deriding the solstitial rains and equinoctial hurricanes, without need of reparation. This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none but some ancient offi- cers who successively inherited the secrets of the place, was built as if suspicion her- self had dictated the plan. To every room there was an open and secret passage, ev- ery square had a communication with the rest, either from the upper stories by pri- vate galleries, or by subterranean passages from the lower apartments. Many of the columns had unsuspected cavities in which a long race of monarchs had deposited their RASSELAS. O treasures. They then closed up the open- ing with marble, which was never to be re* moved, but in the utmost exigencies of the kingdom ; and recorded their accumula- tions 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. CHAPTER II. THE DISCONTENT OP RASSELAS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY. Here the sons and daughters of Abys- sinia lived only to know the soft vicissi- tudes 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 raging, and where man preyed upca man. To heighten their opin- ion of their own felicity, they were daily entertained with songs, the subject of which was the happy valletj. Their appetites were excited by frequent enumerations of dift'er- b RASSELAS. ent enjoyments, and revelry and merriment was the business of every hour from the dawn of mornini^ to the close of even. These methods were generally success- ful; lew 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 fate had excluded from this seat of tranquillity, as the sport of chance and the slaves of misery. 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 their 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 oliicious- ness, repulsed their invitations, and spent day after day on tlie banks of rivulets shel- tered with trees, where he sometimes lis- tened to the birds in the branches, some- times observed tlie fishes playing in the stream, and anon cast his eyes upon the pastures and mountains filled with animals, of which some were biting the herbage, and RASSELAS. 7 some sleeping among the bushes. This sin- gularity of his humor made him much ob- served! One of the sages, in whose con- versation he had formerly delighted, fol- lowed 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. '•' 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 corporeal 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 arises again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty like him, but when hunger and thirst cease, I am not at rest ; I am, like him, pain- ed 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 my atten- tion. The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fiy 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 lu- tanist and the singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me to-day„ and will fjrow vet more wearisome to-moirow. 8 IIASSELAS. I can discover within me no power of per- ception 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 desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy." After this, he lifted up his head, and see- ing 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 5 nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your felicity 5 for it is not the felicity of man. I have many distresses from which ye 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 bal- anced peculiar sufferings with peculiar en- joyments." 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 compla- cence in his own perspicuity, 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 re- joiced to find that his heart was lightened. RASSELAS. y CHAPTER 11 THE WANTS OF HIM THAT WANTS NOTHING. Ox the next day, his old instructor, im- agining that he had now made himself ac- quainted 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 v/illing to afford : " Why." said he, •' does this man thus obtrude upon me ; shall 1 be never suffered to forget those lectures which pleased only while they were new, and to become new again, must be forgot- ten ? " He then walked into the wood, and composed himself to his usual meditations 3 when, before his thoughts had taken any set- tled form, he perceived his pursuer at his side, and was at first prompted by his impa- tience to go hastily away ; but. being unwiN ling to offend a man whom he had once reverenced and still loved, he invited him | to sit down with him on the bank. 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 J 10 BASSELAS. 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 miseiy in the happy valleij. I hope to convince you that your complaints have no real cause. You are here in full possession ol all the emperor of Abyssinia can bestow; here is neither labor to be endured nor danger to be dreaded, yet here is all that labor or danger can procure or purchase. Look round and tell me which of your wants is without sup- ply ; if you want nothing how are you un- iiappy 1 " " 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 mountain, or lament when the daybreaks and sleep will no long- er liide me from myself. When I see the kids and the lambs chasing one another, I fancy I should be happy if I liad something to pursue. But, possessing all that I can want. I find one day and one hour exactly like an- other, except that the latter is still more te- dious than the former. Let your experience inform me how the day may now seem as short as in my childhood, while nature was vet fresh, and every moment showed me RASSELAS. 11 what I never had observed before. I have already enjoyed loo much ; give me some- thing to desire." The old man was sur- prised 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." *• j\ow," 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." CHAPTER IV. THE PRIXCE CONTINUES TO GRIEVE AND MUSE. At this time the sound of music pro- claimed the hour of repast, and the conver- sation was concluded. The old man went away sufficiently discontented, to find that his reasonings had produced the only con- clusion which they were intended to pre- j vent. But in the decline of life shame and I grief are of short duration ; whether it be I that we bear easily what we have borne j 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 thit the hand of death is about to put an end. VZ RASSELAS. 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 re- joiced in his youth, because in many years much might be done. This 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 enjoy only by concealing it, he af- fected to be busy in all schemes of diver- sion, and endeavoured to make others pleas- ed with the state of which he himself was weary. But pleasures never can be so mul- tiplied 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 lie 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 amuse- ment was to picture to himself that world which he had never seen ; to place himself RASSELAS. 13 in various conditions 5 to be entangled in imaginary diificulties, and to be engaged in wild adventures ; but his benevolence al- ways terminated his projects in the relief of distress, the detection of fraud, the defeat of oppression, and the diffusion of happiness. 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. 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 tor restitution and re- dress. So strongly was the image impress- ed 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 pur- suit. Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt. Rasselas could not catch the fugitive j 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. Here he recollected himself, and smiled j at his own useless impetuosity. Then rais- ing his eyes to the mountain, "This," saio he, " is the fatal obstacle that hinders at once the enjoyment of pleasure, and the exercise of virtue. How long is it that my 14 RASSELAS. hopes and wishes have flown beyond this boundary of my life, which yet I never have attempted to surmount ! " — 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 mighthave been done in tlie time w hich had passed, and left noth- ing real behind it. He compared twenty montlis with the life of man. " In life,'' said he, " is not to be counted the igno- rance of infancy, or the 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 1 " The consciousness of his own folly pierc- ed 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 tlie ab- surd institutions of my country; I nemem- ber 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 felicitv, have been .ASSELAS. 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 tlie light of heaven : in this time the birds have left the nest of their motlier, and committed themselves to the woods and to the skies : the kid has forsak- en the teat, and learned by degrees to climb I the rocks in (juest of independent suste- nance. 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, regard- less alike of the examples of the earth, and the instruction of the planets. Twen- ty months are passed, who shall restore them ? " These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind 5 he passed four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle re- solves, 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. This was obvious ; and Rasselas reproach- ed himself that he had not discovered it, I having not known or not considered how many useful hints are obtained by chance, and how often the mind, hurried by her own ardor to distant views, neglects the truths that lie open before her. He, for a Cew 10 RASSEIAS. hours, regretted his regret, and from that time bent his whole mind upon the means of escaping from the valley of happiness. CHAPTER V. THE PRINCE MEDITATES HIS ESCAPE. He now found that it would be very diffi- cult 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 wjiich none that once had passed it were ever able to return. He was now impatient as an eagle in the 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 senti- nels, and was by its position exposed to the perpetual observation of all the inhabitants. He then examined the cavern tlirough which the waters of the lake were dis- charged 5 and, looking down at a time when the sun shone strongly upon its rnouth, he discovered it to be full of broken rocks, RASSELAS. 77"! which, though ihey permitted the stream to flow through many narrow passages, would stop any body of solid bulk. He returned discouraged and dejected 3 but, having now known the blessing of hope, resolved never to dispair. In these fruitless searches he spent ten months. The time, however, passed cheer- fully away . in the morning he rose with new hope, in the evening applauded his own diligence, and in the night slept sound after his fatigue. He met a thousand amusements which beguiled his labor and diversified his thoughts. He discerned the various instincts of animals and prop- erties of plants, and found the place re- plete with wonders, of which he pur- posed to solace himself with the con- templation, if he should never be able to accomplish his flight ; rejoicing that his endeavours, though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him with a source of inex- haustible inquiry. But his original curiosity was not yet abated; he resolved to obtain some knowl- edge 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 ietermined to keep his design always in .-lew, and lay hold on any expedient that time should offer. 18 RASSELAS. CHAPTER VI. A DISSERTATION ON THE ART OF FLYING. Among the artists that had been allured into the happy valley, to labor for the ac- commodation and pleasure of its inhabit- ants, 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 gar- den, around which he kept the air always cool by artificial showers. One of the groves, appropriated to the ladies, was ven- tilated by fans, to which the rivulet that ran through it gave a constant motion ; j and instruments of soft music were placed j at proper distances, of which some played by the impulse of the wind, and some by the power of the stream. This artist was sometimes visited by Ras- selas, 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 man- ner, anci found the master busy in building a siiilinff cliariot: he saw that tlie design RASSBLAS. 19 was practicable on 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 honors. " 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 swift- er migration of wings; that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only igno- rance and idleness need crawl upon the<, ground." This hint rekindled the prince's desire of passing the mountains 5 having seen what the mechanist had already performed, he was willing to fancy that he could do more 3 yet resolved to inquire further, before he suffered hope to afflict him by disappoint- ment. " 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 an- imal has his element assigned him ; the birds have the air, and man and beast the earth." " So," replied the mechanist, " fishes have the water, in which yet beasts can swim by nature, and men 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 subtiler. We are only to proportion our power of resistance to the 20 RASSELAS. different density of matter through which we are to pass. You will be necessarily upborne by thp air, if you can renew any impulse uc-on it faster than the air can re- cede from the pressure." " But the exercise of swimming," said the prince, '• is very laborious ; the strong- est 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 v/e can fly further than we can swim." " The labor 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 will float in the air without any tendency to fall : no care will then be necessary but to move forwards, which the gentlest impulse will effect. You, Sir, whose curiosity is so extensive, will easily conceive with what pleasure a phi- losopher, furnished with wings, and hov- ering 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 des- erts ! To survey with equal serenity the marts of trade and the fields of battle ; RASSELAS. 21 mountains infested by barbarians, and fruit- ful regions gladdened by plenty and lulled by peace ! How easily shall we then trace the jXile through all his passage ; pass over to distant regions, and examine the face of nature from one extremity of the earth to the other ! " " 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/' " Nothing, " replied the artist, " will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome. If you will favor 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 con- tinuity of the bat's wings most easily ac- commodated to the human form. Upon this model I shall begin my task to-morrow, and in a year expect to tower into the air be- yond 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." I 22 RASSELAS. I " Why/' said Rasselas, ''should you en- j vy others so great an advantage 1 All skill f ought to be exerted for universal good 5 ev- ery man has owed much to others, and ought to repay the kindness that he has received." "If men were all virtuous,"- returned the artist, " I should with great alacrity teach them all to tly. But what would be the se- curity of the good, if the bad could at pleas- ure invade them from the sky 1 Against an army sailing through the clouds, neither walls, nor mountains, nor seas, could atlbrd any security. A flight of northern savages miffht hover in the wind and light at once with irresistible violence upon the capital of a fruitful region that was rolling under them. Even this valley, the retreat of princes, tlie 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." 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 tlie prince. In a year tlie wings were finished, and, on a morning appointed, the maker appear- RASSELAS. 23 ed furnished for flight on a little promonto- ry : 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. CHAPTER Vn. THE PRINCE FIXD3 A MAX OF LEARNING. The 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. 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 j in the woods. j The rain continued longer and with n-.ore j violence than had ever been known ; tne / clouds broke on the surrounding moun- tains, and the torrents streamed into the S4 RASSELAS. 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 pastures, and both the wild beasts and the tame retreated to the mountains. This inundation confined all tlie 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 com- manded the poet to attend him in his apart- ment, and recite his verses a second time ; then entering into familiar talk, he thought j himself happy in having found a man who knew the world so well, and could so skil- fully paint the scenes of life. He asked a thousand questions about tilings, 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 in- struction, so that the prince regretted the necessity of sleep, and longed till the morn- ing should renew his pleasure. As they were sitting together, the prince commanded Imlac to relate his history, and to tell by what accident he was forced, or RASSELAS by what motive induced, to close his life in the happy valley. As he was going to be- gin his narrative, Rasselas was called to a concert, and obliged to restrain his curiosi- ty till the evening. CHAPTER Vlll. THE HISTORY OF IMLAC. The 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 be- gin the story of his life. '^ Sir," said Imlac, " my history will not be long : the life that is devoted to knowl- edg« passes silently away, and is very little diversified by events. To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to in- quire 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 '* 1 was born in the kingdom of Goiama, at no ^reat distance from the fountain of the iSile. My father was a wealthy mer- chant, who traded between the inland coun- tries of Africa and the ports of the Red Sea. j 26 RASSELAS. He was honest, frugal, and diligent, but of mean sentiments and narrow comprehen- sion : he desired only to be rich, and to conceal his riches, lest he should be spoil- ed by the governors of the province." " Surely,-"' said the prince, " my father must be negligent of his charge, if any man in his dominions dares take that which be- longs to another. Does he not know that kings are accountable for injustice permit- ted 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." " Sir," said Imlac, "your ardor is the natural effect of virtue animated by youth : the time v.ill come when you will acquit your father, and perhaps hear with less im- patience of the governor. Oppression is, in the Abyssinian dominions, neither fre- quent nor tolerated 5 but no form of govern- ment has yet been discovered, by which cruelty can be wholly prevented. Subor- dination sup])oses power on one part, and sul)jcction on the other ; and if power be in the hands of men, it will sometimes be abused. The vigilance of the supreme ma- gistrate may do much, but much will still re- main undone. He can never know all the RASSELAS. 27 crimes that are committed, and can seldom punish all that he knows."' " This," said the prince, " I do not under- stand, but I had rf-ther hear thee than dis- pute. Continue thy narration." "My father," proceeded Imlac, " origi- nally intended that I should have no other education than such as might qualify nie for commerce ; and, discovering in me great strength of memory and quickness of appre- hension, often declared his hope that I should be some time the richest man in Abyssinia." " Why/' said the prince, " did thy father desire the increase of his wealth, when it was already greater than he durst discoverer enjoy ? 1 am unwilling to doubt thy veraci- ty, yet inconsistencies cannot both be true." " Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, " cannot both be right, but, imputed to man, they may both be true. Yet diversity is not inconsistency. My father might ex- pect a time of great security. However, some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he, whose real wants are sup- plied, must admit those of fancy." '' This," said the prince. " I can in some measure conceive. I repent that I inter- rupted thee." '' With this hope," proceeded Tmlac, " 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 in- 28 RASSELAS. "1 vention, I began silently to despise riches, and determined to disappoint the purpose of my father, whose grossness of conception raised my pity. I was twenty years old be- fore his tenderness would expose me to the fatigue of travel, in Avhich 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 gratifications ; but, as I advanced to manhood, I lost much of the reverence with which I had been used to look on my instructors ; because when the lesson was ended, I did not find them wiser or better than common men. " 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 the fifth part, and you see how diligence and parsi- mony have increased it. This is your own to waste or to 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, wc will thenceforward let subordination cease, and live together as friends and partners ; for he shall always be equal with mc, who is equally skilled in the art of growing rich." " We laid our money upon camels, con- cealed in bales of cheap goods, and travelled RASSELAS. 29 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 unextinguishable curiosity kindle in my mind, and resolved to snatch this oppor- ' tunity of seeing the manners of other na- I tions, and of learning sciences unknown in ; Abyssinia. " 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 fountains of knowledge, to quench the thirst of curiosity. " As I was supposed to trade without con- nexion with my father, it was easy for me to become acquainted with the master of a ship and procure a passage to some other coun- try. I had no motives of choice to regulate my voyage 5 it was sufficient 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 I letter for my father, declaring my intention." 30 RASSELAS. CHAPTER IX. THE HISTORY OF IMLAC CONTINUED. " When I first entered upon the world of waters, and lost sight of land I looked round about me with pleasing terror, and, thinking my soul enlarged by the boundless prospect, imagined that I could gaze round for ever without satiety 5 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 descend- ed into the ship, and doubted for a while 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 3 tlie only variety of water is rest and motion, but the earth has moun- tains and valleys, deserts and cities ; it is in- habited by men of different customs and con- trary opinions 5 and I may hope to find varie- ty in life, though I should miss it in nature. " With this thouglit 1 quieted my mind, and amused myself during the voyage, sometimes by learning from the sailors the art of navigation, which I have never prac- tised, and sometimes by forming schemes for my conduct in different situations, in not one of which I have been ever placed. " I was almost weciry of my naval amuse RASSELAS. -^ merits when we landed safely 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 ofRcers, and saw me plundered upon false pretences, without any advantage to themselves, but that of rejoicing in the superiority of their own knowledge." " 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 igno- rance was merely accidental, which being neither your crime nor your folly, could af- ford 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." " Pride," said Imlac, " is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advan- tages ; and envy feels not its own happi- ness, but when it may be compared with tlie misery of others. 'They were my ene- mies, because they grieved to think me 32 RASSELAS. rich ; and my oppressors, because they de- lighted to find me weak." '■ Proceed/' said the prince ; " I doubt not of the facts which you relate, but imagine that you impute them tc mistaken, motives." " in this company," said Imlac, " I arriv- ed at Agra, the capital of Indostan, the city in which the great Mogul commonly re- sides. 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 r found morose and reserved, and others easy and communicative 5 some were unwilling to teach another what they had with difficulty learned themselves 5 and some showed that the end of their studies was to gain the dignity of instructing. '' To the tutor of the young princes I rec- ommended myself so much, that I was pre- sented to the emperor as a man of uncom- mon knowledge. The emperor asked me many questions concerning my country and my travels ; and though I cannot now recol- lect any thing that he uttered above the power of a common man, he dismissed me astonished at his wisdom, and enamoured of his goodnoss. " My credit was now so high that the mer- chants, with whom I had travelled, applied to me for recommendations to the ladies of the court. I was surprised at their confi- dence of solicitation, and gently reproach- ed them with their practices on the road. RASSKLAS. So They heard me with cold indifference, and showed no tokens of shame or sorrow. " They then urged their request witli the i 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 1 knew they would have made use of my credit to cheat those who should buy their wares. " Having resided at Agra till there was no more to be learned, I travelled into Persia, where I saw many remains of ancient mag- nificence, and observed many new accom- modations of life. The Persians are a na- tion eminently social, and their assemblies afforded me daily opportunities of remark- ing characters and manners, and of tracing human nature through all its variations. From Persia I passed into Arabia, where I saw a nation at once pastoral and warlike ; who live without any settled habitation ; whose only wealth is their flocks and herds, and who have yet carried on, through all ages, an hereditary war with all mankind, though they neither covet nor envy their possessions." 31 RASSBLAS. CHAPTER X. IMLAC'S HISTORY CONTINUED. A DISSERTATION UPON POETRY. " Wherever I went, I found that poetry was considered as the highest learning, and regarded with a veneration somewhat ap- proaching to that which man would pay to the 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 gradually attain- ed, and poetry is a gift conferred at once ; or that the first poetry of every nation sur- prised them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent, which it received by ac- cident 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 j for description, and the most probable oc- currences 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 rea- son, it is commonly observed that the early writers are in possession of nature, and their followers of art ; that the first excel RASSELAS. 35 In strength and invention, and the latter in elegance and refinement. "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 imitation. 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. " Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing 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 tne rivulet, and sometimes watch- ed 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 36 RASSELAS. the earth and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety : for every idea is useful for the en- forcement or decoration of moral or reli- gious truth ; and he who knows most xvill have most power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruction. " All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and every coun- try which I have surveyed has contributed something to my poetical powers." " In so wide a survey," said the prince, " you must surely have left much unobserv- ed. I have lived till now, within the circuit of these mountains, and yet cannot walk abroad without the sight of something which I had never beheld before or never heeded." " The business of a poet," said Imlac, " is to examine, not the individual, but the spe- cies ; to remark general properties and large appearances ; he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in 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. " But the knowledge of nature is only half RASSBLAS. 37 the task, of a poet j he must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character requires that he estimate the hap- piness and misery of every condition 3 ob- serve the power of all the passions in all their combinations, and trace the changes of tlie human mind as they are modified by ' I various institutions and accidental influeu ces of climate or custom, from the sprightli- ness of infancy to the despondence of de- crepitude. He must divest himself of the prejudices of his age or country ; he must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state 5 he must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to gen- eral and transcendental truths, which will always be the same } he must therefore content himself with the slow progress of his name 5 contemn the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must write as the" inter- preter of nature, and the legislator of man- kind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations ; as being superior to time and place. " His labor 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, fa- miliarize to himself every delicacy of speech and grace of harmony." 38 RAitSELAS. CHAPTER Xr. IMLAC'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED. A HINT ON PILGRIMAGE. I.MLAC now felt the enthusiastic fit, and was proceeding to aggrandize his own profession, when the prince cried out, — '• Enough ! thou hast convinced me that no human being can ever be a poet. Pro- ceed with thy narration." ''To be a poet," said Imlac, " is indeed very difficult." " So difficult," returned the prince, " that I will at present hear no more of his labors. Tell me whither you went when you had seen Persia." " From Persia," said the poet, " I travel- led through Syria, and for three years re- sided 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 tlie remotest parts of the globe. When I compared these men with the natives of our own kingdom, and tliose that surround us, they appeared almost another order of beings. In their countries, it is difficult to wish for any thing tliat may not be obtained : a thousand arts, RASSELAS. 39 of which we never heard, are continually laboring for their convenience and pleas- ure ; and whatever their own climate has de- nied them, is supplied by their commerce." " 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 coasts, plant colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes ? The same wind that carries them back woi''d bring us thither." '' They are more powerful, Sir, than we," answered Imlac, " because they are wiser ; knowledge will always predominate over ig- norance, 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." " When," said the prince with a sigh, •' shall I be able to visit Palestine, and min- gle 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. 1 am not ignorant of the motive that assembles such numbers in that place and cannot but consider it as j the centre of wisdom and piety, to which ^ th3 best and wisest men of every land must be continually resorting." '■' There are some nations," said Imlac, " that send few visitants to Palestine ; for manv numerous and learned sects in Eu- 'U) RASSELAS. rope concur to censure pilgrimage as su perstitious, or deride it as ridiculous. " " You know/' said the prince, "how lit- ! tie 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." '■' Pilgrimage," said Imlac, " like many other acts of piety, may be reasonable or su- perstitious, according to the principles up- on v/hich 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 p.'oduces dissipation of mind. Yet, since men go every day to view the fields where gieat actions have been performed, and re- turn 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 ea- sily 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 opin- ion which Jiourly experience will justify. fie who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine, RASSELAS. 41 will, perhaps, find himself mistaken 5 yet he may go thither without folly : he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned dishon- ors at once his reason and religion." " These," said the prince, " are Europe- an distinctions. I will consider them an- other time. What have you found to be the effect of knowledge ? Are those nations happier than we ? " " There is so much infelicity," said the poet, " in the world, that scarce any man has leisure from his own distresses to esti- mate 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 va- cuity 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 noth- ing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow more happy as our minds take a wider range. '•' 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 42 RASSELAS. which we must perform by manuU industry. There is such communication between dis- tant places that one Iriend can hardly be said to be absent from another. Their policy removes all public inconveniences : they have roads cut through their mountains, and bridges laid upon their rivers. And, if we descend to the privacies of life, their habitations are more commodious, and their possessions arc more secure." " They are surely happy," said the prince, " who have all these conveniences, of which I envy none so much as the facil- ity with which separated friends inter- change their thoughts." " The Europeans," answered Imlac, " are less unliappy than we, but they are not hap- py. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed." CHAPTER XH. TUB STOHY OF IMLAC CONTINUED. " I AM not yet willing," said the prince, " to suppose that happiness is so parsimotii- ously distributed to mortals ; nor can be- lieve but that, if 1 had the choice of life, I should be able to till every day with pleas- ure. I would injure no man, and sliould RASSELAS. 43 provoke no resentment : I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the bene- dictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise, and my wife among the virtuous ; and therefore should be in no daniier 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 quietly away in the soft reciproca- tion 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." " From Palestine," said Imlac, " 1 passed through many regions of Asia, in the more civilized kingdoms as a trader, and among the barbarians of the mountains as a pilgrim , At last I began to long for my native coun- try, that I might repose, after my travels and fatigues, in the places where I had spent my earliest years, and gladden my old compan- ions 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 even- ing, w^ondering at my tales, and listening to my counsels. " When this thought had taken possession 4i RASSELAS. of my mind, I considered every moment as wasted which did not bring me nearer to Abyssinia. I hastened into Egypt, and, not- withstanding my impatience, was detained ten months in tlie contemplation of its an- cient 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, and 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, pop- ulous as Cairo, it is possible to obtain at the same time the gratifications of society, and the secrecy of solitude. " 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. '•' I now expected the caresses of my kins- men, 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 hon- or of the nation. But I was soon convinced that my thoughts were vain. IMy father had been dead fourteen years, having divid- ed his wealth among my brothers, who were removed to some other provinces. Of my RASSELAS. -lo companions the greater part was in the grave ; of the rest, some could with diffi- culty remember me, and some considered me as one corrupted by foreign manners. •' A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected. I forgot, after a time, my disap'- pointment, and endeavoured to recommend myself to the nobles of the kingdom ; they 1 admitted me to their tables, heard my story, j 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. " Wearied at last with solicitation and repulses^ I resolved to hide myself for ever from the world, and depend no longeron 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 perform- ance was distinguished with favor, and I resigned myself with joy to perpetual con- finement." ' '• Hast thou here found happiness at last ? " said Rasselas. " Tell me without reserve ; art thou content with thy condi- tion ? or dost thou wish to be again wan- dering and inquiring ? All the inhabitants of this valley celebrate their lot, and, at the annual visit of the emperor, invite oth- ers to partake of their felicity."' 46 RASSELAS. " 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 knowl- edge which begins to fade from my memo- ry, and by recollection of the incidents of my past life. Yet all this ends in the sor- rowful consideration, that my acquirements are now useless, and that none of my pleas- ures can be again enjoyed. The rest, whose minds have no impression but of the pres- ent moment, are either corroded by malig- nant passions or sit stupid in the gloom of perpetual vacancy." " What passions can infest those," said the prince, " who have no rivals ? We are in a place where impotence precludes mal- ice, and whore all envy is repressed by com- munity of enjoyments." " There may be community," said Imlac, " of material possessions, but there can nev- er be community of love or of esteem. It must happen that one will please more than anotlier ; he that knows himself despised will always be envious; and still more en- vious and malevolent, if he is condemned to live in the presence of those wlio despise liim. 'J'lie invitations by which they allure otlinrs to a state which they feel to be R A S S E L A S. 47 wretched, proceed from the natural malig- nity 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 for- feited, and would gladly see all mankind imprisoned like themselves. "' From this crime, however, I am wholly free. jS^o man can say that he is wretched by my persuasion. I look with pity on the crowds who are annually soliciting admis- sion to captivity, and wish that it were law- ful for me to warn them of their danger." 'Oly dear Imlac," said the prince, *• I will open to thee my whole heart. I have long meditated an escape from the happy valleij. I have examined the mountains 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 choice of life." " Sir." answered the poet, " your escape I will be difficult, and, perhaps, you may soon I 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 i whirlpools : you will be sometimes over- whelmed by the waves of violence, and sometimes dashed against the rocks of treachery. Amidst wrongs and frauds, 48 KASSELAS. competitions and anxieties, you will wish a thousand times for those seals of quiet, and willingly quit hope to be free from fear." " Do not seek to deter me from my pur- pose," 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 ex- periment, I am resolved to judge with mine own eyes of the various conditions of men, and then to make deliberately my choice cj life." " r am afraid," said Imlac, "you are hin- dered by stronger restraints than my per- suasions ; yet, if your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill." CHAPTER XIII. RASSELAS DISCOVEnS THE MEANS OP ESCAPE. The prince now dismissed his favorite to rest, but the narrative of wonders and nov- elties filled his mind with perturbation. He revolved all that ho had heard, and prepared innumerable questions for the morning. Much of his uneasiness was now remov- ed. He had a friend to whom he could im- part his tliouirhts, and whose experienct KASSELAS. 49 could assist him in his designs. His heart was no longer condemned to swell with si- lent vexation. He thought that even the happij valleij might be endured with such a companion ; and that, if they could range the world together, he should have nothing further to desire. In a few days the water was discharged, and the ground dried. The prince and Im- lac 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 coun- tenance of sorrow, " Why art thou so strong, and why is man so weak ? '' " Man is not weak,'' answered his com- panion ; " knowledge is more than equiva- lent to force. The master of mechanics lauglis at strength. I can burst the gate, but cannot do it secretly. Some other ex- pedient must be tried." As they were walking on the side of the mountain, they observed that the conies, which the rain had driven from their bur- rows, had taken shelter among the bushes, and formed holes behind them, tending up- wards in an oblique line. " It has been the opinion of antiquity," said Imlac, " that hu- man reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals 5 let us, therefore, not think ourselves degraded by learning from f the cony. We may escape by piercing the moantain in the same direction. We will 50 RASSELAS. begin where the summit hangs over the middle part, and labor upward till we shall issue up beyond the prominence." The eyes of the prince, when he heard this proposal, sparkled with joy. The exe- } cution was easy, and the success certain. 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 bram- bles, and returned without having discover- ed any part that favored their design. The second and the third day were spent in the same manner, and with the same frustration. But, on the fourth, they found a small cav- ern, concealed by a thicket, where they resolved to make their experiment. Iinhic procured instruments proper to hew stone and remove earth, and they fell to their work on the next day with more eagerness than vigor. They were present- ly exhausted by their efforts, and sat down lo pant upon the grass. The prince for a moment appeared to be discouraged. — I " Sir," «!aid his companion, " practice will i enable us to continue our labor for a longer time ; mark, however, how far we have ad- vanced, and you will find that our toil will flome time have an end. Great works are performed, not by strength but persever- ance : yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spacious- ness. He that shall walk with vigor three RASSELAS. 51 hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe." They returned to their work day after day 5 and, in a short time, found a fissure in the rock, which enabled them to pass far with very little obstruction. This Rassebs considered as a crood omen. '' Do not dis- turb your mind," said Imlac, " with other hopes or fears than reason may suggest : if you are pleased with 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 suc- cess. This is one of those pleasing sur- prises which often happen to active resolu- tion. Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance." CHAPTER XIV. RASSELAS AND IMLAC RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED VISIT. They had now wrought their way to the middle, and solaced their toil with the ap- proach of liberty, when the prince, coming down to refresh himself with air, found his ■liter ]^ekayah standing before the mouth 52 RASSELAS. of the cavity. He started and stood con- fused, 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. "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 confine- ment 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." 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 there- fore agreed that she should leave the valley with them ; and that, in the mean time, she should watch lest any otherstraggler should, RASSELAS. 06 by chance or curiosity, follow them to the mountain. At length their labor was at an end ; they saw light beyond the prominence, and, is- suing to the top of the mountain, beheld the xXile, yet a narrow current, wandering beneath them. I The prince looked round with rapture, ! anticipated all the pleasures of travel, and in thought was already transported beyond liis 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. Rasselas was so much delighted with a wider horizon, that he could not soon be persuaded to return into the valley. He informed his sister that the way was open, and that nothing now remained but to pre- pare for their departure. CHAPTER XV. THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS LEAVE THE VALLEY, AND Sirs MANY WONDERS. The prince and princess had jewels suf- ficient to make them rich whenever they came into a place of commerce, which by Imlac's direction, they might hide in their clothes 5 and, on the night of the next full 54 RASSELAS. moon, all left the valley. The princess was followed only by a single favorite, who did not know whither she was going. They clambered tlirough the cavity, and • began to go down on the other side. The j princess and her maid turned their eyes I towards every part, and seeing nothing to bound their prospect, considered themselves j as in danger of being lost in a dreary vacui- I ty. They stopped and. trembled. " I am I almost afraid," said the princess, " to begin I a journey of which I cannot perceive an end, and to venture into this immense plain, I where I may be approached on every side by men whom I never saw." The prince I felt nearly the same emotions, though he thought it more manly to conceal them. Imiac smiled at their terrors, and encour- aged them to proceed ; but the princess continued irresolute till she had been im- perceptibly drawn forward too far to return. In the morning, they found some shep- herds in the field, wlio set milk and fruits before them. The princess wondered that she did not see a palace ready for her re- ception, and a table spread with delicacies ; but, being fiiint and hungry, she drank the milk and ate the fruits, and thouglit them of a higher flavor than the products of the val- ley. They travelled forward by easy journeys, being all unaccustomed to toil or difficulty, and knowing that, tnough they might be RASSELAS. 55 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 express- ed at the diversity of manners, stations, and employments. Their dress was such as might not bring upon them the suspicion of having any thing to conceal ; yet the prince, wherever lie came, expected to be obeyed, and the prin- cess was frighted, because tliose tliat came into her presence did not prostrate them- selves before her. Imlac was forced to ob- serve 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. 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, hav- ing, by many admonitions, prepared them to endure the tumults of a port, and the ruggodness of the commercial race, brought them down to the sea coast. The prince and his sister, to whom every tiling Wvis new, were gratified equally at all places, and therefore remained for some months at the port without any inclination to pass further. Imlac was "ontent with their stay, because he did not hink it safe 56 RASSELAS. to expose them, unpractised in the world, to the hazards of a foreign country. At last he began to fear lest they sho-uld 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 there- fore took passage in a ship to Suez ; and, I when the time came, with great difhculty prevailed on the princess to enter the ves- sel. They had a quick and prosperous voyage ; and from Suez travelled by land to Cairo. CHAPTER XVI. THEY ENTEn CAIRO AND FIND EVERY MAN HAPPY. As 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 the corners of the earth. You will liero find men of every character and every occupation. Commerce is here honorable : 1 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 pro- cure us access to all whom we shall desire RASSELAS. 57 to know ; you will see all the conditions of humanity, and enable yourself at leisure to make your choice of life J' They now entered the town, stunned by the noise, and offended by the crowds. In- struction had not yet so prevailed over hab- it, but that they wondered to see them- selves pass undistinguished along the street. and met by the lowest of the people without reverence or notice. The princess could not at first bear the thought of being level- led with the vulgar, and for some days continued in her chamber, where she was served by her favorite Pekuah, as in the palace of the valley. Imlac. who understood traffic, sold part of the jewels the next day, and hired a house, which he adorned with such magnifi- cence, that he was immediately considered as a merchant of great wealth. His polite- ness attracted many acquaintance, and his generosity made him courted by many de- pendents. His table was crowded by men of every nation, who all admired his knowl- edge and solicited his favor. His compan- ions, not being able to mix in the conversa- tion, could make no discovery of their ig- norance or surprise, and were gradually initiated in the world as they gained knowl- edge of the language. The prince had, by frequent lectures, been taught the use and nature of money ; but the ladies could not for a long time 58 RASSELAS. comprehend what the merchants did with small pieces of gold and silver, or why things of so little use should be received as equivalent to the necessaries of life. They studied tlie 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 any thing 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. The prince being now able to converse with lluency, and having learned the cau- tion necessary to be observed in his inter- course with strangers, began to accompany Imlac to places of resort, and to enter into all assemblies, that he might make his choice of life. For some time he thought choice need- less, because all appeared to him equally happy. VV^herever he went he met gayety and kindness, and heard the song of joy or the laugh of carelessness. He began to believe that the world overflowed with uni- versal plenty, and that nothing was withheld either from want or merit j that every hand showered liberality, and every heart melted with benevolence: ''and who then," said he, '' will be suffered to be wretched ? " Imlac permitted the pleasing delusion, and was unwilling to crush the hope of in- ex[)erience, 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 unalterabi} 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." " Every man," said Imlac, '' may, by ex- amining his own mind, guess what passes in the minds of others : when you feel that your own gayety is counterfeit, it may just ly lead you to suspect that of your compan- ions 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 obtainincr it for himself. In the assemb y where you passed the last night, there a/peared sucli sprightliness of nir and vola'ility of fancy as might have suited beings jf a higher or- der, formed to inhabit serer.er regions, in- accessible to care or sorrow : yet believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread the moment when solitude should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection." "This," said the prince, " may be true of others, since it is true of me : yet, wliat- ever be the genernl infelicity of man, one I condition is more happy than another, and GO RASSELAS. wisdom surely directs us to take the least evil ill the choice of life." " The causes of good and evil/' answer- ed Inilac, "are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each other, so diversi- fied by various relations, and so much sub- ject 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." '• But surely," said Rasselas, " the wise men, to whom we listen with reverence and wonder, chose that mode of life for tliemselves which they thought most likely to make them happy." '' Very few," said the poet, '' live by ciioice. Kvery man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate ; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbour better than his own." " I am pleased to think," said the prince. '■ that my birth has given me at least one advantage over others, by enabling me tode- torniinc for myself I have here the world before me ; I will review it at leisure : sure- ly happiness is somewhere to be found." RASSBLAS. Gl CHAPTER XVir. THB PRINCE ASSOCIATES WITH YOUNG MEN OF SPIRIT AND GAYETV. i Kasselas rose next day, and resolved to i begin his experiments upon lite. ''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." To such societies he was readily admit- ted ; 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. The prince soon concluded, that he should never be happy in a course of life of whicn 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 with- out uncertainty." But his young companions had gained so 62 RASSBLAS. much of his regard by their frankness and courtesy, that he could not leave them with- out warning and remonstrance. " My friends,'' said he, " I have seriously con- sidered 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 igno- rance ; and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short or miserable. Let us cojjsider that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer 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 ot their former luxuri- ance of liealth only by the maladies which riot has produced." They stared awhile in silence one upon anotlier, and at last drove him away by a gsneral chorus of continued laughter. Tlie consciousness that his sentiments | were just and his intentions kind, was scarcely sufficient to support him against the horror of derision. But he recovered his tranquillity and pursued his search. RASSBLAS. b3 CHAPTER XVII I. THB PRINCE FINDS A TVISE AND HAPPY MAN. As he was one day walking in the itrtiet, he saw a spacious building, which all were, by the open doors, invited to en- ter. He followed the stream of people, and found it a hall or school of declama- tion, 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 ac- tion graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed, with rrrcat strength of sentiment and variety of illus- tration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predom- inate over the higher ; that when fancv, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural etfect of unlawful government, perturbation and confusion : that she betrays the for- tresses of the intellect to rebels, and ex- cites her children to sedition against rea- son, their lawful sovereign. Hp compared reason to th6 sun, ot which the light is constant, uniform, and lasting ; and fancy to a meteor, of bright but transitory lustre, 64 RASSELAS. irregular in its motion, and delusive in its direction. He then communicated the various pre- cepts given from time to time for the con- quest of passion, and displayed the happi- ness of those who had obtained the impor- tant 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 de- pressed 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. He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or pleasure, who look- ed with indifference on those modes or ac- cidents to which the vulgar give the ivames of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay aside their prejudices, and arm them- selves against the shafts of malice or mis- fortune, by invulnerable patience ; conclud- ing, that this state only was happiness, and I tliat this happiness was in every one's power. Rasselas listened to him with the venera- tion due to the instructions of a superior being, and waiting for him at the door, Iniinbly implored the liberty of visiting so j great a master of true wisdom. The lec- turer hesitated a moment, when Rasselas put a purse of gold into his hand, which he j received with a mixture of joy and wonder. RASSBLAS. 65 " I have founJ," said the prince, at his return to Imlac, '' a man who can teach all that is necessary to be known 5 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 convic- tion closes his periods. This man shall be my future guide : I will learn his doctrines, and imitate his life." '• Be not too hasty," said Imlac, " to trust, or to admire, the teachers of morali- ty ; they discourse like angels, but they live like men." Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so forcibly without feel- ing the cogency of his own arguments, paid his visit in a few days, and was denied ad- mission. 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 j 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 pur- poses, my hopes are at an end. I am now a lonely being, disunited from society." I " Sir," said the prince, " mortality is an • 66 R A S S E L A S. event bv which a wise man can never be surprised : we know that death is alwa^ys near, and it should therefore always be ex- pected." " Young man," answered the phi- losopher, '• you speak like one that has never felt the pangs of separation." " Have you then forgot the precepts/'' said Rasse- las, '"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 com- fort," said the mourner, " can truth and reason atford me? of what effect are they now, but to tell me, that my daughter will not be restored ? " The prince, whose humanity would not suffer him to insult misery with reproof, went away, convinced of the emptiness of | rhetorical sound, and the inefficacy of pol- (. ished periods and studied sentences. CHAPTER XIX. A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE. He was still eager upon tho same in- quiry ; 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 sanctitv, resolved to visit his retreat, I 1 — _ RASSBLAS. 67 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 en- during them ? Imiac and the princess agreed to accom- j pany him, and, after the necessary prepara- tions, they began their journey. Their way lay tlirough 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 shep- herds' tents, and know whether all our searches are not to terminate in pastoral simplicity." The proposal pleased them, and they in- duced the shepherds, by small presents and familiar questions, to tell their 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 in- distinct 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 con- sidered themselves as condemned to labor for the luxury of the rich, and looked up with stupid malevolence toward those that were placed above them. The princess pronounced with vehe- I 68 RASSELAS. I mence, 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 hap- piness ; but could not believe that all the accounts of primeval pleasures were fabu- lous ; and was yet in doubt, whether life had any thing that could be justly preferred to the placid gratifications of fields and woods. She hoped that the time would come, when, with a few virtuous and ele- gant companions, she should gather flowers planted by her own hand, fondle the lambs of her own ewe, and listen, without care, among brooks and breezes, to one of her maidens reading in the shade. CHAPTER XX. THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY. On 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 soon- er entered than they perceived that they I were approaching the habitations of men. \ The shrubs were diligently cut away to ■ open walks where the shades were darkest ; the boughs of opposite trees were artifi- cially interwoven ; seats of flowery turf R A S S B L A S. G9 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 ob- structed by iittle mounds of stone, heaped together to increase its murmurs. They passed slowly through the wood, delighted with such unexpected accommo- dations, and entertained each other with conjecturing what, or who, he could be, that, in those rude and unfrequented re- gions, had leisure and art for such harmless luxury. As they advanced they heard the sound of music, and saw youths and virgins danc- ing in the grove 3 and, going still further, beheld a stately palace built upon a hill surrounded with woods. The laws of east- ern hospitality allowed them to enter, and the master welcomed them like a man lib- eral and wealthy. He was skilled enough in appearances soon to discern that they were no common guests, and spread his table with magnifi- cence. 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 still more unwilling to dismiss them than before. They were easily persuaded to stop, and civility grew up in time to freedom and confidence. The prince now saw all the domestics RASSELA! clieerful and all the face of nature smiling round the place, and could not forbear to ' hope that he should find here what he was I seeking 5 but, wlien he was congratulating the master upon iiis possessions, ho an» swered with a sigh, " My condition has in deed the appearance of happiness, but ap-' pearances are delusive. J\Iy prosperity puts my life in danger ; the Bassa of Egypt is my enemy, incensed only by my wealth and popularity. I have been hitherto pro- tected against him by the princes of the country; but, as the favor of tlie great is uncertain, I know not how soon my de- fenders 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 man- sion, and enjoy the gardens which I iiave planted.'-' 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 diys longer, and then wentfi r- ward to find the hermit. .ASSELAS. 71 CHAPTER XX [. THE liAPPINESS OP SOLITUDE. THE HERMIT'S HISTORY. THEt came on the third day, by the di- rection of the peasants, to the hermit's cell : it was a cavern in the side of a moun- tain, overshadowed with palm trees ; at such a distance from the cataract that noth- ing more was heard than a gentle uniform murmur, such as composed 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 la- bor, that the cave contained several apart- ments appropriated to different uses, and often afforded lodging to travellers, whom darkness or tempests happened to overtake. 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 papers, on the other, mechanical instruments of vari- ous kinds. As they approached him unre- garded, the princess observed, that he had not the countenance of a man that had ibund, or could teach, the way to happiness. They saluted him with great respect, which he repaid like a man not unaccus- tomed to the forms of courts. " My chil- 72 RASSELAS. dren," 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 her- mit's cell." 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 enthusi- asm. He soon gained the esteem of his guests, and the princess repented of her hasty censure. 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 (iirection for this young man and maiden in the choice of life." '^To hinri that lives well," answered the hermit, ''every form of life is good; nor can I give any other rule for choice than to remove from all apparent evil." " He will remove most certainly from evil," said the prince, " who shall devote himself to that solitude which you have recommended by your example." " I have indeed lived fifteen years in sol- itude," said the hermit, "but have no de- sire that my example should gain any imi- tators. In my youth I professed arms, and RASSBLAS. 73 was raised by degrees to the highest milita- ry 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 oiBcer, and feeling that my vigor was beginning to decay, I resolved to close my life in peace, having found the world full of snares, dis- cord, 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. •• For some time after my retreat, I re- joiced 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 em- ployed my hours in examining the plants which grew in the valley, and the minerals which 1 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 re- laxation 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 74 BASSBLAS. 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 lorit so much, and have gained so lit- tle. In solitude, if 1 escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel and conversation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils with 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." 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 ratpture. CHAPTER XXH. THE HAPPINESS OP A LIFE LED ACCORDING TO NATURE. Rasselas 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 instruc- tive, and their disputations acute; though EASSELAS. ,o Bometimes too violent, and often continued till neither controvertist remembered upon what question they began. Some faults were almost general among them : everv one was desirous to dictate to the rest, and every one was pleased to hear the genius or knowledge of another depreciated, j In this assembly Rasselas was relating his interview with the hermit, and the won- der with which he heard him censure a course of life which he had so deliberately chosen, and so laudably followed. 7^he sentiments of the hearers were various. Some were of opinion, that the folly of his choice had been justly punished W con- demnation to perpetuai perseverance. One of the youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced him an hypocrite. Some talked of the right of societv to the labor of individuals, and considered retire- ment as a desertion of duty. Others read- ily allowed, that there was a time when the claims of the public w'ere satisfied, and when a man might properly sequester him- self, to review his life and purify his heart. 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 7G RASSELAn. longest experience is not able to efface it. Of the presentstate, whatever it be, we feel, and are forced to confess, the misery 5 yet, ■when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable. But the time will surely come, when desire will be no longer our torment, and no man shall be wretched but by his own fault." "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. JN'oth- ing is more idle than to inquire after nappi- ness, 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 lieart is originally impressed ; which is not written on it by precept, but engrav- en 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 sufferas the reason of things shall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse themselves with subtile definitions, or intricate ratiocina tions. Let them learn to be wise by easier means: let them observe (he hind of the forest, and tlie linnet of the grove : let them consider the life of animals, whose RASSELAS. 77 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 incumbrance of precepts, which they who utter them with so much pride and pomp do not un- i derstand, and carry with us this simple and ! intelligible maxim, 'That deviation from I nature is deviation from happiness.'" I When he had spoken, he looked round j him with a placid air, and enjoyed the con- ' scinusness of his own beneficence. "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 na- ture 1" '•' When I find young men so humble and so docile," said the philosopher, •• I can deny them no information which my studios have enabled me to afford. To live accord- ing to nature, is to act always with due re- gard to the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of causes and effects : to con- cur with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal telicity ; to cooperate with the general disposition and tendency of the present system of things." The prince soon found, that this was one of the sa^es whom he should understand 78 RASSELAS. less as he heard him longer. He tlierefore bowed and was silent ; and the philoso- pher, supposing him satisfied, and the rest vanquished, rose up and departed, with the air of a man that had cooperated with the present system. CHAPTER XXni. THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN THEM THE WORK OF OBSERVATION. Rasselas returned home full of reflec- tions, doubtful 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 him- self 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 frcipicntly and freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope with himself, and always assisted him to give some rea- son why, though he had been hitherto frus- I tratcd, lie might succeed at last. I " We liavehitherto," said she, " knovn but little of the world; we have never yet RASSELAS. 79 been e'ther 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 favors 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 splendor of courts, and I will range the shades of humbler life. Perhaps command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as they afford most op- portunities 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." CHAPTER XXIV. THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OF HIGH STATIONS. Rasselas applauded the design, and ap- peared next day with a splendid retinue at the court of the Bassa. He was soon dis- tinguished for his magnificence, and ad- mitted, as a prince whose curiosity had brought him from distant countries, to an intimacy with the great officers, and fre- quent conversation with the Bassa himself. He was at first inclined to believe, that 80 RASSELAS. the man must be pleased with his own con- dition whom all approached with rever- ence, and heard witn obedience, and who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom. " There can be no pleas- ure," 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 acces- sible, and that millions can hardly be sub- jected to the will of a single man only to fill his particular breast with incommunica- ble content." 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 employment hated all the rest, and was hated by them, and that their lives were a continual successjion of plots and detections, stratagems and es- capes, faction and treachery. Many of those who surrounded the Bassa, were sent only to watch and report his conduct; every tongue was muttering censure, and every eye was searching for a fault. At last the letters of revocation arrived, the Bassa was carried in chains to Con- stantinople, and his name was mentioned no more. RASSBLAS. 81 '' What are we now to think of the pre- rogatives of power," said Rasselas to his sister ; " is it without any efficacy to good 1 or, is the subordinate degree only danger- ous, and the supreme safe and glorious ? Is the Sultan the only happy man in his dominions ? or, is the Sultan himself sub- ject to the torments of suspicion and the dread of enemies ? " In a short time the second Bassa was deposed. The Sultan that had advanced him was murdered by the Janizaries, and his successor had other views and different favorites. CHAPTER XXV. THE PRINCESS PURSUES HER INaUIRY WITH MORE DILIGENCE THAN SUCCESS. The princess, in the mean time, insinua- ted herself into many families 5 for there are few doors through which liberality, joined with good-humor, cannot find its way. The daughters of many houses were airy and cheerful, but Tsekayah 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 merri- 82 RASSKLAS. mcnt often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as they were, could not be preserv- ed 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 solitude can add nothing, and from which detrac- tion can take nothing away. Many were I in love with triflers like themselves, and many fancied that they were in love when in truth they were only idle. Their affec- tion was not fixed on sense or virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in vexation. Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient ; every thing 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. With these girls she played as with in- offensive animals, and found them proud of their countenance, and weary of her com- pany. But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her alTability 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 pleasures. ! The princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in a private summer- j house on the bank of the Nile, and related I RASSELAS. 83 to each otlier 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 floods through eighty nations, to the invocations j of the daughter of thy native king. Tell I me if thou waterest, through all thy course, \ a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint ? " " 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 famil- iarly into many families, where there was the fairest show of prosperity and peace, and^now not one house that is not haunted by some fury that destroys their quiet. " 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 afiiuence. Poverty has, in large cities, very different appear- ances : it IS often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest 5 they support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for the I morrow. I " This, however, was an evil, which, though frequent, I saw with less pain, be- 84 RASSELAS. cause I could relieve it. Yet some have refused my bounties ; more offended with my quickness to detect their wants than I pleased with my readiness to succour them : and others, whose exigencies com- pelled them to admit my kindness, have never been able to forgive their benefac- tress. Many, however, have been sincere- ly grateful, without the ostentation of grat- itude, or the hope of other favors." CHAPTER XXVI. THE pniNCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS TTPON PRIVATE LIFE. Nekayah, perceiving her brother's at- tention fixed, proceeded in her narrative. " In families, where there is or is not poverty, there is commonly discord ; if a Kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a great fam- ily, a family likewise is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed to revolu- tions. An unpractised observer expects the love of parents and children to be constant and equal ; but this kindness seldom con- tinues beyond the years of infancy : in a short time the children become rivals to their parents. Benefits are allayed by re- proaches, and gratitude debased by envy. " Parents and children seldom act in con RASSBLAS. oj cert ; each child endeavours to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, be- tray 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. '• The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the old, are naturally op- posite, by the contrary effects of hope and despondence, of expectation and experi- ence, without crime or folly on either side. The colors 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 ? "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 progres- sions : the youth expects to force his way by genius, vigor, and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the youth reverences virtue. The old man deifies prudence : the youth commits him- self to magnanimity and chance. The young man, who intends no ill, believes that none is intended, and therefore acts with openness and candor 5 but his father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is im- pelled to suspect, and too often allured to practise it. Age looks with anger on the 86 RASSELAS. temerity of youth, and youth with con- tempt 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 consolation 1" " 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." " 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 evil cannot well agree ; and the evil can yet less agree with one another : even the virtuous fall sometimes to vari- ance, when their virtues are of different kinds and tending to extremes. In general, those parents have most reverence that most deserve it : for he that lives well can- not be despised. "Many other evils infest private life. Some are the slaves of servants whom they have trusted with their affairs. Some are ke[)t in continual anxiety by the caprice of rich relations, whom they cannot please and dare not offend. Some husbands arc imperious, and some wives perverse : and, as it is always more easy to do evil than ffood, thoush the wisdom or virtue of one RASSELAS. 87 can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one may often make many miserable." " If such be the general effect of mar- riage," said the prince, "I shall, for the future, think it dangerous to connect mv interest with that of another, lest I should be unhappy by my partner's fault." '' I have met," said the princess, '•' with many who live single for that reason ; but I never found that their prudence ought to ra.se 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 amuse ments or vicious delights. They act as beings under the constant sense of some known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancor, and their tongues with cen- sure. They are peevish at home, and ma- levolent abroad; and. as the outlaws of human nature, make it their business and their pleasure to disturb that society which j 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 soli- tude ; it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but 'Celibacy has no pleasures." " What then is to be done ? " said Ras- selas ; " the more we inquire, the less we 83 RASSELAS. can resolve. Surely he is most likely to please himself that has no other inclination to regard." CHAPTER XXVII. DISQ.UISITION UPON GREATNESS. The conversation had a short pause. The prince, having considered his sister's observations, told lier, that she had survey- ed life with prejudice, and supposed misery where she did not find it. " Your narra- tive," said he, " throws yet a darker gloom upon the prospects of futurity : the predic- tions of Imlac were but faint sketclies of the evils painted byNckayah. I liave been lately convinced, that quiet is not the daugh- ter of grandeur or of power: that her pres- ence is not to be bought by wealth, nor enforced by conquest. It is evident, that as any man acta in a Avider compass, he must be more exposed to opposition from enmity, or miscarriage from chance 5 who- ever has many to please or to govern, roust 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 lie gratifies one, he will offend another : tlinse that are not favored will think themselves injured ; and, since favors RASSEIAS. 39 can be conferred but upon few, the greater number will be always discontented." '• The dircontent," said the princess, '■ v/hich is thus unreasonable, I hope that I shall always have spirit to despise, and you, power to repress." " 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 indi- gence 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, v*ill be able to persist for ever in the fixed and inexorable justice of distribution : he will sometimes indulge his own affections, and sometimes those of his favorites ; he will permit some to please him who can never serve him ; he will discover in those whom he loves, qual- ities which in reality they do not possess ; and to those, from whom he receives pleas- ure, 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. '' He that has much to do will do some- 90 RASSELAS. thing wrong, and of that wrong must suffer ihe consequences 5 and if it were possible th&t 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. "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 ad- equate to his employments, who sees with liis own eyes the whole circuit of his influ- ence, 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." " VVhether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect goodress," said Ne- kayah, "this world will never afford an opportunity of deciding. But this, at least, may be maintained, that wc do not always find visible happiness in proportion lo visi- ble virtue. All natural, and almost all po- litical, evils are incident alike to the bad and good : they are confounded in the mis- ery of a famine, and not much distinguished in the fury of a faction ; tliey sink together i RASSELAS. 91 in a tempest, and are driven togetlier from their country by invaders. All their virtue can afford is quietness of conscience, a steady prospect of a happier state ; this may enable us to endure calamity with pa- tience ; but remember that patience must suppose pain.'-' CHAPTER XXVIII. RASSELAS AND NEKAVAH CONTINUE THEIR CONVERSATION. ''Dear princess," said Rasselas, '-'you fall into the common errors of exaggeratory declamation, by producing, in a familiar disquisition, examples of national calami- ties, 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 misrepre- sentations. 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 locusts, and suspends pestilence on the wing of every blast that issues from the south. "On necessary and inevitable eviis, which overwhelm kingdoms at once, all disputation is vain ; when they happen they 92 RASSELAS. must be endured. But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt j thousands and ten thou- sands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleas- ures 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 ambassa- dors are negotiating in foreign countries, the smith still plies his anvil, and the hus- bandman drives his plough forward ; the necessaries of life are required and obtain- ed ; and the successive business of the seasons continues to make its wonted rev- olutions. " Let us cease to consider what, per- haps, may never happen, and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at human specula- tion. 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 laboring for his own happiness, by promoting within his circle, however nar- row, the happiness of others. " Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature ; men and women are made to be companions of each other, and therefore I cannot be persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of hapjiincss." RA3SELAS. 93 '' I know not,'"' said the princess, " wheth- er marriage be more than one of the innu- merable modes of human misery. When I see and reckon the various forms of con- nubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of lasting discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of opinion, the rude collis- ions of contrary desire where both are urg- ed by violent impulses, the obstinate con- tests" of disagreeable virtues where both are supported by consciousness of good intention, I am sometimes disposed to think, with the severer casuists of most na- tions, that marriage is rather permitted than approved, and that none, but by the instigation of a passion too much indulg- ed, entangle themselves with indissoluble compacts/' " You seem to forget,'' replied Rasselas, " that you have, even now, represented ce- libacy as less happy than marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot both be worst. Thus it happens when wrong opinions are entertained, that they ! mutually destroy each other, and leave the mind open to truth." •' I did not expect," answered the prin- cess, " 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. Where we see or conceive the whole at once, we 9-i RASSELAS. /•eadily note the discriminations, and decide tl)e preference : but of two systems, of which neither can be surveyed by any hu- man 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 multi- farious 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 his opinion." '• Let us not add," said the prince, " to the other evils of life the bitterness ol^ con- troversy, 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 ; will not the misery of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of heaven? The world mrst be peopled by marriage, or peopled without it." " How the world is to be peopled," re- turned Nekayah, '' is imt my care, and needs not be yours. ^ sec no dange.*- that RASSELAS. 95 i the present generation should omit to leave successors behind them : we are not now inquiring for the world but for ourselves." CHAPTER XXIX. THE DEBATE OF MARRIAGE COXTINUED. " The good of the whole," said Rasse- las, " 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 incom- modities of a single life are, in a great measure, necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal state accidental and avoid- able. " I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence and benevolence will make mar- riage happy. The general folly of man- kind 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 ardor of desire, I without judgment, without foresight, with- ) out inquiry after conformity of opinions, I 96 U A S S E L A S. ' similarity of manners, rectitude of judg- ment, or purity of sentiment ? '' Such is the common process of mar- riage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, ex- change glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Hav- ing 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. '' From those early marriages proceeds likewise the rivalry of parents and chil- dren : 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 ab- sence of the other. "Surely all these evils may be avoided bv that deliberation and delay which pru- dence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful pleas- ures 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 mquiry and selection : one advantage, at KASSBLAS. 97 least, will be certain ; the parents will be visibly older than their children." •' What reason cannot collect/' said Ne- kayah, *' and what experiment has not yet taught, can be known only from the report of others. I have been told, that late mar- riages are not eminently happy. This is a question too important to be neglected, and 1 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 J 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. " It is scarcely possible that two, travel- ling through the world, under the conduct of chance, should have been both directed to the same path, and it will not often hap- pen that either will quit the track which custom has made pleasing. When the de- sultory levity of youth has settled into regu- larity, it is soon succeeded by pride asham- ed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to con- tend. And even though mutual esteem produces mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies unchangeably the ex- ternal mien, determines likewise the direc- blj RASSELAS. tion. 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 labors in vain; and how shall we | do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves ? '' " 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 rea- son 1" " Thus it is," said Nekayah, '•' that phi- losophers are deceived. There are a thou- sand familiar disputes, which reason never can decide : questions that elude investiga- tion, 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 sup- posed 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 wretched- ness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the minute detail of a domestic day. '' 'I'hose who marry at an advanced age, will probably escape the encroachments of their children; but in diminution of this advantage, they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian's mer- RASSELA3. 99 cy : or, if that should not happen, they must at least go out of the world before they see thoss whom they love best either wise or great. ''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 cohabita- tion, as soft bodies, by continual attrition, conform their surfaces to each other. " 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." " 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." " Every hour," answered the princess, "confirms my prejudice in favor of the position so often uttered by the mouth of ! Imlac, ' That nature sets her gifts on the j tight hand and on the left.' Those condi- tions which flatter hope and attract desire I are so constituted, that as we approach one - we recede from another. There are goods j so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, j by too much prudence, may pass between 100 RASSBLAS. them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long consider- ation ; 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 w^hile he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can. at the same tirtie, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile." CHAPTER XXX. IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVER- SATION. Here Imlac entered, and interrupted them. "Imlac," said Rasselas, "I have been taking from the princess the dismal history of private life, and am almost dis- couraged from further search." "It seems to me," said Tmlac, "that while you are making the choice of life you neglect to live. You wander about a siiigl-e city, which, however large and di- versified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a country famous among the earliest monarchies for the pow- er and wisdom of its inhabitants ; a country RASSELAS. 101 where the sciences first dawned that illu- minate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil society or . domestic life. I " 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." ''My curiosity," said Rasselas, "does not very strongly lead me to survey piles of stone or mounds of earth ; my business is with man. 1 came hither not to meas- ure fragments of temples, or trace choked aqueducts, but to look upon the various scenes of the present world." '■•'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 never can return, and heroes, whose form of life was different from all that the present condition of man- kind requires or allows ? " '• To know any thing," returned the poet. " wp ..lUst know its effects: to sae men ve must see their works, that w ; may learn » hal reason has dictated, or f assion has incited, and find what are the most powerful motives of action. To judge 102 RASSELAS. rightly of the present, we must oppose it to the past; for all judgment is compara- tive, and of the future nothing can be known. The truth is, that no mind is much employed upon the present : recol- lection 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 j future of hope and fear; even love and 1 hatred respect the past, for the cause must I have been before the effect. j '• TJie present state of things is the con- j sequence of the former, and it is natural to I inquire what were the sources of tiie good that we enjoy, or the evil that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent : if we are intrusted with the care of others, it is not 'ust. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal : and he may properly be charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it. " There is no part of history so generally useful as that which relates the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the successive advances of sci- ence, the vicissitudes of learning and igno- rance, which are the light ?.nil darkness of thinking beings, the extinction ai. ^ resusci- tation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business RASSELAS. 103 of princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected ; those who have king- doms to govern have understandings to cultivate. '' Example is always more efficacious than precept. A soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy pictures. In this, con- templative life has the advantage : great actions are seldom seen, but the labors of art are always at hand, for those who desire to know what art has been able to perform. *• 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 man- kind, 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." " I am willing," said the prince, " to see all that can deserve my search." '' And I," said the princess, " shall rejoice to learn something of the manners of anti- quity." " The most pompous monument of Egyp- tian greatness, and one of the most bulky I works of manual industry," said Imlac, I "are the Pyramids; fabrics raised before] lOi RASSELAS. the time of history, and of which the ear- j liest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. Of these the greatest is still standing, very little injured by time." •' 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 Avithout with my own eyes." CHAPTER XXXI. THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS. Thf, 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 every thing remarkable, stopped from time to time and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed tlie various ap- pearance of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated nature. When they came to the great Pyrnmid. they were astonished at the extent of the base and the heiglit 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 KASSELAS. 105 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 resist- able of natural violence. A concussion that should shatter the Pyramid would threaten the dissolution of the continent. They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their tents at its foot. Next day thisy prepared to enter its interior apart- ments j and, having hired the common guides, climbed up to the first passage, when the favorite of the princess, looking into the cavity, stepped back and trembled. " Pekuah," said the princess, " of what art thou afraid ? " '• 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 those 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. •' 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." ■• That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac. ''■ I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testi- mony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom a,)Daritions of the dead are not related and 106 RASSELAS. 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 3 and some who deny it with their tongues con- fes.T it by their fears. '' 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 puritj'. Our entrance is no violation of their privi- leges ; we can take nothing from tliem, how then can we offend tliem ? " ''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 Abys- sinia." " If the princess is pleased that her ser- vant 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 : I must go if you command me 5 but, if I once enter, I never shall come back.'' Tlie princess saw that her fear was too strong lor expostulation or reproof; and RASSELAS 107 embracing her, told her that she should stay in tlie tent till their return. Pekuah was yet not satisfied, but entreated the princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose as that of entering the recesses of the Pyramid. '• Though I cannot teach courage," said INekayah, " I must not learn cowardice ; nor leave at last undone what I came hitiier only to do." CHAPTER XXXII. THEY ENTER THE PYRAMID. Pekuah 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 reposited. They then sat down in one of the most spacious cham- bers to rest awhile before they attempted to return. *■' We have now," said Imlac, " gratified our minds with an exact view of the Great- est work of man, except the wall of China. " 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 arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by rapine 108 RASSELAS. than by industry, and who from time to time, poured in upon the habitations of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious. '' But for the Pyramids no reason has ever been given adequate to the cost and labor of the work. The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could afford no re- treat 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 inces- santly upon life, and must be always ap- peased 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 anoth- er wish. " I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, whose power is un- limited, 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 tediousnesa of declining life, by seeing thousands laboring RASSBLAS. 109 without end, and one stone, for no purpose, ^ laid upon another. Whoever thou art, that, not content with a moderate condition, im- aginest 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 1 " CHAPTER XXXIII. THE PRINCESS MEETS WITH AN UNEXPECTED MISFORTUNE. They rose up and returned through the cavity at v/hich they had entered, and the princess prepared for her favorite 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 de- jected 5 the men discovered shame and fear in their countenances, and the women were weeping in the tents. What had happened they did not try to conjecture, but immediately inquired. '• You had scarcely entered into the Pyra- mid," said one of the attendants, " when a troop of Arabs rushed upon us : we were too few to resist them, and too slow to 110 RASSELAS. 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 3 the Turks are now pursuing them by our insti- gation, but I fear they will not be able to overtake them." The princess was overpowered with sur- prise 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 vio- lence or valor ? 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 prin- cess, but cannot hope to regain Pekuah." In a short time the Turks returned, hav- ing not been able to reach tlie enemy. Tbe princess burst out into new lamenta- tions, and Rasselas could scarcely forbear to reproach them with cowardice ; but Im- lac was of opinion, that the escape of the Arabs was no addition to their misfortune, for perhaps they would have killed their I captives rather than have resigned them. RASSELAS. Ill CHAPTER XXX rv. THEY RETURN TO CAIRO WITHOUT PEKUAH. There was nothing to be hoped from longer stay. They returned to Cairo, re- penting of their curiosity, censuring the negligence of the government, lamenting their own rashness, which had neglected to procure a guard, imagining many expedi- ents by which the loss of Pekuah might have been prevented, and resolving to do something for her recovery, though none could find any thing proper to be done. 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 hap- piness in the world for a long time, and might reasonably expect a char>ge of for- tune. They hoped that some good would befall her wheresoever she was, and that their mistress would find another friend who might supply her place. The princess made them no answer, and they continued the form of condolence, not much grieved in their hearts that the favor- ite was lost. Next day the prince presented to the Bassa a memorial of the wrong which he had suffered, and a petition for redress. 112 RASSELAS. The Bassa threatened to punish the rob- bers, but did not attempt to catch them, nor indeed could any account or description be given by which he might direct the pursuit. It soon appeared that nothing would be done by authority. Governors being ac- customed 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. Imlac then endeavoured to gain some intelligence by private agents. He found many who pretended to an exact knowl- edge of all the haunts of the Arabs, and to regular correspondence w^ith their chiefs. and wlio 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. Wliile she was doing something, she kept her hope alive. As one expedient f\iiled, another was suggest- ed ; when one messenger returned unsuc- cessful, another was despatched to a differ- ent quarter. Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing had been heard; tlie hopes RASSELAS. 113 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 reproach- ed herself with the easy compliance by which she permitted her favorite 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 5 a peremptory command would have com- pelled obedience. Why did foolish indul- gence prevail upon me ? Why did I not speak, and refuse to hear ? " ••'Great princess," said Imlac, ''do not reproach yourself for your virtue, or con- *?'(3er (hat as bhimabie by whic'i -?vil has j accidentally been caused. Vour lender- I ness for the timidity of Pekuah was gen- erous and kind. When we act according to our duty, we commit the event to Him by whose ?aws our actions are governed, and who will sj/iffer none to be finally pun- ished for obedience. When, in prospect of some good, whether natural or moral, we break the rules prescribed us, we with- draw from the direction of superior wis- dom, and take all consequences upon our- selves. Man cannot so far know the con- nexion of causes and events, as that he may venture to do wrong in order to do 114 RASSELAS. right. When we pursue our end by lawful means, we may always console our mis- carriage by the hope of future recompense. When we consult only our own policy, and attempt to find a nearer way to good, by overleaping 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 mis- carry, the disappointment is irremediably imbittered. How comfortless is the sor- row of him who feels at once the pangs of guilt, and tlie vexation of calamity, which guilt has brought upon him ! " Consider, princess, what would have been your condition, if the Lady Pekuah h-xd entrentcd to accompany you, and being compelled to stay in the tents, had been carried away j or how would you have borne tlie thought, if you had forced her into the Pyramid, and she had died before you in agonies of terror ? " " Had either happened," said Nekayah, " I could not have endured life till now ; 1 should have been tortured to madness by the remembrance of such cruelty, or must have pined away in abhorrence of myself." '■' This at least," said Imlac, " is the present reward of virtuous conduct, that no unlucky consequence can ob'ige us to repent it." RASSELAS. ll*? CHAPTER XXXV. THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEKUAII. Nekayah, being thus reconciled to her- self, found that no evil is insupportable but that which is accompanied with conscious- ness of wrong. She was from that time delivered from the violence of tempestu- ous sorrow, and sunk into silent pensive- ness 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 roo^c, were treasured in her memory as rules of life ; and she deliberated to no other end th^n to conjecture on any occasion, what \/o.)1q have been the opinion and counsel of IVkuah. The women by whom she was attended knew nothing of her real condition, and therefore she coidd not talk to them but with caution and i«serve. She began to remit her curiosity having no great care to collect notions which she had no conven- j ience of uttering. Rasselas endeavoured I firs 116 R ASS EL AS. first to comfort, and afterwards to divert I ler 5 he hired musicians, to whom she , 9,'emed to listen, but did not hear them, and procured masters to instruct her in va- rious arts, whose lectures, when they visit- ed her acjain, 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. Imlac was every morning earnestly en- joined to renew his inquiries, and was ask- I ed 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 lier. "You are not." said she, " to confound impa- tience 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 gnyety which life allows us ? or who, that is struggling under his own evils, will add to them the miseries of another? '•The rime is at hand, when none shall RASSELAS. 117 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 suc- cession of innocent occupations, till, with a mind purified from all earthly desires, I shall enter into that state to which all are hastening, and in which I hope again to en- joy the friendship of Pekuah." '' Do not entangle your mind/' said Im- lac, '•' by irrevocable determinations, nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary accumulation of misery : the weariness of retirement will continue or increase when the loss of Pekuah is forgotten. That you have been deprived of one pleasure is no very good reason for rejection of the rest." " Since Pekuah was taken from me," said the princess, " I have no pleasure to I reject or to retain. She that has no one to I 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 i imparted to others, and to whom could I ; now delight to impart them ? Goodness • 118 RASSELAS. affords the only comfort which can be en- joyed without a partner, and goodness may be practised in retirement." "■ How far solitude may admit goodness, or advance it, I shall not," replied Imlac, " dispute at present. Remember the con- fession of the pious hermit. You will wish to return into the world, when the image of your companion has left your thoughts." " That time," said Nekayah, " will never come. The generous frankness, the mod- est obsequiousness, and the faithful secre- cy of my dear Pekuah, will always be more missed as 1 shall live longer to see vice and folly." " The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity," said Imlac, " is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the new-cre- ated earth, who, when tlie 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 niglit, 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 fluxj some- thing is hourly lost, and something acquir- ed. To lose much at once is inconvenient RASSELAS. IIS^ / to either, but while the vital powers remain \ uninjured, nature will find the means of reparation. Distance has the same effect I on the mind as on the eye; and while we I glide along the stream of time, whatever > 1 we leave behind us is always lessening, and ( that which we approach increasing in mag- nitude. Do not suffer life to stagnate ; it will grow muddy for want of motion ; com- mit yourself again to the current of the world; Pekuah will vanish by degrees; you will meet in your way some other favorite, or learn to diffuse yourself in general con- versation." " 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 I that you will promise to wait a year for the event, without any unalterable resolution." Nekayah thought this a reasonable de- i mand, and made the promise to her broth- I er, who had been advised by Imlac to re- ! quire it. Imlac had, indeed, no great hope I of regaining Pekuah, but he supposed, [ that if he could secure the interval of a year, the princess would be then in no dan- ger of a cloister. 120 RASSELAS. CHAPTER XXXVI. PEKXTAH IS STILL REMEMBERED. THE PROGRESS OF SORROW. Nekatah, seeing that nothing was omit- ted for the recovery of her favorite, and having, by her promise, set her intention of retirement at a distance, began imper- ceptibly 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. She then appointed a certain hour of the day for meditation on the merits and fond- ness of Pekuah, and for some weeks retired constantly at the time fi.xed, and returned with her eyes swollen and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew less scru- pulous, and suffered any important and pressing avocation to delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less occa- sions, sometimes forgot what she was in- deed afraid to remember, and, at last, wholly released herself from the duty of periodical affliction. Her real love of Pekuah was yet not di- minished. A thousand occurrences brought RASSELAS. 121 her back to memory, and a thousand wants, which nothing but the confideuce of friend- ship can supply, made her frequently re- gretted. 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 negligence or sluggishness. "Yet what," said she, "is to be expected from our pursuit of happi- ness, when we find the state of life to be such, that happiness itself is the cause of misery 1 Why should we endeavour to attain' that of which the possession cannot be secured 1 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." CHAPTER XXXVII. THE PRINCESS HEARS NEWS OP PEKUAH. Is seven months, 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 Tsubia, with an ac- count that Pekuah was in the hand of an Arab chief, who possessed a castle or for- 122 RASSELAS. tress on the extremity of Egypt. The Arab, whose revenue was plunder, was s willing to restore her, with her two attend- ants, for two hundred ounces of gold. The price was no subject of debate. The princess was in ecstasies when she | heard that her favorite 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 v/ith the sum required. Imlac being consulted, was not very confident of the veracity of the relator, 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 ex- pect thac the rover would so much expose f himself as fo come into the lower country, ' where he might be seized by the forces of the Bassa. It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. But Imlac, after some deliber- ation, directed the messenger to propose that Pekuah should be conducted by ten horsemen to the monastery of St. Antony, which is situated in the deserts of Upper Egypt, where she should be met by the same number, and her ransom should be paid. That no time might be lost, as they ex- RASSELAS. 123 pected that the proposal would not be re- fused, they immediately began their jour- ney to the monastery, and when they ar- rived, Imlac went forward with the former messenger to the Arab's fortress. Rasselas was desirous to go with them 3 but neither his sister nor Imlac would consent. The Arab, according to the custom of his na- tion, observed the laws of hospitality with great exactness to those who put them- selves 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. The princess and her favorite embraced each other with transport too violent to be expressed, and went out together to pour the tears of tenderness in secret, and ex- change professions of kindness and grati- tude. After a few hours they returned into the refectory of the convent, where, in the presence of the prior and his brethren, the Erince required of Pekuah the history of er adventures. 124 RASSELAS. CHAPTER XXXVIir. THE ADVENTURES OF THE LADY PEKUAII. " At 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 contusion 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. *' 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 at- tempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first began to feci 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 RASSELAS. 125 whero would be the place of our captivity, or whence to draw any hope of deliver- ance. I was in the hands of robbers and savages, and had no reason to suppose that their pity was more than their justice, or thit they would forbear the gratification of any ardor of desire or caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my maids, and endeav- oured to pacify them by remarking, that we were yet treated with decency, and that, since we were nov/ carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence to our lives. '' 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 moon- light 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 be- loved by his dependents. " 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 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 12b' RASSBLAS. weary, and hoped to find in sleep that re- mission of distress which nature seldom denies. Ordering myself therefore to be undressed, I observed that the women looked very earnestly upon me, not expect- ing, I suppose, to see me so submissively attended. When my upper vest was taken off, they were apparently struck with the splendor of my clothes, and one of them timorously laid her hand upon the em- broidery. 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 en- trance, 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. j " 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 have presumed to hope : I am told by my women that I have a princess in my camp.' ' Sir,' answered I, ' your women have de- ceived themselves and you ; I am not a princess, but an unhappy stranger, who in- tended soon to have left this country, in which I am now to be imprisoned for ever.' 'Whoever or whencesoever you are,' re turned the Arab, ' your dress, and that o' RASSELAS. 127 your servants, show your rank to be high and your wealth to be great. Why should you, who can so easily procure your ran- som, 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 vio- lence of war admits no distinction ; the lance that is lifted at guilt and power will sometimes fall on innocence and gentle- ness.' "■ ' How little,' said I, ' did I expect that yesterday it should have fallen upon me ! ' " ' 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 : T 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 mes- senger, and perform my stipulation with nice punctuality.' " You will easily believe that 1 was pleased with his courtesy : and finding that 128 RASSELAS. his predominant passion was desire of mon- ey, 1 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 5 but that he must not persist to rate me as a princess. He said he would consider what he should demand 3 and then smiling, bowed and retired. '' 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 on- ward 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 but told him that I would add fifty more, if I and my maids were honorably treated. " I never knew the power of gold before. From that time I was the leader of the troop. The march of every day was long- er or shorter as I commanded, and the tents were pitched where I chose to rest. We now had camels and other convenicn- cies for travel, my own women were al- ways at my side, and I amused myself with [ observing the manners of the vagrant na- I tions, and with viewing remains of ancient { edifices, with which these deserted coun- I RASSBLAS. 129 tries appear to have been, in some distant age, lavishly embellished. " 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 al- ways best preserved in places little fre- quented, and difficult of access : for, when once a country declines from its primitive splendor, the more inhabitants are left the quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply stones more easily than quarries, and pal- aces cjid temples will be demolished, to make stables of granite and cottages of porphyry." CHAPTER XXXIX. THE ADVENTURES OP PEKUAH CONTINUED. " We wandered about in this manner for some weeks, whether, as or.r chief pre- tended, for my gratification, or, as I rather suspected, for some convenience of his own. I endeavoured to appear contented, where suUenness and resentment would have been of no use, and that endeavour conduced much to the calmness of my mind 3 but my heart was always with Ne- 130 RASSBLAS. kayah, 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 in- cidental alleviations of our fatigue without solicitude or sorrow, f 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 favor of the covetous there is a ready way ; bring money, and nothing is denied. " 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. ' La- dy,' 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 tliis obscure residence, from which I can issue unexpected, and to which I can retire unpursued. You may now repose in security : here are few pleas- ures, but here is no danger.' He then led me into the inner apartments, and seating RASSELAS. 131 me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground. 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 be- gan to vie with each other in obsequious- ness and reverence. " Being again comforted with new as- surances of speedy liberty, I was for some days diverted from impatience by the nov- elty 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 splendor 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 ex- pected to see mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has told me, the European travel- lers have stationed in the Nile : but no such beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after them, laughed at my credulity. " At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set apart for celestial observa- tion3; 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 f 132 RASSELAS. I please my instructor, who valued himself 1 for his skill ; and, in a little while, I found some employment requisite to begr'.le the tediousness of time, which was to l^ issed 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 therefcwe was at last willing to observe the stars rather than do nothing, but could not always compose my th * o-lits, and was very often thinking on 1\ p^ah when others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon after, the Arab went upon another expedition, and then my only pleas- ure was to talk with my maids about the accident by which we were carried away, and the happiness that we should all enjoy at the end of our captivity." " There were women in your Arab's for- tress," said the princess, "why did you not make them companions, enjoy their conversation, and partake their diversions ? In a place where they found business or amusement, why should you alone sit cor- roded with idle melancholy ? or why could not you bear, for a few months, that con- dition to which they were condemned for life ? " "The diversions of the women," an- swered 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 RASSBLAS. 133 by powers merely sensitive, while my in- tellectual 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 5 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. '•' Their business was only needlework, in which I and my maids sometimes helped them 5 but you know that the mind will easily straggle from the Angers, nor will you suspect that captivity and absence from Nekayah could receive solace from silken flowers. " Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conversation : for of what could they be expected to talk ? They had seen nothing 3 for they had lived from early youth in that narrow spot ; of what they had not seen they could have no knowl- edge, for they could not read. They had no ideas but of xhe few things that were within their view, and had hardly names for any thing but their clothes and their food. As I bore a superior character, I was often called tc terminate their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could. If it Gould have amused me to he&r the 134 RASSELAS. 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 with- out interrupting the tale." " 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 1 Are they exquisitely beautiful ? " " They do not," said Pekuah, " want that unatfecting and ignoble beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sublim- ity, 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 superiori- ty 5 when tliey vied for his regard he some- times 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 RABSELAS. 135 perceive to be exerted, not so much to de- light 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." "' Ye have reason, lady, to think yourself hap^y," said Imlac, '■' that you have been thus easily dismissed. How could a mind, hungry for knowledge, be willing, in an in- tellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as Pekuah's conversation ] " "I am inclined to believe," answered Pekuah, '^ that he was for some time in suspense : for, notwithstanding his prom- ise, 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 ad- ventures, delighted to hear my observa- tions, and endeavoured to advance my ac- quaintance with the stars. When I impor- tuned him to send away my letters, he soothed me with professions of honor, and sincerity ; and, when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again in motion and left me to govern in his ab- sence. I was much afflicted by this studied 136 RASSELAS. I 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 JNile. " 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. " 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 our journey hither, like a man delivered from an intestine con- flict. I took leave of my companions in the house, who dismissed me with cold indif- ference." Nekayah, having heard her favorite's re- lation, 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. |l BASSELAS. 137 CHAPTER XL. THE HISTORY OP A MAN OF LEARNING. They returned to Cairo, and were so well pleased at finding themselves togeth- er, 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. '•' Before you make your final choice," answered Imlac, " you ought to examine its hazards, and converse with those who are grown old in the company of them- selves. I have just left the observatory of one of the most learned astronomers in the world, who has spent forty years in un- , wearied attention to the motions and ap- j pearances of the celestial bodies, and has I drawn out his soul in endless calculations. He admits a few friends once a month to I hear his deductions and enjoy his discov- eries. I was introduced as a man of knowl- edge worthy of his notice. Men of vari- ous ideas and fluent conversation are com- monly welcome to those whose thoughts have been long fi.xed upon a single point, I .md who find the images of other things I steaUng away. I delighted him with my remarks; he smiled at the narrative of my 138 RASSBl.4.8. travels j and was glad to forget the constel lations, and descend fcr a moment into thtf lower world. '• 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 this rule, and permitted me to enter at my own choice. I found him al- ways busy, and always glad lo 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 confi- dence, and always found new cause of ad- miration in the profundity of his mind. His comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and retentive, his discourse is methodical, and his expression clear. '' His integrity and benevolence are equal to his learning. His deepest researches, and most favorite 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 pleas- ure, 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.' " '' Surely," said the princess, " this man is happy." " I visited him," said Inilac, "with more RASSBLAS. 139 and more frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his conversation : he was sublime without haughtiness, courte- ous without formality, and communicative without ostentation. I was at first, great princess, of your opinion, thought him the happiest of mankind, and often congratu- lated him on the blessing that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with indiifer- ence but the praises of his condition, to which he always returned a general answer, and diverted the conversation to some other topic. " Amidst this willingness to be pleased and labor 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 injunctions of haste, though, when I came to him, he had noth- ing extraordinary to say. And sometimes, when I was leaving him, would call me back, pause a few moments, and then dis- miss me." 140 RASSSLAS. CHAPTER XLI. THE ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS THE CAISE OP HIS UNEASINESS. *' At last the time came when the secret burst his reserve. We were sitting togeth- er last night in the turret of his house, watching the emersion of a satellite of Jupiter. A sudden tempest clouded the sky, and disappointed our observation. We sat a while silent in the dark, and then he addressed himself to me in these words : ' Imlac, I have long considered thy friend- ship 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.' " I thought myself honored by this testi- mony, and protested, that whatever could conduce to his happiness would add like- wise to mine. '' ' Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not with- out difficulty credit. I have possessed for five years the regulation of the weather, RASSELAS. 141 and the distribution of the seasons 3 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 aXile has overflowed at my com- mand; I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervors of the crab. The winds alone, of all the ele- mental powers, have hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain. I have ad- ministered this great office with exact jus- tice, and made to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and sunshine. What must have been the mis- ery of half the globe, if I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the sun to either side of the equator 1 " CHAPTER XLII. THfi OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED. " I SUPPOSE he discovered in nr.e, through the obscurity of the room, some tokens of amazement and doubt ; for, after a short pause, he proceeded thus : — '•' ' Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor offend me ; for I am, probably. 142 RASSELAS. the first of human beings to whom this trust has been imparted. Nor do 1 know wliether 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 in- tention could have enabled me to support the weariness of unremitted vigilance.' " ' How long, Sir," said I, ' has this great office been in your hands ? ' " ' 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 im- aginary dominion, pouring upon this coun- try 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. '' ' One day, as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, 1 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 rain to and by comparing the time of my command with that of the inundation, 1 found that the clouds had listened to my lips.' "'MiL'ht not some other cause,' said I, RASSELAS. 143 'produce this concurrence ? the Nile does not always rise on the same day.' " ' Do not believe/ said he with impa- tience, • that such objections could escape me : I reasoned long against my own con- viction, and labored 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 in- credible from the false.' " ' Why, Sir,' said I, ' do you call that incredible, which you know, or think you know, to be true ? ' '•■ ' Because,' said he, ' I cannot prove it by any external evidence j and 1 know too well the laws of demonstration to think that my conviction ought to influence an- other, who cannot, like me, be conscious of its force. I therefore shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. It is suffi- cient 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 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 5 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.' |w 144 RASSELAS. CHAPTER XLIII. TllE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIREC- TIONS. " ' Hear, therefore, what I shall impart with attention, such as the welfare of a .'orld 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 ac- tion of the elements, and the great gifts of light and heat ! — Hear me therefore with attention. •• ' I have diligently considered the posi- tion of the earth and sun, and formed in- numerable 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 5 what one region gains, another loses by any imaginable alteration, even without considering the distant parts of the solar system with which we are unacquainted. Do not therefore, in thy administration of the year, indulge thy pride by innovation ; do not please tiiyself with thinking that tliou canst make thyself renowned to all i RASSELAS. l-iO 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 j rob other countries of rain to pour it on ] thine own. For us the ]\ile is sufficient.' " I promised, that when I possessed the I power, I would use it with inflexible integ- I rity; and he dismissed me, pressing my 1 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 cheer- fully bequeath the inheritance of the sun.' " j The prince heard this narration with very serious regard ; but the princess smiled, 1 and Pekuah convulsed herself with laugh- j ter. "Ladies," said Imlac, "to mock the heaviest of human afflictions is neither | charitable nor wise. Few can attain this j man's knowledge, and few practise his virtues 5 but all may suffer his calamity. Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the un- certain continuance of reason." The princess was recollected, and the fa- vorite was abashed. Rasselas, more deeply affected, inquired of Imlac, whether he thought such maladies of the mind fre- quent, and how they were contracted ? 146 RASSSLAB. CHAPTER XLIV. THE DANGEROUS PREVALENCE OF IMACINATI )N. "Disorders of intellect," answered Imlac, " happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exact- ness,, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his rea- son ; 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 some- times tyrannize, 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 depravation of the mental fiiculties : it is not pronounced madness but when it be- comes ungovernable, and apparently influ- ences speech or action. " 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 labor of excogitation is too violent to last longj RAS8ELAS. 147 the ardor 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 5 for who is pleased with what he is? He then ex- patiates 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. " 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 favorite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood, whenever she is off'end- ed with the bitterness of truth. By de- grees the reign of fancy is confirmed ; she crows 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. " This, Sir, is one of the dangers of soli- tude, which the hermit has confessed not always to promote goodness, and the as- tronomer's misery has proved to be not al- ways propitious to wisdom." 148 RASSELAS. " I will no more/'' said the favorite, " imagine myself the queen of Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours, which the princess gave to my own disposal, in adjust- ing 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 the mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence of royalty, till, when the prin- cess entered, I had almost forgotten to bow down before her." " And I," said the princess, '< will not allow myself any more to play the shep- herdess in my waking dreams I have of- ten 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 : some- times freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes with my crook en- countered 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." " 1 will confess," said the prince, " an indulgence of fantastic delight more dan- gerous tiian yours. I have frequently en- deavoured to imagine the possibility of a perfect government, by which all wrong should be restrained, all vice reformed. RASSELAS. 149 and all the subjects preserved in tnanquilli- ty and innocence. This thought produced innumerable schemes of reformation, and dictated many useful regulations and salu- tary edicts. This has been the sport, and sometimes the labor, of my solitude 5 and I start, when I think with how little anguish I once supposed the death of my father and my brothers." " Such," says Imlac, " are the effects of visionary schemes : when we first form them we know them to be absurd, but fa- miliarize them by degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly." CHAPTER XLV. THEy DISCOURSE WITH AN OLD MAN-. The evening was now far past, and they rose to return home. As they walked along the bank 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 ni^ht, by inquiring what are his sentiments of his own state, that we may know whether 150 RASSELAS. youth alone is to struggle with vexation, and whether any better hope remains for the latter part of life." 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 disregard- ed, accompanied them to their house, and, at the prince's request, entered with them. They placed him in the seat of honor, and set wine and conserves before him. '' 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 qual- ities and causes of all that you behold, the laws by which the river flows, the periods in which the planets perform their revolu- tions. Every thing must supply you with i contemplation, and renew the conscious- ness of your own dignity." " Lady," answered be, " let the gay and the vigorous expect pleasure in their ex- cursions; it is enough that age can obtain ease. To me the world has lost its novel- ty ; 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 RASSELAS. 151 in the grave. I cast my eyes upwards, fix them en 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 ? " " You may at least recreate yourself," said Imlac, " with the recollection of an honorable and useful life, and enjoy the praise which all agree to give you." " 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 honors of her husband. I have out- lived 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 de- clining 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. Rich- es would now be useless, and high employ- ment 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 un- ]52 RASSELAS. attempted, and many great attempts unfin- I ished. My mind is burdened with no ) heavy crime, and therefore I compose my- [ self 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 j 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." He rose and went away, leaving his au- dience 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 j 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 vigor and alacrity might be happy : that the noon of life might be bright, if the evening could be calm. 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 ! tlie possessors of estates look with envy I on their lieirs, and known many who en- joyed pleasure no longer than they could confine it to themselves. Pekuah conjectured that the man was older than he appeared, and was willing to RASSELAS. 153 impute his complaints to delirious dejec- tion 3 or else supposed that he had been unfortunate, and was therefore discontent- ed : " For nothing," said she, " is more j common, than to call our own condition the condition of life." | Imlac, who had no ,desire to see them depressed, smiled at the comforts which I they could so readily procure to themselves, ! and remembered, that at the same age, he was equally confident of unmingled pros- perity, and equally fertile of consolatory expedients. He forbore to force upon them unwelcome knowledge, which time itself would too soon impress. The prin- cess and her lady retired 3 the madness of the astronomer hung in their minds, and they desired Imlac to enter upon his office, and delay next morning the rising of the sun. CHAPTER XLVI. THE PRINCESS AND PEKUAH VISIT THE AS- TRONOMER. The 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 knowledcre : and Imlac 15^ RASSELAS. was requested to find the means of bring- ing them together. This was somewhat difficult ; the philos- opher 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, ibr their conversation would be short, and they could not decently importune him of- ten. "This," said Kasselas, "is true; but I have yet a stronger objection against the misrepresentation of your state. 1 have rdways considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues tie means of deceiving him, whether on great or little occasions. All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence. When the sago finds tliat 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 RASSELAS. 155 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? " To this no reply was attempted, and Im- lac 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 be- cause a woman could not decently come alone. " I am afraid," said Imlac, '' that he will be soon 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 ele- ments, as he will deliver them connected with inferences, and mingled with reflec- tions, 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." The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was told, that a foreign lady, travelling in search of knov/ledge, had heard of his reputation, and was desirous 156 RASSELAS. to become his scholar. The uncommon- ness of th-e 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. The ladies dressed themselves magnifi- cently, and were attended by Iralac to the astronomer, who was pleased to see him- self approached with respect by persons of so splendid an appearance. In the ex- change of the first civilities he was timor- ous and bashful ; but when the talk became regular, he recollected his powers, and jus- tified the character which Imlac had given. Inquiring of Pekuah, what could have turn- ed her inclination towards astronomy, he received from her a history of her adven- ture at the Pyramid, and of the time passed at the Arab's Island. She told her tale with ease and elegance, and her conversa- tion 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. They came again and again, and were | ev2ry time more welcome than before. | The sage endeavoured to amuse them, that they might prolong their visits, for he found his tlioughts grow brighter in their compa- ny 5 the clouds of solicitude vanished by RASSELAS. 157 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. The princess and her favorite had now watched his lips for several months, and could not catch a word from which they could judge whether he continued, or not, in the opinion of his preternatural com- mission. 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. As their familiarity increased, they in- vited him often to the house of Imlac, where they distinguished him by extraor- dinary respect. He began gradually to de- light in sublunary pleasures. He came early and departed late 3 labored to recom- mend 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. 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. 158 RASSELAS. "Of the various conditionB 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 attain- ment of sciences, which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the ex- pense 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 obtain- ed any prerogatives above other students, they have been accompanied with fear, dis- quiet, 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 inqui- ries have ended in error, and that I have suffered much and suffered it in vain." 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. From this time the astronomer was re- ceived into familiar friendship, and partook of all their projects and pleasures : his re- RASSELAS. 1.99 spect kept him attentive, and the activity of Rasselas did not leave much time unen- gaged. 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. 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 oth- ers, and which he now found subject to va- riation, 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 irre- sistible violence; but they are soon disen- tangled 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 extin- guished, 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 favor 160 RASSELAS. myself in a known error, or am determin- ed by mine ovvn ease in a doubtful ques- tion of this importance, how dreadful is my crime ! " '*No disease of the imagination," an- swered 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 melan- cholic notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposi- tion, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this reason the supersti- tious are often melancholy, and the melan- choly almost always superstitious. " iSut do not let the suggestions of tim- idity overpower your better reason : the danger of neglect can be but as the proba- bility of the obligation which, when you consider it with freedom, you find very lit- tle, 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 RASSELAS. IGI only one atom of the mass of humani*v, and have neither such virtue nor vice, 'is that you should be singled out for supern» t- ural favors or afflictions." CHAPTER XLVII. THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOP-C. "All this," said the astronomer, "I have often thought, but my reason Kis been so long subjugated by an uncontrol a- ble and overwhelming idea, that it du'st not confide in its own decisions. I nv>w see how fatally I betrayed my quiet, by suffering chimeras to prey upon me in se- cret; but melancholy shrinks from com- munication, and I never found a man be- fore to whom I could impart my troubles, though I had been certain of relief. I re- joice 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." " Your learning and virtue," said Imlac, "may justly give you hopes." Rasselas then entered with the princess and Pekuah, and inquired, whether they 162 RASSELAS. had contrived any new diversions for the next day? "Such," said Nekayah, ''is tiie stale of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change : the change it- self is nothing 3 when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see sometliing to-morrow which I never saw before." " Variety," said Rasselas, " is so neces- sary to content, that even the Happy Val- ley disgusted me by the recurrence of its luxuries ; yet I could not forbear to re- proach myself with impatience, when I , saw the monks of St. Anthony support without complaint, a life, not of uniform j delight, but uniform hardship." 1 ''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 labor supplies them with necessaries ; it therefore cannot be omit- ted, and is certainly rewarded. Their de- votion prepares them for another state, and reminds them of its approach while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly distri- buted ; one duty succeeds another, so tliat ; 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 aj)propriated hour ; and their toils are checri'ul, because they RASSELAS. 1G3 consider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advancing towards endless felicity." " 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 suc- cours the distressed by his charity, in- structs 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 ? " " 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, every one 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 their conflicts with ad- versity, and are willing to eject those pas- sions which have long busied them in vain And many are dismissed by age and dis- eases from the more laborious duties of society. In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the 164> RASSELAS, 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 as- sociates serious as himself." " Such," said Pekuah, " has often been my wish, and I have heard the princess de- clare, that she could not willingly die in a crowd." " The liberty of using harmless pleas- ures," proceeded Imlac, ''will not be dis- puted 5 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 proba- tory, 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. Mortifi- cation 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." Tlie princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to the astronomer, asked him, whether he could not delay her retreat, by 165 showing her somethjug ^hich she had not seen before ? " Your curiosity." said the sage, " has been so general, and your pursuit of knowl- edge 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 won- ders 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 re- main without corruption." ''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 many other things which I have done, because I would do something." 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." They then all descended, and roved with wonder through the labyrinth of subterra- neous passages, where the bodies were laid in rows on either side. I ! 166 RASSBLAS. CHAPTER XLVIII. IMLAC DISCOURSES ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL. "What reason/' said the prince, " can be given, why the Egyptians should thus expensively preserve those carcasses 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 1 " "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 ten- derness to the remains of relations or friends, and to this opinion I am more in- clined, because it seems impossible that this care should have been general : had all the dead been embalmed, their reposi- tories must in time have been more spa- cious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the rich or honorable were secured from corruption, and the rest left to the course of nature. " But it is commonly supposed tict the Egyptians believed the soul to liv^ \a long as tlie body continued undissolved, and RASSELAS. 167 therefore tried this method of eluding death." " Could the wise Egyptians/' said Ne- kayah, " think so grossly of the soul? If I the soul could once survive its separation, what could it afterwards receive or suffer from the body 1 " " 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 I clearer knowledge : some yet say that it may be material, who, nevertheless, be- lieve it to be immortal." " 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 immate- riality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter. '' 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 168 RASSELAS. or little, to be moved slowly or swiftly one i way or another, are modes of material ex- istence, 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 modifi- cations which it can admit are equally un- connected with cogitative powers." " But the materialists," said the astrono- mer, " urge that matter may have qualities with which we are unacquainted." '' He who will determine," returned Im- lac, "against that which he knows, be- cause 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 be 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 tiiat which is unknown, no being, not omniscient, can arrive at certainty." " Yet let us not." said the astronomer, " too arrogantly limit the Creator's power." " It is no limitation of omnipotence," replied the poet, " to suppose that one thing is not consistent with another, that tlie same proposition cannot be at once true and false, that the same number can- RASSELAS. 1G9 not be even and odd, that cogitation cannot be conferred on that which is created inca- pable of cogitation." " I know not/' said Nekayah, '' any great use of this question. Does that immate- riality, which, in my opinion, you have suf- ciently proved, necessarily include eternal duration 1 " " Of immateriality," said Tmlac, " our ideas are negative, and therefore obscure. Immateriality seems to imply a natural power of perpetual duration as a conse- quence of exemption from all causes of decay ; whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its contexture, and separa- tion of its parts ; nor can we conceive how that which has no parts, and therefore ^- mits no solution, can be naturally cor- rupted or impaired." •'I know not," said Rasselas, '• how to conceive any thing without extension ; what is extended must have parts, and you allow, that whatever has parts may be de- stroyed." '' Consider your own conceptions," re- plied 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. Whit space 170 RASSELAS. 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 5 a power im- passive and indiscerptible." " But the Being," said Nekayah, " whom I fear to name, the Being which made the soul, can destroy it." " He, surely, can destroy it," answered Imlac, ''since, however unperishable, 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 philoso- phy ; but philosophy can tell no more. That it will not be annihilated by him that made it, we must humbly learn from higher authority." The vvhole assembly stood awhile silent and collected. " Let us return," said Ras- selas, " 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 strctcked before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to re- member the shortness of our present state i they were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy like us in the choice of life." SA8SBLA8. 171 •' To me," said the princess, •' the cnoice of life is become less important} I hope hereafter to think only on the choice of eternity." They then hastened out of the caverns, and, under the protection of their guard, returned to Cairo. CHAPTER XLIX. THE CONCLUSION IN WHICH NOTHING IS CONCLUDED. It was now the time of the inundation of the Nile : a few days after their visit to the Catacombs, the river began to rise. 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 comparis- ons of the different forms of life which they had observed, and with various schemes of happiness, which each of them had formed. Pekuah was never so much charmed with any place as the convent of St. An- thony, 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 j she was weary of expectation 172 KASSKLAS. and disgust, and would gladly be fixed in some unvariable state. The princess thought, that, of all sublu- nary things, knowledge was the best : she desired first to learn all sciences, and then proposed to found a college of learned wo- men, 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 wis- dom, and raise up for the next age models of prudence, and patterns of piety. The prince desired a little kingdom, in which he might administer justice in his own person, and see all the parts of the 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. Imlac and the astronomer were con- tented to be driven along the stream of life, without directing their course to any particular port. Of these wishes that they had formed they well knew that none could be ob- tained. They deliberated awhile, what was to be done, and resolved, when the in- undation should cease, to return to Abys- sinia. UC SOUTHERN RE j-:'.A.^ ._ 5=^ARr FAClLiTr B 000 003 447 o