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L161— 0-1096
| JOHNSON’S
HISTORY of RASSELAS-
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA
EDITED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON METHODS OF STUDY
BY
FRED N. SCOTT, PH.D.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
-LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN
“ BOSTON AND NEW YORK
CopyRIGnT, 1891,
_ By LEACH, SHEWELL
fl
‘
SN eee
en te
aa
PREFACE.
Although a cheap edition of Johnson’s “ Rasselas ”
stands in small need of recommendation to teachers of
English literature, a few words regarding the character-
istic features of the present volume may not be entirely
out of place.
‘1. The Text.—The standard text of Rasselas, or at
all events the most carefully edited text which has
appeared up to the present time, is that issued in 1879
from the Clarendon Press,.Oxford. The same plates,
without change in any particular, were used in G. Birk-
beck Hill’s edition of 1887. This text, in all its essential
features, is the one here reproduced. The most notice-
able departures from it will be found in the orthog-
raphy, which has been made to conform to American
‘usage, and in two verbal corrections, called for by the
;context and sanctioned by the Oxford edition of 1825.
These last consist in the substitution of “could” for
“can,” line 3, p. 180, and of “offers” for “offered,” line
ili
5 I i
BG £ <
iv PREFACE.
26, p. 191. In speaking of these small matters, it is
assumed that, other things being equal, a text represent-
ing Johnsonian usage will be preferred to one which
represents the caprice of the editor or of the type-
setter.’ }
2. The Introduction. —Three short essays have been
placed at the beginning of the book. One, a sketch
of Johnson’s life, is for students who cannot by any
possibility get access to other and more extensive bio-
graphical materials; a second, on methods of study, is
intended to be suggestive to teachers and to encourage
them to exercise independence in the planning of class-
room work; a third, on aids to the study of “ Rasselas,”
will, it is hoped, be found of service to teacher and
student alike wherever proper library facilities are not
lacking.
3. The Notes. — These, purposely reduced to very
small compass, have been made still more compact,
where possible, by grouping together cognate subjects
under a single head. Johnson’s peculiarities of diction,
for example, have been arranged in alphabetical order
and called Note 1. The references are made by means
of raised figures in the text. It is coming to be evident.
1 The existence of no less than five hundred errors of the grossest char-
acter in a popular edition of ‘‘ Rasselas”” which appears under the sanction
of a noted English scholar, should emphasize the value of a trustworthy text.
PREFACE. Vv
to all progressive teachers of English literature that the
introduction of reference libraries into our high schools
is bringing about a rapid shrinkage in the value of mis-
cellaneous annotation. The notes of the present volume
may be taken as representing one stage in the process of
eliminating waste material.
Frep N. Scort.
ANN ARBOR, MicH., November 15, 1891.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH : : i ; : ; ; 1
METHODS OF STUDY . : : ; ; : . : 12
AIDS TO THE STUDY OF RASSELAS . : ; ; : 19
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE : : y ; é i 25
-HisToRY OF RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA .. : 27
Notes . ; : ‘ ; ; p : : : « 520%
APPENDIX A. : ; : - ‘ . : : . 208
APPENDIX B . : : ; , : ; ; ‘ tap) eae
APPENDIX C . h : : ; : : ‘ , SRE
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
—__.¢——_—_.
THERE are men celebrated in the world of literature about
whose personal characteristics we know almost nothing at
all. We know so little of the most famous of the ancients,
Homer, that we cannot be sure any such man ever existed.
We know so little about Shakespeare, the most famous of
the moderns, that certain persons of our day, perhaps not
the wisest persons of our day, have ventured to deny to him the
authorship of his own works. But Dr. Samuel Johnson,
the author of the ‘‘ History of Rasselas,” is not one of these
vague personalities, these dusky shadows whom we see flit-
ting through the twilight of a distant past. Thanks to his
biographer, Boswell, readers can know as much about John-
son, at one period of his life, as about the most bewritten, the
most persistently interviewed, of the public men of to-day.
He can know even more; for no interviewer of our time pos-
sesses the rare ability, which was Boswell’s, of revealing in
every deft touch of description, in every scrap of anecdote
and shred of conversation, the inmost character of the man
whose life heis reporting. Boswell’s ‘‘ Life of Johnson” is one
of those books that every man, at some time in his life, should
. find leisure to read through from cover to cover. There he
will see, drawn with infinite patience and minuteness of detail,
the character which here can be sketched only in rough out-
lines.
oe RASSELAS.
Samuel Johnson was born on the 18th of September, 1709,
in Lichfield, a small town about a hundred miles northwest of
London. He was a sickly child, inheriting disorders that
made his life, after his twentieth year, one long misery.
Disease left its mark upon both mind and body. One serious
effect of his ailments was loss of sight in one eye; another
was asort of St. Vitus’ dance which at intervals forced him,
wherever “he might be, to perform a series of ridiculous
motions with feet and hands; a third result was a disposition,
which sometimes came dangerously near insanity, of profound
melancholy. Notwithstanding these maladies, Johnson,
unlike Pope, grew into a man of huge bulk and enormous
strength. Itis related of him that once, finding a stranger in
his chair at the theatre, he picked up both man and chair and
threw them into the pit. But he never learned to wield his
strength with grace, and remained all his life, in outward
appearance, clumsy, awkward, and uncouth.
The son of a bookseller, Johnson picked up, among the
volumes in his father’s shop, the beginning of a vast store of
miscellaneous information. His memory was remarkable.
He seemed to absorb without effort whatever came in his
way. At the age of eighteen, when he went to Oxford, he
knew, so he afterwards said, as much as at fifty-three. He
remained but fourteen months at the University — months of
bitterness, poverty, and seclusion. ‘I L was miserably poor,”
was his report of it years afterwards, ‘and I thought to fight
my way by my literature and my wit.” He was as proud as
he was poor, and once when some unknown friend left a pair
of new shoes at his door, indignantly flung them away. In
1731, when his father died, leaving to his son an inheritance of
but twenty pounds, Johnson was thrown upon his own re-
sources. For some years he lived, as Boswell characterized
one period of it, a life of ‘‘ complicated misery.” Fora time
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3
he taught in a grammar school, where he was wholly unsuc-
cessful. Now and then he had a chance to do a little writing.
His first publication, a translation of Father Lobo’s “ Travels
in Abyssinia,” is of peculiar significance for this sketch, inas-
much as it suggested the idea and supplied some of the mate-
rial for the story of Rasselas. The translation, published
in 1735, brought in to the translator a little over threepence a
page, a sum total of five guineas. In the same year Johnson
married a widow twenty years his senior, whose only recom-
mendations, so far as his friends could see, were that she
appreciated his talents and was possessed of a small sum of
money. ‘The money was probably soon spent in an unfortu-
nate attempt to found a boys’ school at Edial, near Lichfield.
At one time but three pupils were in attendance at the
‘‘academy,” one of the three, however, being that David
Garrick who is now remembered as the most eminent of
English actors. When, after a year and a half, the unsuc-
cessful venture was abandoned, Johnson, with Garrick as his
companion, set out for London, in order, as his letter of intro-
duction read, ‘‘ to try his fate with a tragedy, and to see to get
himself employed in some translation.” He could not well
have sought*employment worse paid or more precarious.
The lives of poor.and unbefriended writers in the great me-
tropolis were at this period miserable in the extreme. The
prices paid by the publishers for the work of such men was
less than that paid to ordinary day-laborers. The hope of
most authors was fixed upon pleasing some wealthy man by
dedicating a book to him, thus securing a patron who would
give money to his flatterer as to an object of charity. To
ignoble devices of this sort, Johnson, always of an independ-
ent spirit, maintained an unconquerable aversion. His only
resource was hard, unremitting labor, and to this his sluggish,
indolent nature was constitutionally indisposed. Living in a
4 RASSELAS.
wretched garret when he could afford it, or walking the street
when he could not, at times in dread of arrest and imprison-
ment for debt, hungry, ill-clad, ill-paid, despised, Johnson
endured for nearly a score of years all the horrors of Grub
Street. Years afterward he could not speak of that period of
his life without bursting into tears. His hardships left a per-
manent impress upon his habits both of mind and of body.
The appearance and character of the man when he had at last
worked his way from obscurity to fame, from the companion-
ship of the penniless and the outcast to intercourse on a com-
mon footing with men of wealth and distinction, are thus
graphically portrayed by Macaulay : — :
‘« Johnson came among them the solitary specimen of a past
age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub Street
hacks; the last of that generation of authors whose abject
misery and whose dissolute manners had furnished inexhaust-
ible matter to the satirical genius of Pope. From nature he
had received an uncouth figure, a diseased constitution, and an
irritable temper. The manner ‘in which the earlier years of
his manhood had been passed had given to his demeanor, and
even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling to
the civilized beings who were the companions of his old age.
The perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness of his
person, his fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long
intervals of sluggishness, his strange abstinence, and his
equally strange voracity, his active benevolence, contrasted
with the constant rudeness and the occasional ferocity of his
manners in society, made him, in the opinion of those with
whom he lived during the last twenty years of his life, a com-
plete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in some
respects. But if we possessed full information concerning
those who shared his early hardships, we should probably find
that what we call his singularities of manner were, for the
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5)
most part, failings which he had in common with the class to
which he belonged. He ate at Streatham Park as he had been
used to eat at St. John’s Gate, when he was ashamed to show
his ragged clothes. He ate as it was natural that a man
should eat, who, during the greater part of his life, had
passed the morning in doubt whether he should have food for
the afternoon. The habits of his early life had accustomed
him to bear privations with fortitude, but not to taste pleasure
with moderation. He could fast; but when he did not fast, he
tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling
on his forehead, and the perspiration running down his
cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it,
he drank it greedily and in large tumblers. These were, in
fact, mitigated symptoms of that same moral disease which
raged with such deadly malignity in his friends Savage and
Boyse. The roughness and violence which he showed in
society were to be expected from a man whose temper, not
naturally gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest calam-
ities, by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the
importunity of creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by
the derision of fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that
bread which is the bitterest of all food, by those stairs which
are the most toilsome of all paths, by that deferred hope
which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the
ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully
up to eminence and command.”
Much of Johnson’s literary work during this long struggle
for recognition and a livelihood was done for the Gentleman’s
Magazine, a periodical still in existence; but these articles
being unsigned, as was then-the custom, brought him no rep-
utation. Still his fame was growing all through this period
of his life. A satire entitled ‘‘ London,” published in book form
_ in 1738, attracted the attention of Pope. ‘Ten years later a
6 RASSELAS.
second satire, ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes,” was fairly well
received. The Rambler, a series of essays after the type set
by the Spectator, begun in 1750, and published every Tuesday
and Saturday until his wife’s death in 1752, established his
name as an essayist. But the work which finally crowned his
success, broke down the barriers of wealth and prejudice, and
made him the foremost man of letters of his day, was the
famous ‘‘ Dictionary of the English Language.” Johnson, issu-
ing the prospectus of this work in 1747, addressed it, after the
manner of the day, to Lord Chesterfield, at that time the
most distinguished nobleman in England. The earl sent a
small some of money, and then for seven years forgot John-
son’s very existence. When, however, the Dictionary, an
assured success, was on the point of appearing, Lord Chester-
field, as Johnson said, ‘fell a-scribbling in the World about
it.” Then Johnson took his revenge. He wrotethe noble lord
that famous letter into which he packed the gathered scorn of
all those years of suffering and disappointment : —
‘ ae
Bt
Dee Fie
9?
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 57
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 5
that I was ignorant, considered me as a novice whom
they hada right to cheat, and who was to learn at the
usual expense the art of fraud. ( They exposed me to
the theft of servants and the exaction of officers, and
saw me plundered upon false pretences, without any 10
-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 with-
out benefit to himself? I can easily conceive that all 15
are pleased with superiority; but your ignorance was
merely accidental, which, being neither your crime nor
your folly, could afford them no reason to applaud them-
selves; and the knowledge which they had, and which
you wanted, they might as effectually have shown by 20
warning as betraying you.”
“Pride,” said Imlac, “is seldom delicate, it will please-
itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not
its own happiness, but when it may be compared with
_ the misery of others. They were my enemies, because 25
they grieved to think me rich; and" my oppressors,
because they delighted to find me weak.”
“ Proceed,” said the prince: “I doubt not of the facts
which you relate, but imagine that you impute them to
mistaken motives.”
.
08 “ HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
“Tn this company,” said Imlac, “I arrived at Agra, the
capital of Indostan, the city in which the Great Mogul
commonly resides. I applied myself to the language of
the country, and in a few months was able to converse
5 with-the learned men; some of whom I found morose
and reserved, and others easy and communicative ; some
were unwilling to teach another what they had with
difficulty learned themselves; and some showed that
the end of their studies was to gain. the dignity of
10 instructing.
“To the tutor of the young princes I recommended
myself so much, that I was presented to the emperor as
a man of uncommon knowledge. ‘The emperor asked
me many questions concerning my country and my
15 travels; and though I cannot now recollect anything
that he uttered above the power of a common man, he
dismissed me astonished at his wisdom, and enamoured
of his goodness.
“My credit was now so high, that the merchants with
29 whom I had travelled, applied to me for recommenda-
tions to the ladies of the court. I was surprised at their
confidence of solicitation, and gently reproached them
with their practices on the road. They heard me with cold
indifference, and showed no tokens of shame or sorrow.
23 “They then urged their request with the offer of a
bribe ; but what I would not do for kindness, I would not
do for money, and refused them, not because they had
injured me, but because I would not enable them to
injure others; for I knew they would have made use of
my credit to cheat those who should buy their wares.
-
~
oe wa
E
> tty
? im.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 59
“ Having resided at Agra till there was no more to be
learned, I travelled into Persia; where I saw many
remains of ancient magnificence, and observed many
new accommodations’ of life. ‘The Persians are a
nation eminently social, and their assembles afforded 5
me daily opportunities of remarking 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 10
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.”
Pat
60 : HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER X.
IMLAC’S HISTORY CONTINUED. A DISSERTATION UPON
POETRY.
“ Wherever I went, I found that poetry was con-
sidered as the highest learning, and regarded with a
veneration somewhat approaching to that which man
would pay to angelic nature. And yet it fills me with
5 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 gradu-
ally attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or
that the first poetry of every nation surprised them as a
10 novelty, and retained the credit by consent, which it
received by accident at first; or whether, as the prov-
_ ince of poetry is to describe nature and passion, which
~ are always the same, the first writers took possession of
-. the most striking objects for description, and the most
15 probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to
~ those that followed them, but transcription of the same —
events, and new combinations of the same images:— —
whatever be the reason, it 1s commonly observed at
the early writers are in possession of nature, an
20 followers of art; that the first excel in stréng
invention,! and the latter in elegance and refinem
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 61
“JT was desirous to add my name to this illustrious fra-
ternity. 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 5
excellence impelled me to transfer my attention to ~—
nature and to life. Nature was to be my subject, and
jnen to be my auditors: I could never describe what I
had not seen; I could not hope to move those with de-
light or terror, whose interests and opinions I did not 10
understand.
Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything
with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was sud-
denly magnified; no kind of knowledge was to be over-
looked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and 15
resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of
the forest and flower of the valley. I observed with
equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles of the
palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the
rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the sum- 20 4
Pate te (To s post nothing a pal
ever is beautiful, and whatever is dreadful, must be / '
familiar to his imagination : he must be conversant with
all that is awfully vast or cal) permed The plants of
the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of 25
the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to
store his mind with inexhaustible variety : for every idea
is useful for the enforcement or decoration of moral or
religious truth; and he who knows most, will have most
power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his
62 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruc-
tion.
“ All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful
to study; and every country which I have surveyed has
5 contributed something to my poetical powers.”
“In so wide a survey,” said the prince, “you must
surely have left much unobserved. I have lived, till now,
within the circuit of these mountains, and yet cannot
walk abroad without the sight of something which I had
10 never beheld before, or never heeded.”
“The business of a poet,” said Imlac, “is to examine,
not the individual, but the species; to remark general
hn properties.and large appearances. He doés not number
the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades
15 in the verdure of the forest: he is to exhibit in his por-
traits 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
0 which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness.°
\. “But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of
a poet: he must be acquainted likewise with all the
modes oF Tifé) His character requires that he estimate” ~
__25 the power of all the passions in all their combinations,
and trace the changes of the human mind as they are
‘modified by various institutions and accidental influences
of climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy
‘to the despondence of decrepitude. He must divest
himself of the prejudices of his age and country; he
ene
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. .
must consider right and wrong in their abstracted and
‘invariable state; he must disregard present laws and
opinions, and rise to general and transcendental’ truths,
| which will always be the same. He must therefore con-
' tent himself with the slow progress of his name, contemn
the applause of his own time, and commit his claims to
the justice of posterity. He must write as the interpre-
ter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider
himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of
future generations; as a being superior to time and 10
place.
“His labor is not yet atan end; he must know many
languages and many sciences; and, that his style may
be worthy of his thoughts, must, by incessant practice,
familiarize to himself every delicacy of speech and grace 15
of harmony.”
or
HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XI.
IMLAC’S NARRATIVE CONTINUED. A HINT ON
PILGRIMAGE.
Imac now felt the enthusiastic fit, and was proceed-
ing to aggrandize his own profession, when the prince
eried out, “Enough! thou hast convinced me that no
human being can ever be a poet. Proceed with thy nar-
5 ration.”
“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.”’
10 “From Persia,” said the poet, “I travelled through
Syria, and for three years resided in Palestine, where I
conversed with great numbers of the northern and west-
ern nations of Europe; the nations which are now in
possession of all power and all knowledge; whose armies
15-are-irresistible, and whose fleets command the remotest
parts of the globe. When I compared these men with
the natives of our own kingdom, and those that surround
us, they appeared almost another order of beings. In
their countries it is difficult to wish for anything that
20 may not be obtained: a thousand arts, of which we never
heard, are continually laboring for their convenience
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.
and pleasure; and whatever their,own climat
denied them is supplied by their commerce.”
“By what means,” said the prince, “are the Europe-
ans thus powerful; or why, since they can so easily
visit Asia and Africa for trade or conquest, cannot the 5
Asiatics and Africans invade their coast, plant colonies
in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes ?
The same wind that carries them back would bring us
thither.”
“They are more powerful, sir, than-we,” answered 10 ;
Imlac, “because they are wiser; knowledge will always /
predominate over ignorance, as man governs the other / ,
animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours, I y |
know not what reason can be given, but the unsearchable
will of the Supreme Being.” 15
“When,” said the prince with a sigh, “shall I be able
to visit Palestine, and mingle with this mighty conflu-
ence of nations? ‘Till that happy moment shall arrive,
let me fill up the time with such representations as thou
canst give me. Iam not ignorant of the motive that 20
assembles such numbers in that place, and cannot but
consider it as the centre of wisdom and piety, to which
the best and wisest men of every land must be continually ¢
resorting.” °
“There are some nations,” said Imlac, “that send few 25
visitants to Palestine; for many numerous and learned
sects in Europe concur to censure pilgrimage as super-
stitious, or deride it as ridiculous.”
“ You know,” said the prince, “ how little my life has
made me acquainted with diversity of opinions; it will
HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
PO long! to hear the arguments on both sides; you,
mat have considered them, tell me the result.”
“ Pilgrimage,” said Imlac, “like many other acts of
piety, may be reasonable or superstitious, according to
5 the principles upon which it is performed. Long jour-
_neys 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 nat-
ural cause of the increase of piety, for it inevitably
10 produces dissipation of mind. Yet, since men go every
day to view the fields where great actions have been
performed, and return with stronger impressions of the
event, curiosity of the same kind may naturally dispose
us to view that country whence our religion had its be-
15 ginning; and I believe no man surveys those awful
scenes without some confirmation of holy resolutions.
That the Supreme Being may be more easily propitiated
in one place than in another, is the dream of idle super-
stition; but that some places may operate upon our own
20 minds in an uncommon manner, is an opinion which
hourly experience will justify. He who supposes that
his vices may be more successfully combated in Pales-
tine, will, perhaps, find himself mistaken; yet he may
go thither without folly: he who thinks they will be
25 more pee pardoned, dishonors at once his reason and
religion.”
“These,” said the prince, “are European distinctions.
I will consider them another time. What have you
found to be the effect of knowledge? Are eee nations
happier than we?”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.
“There is so much infelicity,” said the poet, “in the
world, that scarce any man has leisure from his own dis-
tresses to estimate the comparative happiness of others, ©
Knowledge i is certainly one-of_the-mearis ot~ pleasure, as
is confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels
of increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere privation, by
which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which
the soul sits motionless and torpid for want of attraction ;
and without knowing why, we always rejoice when we
learn, and grieve when we forget. I am therefore in- 10
clined to conclude that if nothing 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. 15
They cure wounds and diseases with which we languish
and perish. We suffer inclemencies of weather which
ex
they can obviate. They have engines’ for the despatch
of many laborious works, which we must perform by
manual industry. There is such communication between 20
distant places, that one friend can hardly be said to be
absent from another. ‘Their policy removes all public
inconveniences; they have roads cut through their
mountains, and bridges laid over their rivers. And, if
we descend to the privacies of life, their habitations are 25
more As and their possessions are more
secure.’
“They are surely happy,” said the prince, “ who have
all these conveniences, of which I envy none so much as
HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
ehe facility with which separated friends interchange
their thoughts.”
“The Europeans,” answered Imlac, “are less unhappy
than we, but they are not happy. Human life is every-
» 5 where a state in which much is to be endured, and little
to be enjoyed.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 69
CHAPTER XII.
THE STORY OF IMLAC CONTINUED.
“JT am not yet willing,” said the prince, “to suppose
that happiness is so parsimoniously distributed to mor-
tals; nor can I believe but that, if I had the choice of
life I should be able to fill every day with pleasure. I
would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment; 5
I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the
benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends
among the wise, and my wife among the virtuous; and
therefore should be in no danger from treachery or
unkindness. My children should, by my care, be learned 10
and pious, and would repay to my age what their child-
hood 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 reciprocation of pro- 15
tection 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, “I passed through 20
many regions of Asia; in the more civilized kingdoms
as a trader, and among the barbarians of the mountains
T0 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
asa pilgrim. At last I began to long for my native
country, that I might repose, after my travels and
_ fatigues, in the places where I had spent my earliest
years, and gladden my old companions with the recital
sof my adventures. Often did I figure to myself those
with whom I had sported away the gay hours of dawn-
ing life, sitting round me in its evening, wondering at
my tales, and listening to my counsels.
“ When this thought had taken possession of my mind,
10 I considered every moment as wasted which did not
bring me nearer to Abyssinia. I hastened into Egypt,
and notwithstanding my impatience, was detained ten
months in the contemplation of its ancient magnificence,
and in inquiries after the remains of its ancient learning.
i5 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, populous as
20 Cairo, it is possible to obtain at the same time the gratt-
fications 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.
25 Here I joined myself to a caravan, and re-entered my
native country.
“I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen and the
congratulations of my friends, and was not without hope :
that my father, whatever value he had set upon riches,
would own with gladness and pride a son who was able
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. T1
to add to the felicity and honor of the nation. But I
was soon convinced that my thoughts were vain. My
father had been dead fourteen years, having divided his
wealth among my brothers, who were removed to some
other provinces. Of my companions, the greater part 5
were in the grave; of the rest, some could with difficulty
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 disappointments, and endeavored 10
to recommend myself to the nobles of the kingdom;
they admitted me to their tables, heard my story, and
dismissed me. I opened a school, and was prohibited to
teach. I then resolved to sit down in the quiet of
domestic life, and addressed a lady that was fond of 15
my conversation, but rejected my suit because my father
was a merchant.
“Wearied at last with solicitation and repulses, I
resolved to hide myself forever from the world, and
/depend no longer on the opinion or caprice of others. 20
I waited for the time when the gate of the happy valley
should open, that I might bid farewell to hope and fear:
the day came; my performance was distinguished with
favor; and I resigned myself with joy to perpetual con-
finement.”’ 25
“Hast thou here found happiness at last?” said
Rasselas. “Tell me without reserve: art thou content
with thy condition? or, dost thou wish to be again
wandering and inquiring? All the inhabitants of
the valley celebrate their lot, and at the annual visit
te HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
of the emperor, invite others to partake of their
felicity.”
“Great Prince,” said Imlac, “1 shall speak the truth ;
_ I know not one of all your attendants, who does not
<<" 5 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 memory, and by —
10 recollection of the incidents of my past life. Yet all
this ends in the sorrowful consideration that my acquire-
ments are now useless, and that none of my pleasures
can be again enjoyed. The rest, whose minds have no
impression but of the present moment, are either cor-
15 roded by malignant 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 impo-
tence precludes malice, and where all envy is repressed
20 by community of enjoyments.”’ :
/“ There may be community,” said Imlac, “of material
possessions, but there can never be community of love
\ [or of esteem. It must happen that one will please more
V than another; he that knows himself despised, will
25 always be envious; and still more envious and malevo-
lent, if he is condemned to live in the presence of those
who despise him. ‘The invitations by which they allure
others to a state which they feel to be wretched, proceed
from the natural malignity of hopeless misery. They
are weary of themselves and of each other, and expect
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. lo
to find relief in new companions. They envy the liberty
which their folly has forfeited, and would gladly see all
mankind imprisoned like themselves.
“From this crime, however, I am wholly free. No
man can say that he is wretched by my persuasion. I 5
look with pity on the crowds who are annually soliciting
admission to captivity, and wish that it were lawful for
- me to warn them of their danger.”
“My dear Imlac,” said the prince, “I will open to
thee my whole heart. I have long meditated an escape 10
from the happy valley. 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 15
of life.”
“Sir,” answered the poet, “your escape will be diffi-
_ cult, and, perhaps, you may soon repent your curiosity.
~The world, which you figure to yourself smooth and
quiet as the lake in the valley, you will find a sea foam- 20
ing with tempests, and boiling with whirlpools: you
’ will be sometimes overwhelmed by the waves of vio-
lence, and sometimes dashed against the rocks of
treachery. Amidst wrongs and frauds, competitions
and anxieties, you will wish a thousand times for these 25
seats of quiet, and willingly quit hope to be free from
fear.”
- “Do not seek to deter me from my purpose,” said the
-prince. “I am impatient to see what thou hast seen;
and since thou art thyself weary of the valley, it is evi-
T4 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
dent that thy former state was better than this. What-
ever be the consequence of my experiment, lam resolved
to judge with mine own eyes of the various conditions
of men, and then to make deliberately my choice of life.”
5s “JT am afraid,” said Imlac, “you are hindered by
stronger restraints than my persuasions; yet, if your
determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair.
Few things are impossible to diligence and_ skill.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. td
CHAPTER XIII.
RASSELAS DISCOVERS THE MEANS OF ESCAPE,
THE prince now dismissed his favorite to rest; but
the narrative of wonders and novelties filled his mind
with perturbation. He revolved all that he had heard,
and prepared innumerable questions for the morning.
Much of his uneasiness was now removed. He hada 5
friend to whom he could impart his thoughts, and whose
experience could assist him in his designs. His heart
was no longer condemned to swell with silent vexation.
He thought that even the happy valley might be endured
with such a companion, and that if they could range 10
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 Imlac then walked out
together, to converse without the notice of the rest. 15
The prince, whose thoughts were always on the wing,
as he passed by the gate, said, with a countenance of
sorrow, “ Why art thou so strong, and why is man so
weak ? ”
“Man is not weak,” answered his companion; “knowl- 20
edge is more than equivalent to force. The master of
mechanics laughs at strength. I can burst the gate, but
76 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
cannot do it secretly. Some other expedient must be
tried.”
As they were walking on the side of the mountain,
‘they observed that the coneys, which the rain had
5 driven from their burrows, had taken shelter among the
bushes, and formed holes behind them, tending upwards
in an oblique line. “It has been the opinion of antiq-
uity,” said Imlac, “that human reason borrowed many
arts from the instinct of animals; let us, therefore, not
10 think ourselves degraded by learning from the coney.
We may escape by piercing the mountain in the same’
direction. We will begin where the summit hangs over
the middle part, and’ labor upward till we shall issue up
beyond the prominence.” ,
15 The eyes of the prince, when he heard this proposal,
sparkled with joy. The execution 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
20 clambered with great fatigue among crags and brambles,
and returned without having discovered 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 cavern, concealed
"95 by a thicket, where they resolved to make their experi-
ment.
Imlac 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 presently
exhausted by their efforts, and sat down to pant upon the -
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.
grass. The prince, for a moment, appeared to be di
couraged. “Sir,” said his companion, “practice will
enable us to continue our labor for a longer time; mark,
however, how far we have advanced, and you will find Ae
that our toil will some time have an end. Great works 5“;
are performed, not by strength, but perseverance: yon- /
der palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its
height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigor
three hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal
to the circumference of the globe.” 10
They returned to their work day after day, and, in a
short time, found a fissure in the rock, which enabled
them to pass far with very little obstruction. This Ras-
selas considered as a good omen. “Do not disturb your /
mind,” said Imlac, “with other hopes or fears than rea-. 15)
son 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 success. This is one of those pleasing sur- 20
prises which often happen to active resolution. Many (~
things difficult to design prove easy to performance.”
HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XIV.
RASSELAS AND IMLAC RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED VISIT.
Turvy had now wrought their way to the middle, and
solaced their toil with the approach of liberty, when the
prince, coming down to refresh himself with air, found
his sister Nekayah standing before the mouth of the
5 cavity. He started and stood confused, afraid to tell his
design, and yet hopeless to conceal it. A few moments
determined him to repose on her fidelity, and secure her
secrecy by a declaration without reserve. |
“Do not imagine,” said the princess, “that I came
10 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 that you had any
better reason for the preference than a cooler shade, or
more fragrant bank; nor followed you with any other
15 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. Iam equally weary
of confinement with yourself, and not less desirous of
knowing what is done or suffered in the world. Permit —
20 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.” |
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.
The prince, who loved Nekayah above his other sisters,
had no inclination to refuse her request, and grieved that
he had lost an opportunity of showing his confidence by
a voluntary communication. It was therefore agreed
that she should leave the valley with them; and that, in 5
the meantime, she should watch lest any other straggler
should, by chance or curiosity, follow them to the moun-
~ tain.
At length their labor was at an end; they saw light
beyond the prominence, and, issuing to the top of the 10 »
mountain, beheld the Nile, yet a narrow current, wan- /
dering beneath them.
The prince looked round with rapture, anticipated all
the pleasure of travel, and in thought was already trans-
ported beyond his father’s dominions. Imlac, though 15
very joyful at his escape, had less expectation of pleas-
ure 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 20
valley. He informed his sister that the way was open,
and that nothing now remained but to prepare for their
departure. Ce
HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XV.
THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS LEAVE THE VALLEY AND
SEE MANY WONDERS.
Tum prince and princess had jewels sufficient to make
them rich, whenever they came into a place of com-
merece, which, by Imlac’s direction, they hid in their
clothes; and, on the night of the next full moon, all left
5 the valley. ‘The princess was followed only by a single
favorite, who did not know whither she was going.
They clambered through the cavity, and began to go
down on the other side. The princess and her maid
turned their eyes towards every part, and, seeing nothing
10 to bound their prospect, considered themselves as in dan-
ger of being lost in a dreary vacuity. They stopped and
trembled. “I am almost afraid,” said the princess, “to
~ begin a journey of which I cannot perceive an end, and
to venture into this immense plain, where I may be ap-
15 proached on every side by men whom I never saw.” ‘The
prince felt nearly the same emotions, though he thought
it more manly to conceal them.
Imlac smiled at their terrors, and encouraged them to
proceed; but the princess continued irresolute till she
20 had been imperceptibly drawn forward too far to return.
In the morning they found some shepherds in the field, |
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 81
who set milk and fruits before them. The princess
wondered that she did not see a palace ready for her
reception, and a table spread with delicacies; but being
faint and hungry, she drank the milk and ate the fruits,
and thought them of a higher flavor than the products 5
of the valley. .
They travelled forward by easy journeys, being all
unaccustomed to toil or difficulty, and knowing, that,
though they might be missed, they could not be pursued.
In a few days they came into a more populous region, 10
where Imlac was diverted with the admiration which his
companions expressed at the diversity of manners, sta-
tions, and employments.
Their dress was such as might not bring upon them
the suspicion of having anything to conceal; yet the 15
prince, wherever he came, expected to be obeyed, and
the princess was frighted because those that came into
her presence did not prostrate themselves before her.
Imlae was forced to observe them with great vigilance,
lest they should betray their rank by their unusual be- 20
havior, and detained them several weeks in the first vil-
lage, to accustom them to the sight of common mortals.
By degrees the royal wanderers were taught to under-
stand that they had for a time laid aside their dignity,
and were to expect only such regard as liberality and 25
courtesy could procure. And Imlac having, by many
admonitions, prepared them to endure the tumults of a
port, and the ruggedness! of the commercial race,
brought them down to the sea-coast.
The prince and his sister, to whom everything was
Ce us HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
new, were gratified equally at all places, and therefore
remained for some months at the port, without any incli-
nation to pass further. Imlac was content with their stay,
because he did not think it safe to expose them, unprac-
5 tised in the world, to the hazards of a foreign country.
At last he began to fear lest they should be discovered,
and proposed to fix a day for their departure. They had,
no pretensions to judge for themselves, and referred the
whole scheme to his direction. He therefore took pas-
10 sage in a ship to Suez; and, when the time came, with
great difficulty prevailed on the princess to enter the
vessel. -They had a quick and prosperous voyage, and
from Suez travelled by land to Cairo.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.
CHAPTER XVI.
THEY ENTER CAIRO, AND FIND EVERY MAN HAPPY.
As they approached the city, which filled the strangers
with astonishment, “This,” said Imlac to the prince, “1s
the place where travellers and merchants assemble from
all the corners of the earth. You will here find men of
every character, and every occupation. Commerce 1s
here honorable: I will act asa merchant, and you shall
live as strangers who have no other end of travel than
curiosity ; it will soon be observed that we are rich; our
reputation will procure us access to all whom we shall
desire to know; you will see all the conditions of
humanity, and enable yourself at leisure to make your
choice of life.” “
They now entered the town, stunned by the noise, and
offended by the crowds. Instruction had not yet so pre-
vailed over habit, 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
levelled with the vulgar, and for some days continued in
10
15
her chamber, where she was served by her favorite 20
Pekuah as in the palace of the valley.
Imlac, who understood traffic, sold part of the jewels
va
HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
me next day, and hired a house, which he adorned with
such ,magnificence, that he was immediately considered
asamerchant of great wealth. His politeness attracted
many acquaintance,! and his generosity made him courted
5 by many dependents. His table was crowded by men
of every nation, who all admired his knowledge, and
solicited his favor. His companions, not being able to
mix in the conversation, could make no discovery * of their
ignorance or surprise, and were gradually initiated in the
10 world as they gained knowledge of the language.
The prince had, by frequent lectures, been taught the
use and nature of money; but the ladies could not, fora
long time, comprehend what the merchants did with
small pieces of gold and silver, or why things of so little
15 use should be received as equivalent to the necessaries
of life.
They studied the language two. years, while Imlac was
preparing to set before them the various ranks and con-
ditions of mankind. He grew acquainted with all who
20 had anything uncommon in their fortune or conduct.
He frequented the voluptuous and the frugal, the idle
and the busy, the merchants and the men of learning.
The prince being now able to converse with fluency,
and having learned the caution necessary to be observed
23 in his intercourse 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 needless, penanse all
appeared to him equally happy. Wherever he went he
met gayety and kindness, and heard the song of joy or
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA.
the laugh of carelessness. He began to be
world overflowed with universal plenty, and th
was withheld either from want or merit; tha
hand showered liberality, and every heart melted
benevolence ; “‘and who then,” says he, “ will be suffere
to be wretched ? ”
Imlac permitted the pleasing delusion, and was unwill-
ing to crush the hope of inexperience, till one day, having
sat a while silent, “I know not,” said the prince, “ what
can be the reason that I am more unhappy than any of 10
our friends. I see them perpetually and unalterably
cheerful, but feel my own mind restless and uneasy. I
am unsatisfied with those pleasures which I seem most
to court. I live in the clouds of jollity, not so much to
enjoy company as to shun myself, and am only loud and 15
merry to conceal my sadness.”
“‘Kvery man,” said Imlac, ‘‘ may, by examining his own
mind, guess what passes in the minds of others; when
you feel that your own gayety is counterfeit, it may
justly lead you to suspect that of your companions not 20
to_be Sincere. Envy is commonly reciprocal. We are
long? before we are convinced that happiness is neverto ~*~
be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to
keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself. ‘In the
assembly where you passed the last night, there appeared 25
such sprightliness of air and volatility of fancy, as might
have suited beings of a higher order, formed to inhabit
serener regions inaccessible to care or sorrow; yet,
believe me, prince, there was not one who did not dread
the moment when solitude should deliver him to the 30
tyranny of reflection.”
STORY OF RASSELAS,
id the prince, “may be true of others, since
of me; yet, whatever be the general infelicity
, one condition is more happy than another, and
om surely directs us to take the least evil in the
oice of life.”
“The causes of good and evil,” answered Imlae, “are »
so various and uncertain, so often entangled with each
other, so diversified by various relations, and so much
subject to accidents which cannot be foreseen, that he
10 who would fix his condition upon incontestible reasons
‘of ede 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
15 lite for themselves which they thought most likely to
make them happy.”
“Very few,” said the poet, “live by choice. ( Every
man is placed in his present condition by causes which
acted without his foresight, and with which he did not
20 always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will
rarely meet one who does pel think the lot of his
neighbor better than his own.’
“JT am pleased to think,” said the prince, “that my
birth has given me at least one advantage over others,
25 by enabling me to determine for myself. I have here
the world before me; I will review it at leisure: surely
happiness is anmeuhers to be found.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 87
CHAPTER XVII.
THE PRINCE ASSOCIATES WITH YOUNG MEN OF SPIRIT
AND GAYETY.
RASSELAS rose next day, and resolved to begin his
experiments upon life. “ Youth,” cried he, “is the time
of gladness: I will join myself to the young men whose
only business is to gratify their desires, and whose time
is all spent in a succession of enjoyments.” 5
To such societies he was readily admitted; but a few
days brought him back weary and disgusted. Their
mirth was without images}! their laughter without
motive; their pleasures were gross and sensual, in which
the mind had no part. Their conduct was at once wild 10
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 which he wasashamed. He 15
thought it unsuitable to a reasonable being to act without
a plan, and to be sad or cheerful only by chance.
“Happiness,” said he, “must be something. solid and
permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.”
But his young companions had gained so much of his 20
regard by their frankness and courtesy, that he could
88 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
not leave them without warning and remonstrance.
“My friends,” said he, “I have seriously considered our
manners and our prospects, and find that we have mis-
taken our own interest. The first years of man must
5 make provision for the last. He that never thinks never
can be wise. Perpetual levity must end in ignorance;
and intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an
hour, will make life short or miserable. \ Let us consider
that youth is of no long duration, and that in maturer age,
10 when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phan-
toms 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-
15 time to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dread-
ful of all evils to count their past years by follies, and
to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only
by the maladies which riot has produced.” |
They stared awhile in silence one upon another, and
90 at last drove him away by a general chorus of continued
laughter.
The 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,
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 89
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.
As he was one day walking in the street, he saw a.
spacious building, which all were, by the open doors,
invited to enter. He followed the stream of people,
and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which
professors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his 5
eye upon a sage raised above the rest, who discoursed
with great energy on the government of the passions.
His look was venerable, his action graceful, his pronun-
ciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed, with
great strength of sentiment and variety of illustration, 10
that human nature is degraded and debased when the
lower faculties predominate over the higher; that , When
fancy,.the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the
mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful
government, — perturbation and confusion; that she be- 15
trays the fortresses of the intellect to rebale and excites
her children to sedition against reason their lawful sov-
ereign. He compared reason to the sun, of which the
light is constant, uniform, and lasting; and fancy to a
meteor, of bright but transitory lustre, irregular in its -20
motion, and delusive in its direction.
He then communicated the various precepts given
90 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
, from time to time for the conquest of passion, and dis-
/ played the happiness of those who had obtained the
“) important victory, after which man is no longer the
‘| slave of fear, nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated
- Bby envy, inflamed by anger, emasculated by tenderness,
_ or depressed by grief; but walks on calmly through the
' tumults or privacies of life, as the sun pursues alike his ya
course through the calm or, the stormy sky. sed ee
He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable
10 by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on
those modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the
names of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay
aside their prejudices, and arm themselves against the
shafts of malice or misfortune, by invulnerable patience ;
15 concluding, that this state only was happiness, and that
this happiness was in every one’s power. |
Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to
the instructions of a superior being, and waiting for him
at the door, humbly implored -the liberty of visiting so
20 great a master of true wisdom. ‘The lecturer hesitated a
moment, when Rasselas put a purse of gold into his hand,
which he received with a mixture of joy and wonder.
“T have found,” said the prince at his return to Imlae,
“ 9 man who can teach all that is necessary to be known,
25 who, from the unshaken throne of rational fortitude,
looks down on the scenes of life changing beneath him.
He speaks, and attention watches his lips; he reasons,
and conviction closes his periods. This man shall be my
future guide :/I will learn his doctrines, and imitate his
ie” 7
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 91
“ Be not too hasty,” said Imlac, “to trust or to admire
the teachers of morality: they discourse like angels, but
they live like men.”
Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could
reason so forcibly without feeling the cogency of hisown 5
arguments, paid his visit in a few days, and was denied
admission, He had now learned the power of money,
and made his way by a piece of gold to the inner
apartment, where he found the philosopher, in a
room half darkened, with his eyes misty, and his face 10
pale. “Sir,” said he, “you are come at a time when.
all human friendship is useless: what I suffer cannot
be remedied; what I have lost cannot be supplied. My
daughter, my only daughter, from whose tenderness I
expected all the comforts of: my age, died last night 15
of a fever. My views, my purposes, my hopes are
at an end: I am now a lonely being disunited from
society.”
“Sir,” said the prince, “ mortality j 1s anevent by which
a wise man can neyer.be sul surprised: we know that 20 >
~ death is always near, and it should therefore always be
expected.”
“Young man,” answered.the philosopher, “you speak
like one that has never felt\the pangs of separation.”
“Have you then forgot the precepts,” said Rasselas, 25
“which you so powerfully enforced? Has wisdom no
strength to arm the heart against calamity? Consider
that external things are naturally variable, but truth and
reason are always the same.” “What comfort,” said the
mourner, ‘can truth and reason afford me? Of what
92 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
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
s emptiness of rhetorical sound, and the inefficacy of
polished periods and studied sentences.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 93
CHAPTER XIX.
A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.
HE was still eager upon the same inquiry; and having
heard of a hermit, that lived near the lowest cataract of
the Nile, and filled the whole country with the fame of
his sanctity, resolved to visit his retreat, and inquire
whether that felicity which public life could not afford, 5
was to be found in solitude; and whether a man whose
age and virtue made him venerable, could teach any
peculiar art of shunning evils or enduring them.
Imlac and the princess agreed to accompany him; and,
after the necessary preparations, they began their jour- 10
ney. ‘Their way lay through the fields, where shepherds
tended their flocks, and the lambs were playing upon the
- pasture. “This,” said the poet, “is the life which has
been often celebrated for its innocence and quiet; let us
pass the heat of the day among the shepherds’ tents, 15
and know whether all our searches are not to terminate
in pastoral simplicity.”
The proposal pleased them, and they induced the
shepherds, by small presents and. familiar questions, to .
tell their opinion of their own state. They were so 20\ )
tude and ignorant, so little able to compare the good ~
with the evil of the occupation, and so indistinct in
94 HISTORY OF RASSELAS, —
be Se,
their narratives and descriptions, that very little could
be learned from them; but it was evident that their
hearts were cankered eh discontent, that they con-
' sidered themselves as condemned to labor for the luxury
5of the rich, and looked up with stupid malevolence .
toward those that were placed above them. \...).)\°
The princess pronounced with vehemence, that ae :
would never suffer these envious savages to be her com-
panions, and that she should not soon be desirous of
10 seeing any more specimens of rustic happiness; but
could not believe that all the accounts of primeval
pleasures were fabulous, and was yet in doubt whether
life had anything that could be justly preferred to the
placid gratifications of fields and woods. She hoped that :
15 the time would come, when, with a few virtuous and 3
elegant 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 réading in the shade.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 95
CHAPTER XxX.
THE DANGER OF tec yt ea
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
sooner entered than they perceived that they were
approaching the habitations of men. The shrubs were 5
diligently cut away, to open walks where the shades
were darkest; the boughs of opposite trees were arti-
ficially interwoven; seats of flowery turf were raised in
vacant spaces; and a rivulet, that wantoned along the
side of a winding path, had its banks sometimes opened 10
into small basins, and its stream sometimes obstructed
by little mounds of stone, heaped together to increase
its murmurs.
They passed slowly through the wood, delighted with
such unexpected accommodations,! and entertained each 15
other with conjecturing what or who he could be, that,
in those rude and unfrequented regions, had leisure and
art for such harmless luxury.
As they advanced, they heard the sound of music, and
saw youths and virgins dancing in the grove; and going 20
still further, beheld a stately palace built upon a hill,
surrounded with woods. The laws of Eastern hospi-
tality allowed them to enter, and the master welcomed
them like a man liberal and wealthy.
96 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
He was skilful enough in appearances soon to discern
that they were no common guests, and spread his table
with magnificence. The eloquence of Imlac caught his
attention, and the lofty courtesy of the princess excited
5 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.
10 The prince now saw ail the domestics cheerful, and all
the face of nature smiling round the place, and could
not forbear to hope he should find here what he was
seeking; but when he was congratulating the master
upon his possessions, he answered with a sigh, “My
15 condition has indeed the appearance of happiness, but
appearances are delusive. My prosperity puts my life
in danger; the Bassa of Egypt is my enemy, incensed
only by my wealth and popularity. I have been hitherto
protected against him by the princes of the country ;
20 but as the favor of the great is uncertain, I know not
how soon my defenders may be persuaded to share the :
plunder with the Bassa. I have sent my treasures. into
a distant country, and, upon the first alarm, am prepared
to follow them. Then will my enemies riot’ in my
25 mansion, and enjoy the gardens which I have planted. e
They all joined in lamenting his danger, and depre-
cating his exile; and the princess was so much disturbed
with the tumult of grief and indignation, that she
retired to her apartment.
30 They continued with their kind inviter a few days
longer, and then went forward to find the hermit.
*
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 97
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HAPPINESS OF SOLITUDE. — THE HERMIT’S HISTORY.
THEY came on the third day, by the direction of the
peasants, to the hermit’s cell: it was a cavern in the side
of a mountain, overshadowed with palm trees; at such a
distance from the cataract, that nothing more was heard
than a gentle uniform murmur, such as composed the 5
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 im-
proved by human labor, that the cave contained several
apartments appropriated to different uses, and often 10
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 15
various kinds. As they approached him unregarded, the
princess observed that he had not the countenance of a
man that had found, or could teach, the way to happi-
ness.
They saluted him with great respect, which he repaid 20
like a man not unaccustomed to the forms of courts.
“My children,” said he, “if you have lost your way, you
BS
Ot. HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
shall be willingly supplied with such conveniences for
the night as this cavern will afford. I have all that
nature requires, and you will not expect delicacies in a
hermit’s cell.” -
5 They thanked him, and, entering, were pleased wit
the neatness and regularity of the place. The hermit
set flesh and wine before them, though he fed only upon
fruits and water. His discourse was cheerful without
levity, and pious without enthusiasm. He soon gained
10 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
15 direction for this young man and maiden in the choice
of life.”
“To him that lives well,” answered the hermit, “every
form of life is good; nor can I give any other rule for
choice, than to remove from all apparent evil.” ,
0 “He will remove most certainly from evil,” said the
prince, “ who shall devote himself to that solitude which —
you have recommended by your example.”
“T have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude,” said
the hermit, “but have no desire that my example should
25 gain any imitators. In my youth I professed arms, and
was raised by degrees to the highest military rank. I
have traversed wide countries at the head of my troops,
and seen many battles and sieges. At last, being dis- |
custed by the preferments of a younger officer, and
feeling that my vigor was beginning to decay, I was
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 99
resolved to close my life in peace, having found the
world full of snares, discord, and misery. I had onee
escaped from the pursuit of the enemy by the shelter
of this cavern, and therefore chose it for my final resi-
dence. I employed artificers to form it into chambers, 5
and stored it with all that.I was likely to want.
“For some time after my retreat, I rejoiced like a
tempest-beaten sailor at his entrance into the harbor,
being delighted with the sudden change of the noise
and hurry of war to stillness and repose. When the 10
pleasure of novelty went away, I employed my hours in
examining the plants which grow in the valley, and the
minerals which I collected from the rocks. But that
inquiry is now grown tasteless and irksome. I have
been for some time unsettled and distracted: my mind 15
is disturbed with a thousand perplexities of doubt and
vanities of imagination, which hourly prevail upon me, be-
cause I have no opportunities of relaxation or diversion.
I am sometimes ashamed to think that I could not
secure myself from vice, but by retiring from the exercise 20
of virtue, and begin to suspect that I was rather impelled»
by resentment, than led by devotion, into solitude. My
fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I lament that I have
lost so much and have gained so little. In solitude, if
I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the 25
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 ofa
solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly
devout.”
100 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
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
5 he approached it, he gazed with rapture.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 101
CHAPTER XXII.
THE HAPPINESS OF A LIFE LED ACCORDING TO NATURE.
Rassexas went often to an assembly of learned men,
who met at stated times to unbend their minds, and
compare their opinions. Their manners were somewhat
coarse, but their conversation was instructive, and their
disputations acute, though sometimes too violent, and 5
often continued till neither controvertist! remembered
upon what question they began. Some faults were
almost general among them: every one was desirous to
dictate to the rest, and every one was pleased to hear
the genius or knowledge of another depreciated. 10
In this assembly Rasselas was relating his interview
with the hermit, and the wonder with which he heard
him censure a course of life which he had so deliberately
chosen, and so laudably followed. The sentiments of
the hearers were various. Some were of Opinion that 15
the folly of his choice had been justly punished by
condemnation to perpetual perseverance. One of the
youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced
him a hypocrite. Some talked of the right of society to
the labor of individuals, and considered retirement as a 20
desertion of duty. Others readily allowed that there
was a time when the claims of the public were satisfied,
4
—)
5
102 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
and when a man might properly sequester’ himself, 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, ina
5 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, “1s so strongly impressed, that the
longest experience is not able to efface it. Of the
10 present state, whatever it be, we feel, and are forced to
confess, the misery; yet, when the same state is again at
a, distance, imagination paints it as desirable. But the
time will surely come, when desire will be no longer our
torment, and no man shall be wretched but by his own
15 fault.
“This,” said a philosopher, who had heard him with
tokens of great impatience, “is the present condition of
'awise man. The time is already come, when none are
wretched but by their own fault. Nothing is more idle
90 than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly
placed within our reach ~The way to be happy is to live
~ according to nature, in obedience fo that universal and
Wnalterable law with which every heart is originally
impressed ; which is ngt written on it by precept, but
, % engraven by destiny, not 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, anid act or suffer as the reason of —
things shall alternately prescribe. Other men me an
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 103
amuse themselves with subtle definitions, or intricate
satiocinations. Let them learn to “be wise by easier
means : let them observe the hind of the forest, and the
linnet of the grove; let them consider the life of ani-
mals, whose motions are regulated by instinct: they 5
obey their guide, and are happy. Let us therefore, at
length, cease to dispute, and learn to live; throw away
the encumbrance of precepts, which they who utter
them with so much pride and pomp do not understand,
and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim, 10
—that deviation from nature is deviation from happi- -—~
aa Ch
‘When he had spoken, he looked round him with a
placid air, and enjoyed the consciousness of his own
beneficence. “Sir,” said the prince with great modesty, 15
“as I, like all the rest of mankind, am desirous of
felicity, my closest attention has been fixed upon your
discourse ; I doubt not the truth of a position which a
man_so learned has so confidently advanced : —let me
only know what it is to live according to nature.” 20
“When I find young men so humble and so docile,”
said the philosopher, “I can deny them no information Pete
which my studies have enabled me to afford. — To live Ly
according to nature, is to act always with due regard to |
the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of 25 | i
causes and effects; to concur with the great and un- /
changeable scheme of universal felicity; to co-operate A
with the general disposition and tendency of the present /
system of things.” |
The prince soon found that this was one of the sages
(104, : HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
whom he should understand less as he heard him longer.
He therefore bowed and was silent; and the philosopher,
supposing him satisfied, and the rest vanquished, rose up,
and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated
5 with the present system.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 105
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN THEM THE
WORK OF OBSERVATION.
RAssELAS returned home full of reflections, 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 himself that he had
time remaining for more experiments and further in- 5
quiries. He communicated to Imlac his observations
and his doubts, but was answered by him with new
doubts and remarks that gave him no comfort. He
therefore discoursed more frequently and freely with
his sister, who had yet the same hope with himself, and 10
always assisted him to give some reason why, though
he had been hitherto frustrated, he might succeed at
last. |
“ We have hitherto, ” said she, “known but little of the
world: we have never yet been either great ormean. In 15
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 di-
vide the task between us; you shall try whatis to be found 20
in the splendor of courts, and I will range the shades of
106 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
humbler life. Perhaps command and authority may
be the supreme blessings, as they afford most opportuni-
ties of doing good; or, perhaps, what this world can
give may be found in the modest habitations of middle
s fortune too low for great designs, and too high for
penury and distress.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 107
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OF HIGH
STATIONS.
RassELas applauded the design, and appeared next
day with a splendid retinue at the court of the Bassa.
He was soon distinguished for his magnificence, and
admitted, as a prince whose curiosity had brought him
from distant countries, to an intimacy with the great 5
officers, and frequent conversation with the Bassa him-
self.
He was at first inclined to believe, that the man must
be pleased with his own condition whom all approached
with reverence and heard with obedience, and who had 10
the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom.
“There can be no pleasure,” said he, “equal to that of
feeling at once the joy of thousands all made happy by
wise administration. Yet, since by the law of subordi-
nation this sublime delight can be in one nation but the 15
lot of one, it is surely reasonable to think that there is
some satisfaction more popular and accessible, and that
millions can hardly be subjected to the will of a single
man, only to fill his particular breast with incommunica-
ble content.” 20
These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found
108 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
no solution of the difficulty. But as presents and civili-
ties 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
5 continual succession of plots and detections, stratagems
and escapes, faction and treachery. Many of those who
surrounded the Bassa, were sent only to watch and report
his conduct; every tongue was muttering censure, and
every eye was searching for a fault.
10 At last the letters of revocation arrived, the Bassa
was carried in chains to Constantinople, and his name
was mentioned no more. |
« What are we now to think of the prerogatives of
power,” said Rasselas to his sister; “ is it without any
15 efficacy to good ? or, is the subordinate degree only dan-
gerous, and the supreme safe and glorious? Is the
Sultan the only happy man in his dominions? or, is
the Sultan himself subject to the torments of suspicion
and the dread of enemies ?”
9 In a short time the second Bassa was deposed; the
Sultan that had advanced him was murdered by the Jani-
zaries, and his successor had other views and different
favorites.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. /@ e409
CHAPTER XXvV.
THE PRINCESS PURSUES HER INQUIRY WITH MORE
DILIGENCE THAN SUCCESS.
THE princess, in the mean time, insinuated?! herself
into many families; 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 Nekayah had been too long accustomed to 5
the conversation of Imlac and her brother, to be much
pleased with childish levity, and prattle which had no
meaning. She found their thoughts narrow, their wishes
low, and their merriment often artificial. Their pleas-
ures, poor as they were, could not be preserved pure, 10
but were embittered by petty competitions and worth-
less emulation. They were always jealous of the beauty
of each other; of a quality to which solicitude can add
nothing, and from which detraction can take nothing
away. Many were in love with triflers like themselves, 15
and many fancied that they were in love when in truth
they were only idle. Their affection was not fixed on
sense or virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in vexa-
tion. Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient;
everything floated in their mind unconnected with the 20
past or future, so that one desire easily gave way to
110 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
another, as a second stone east into the water effaces and
confounds the circles of the first. |
With these girls she played as with inoffensive ani-
mals, and found them proud of her countenance,’ and
5 weary of her company.
But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her
affability easily persuaded the hearts that were swelling
with sorrow to discharge their secrets in her ear; and
those whom hope flattered, or prosperity delighted,
10 often courted her to partake ? their pleasures.
The princess and her brother commonly met in the
evening, in a private summer house on the bank of
the Nile, and related to each other the occurrences of the
day. As they were sitting together, the princess cast
15 her eyes upon the river that flowed before her. ‘ An-
swer,” said she, “great Father ‘of Waters, thou that
rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invoca-
tions of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me if
thou waterest, through all thy course, a single habita-
20 tion from which thou does not hear the murmurs of com-
plaint ?”
“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 prin-
25 cess, “enabled myself to enter familiarly into many
families, where there was the fairest show of prosperity
and peace, and know not one house that is not haunted —
by some fury that destroys their quiet.
“J did not seek ease among the poor, because I con- —
cluded that there it could not be found. But I’saw 4
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. LTE
many poor, whom I had ‘supposed to live in affluence.
Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances:
it is often concealed in splendor, and often in extrava-
gance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to
conceal their indigence from the rest; they support
themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is
lost in contriving for the morrow.
“This, however, was an evil, which, though frequent,
I saw with less pain, because I could relieve it. Yet
some have refused my bounties; more offended with my 10
quickness to detect their wants, than pleased with my
readiness to succor them; and others, whose exigencies
compelled them to admit my kindness, have never been
able to forgive their benefactress. Many, however, have
_ been sincerely grateful, without the ostentation of grati- 15
tude, or the hope of other favors.” 7
or
12. HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
e
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE PRINCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS UPON
PRIVATE LIFE.
NEKAYAH, perceiving her brother’s attention fixed,
proceeded in her narrative.
“Tn families where there is or is not poverty, there
is commonly discord: if a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us,
5 a great family,a family likewise is a little kingdom, torn
with factions, and exposed to revolutions. | An unpractised
observer expects the love of parents and children to be
constant and equal; but this kindness seldom continues
beyond the years of infancy: in a short time the chil-
L 10 dren become rivals to their parents; benefits are allayed?
by reproaches, and gratitude debased by envy.
“Parents and children seldom act in concert: each
child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness
of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temp- —
15 tation, betray each other to their children; thus, some ~
place their confidence in the father, and some in the
mother, and by degrees the house is filled with artifices
and feuds. cGig
.. “The opinions of children and parents, of the young : .
“09 and the old, are naturally opposite, by the contrary “
effects of hope and despondence, of expectation and e¢. ae
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 113
perience, 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 ? 5
“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-
sion; the youth expects to force his way by genius,
vigor, and precipitance. The.old_man pays regard to 10
riches, and the youth reverenees—virtue-——The old man
deifies prudence; the youth commits himself to magna-
nimity and chance. The young man, who intends no ill,
believes that none is intended, and therefore acts with
openness and candor; but his father, having suffered 15
the injuries of fraud, is impelled to suspect, and too often
' allured to practise it. Age looks with anger on the te-
merity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupu-
-losity of age. ‘Thus parents and children, for the greater
part, live on to love less and less; and, if those whom 20
nature has thus closely united are the torments of each
other, where shall we look for tenderness and consola-
tion ?”
“Surely,” said the prince, “you must have been unfor-
tunate in your choice of acquaintance: I am unwilling to 25
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
tit HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
and evil cannot well agree; and the evil can yet less
agree with one another; even the virtuous fall some-
times to variance, when their virtues are of different
kinds, and tending to extremes. In general, those
5 parents have most reverence who most deserve it; for
he that lives well cannot be despised.
“ Many other evils infest private life. Some are the
slaves of servants whom they have trusted with their
affairs. Some are kept in continual anxiety by the ca-
10 price of rich relations, whom they cannot please, and dare
not offend. Some husbands are imperious,-and some
wives perverse: and, as it is always more easy to do evil
than good, though the wisdom or virtue of one can very
rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one may
15 often make many iniserable.”
“If such be the general effect of marriage,” said the
prince, “I shall, for the future, think it dangerous to
connect my interest with that of another, lest I should
be unhappy by my partner’s fault.”
0 “I have met,” said the princess, “with many who
live single for that reason; but I never found that their
prudence ought to raise envy. They dream away their
time without friendship, without fondness, and are
driven to rid themselves of the day, for which they have
25 no use, by childish amusements or vicious delights. They
act as beings under the constant sense of some known
inferiority, that fills their minds with rancor and their —
- tongues with censure. They are peevish at home, and. 4
malevolent abroad; and, as the outlaws of human nature,
make it their business and their pleasure to disturb that — :
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 115
society which debars them from its privileges. To live
without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate
without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted with-
out tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy
than solitude: it is not retreat, but exclusion from man- 5
kind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no
pleasures.”
“ What then is to be done ?” said Rasselas; “the more
we inquire, the less we can resolve. Surely he is most
likely to please himself that has no other inclination to 10 /
regard.”
iG HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XXVIL
DISQUISITION UPON GREATNESS.
Tue conversation hada short pause. The prince, hav-
ing considered his sister’s observations, told her that she
had surveyed life with prejudice, and supposed misery
where she did not find it. “Your narrative,” says he,
5 “throws yet a darker gloom upon the prospects of futu-
rity; the predictions of Imlac were but faint sketches
of the evils painted by Nekayah. I have been lately
convinced that quiet is not the daughter of grandeur or of
power: that her presence is not to be bought by wealth,
10 nor enforced by ‘conquest. It is evident, that as any
man acts in a wider compass, he must be more exposed
to opposition from enmity, or miscarriage from chance ;
whoever has many to please or to govern, must use the
ministry of many agents, some of whom will be wicked,
15 and some ignorant; by some he will be misled, and by
others betrayed. If he gratifies one he will offend
another ; those that are not favored will think themselves
injured; and, since favors can be conferred but upon
few, the greater number will be always discontented.”
2 «The discontent,” said the princess, “which is thus
unreasonable, I hope that I shall always have spirit to-
despise, and you power to repress.” +
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 117
“Discontent,” answered Rasselas, “ will not always be
without reason, under the most just and vigilant adminis-
tration of public affairs. None, however attentive, can
always discover that merit which ,indigence or faction
may happen to obscure; and none, however powerful, 5
can always reward it. Yet he that sees inferior desert
advanced above him, will naturally impute that pref-
erence to partiality or caprice; and, indeed, it can
scarcely be hoped that any man, however magnanimous
by nature or exalted by condition, will be able to persist 10
forever in the fixed and inexorable justice of distribu-
tion: 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, qualities which in reality they 15
do not possess; and to those from whom he receives
pleasure, he will in his turn endeavor to give it. Thus
will recommendations sometimes prevail which were pur-
chased by money, or by the more destructive bribery of
flattery and servility. 20
“He that has much to do will do something wrong,
and of that wrong must suffer the consequences ; and, if
it were possible that he should always act rightly, yet
when such numbers are to judge of his conduct, the bad
will censure and obstruct him by malevolence, and the 25
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
118 : HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
satisfaction, or intercept the expectations, of him whose
abilities are adequate to his employments, who sees with
his own eyes the whole circuit of his influence, who
chooses by his own knowledge all whom he trusts, and
s 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.”
_ Whether perfect happiness would be procured by
perfect goodness,” said Nekayah, “this world will never
10 afford an opportunity of deciding. But this, at least,
may be maintained, that we do not always find visible
happiness in proportion to visible virtue. All natural
and almost all political evils, are incident alike to the
bad and good: they are confounded in the misery of
15 a famine, and not much distinguished in the fury of a
faction; they sink together in a tempest, and are driven
together from their country by invaders. All that virtue
- ean afford is quietness of conscience and a steady pros-.
pect of a happier state; this may enable us to endure
20 calamity -with patience; but remember that patience 4
must suppose pain.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 119
CHAPTER XXVIII.
RASSELAS AND NEKAYAH CONTINUE THEIR CONVERSATION.
“DEAR princess,” said Rasselas, “ you fall into the
common errors of exaggeratory declamation, by produ-
cing, in a familiar disquisition, examples of national
calamities, and scenes of extensive misery, which are
found in books rather than in the world, and which, as 5
they are horrid, are ordained to be rare. Let us not im-
agine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life by misrep-
resentations. I cannot bear that querulous eloquence
which threatens every city with a siege like that of
Jerusalem,” that makes famine attend on every flight 10
of locusts, and suspends pestilence on the wing of every
blast that issues from the south.
“On necessary and inevitable evils which overwhelm
kingdoms at once, all disputation is vain: when they hap-
pen they must beendured. But it is evident, that these 15
bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt ;
thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth and wither
in age, without the knowledge of any other than domes-
tic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations,
whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the 20
armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat
before them. While courts are disturbed with intestine
T20 Ge, HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
competitions, and ambassadors 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 obtained ; and the successive busi-
5 ness of the seasons continues to make its wonted revo-
lutions.
“Tet us cease to consider what, perhaps, may never
happen, and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at
human speculation. We will not endeavor to modify
10 the motions of the elements, or to fix the destiny of king-
doms. It is our business to consider what beings like us
may perform; each laboring for his own happiness, by
promoting within his circle, however narrow, the happl-
ness of others. :
15 “Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature; men an
women are made to be companions of each other; and
therefore I cannot be persuaded but that marriage 1s one
of the means of happiness.” Sb 5:
“I know not,” said the princess, “whether marriage
99 be more than one of the innumerable modes of human
misery. When I see and reckon the various forms
of connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of last-
ing discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions
of opinion, the rude collisions of contrary desire where
95 both are urged by violent impulses, the obstinate con- ;
tests of disagreeing virtues where both are supported by
consciousness of good intention, [ am sometimes disposed _
to think with the severer casuists of most nations, that —
marriage is rather permitted than approved, and that |
none, but by the instigation of a passion too much in- ©
bedi é i
OB irre inp site SELENE EON
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PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 121
dulged, entangle themselves with - indissoluble com-
pacts.”
“You seem to forget,” replied Rasselas, “that you
have, even now, represented celibacy as less happy than
marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot 5
both be worst. Thus it happens when wrong opinions
are entertained, that they mutually destroy each other,
and leave the mind open to truth.”
“T did not expect,” answered the princess, “to hear
that imputed to falsehood which is the consequence only 10
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 readily note the discriminations, and
decide the preference; but of two systems, of which 15
neither can be surveyed by any human being in its full
compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication,
where is the wonder, that, judging of the. whole by parts,
I am alternately affected by one and the other, as either
presses on my memory or fancy? We differ from our- 20
selves, just as we differ from each other, when we see
only part of the question, as in the multifarious relations
of politics and morality; but when we perceive the
whole at once, as in numerical computations, all agree
in one judgment, and none ever varies his opinion.” — 95
“Let us not add,” said the prince, “to the other evils
of life the bitterness of controversy, nor endeavor to vie
with each other in subtilties of argument. We are em-
ployed in asearch, of which both are equally to enjoy the
“Success, or suffer by the miscarriage; it is therefore fit
#
1220 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
that we assist each other. You surely conclude too
hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its institu-
tion: will not the misery of life prove equally that life
cannot be the gift of Heaven? ‘The world must be peo-
5 pled by marriage, or peopled without it.”
“How the world is to be peopled,” returned Nekayah,
“is not my care, and needs not be yours. I see no dan-
ger that the present generation should omit to leave suc-
cessors behind them: we are not now inquiring for the
10 world, but for ourselves.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 123
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE DEBATE OF MARRIAGE CONTINUED.
“Tue good of the whole,” says Rasselas, “is the same
' with the good of allits 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 con- 5
venience of others. In the estimate which you have
made of the two states, it appears that the incommodities
of a single life are, in a great measure, necessary and
certain, but those of the conjugal state accidental and
avoidable. 10
“JT cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence and
benevolence will make marriage happy. The general
folly of mankind is the cause of general complaint.
What can be expected but disappointment and repent-
ance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in 15
the ardor of desire, without judgment, without foresight,
without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity
of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of
sentiment ?
“Such is the common process of marriage. A youth 20
and maiden, meeting by chance or brought together by
artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home,
124 | HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
and dream of one another. . Having little to divert
attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves
uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that
they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover
5 what nothing but voluntary blindness before had con-
cealed: they wear out life in altercations, and charge
nature with cruelty.
“From those early marriages proceeds likewise the
rivalry of parents and children. The son is eager to
10 enjoy the world before the father is willing to forsake
it, and there is hardly room at once for two generations.
The daughter begins to bloom before the mother can be
content to fade, and neither can forbear to wish for the
absence of the other.
15 “Surely all these evils may be avoided by that delib-
eration and delay which prudence prescribes to irrevo-
cable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful
pleasures, life may be well_enough supported without
the help of a partner. | Longer time will increase
20 experience, and wider views will allow better opportuni-
ties of inquiry and selection: one advantage, at least,
will be certain; the parents will be visibly older than
their clara
“What reaSon cannot collect,” said Nekayah, “and
25 what experiment has not yet taught, can be known only
from the report of others. I have been told that late
marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question -
too important to be neglected, and I have often proposed
it to those whose accuracy of remark, and comprehen- —
siveness of knowledge, made their suftrages ? worthy of
SAG,
es
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 125
regard. They have generally determined that it is
dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate
upon each other, at a time when opinions are fixed, and
habits are established; when friendships have been con-
tracted on both sides; when life has been planned into
method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contempla-
_tion of its own prospects.
“Tt is scarcely possible that two travelling through the
world under the conduct of chance, should have been
both directed to the same path, and it will not often 10
happen that either will quit the track which custom has
made pleasing. When the desultory levity of youth has
settled into regularity, it is soon succeeded by pride
ashamed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to contend.
And even though mutual esteem produces mutual desire 15
to please, time itself, as it modifies unchangeably the
external mien, determines likewise the direction of the
passions, and gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners,
Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts
to change.the course of his own life, very offen labors 20
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. When-
ever I shall seek a wife, it shall be my first question, 25
whether she be willing to be led by reason.”
“Thus it is,” said Nekayah, “that philosophers are
deceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes which
reason never can decide ; questions that elude investiga-
tion, and make logic ridiculous ; cases where something
cn
126 : HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
must be done, and where little can be said. Consider the
state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed
to act upon any occasions, whether small or great, with
all the reasons of action present to their minds.
5 Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretch-
edness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason, every
morning, all the minute detail of a domestic day.
“Those who marry at an advanced age, will probably
escape the encroachments of their children; but, in
- 49 dimunition of this advantage, they will be likely to leave
them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian’s mercy ; OF,
if that should not happen, they must at least go out of
the world before they see those whom they loved best
either wise or great. |
1s “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
20 by long cohabitation, as soft bodies, by continual attri-
tion, conform their surfaces to each other.
c “1 believe it will be found that those who marry late
> are best pleased with their children, and those who marry
early, with their partners.” |
0 “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.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 127
mouth of Imlac, — That Nature sets her gifts on the
right hand_and on the left. Those conditions which
flatter hope. and attract desire, are so constituted, that,
as we approach one, we recede from another. There are
goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too 5
much prudence, may pass between them at too great a
distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long
consideration : he does nothing who endeavors to do more
than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with
contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before 10.
you, make your choice, and be content. No man can
taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his
scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at
the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the
mouth of the Nile.”
28. 3, HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XXX.
IMLAC ENTERS AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.
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.”
5 “It seems to me,” said Imlae, “that while you_are
making the choice of life, you neglect to live. } You wan-
der about a single city, which, however large’ and diver-
sified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you
are in a country, famous among the earliest monarchies
10 for the power and wisdom of its inhabitants; a country
where the sciences first dawned that illuminate the world,
and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil —
society or domestic life.
“The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments
15 of industry and power, before which all European mag-
_ nificence 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 cone. a
though uncertainly, what it has destroyed.”
20 “My curiosity,” said Rasselas, “does not very stg a
lead me to survey piles of stone, or mounds of earth
my business is with man. I came hither, not to measure
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 129
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 5
times which never can return, and heroes whose form of
life was different from all that the present condition of
mankind requires or allows ?” )
“To know anything,” returned the poet, “we must :
_ know its effects; to see men we must see their works, 10 | ,
that we may shan what reason has dictated, or passion,
has incited, and find what are the most powerful motives BY
of action. To yudge rightly of the present, we must/,
oppose it to the past; for all judgment is comparative; /
and of the future nothing can be known. The truth is/15 7
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
future of hope and fear: even love and hatred respect 20
the past, for the cause must have been before the effect. _
“The present state of things is the consequence of the
former, and itis natural to inquire what were the sources
of the good that we enjoy, or the evil that we suffer. If
we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history 25
is not prudent ; if we are intrusted with the care of others,
it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is crimie—~~
nal; and he may properly be charged with evil, who re-
piesa to learn how he might prevent it.
“There is no part of history so generally useful as that
130 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
which relates the progress of the human mind, the grad-
, ual improvement, of reason, nthe. _successive advances of
"science, t the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, which
| are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the ex-
5 tinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of
the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and inva-
sions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful
or elegant arts are not to be neglected; those who have
kingdoms to govern, have understandings to cultivate.
10 “Hxample is always more efficacious than precept. A
soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy pic-
tures. In this contemplative 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
15 has been able to perform.
‘When the eye or the imagination is struck with an
uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind
is to the means by which it was performed. Here be-
gins the true use of such contemplation; we enlarge our
20 comprehension by new ideas, and perhaps recover some
art lost to mankind, or learn what is less perfectly known
in our own country. At least we compare our own with
former times, and either rejoice at our improvements, or,
what is the first motion towards good, discover our
25 defects.”
“JT 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 antiquity.”
“The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness,
and one of the most bulky works of manual industry,”
PRINCE OF AYBSSINIA. 131
said Imlac, “are the Pyramids; fabrics raised before the
time of history, and of which the earliest narratives
afford us only uncertain traditions. Of these the great-
est 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 without with my own eyes.”
132 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XXXI.
THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS.
THE 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-
5 thing remarkable, stopped from time to time and con-
versed with the inhabitants, and observed the various ~
appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and
cultivated nature.
When they came to the great Pyramid, they were
10 astonished at the extent of the base, and the height of
the top. Imlac explained to them the principles upon
which the pyramidal form was chosen for a fabric in-
tended to co-extend its duration with that of the world:
he showed that its gradual diminution gave it such
15 stability as defeated all the common attacks of the
elements, and could scarcely be overthrown by earth-
quakes themselves, the least resistible of natural vio-
lence. A concussion that should shatter the Pyramid
would threaten the dissolution of the continent. | :
20 They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their
tents at its foot. Next day they prepared to enter its
interior apartments, and having hired the common guides,
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 133
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 5
a place which must surely be inhabited by unquiet souls.
The original possessors of these dreadful vaults will
start up before us, and perhaps shut us in forever.”
She spoke, and threw her arms round the neck of her
mistress. 10
“Tf all your fear be of apparitions,” said the prince,
“J 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 Imlae, “I will .
not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and 15 /
unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. i.
There is no people, rude or learned, among whom appa- / |
ritions of the dead are not related and believed. This j
opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature
is diffused, could become universal only by its truth: 20
those that never heard of one another, would not have
agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make
credible. That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very
little weaken the general evidence; and some who deny
it with their tongues, confess it by their fears. 25
“Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which
have already seized upon Pekuah. There can be no rea-
son why spectres should haunt the Pyramid more than
other places, or why they should have power or will to
hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no violation
134 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
of their privileges; we can take nothing from them,
how then can we offend them ?”
“My dear Pekuah,” said the princess, “I will always
go before you, and Imlac shall follow you. Remem-
5 ber that you are the companion of the princess of
Abyssinia.”
“Tf the princess is pleased that her servant should
die,” returned the lady, “let her command some death
less dreadful than enclosure in this horrid cavern. You
10 know I dare not disobey you: I must go if you com-
mand me; but, if I once enter, I never shall come
back.”
The princess saw that her fear was too strong for ex-
postulation or reproof, and embracing her, told her that
15 she should stay in the 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 Pyramids. “Though I cannot teach
courage,” said Nekayah, “I must not learn cowardice,
nor leave at last undone what I came hither only to do.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 135
CHAPTER XXXII.
THEY ENTER THE PYRAMID.
Prxvau descended to the tents, and the rest entered
the Pyramid: they passed through the galleries, sur-
veyed the vaults of marble, and examined the chest in
which the body of the founder is supposed to have been
reposited.1 They then sat down in one of the most 5
spacious chambers to rest awhile, before they attempted
to return.
“We have now” said Imlac, “gratified our minds
with an exact view of the greatest work of man, except
the wall of China. 10
“Of the wall it is very easy to assign the motive. It
secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incur-
sions of barbarians, whose unskilfulness in arts made it
easier for them to supply their wants by rapine than by
industry, and who from time to time poured in upon the 15
habitations of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend
upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made
the wall necessary, and their ignorance made it effi-
cacious.
“ But for the Pyramids no reason has ever been given 20
adequate to the cost and labor of the work. The narrow-
ness of the chambers proves that it could afford no
136 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
retreat from enemies, and treasures might have been
reposited,! at far less expense with equal security. It
seems to have been erected only in compliance with that
hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon
5 life, and must be always appeased by some employment,
Those who have already all that they can enjoy, must
enlarge their desires. He that has built for use, till use”
is supplied, must begin to build for vanity, and extend ,
his plan to the utmost power of human performance, -
to that he may not be soon reduced to form another wish.
| “T consider this mighty structure as a monument of -
the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king whose
/ power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all
* yeal and imaginary wants, is compelled to solace, by the
in erection of a pyramid, the satiety of dominion and
tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness
of declining life, by seeing thousands laboring without
end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another.
Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate
20 condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence,
and dreamest that command or riches can feed the
appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey ~
the Pyramids, and confess thy folly !”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 137
=e CHAPTER XXXIIi.
OD
iy? THE PRINCESS MEETS WITH AN UNEXPECTED
a MISFORTUNE.
/ THEY rose up, and Putweniad through the cavity at
which 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 5
they came to their train, they found every one silent
and dejected; the men discovered! shame and fear in
their countenances, and the women were weeping in
their tents.
What had happened they did not try to aoiieattee 10
but immediately inquired. “You had scarcely entered
into the Pyramid,” said one of the attendants, “when a
troop of Arabs rushed upon us; we were too few to
resist them, and too slow to escape. They were about to
search the tents, set us-on our camels, and drive us along 15
before them, when the approach of some Turkish horse- //**
men put them to flight; but they seized the lady Pekuah
with her two maids, and carried them away. The Turks
are now pursuing them by our instigation, but I fear
they will not be able to overtake them.” 20,
The princess was overpowered with surprise and grief,
188. HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
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 Imlae,
“what can you hope from violence or valor? the Arabs
5 are mounted on horses trained to battle and retreat;
we have only beasts of burden. By leaving our present
station we may lose the princess, but cannot hope to
regain Pekuah.”
In a short time the Turks returned, having not been
10 able to reach: the enemy. ‘The princess burst out into
new lamentations, and Rasselas could scarcely forbear
to reproach them with cowardice; but Imlac was of
opinion that the escape of the Arabs was no addition to
their misfortune, for perhaps they would have killed
their captives rather than have resigned them.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 139
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THEY RETURN TO CAIRO WITHOUT PEKUAH.
THERE was nothing to be hoped from longer stay.
They returned to Cairo, repenting of their curiosity,
censuring the negligence of the government, lamenting
their own rashness which had neglected to procure a
cuard, imagining many expedients by which the loss of 5
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 10
troubles, and that lady Pekuah had enjoyed much happi-
ness in the world for a long time, and might reasonably
expect achange of fortune. They hoped that some good
would befall her wheresoever she was, and that their
mistress would find another friend who might supply 15
her place.
The princess made them no answer, and they continued
the form of condolence, not much grieved in their hearts
that the favorite was lost.
Next day the prince presented to the Bassa a memorial 20
of the wrong which he had suffered, and a petition for
redress. The Bassa threatened to punish the robbers,
ae
10 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
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
5 authority. Governors being accustomed to hear of more
crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they
can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate
_ negligence, and presently * forget the request when they
lose sight of the petitioner.
10 Imlac then endeavored to gain some intelligence by
private agents. He found many who pretended to an
exact knowledge of all the haunts of the Arabs, and to
regular correspondence with their chiefs, and who readily
undertook the recovery of Pekuah. Of these, some were
15 furnished with money for their journey, and came back
no more; some were liberally paid for accounts which
a few days discovered! to be false. But the princess
would not suffer any means, however improbable, to be
left untried. While she was doing something, she kept
20 her hope alive. As one expedient failed, another was
suggested; when one messenger returned unsuccessful,
another was despatched to a different quarter.
Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing
had been heard; the hopes which they had endeavored
95 to raise in each other grew more languid, and the princess
when she saw nothing more to be tried, sunk down
inconsolable in hopeless dejection. A thousand times
she reproached herself with the easy compliance by
which she permitted her favorite to stay behind her.
“Had not my fondness,” said she, “ lessened my author- .
9. b R
Sy hetetneeS
De eR DAC ah icc aR od a ck
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 141
ity, Pekuah had not dared to talk of her terrors. She
ought to have feared me more than spectres. A severe
look would have overpowered her; a peremptory com-
mand would have compelled obedience. Why did foolish
indulgence prevail upon me? Why did I not speak, and
refuse to hear? ”
“Great princess,” said Imlac, “do not reproach your-
self for your virtue, or consider that as blamable by
which evil has accidentally been caused. ‘Your tender-
ness for the timidity of Pekuah was generous and kind.
When we act according to our duty, we commit the event
to him by whose laws our actions are governed, and who
will suffer none to be finally punished for obedience.
When, in prospect of some good, whether natural or
moral, we break the rules prescribed us, we withdraw
from the direction of superior wisdom, and take all con-
Sequences upon ourselves. Man cannot so far know the
connection of causes and events as that he may venture
to do wrong in order to do right. When we pursue our
10
15
end by lawful means, we may always console our mis- 20
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: 25
but if we miscarry, the disappointment is irremediably
embittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him who
feels at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexation of
calamity which guilt has brought upon him!
“Consider, princess, what would have been youy con-
on
142° HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
dition, if the lady Pekuah had entreated to accompany
you, and being compelled to stay in the tents, had been
carried away; or how would you have borne the thought,
if you had forced her into the Pyramid, and she had
8 died before you in agonies of terror.”
“Had either happened,” said Nekayah, “1 could not
have endured life till now: I should have been tortured
to madness by the remembrance of such cruelty, or must
have pined away in abhorrence of myself.”
10 “This at least,” said Imlac, “is the present reward of
virtuous conduct, that no unlucky consequence can oblige
us to repent it.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 143
CHAPTER XXXYV.
THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEKUAH.
NeEkAYAH being thus reconciled to herself, found that
no evil is insupportable, but that which is accompanied ™
with consciousness of wrong. She was from that time
delivered from the violence of tempestuous sorrow, and
sunk into silent pensiveness and gloomy tranquillity. 5
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 10
now expected to see-no more, were treasured in her
memory as rules of life, and she deliberated to no other
end than to conjecture, on any occasion, what would have
been the opinion and counsel of Pekuah.
The women by whom she was attended knew nothing 15
of her real condition}, and therefore she could not talk
to them but with caution and reserve. She began to
remit her curiosity, having no great care to collect notions
which she had no convenience of uttering. MRasselas
endeavored first to comfort, and afterwards to divert her; 20
he hired musicians, to whom she seemed to listen, but did
not hear them, and procured masters to instruct her in
od
144 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
various arts, whose lectures, when they visited her again,
were again to be repeated. She had lost her taste of
pleasure, and her ambition of excellence. And her mind,
though forced into short excursions,! always recurred to
5 the image of her friend.
Imlae was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew
his inquiries, and was asked every night whether he had
yet heard of Pekuah, till not being able to return the
princess the answer that she desired, he was less and less
10 willing to come into her presence. She observed his back-
wardness, and commanded him to attend her. “ You are
not,” said she, “to confound impatience with resentment,
or to suppose that I charge you with negligence, because I
repine at your unsuccessfulness. I do not much wonder
15 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 gayety which life
20 allows us? or who that is struggling under his own evils,
will add to them the miseries of another ?
“The time is at hand, when none shall be disturbed
any longer by the sighs of Nekayah; my search after
happiness is now at an end. I am resolved to retire
25 from the world with all its flatteries and deceits, and
will hide myself in solitude, without any other care than —
to compose my thoughts, and regulate my hours by a .
constant succession of innocent occupations, till with |
a mind purified from all earthly desires, I shall enter
30 into that state to which all are hastening, and in which ~
I hope again to enjoy the friendship of Pekuah.” “dl
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 145
“Do not entangle your mind,” said Imlae, “ by irrey-
ocable 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 5
one pleasure, is no very good réason for rejection of the
a ee SE | 4 7
“Since Pekuah was taken from me,” said the princess,
“T have no pleasure to reject or to retain. She that has
no one to love or trust has little to hope. She wants the 10
radical principle of happiness. We may, perhaps, allow,
that what satisfaction this world can afford, must arise
from the conjunction of wealth, knowledge, and good-
ness: wealth is nothing but as it is bestowed, and™~
(knowledge nothing but as it is communicated} they 15
“must therefore be imparted to others, and to whom
could I now delight to impart them? Goodness
affords the only comfort which can be enjoyed with-
out a partner, and goodness may be practised in retire-
ment.” 20
“ How far solitude may admit goodness or advance it,
-I shall not,” replied Imlac, “dispute at present. Re-
member the confession 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 25
Nekayah, “will never come. The generous frankness,
the modest obsequiousness, and the faithful secrecy of
my dear Pekuah, will always be more-missed, as I shall
live longer to see vice and folly.”
“The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden
)
146. HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
calamity,” said Imlac, “is like that of the fabulous
inhabitants of the new-created earth, who when the
first night came upon them, supposed that day would
never return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over
Sus, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how
they will be dispelled; yet a new day succeeded to the
night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease.
But they who restrain themselves from receiving com-
fort, do as the savages would have done, had they put
10 out their eyes when it was dark. Our minds, like our
bodies, are in continual ne something is hourly lost,
and something ‘acquired. To nee much at once is incon-
venient to either, but while the vital powers remain
uninjured, nature will find the means of reparation.
15 Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye,
and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever
we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which
we approach increasing, in magnitude. Do not suffer —
life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion;
20 commit 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 conversation.”
“ At least,” said the prince, “do not despair before all
25 remedies have been tried; the inquiry after the unfor-
tunate lady is still continued, and shall be carried on
with yet greater diligence, on condition that you will
promise to wait a veut for the event, without aye unal-
terable resolution.”
Nekayah thought this a reasonable demand, and made
y :
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 147
the promise to her brother, who had been advised by
Imlac to require it. Imlac had, indeed, no great hope
of regaining Pekuah; but he supposed, that if he could
secure the interval of a year, the princess would be then
in no danger of a cloister.
148 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XXXVI.
PEKUAH IS STILL REMEMBERED. THE PROGRESS OF
SORROW.
NEKAYAH, seeing that nothing was omitted 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 pleas-
sures. 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.
10 She then appointed a certain hour of the day for med.
itation on the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and for
some weeks retired constantly at the time fixed, and
returned with her eyes swollen and her countenance
clouded. By degrees she grew less scrupulous, and
15 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 indeed afraid to
remember, and at last wholly released herself from the
duty of periodical affliction. :
290 Her real love of Pekuah was yet not diminished. A
thousand occurrences brought her back to memory, and :
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 149
a thousand wants, which nothing but the confidence of
friendship can supply, made her frequently regretted.
She, therefore, solicited Imlac never to desist from inquiry,
and to leave no art of intelligence untried, that at least
she might have the comfort.of knowing that she did not 5
suffer by negligence or-sluggishness. “Yet what,” said
she, “is to be expected from our pursuit of happiness, -
when we find the state of life to be such, that happiness
itsélf is the cause of misery ? Why should we endeavor
to attain that of which the possession cannot be secured ? 10
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.”
:
150 | HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XXXVILI.
THE PRINCESS HEARS NEWS OF PEKUAH.
In 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 Nubia, with an account that
5 Pekuah was in the hands of an Arab chief, who pos-
sessed a castle or fortress on the extremity of Egypt.
The Arab, whose revenue was plunder, was willing to ~
‘restore her, with her two attendants, for two hundred
ounces of gold.
10 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 messen-
15 ger with the sum required. Inmlac being consulted, was
not very confident of the veracity of the relater, and was
still more doubtful of the Arab’s faith, who might, if he
were too liberally trusted, detain at once the money and
the captives. He thought it dangerous to put them-
20 selves in the power of the Arab, by going into his dis-
trict, and could not expect ‘that the rover would so much
expose himself as to come into the lower country, where
he might be seized by the forces of the Bassa,
:
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 151
It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust.
But Imlac, after some deliberation, directed the messen-
ger to propose, that Pekuah should be conducted by ten
horsemen to the monastery of St. Anthony, which is
situated in the deserts of Upper Egypt, where she
should be met by the same number, and her ransom
should be paid.
That no time might be lost, as they expected that the
proposal would not be refused, they immediately began
their journey to the monastery ; and when they arrived,
Imlac went forward with the former messenger to the
Arab’s fortress. Rasselas was desirous to go with them,
but neither his sister nor Imlac would consent. The
Arab, according to the custom of his nation, observed
the laws of hospitality with great exactness to those
who put themselves into his power, and, in a few days,
brought Pekuah with her maids, by easy journeys, to
the place appointed, where, receiving the stipulated
price, he restored her with great respect to liberty and
her friends, and undertook to conduct them back towards
Cairo, beyond all danger of robbery or violence.
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
exchange professions of kindness and gratitude. After
a few hours they returned into the refectory of the con-
vent, where, in the presence of the prior and his breth-
ren, the prince required of Pekuah the history of her
adventures,
or
20
25
152 HISTORY OF RASSELAS
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE ADVENTURES OF THE LADY PEKUAH.
«Ar 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
5 passion of either fear or sorrow. My confusion was
increased by the speed and tumult of our flight, while
we were followed by the Turks, who, as it seemed, soon
despaired to overtake us, or were afraid of those whom
they made a show of menacing.
10 ‘*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
15 set upon the ground, and offered such refreshments as
our masters were partaking. I was suffered to sit with
my maids apart from the rest, and none attempted to
comfort or insult us. Here I first began to feel the full
weight of my misery. The girls sat weeping in silence,
90 and from time to time looked on me for succor. I knew
not to what condition we were doomed, nor could conjec- —
se a at a5 . x ;
CERIO En ene at? SRE Ne ae ee pis hb
ture where would be the place of our captivity, or whence ~
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. ; 1538
to draw any-hope of deliverance. I was in the hands of
robbers and savages, and had no reason to suppose that
their pity was more than their justice, or that they
would forbear the gratification of any ardor of desire, or
caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my maids, and 5
endeavored to pacify them by remarking that we were
yet treated with decency, and that, since we were now
carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence
to our lives.
“When we were to be set again on horseback, my 10
maids clung round me, and refused to be parted; but I
commanded them not to irritate those who had us in
their power. We travelled the remaining part of the
day through an unfrequented and pathless country, and
came by moonlight to the side of a hill, where the rest 15
of the troop were stationed. Their tents were pitched
_ and their fires kindled, and our chief was welcomed as a
man much beloved by his dependants.
“We were received into a large tent, where we found
women who had attended their husbands in the expedi- 20
tion. They set before us the supper which they had
provided, and I ate it rather to encourage my maids,
than to comply with any appetite of my own. When
the meat was taken away, they spread the carpets for
repose. I was weary, and hoped to find in sleep that 25
remission of distress which nature seldom denies. Order-
ing myself therefore to be undressed, I observed that
the women looked very earnestly upon me, not expect-
ing, 1 suppose, to see me so submissively attended.
When my upper vest was taken off, they were apparently
fo
7
1pe HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
struck with the splendor of my clothes, and one of them
timorously laid her hand upon the embroidery. She
then went out, and in a short time came back with
another woman, who seemed to be of higher rank and
5 greater authority. She did, at her entrance, the usual
act of reverence, and taking me by the hand, placed me
in a smaller tent, spread with finer carpets, where I spent
the night quietly with my maids. —
“In the morning, as I was sitting on the grass, the
io chief of the troop came towards me. I rose up to
receive him, and he bowed with great respect. ‘ Tilus-
trious lady,’ said he, ‘my fortune is better than I had
presumed to hope: I am told by my women that I have
a princess in my camp.’ — ‘Sir, answered IJ, ‘your
15 women have deceived themselves and you; I am not a
princess, but an unhappy stranger, who intended soon to —
have left this country, in which I am now to be im-
prisoned forever.’ —‘ Whoever or whencesoever you are,’
returned the Arab, ‘your dress, and that of your servants,
90 show your rank to be high and your wealth to be great.
Why should you, who can so easily procure your ransom,
think yourself in danger of perpetual captivity ? The
purpose of my incursions is to increase my riches, or,
more properly, to gather tribute. The sons of Ishmael
os are the natural and hereditary lords of this part of the
continent, which is usurped by late invaders and low- |
born tyrants, from whom we are compelled to take by the —
sword what is denied to justice. The violence of war
admits no distinction; the lance that is lifted at guilt and —
power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.’ —
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. ToS
“¢ 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 rever- .
ence or pity, excellence like yours had been exempt from 5
injury. But the angels of affliction spread their toils
alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the mighty
and the mean. Do not be disconsolate: I am not one of
the lawless and cruel rovers of the desert; I know the
rules of civil? life; I will fix your ransom, give a pass- 10
port to your messenger, and perform my stipulation
with nice? punctuality.’
“You will easily believe that I was pleased with his
courtesy : and finding that his predominant passion was
desire of money, I began now to think my danger less, 15
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; 20
but that he must not persist * to rate me as a princess.
He said he would consider what he should demand, and
then smiling, bowed and retired.
“Soon after, the women came about me, each contend-
ing to be more officious than the other, and my maids 25
themselves were served with reverence. We travelled
onward by short journeys. On the fourth day, the chief
told me that my ransom must be two hundred ounces of
gold; which I not only promised him, but told him that
I would add fifty more, if I and my maids were honor-
ably treated.
156 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
“JT never knew the power of gold before. From that
time I was the leader of the troop. The march of every
day was longer or shorter as I commanded, and the tents
were pitched where I chose to rest, We now had camels
5 and other conveniences for travel; my own women were
always at my side; and I amused myself with observing
the manners of the vagrant nations, and with viewing
remains of ancient edifices, with which these deserted
countries appear to have been, in some distant age,
10 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 ob-
15 served to me, that buildings are always best preserved in
places little frequented and difficult of access: for, when
once a country declines from its primitive splendor, the
more inhabitants are left, the quicker ruin will be made.
Walls supply stones more easily than quarries, and
20 palaces and temples will be demolished, to make stables
of granite and cottages of porphyry.”
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. Lot
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE ADVENTURES OF PEKUAH CONTINUED.
“ We wandered about in this manner for some weeks,
whether, as our chief pretended, for my gratification, or,
as I rather suspected, for some convenience of his own.
I endeavored to appear contented, where sullenness and
resentment would have been of no use, and that endeavor 5
conduced much to the calmness of my mind; but my
heart was always with Nekayah, and the troubles of the
night much overbalanced the amusements of the day.
My women, who threw all their cares upon their mistress,
set their minds at ease from the time when they saw me 10
treated with respect, and gave themselves up to the
incidental alleviations of our fatigue without solicitude
or sorrow. I was pleased with their pleasure, and
animated with their confidence. My condition had lost
much of its terror, since I found that the Arab ranged 15 —
the country merely to get riches. Avarice is an 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 20
ready way; bring money, and nothing is denied.
“At last we came to the dwelling of our chief, a
Looe, HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
strong and spacious house built with stone in an island
of the Nile, which les, as I was told, under the tropic.
‘Lady,’ said the Arab, ‘you shall rest after your journey
a few weeks in this place, where you are to consider
5 yourself as sovereign. My occupation is war: I have
therefore chosen this obscure residence, from which I
can issue unexpected, and to which I can retire unpur-
sued. You may now repose in security; here are few
pleasures, but here is no-danger.’ He then led me into
10 the inner apartments, and seating me on the richest
couch, bowed to the ground. His women, who con-
sidered me as a rival, looked on me with malignity; but
being soon informed that I was a great lady detained
only for my ransom, they began to vie with each other
15 in obsequiousness and reverence.
“ Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy
liberty, I was for some days diverted from impatience by
the novelty of the place. The turrets overlooked the
country to a great distance, and afforded a view of many
20 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
25 looked upon them with terror, though I knew that they
could not hurt me. For some time I expected to see
mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has told me, the
European travellers have stationed in the Nile; but no
such beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired
after them, laughed at my credulity. :
us
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 159
“At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set
apart for celestial observations, where he endeavored to
teach me the names and courses of the stars. I had no
ereat inclination to this study, but an appearance of
attention was necessary to please my instructor, who
valued himself for his skill; and, in a little while, I
found some employment requisite to beguile the tedious-
ness of time, which was to be passed always amidst the
same objects. I was weary of looking in the morning
on things from which I. had turned away weary in the
evening; I therefore was at last willing to observe the
stars rather than do nothing, but could not always com-
pose my thoughts, and was very often thinking on
Nekayah, when others imagined me contemplating the
sky. Soon after, the Arab went upon another expedition,
and then my only pleasure was to talk with my maids
about the accident by which we were carried away, and
the eee that we should all enjoy at the end of
our captivity.”
=
5
“There were women in your Arab’s haat said the 20
princess: “why did you not make them your companions,
enjoy their conversation, and partake their diversions ?
In a place where they found business or amusement, why
should you alone sit corroded with idle melancholy ? or
why could not you bear for a few months that condition
to which they were condemned for life ? ”
“The diversions of the women,” answered Pekuah,
“were only childish play, by which the mind accustomed
to stronger operations could not be kept busy. I could
do all which they delighted in doing, by powers merely
25
160 | HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
sensitive, while my intellectual faculties were flown to
Cairo. ‘They ran from room to room, as a bird hops from
wire to wire, in his cage. They danced for the sake of
motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow. One sometimes
5 pretended to be hurt, that the rest might be alarmed; or
hid herself, that another might seek her. Part of their
time passed in watching the progress of light bodies that
floated on the river, and part in marking the various
forms into which clouds broke in the sky. |
10 “Their business was only needlework, in which I and
my maids sometimes helped them; but you know that
the mind will easfly straggle from the fingers, nor will
you suspect that captivity and absence from Nekayah
could receive solace from silken flowers.
15 “Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their
conversation: for of what could they be expected to
talk ? They had seen nothing, for they-had lived from
early youth in that narrow spot; of what they had not
seen they could have no knowledge, for they could not
20 read. They had no ideas but of the few things that were
within their view, and had hardly names for anything
but their clothes and their food. As I bore a superior
character, I was often called to terminate their quarrels,
which I decided as equitably as I could. If it could
25 have amused me to hear the complaints of each against
the rest, I might have been often detained by long
stories; but the motives of their animosity were so
small, that I could not listen without intercepting the
tale.” .
“ How,” said Rasselas, “can the Arab, whom you repre- |
;
.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 161
sented as aman of more than common accomplishments,
take any pleasure in his seraglio, when it is filled only
with women like these? Are they exquisitely
beautiful ? ”
“They do not,” said Pekuah, “want that unaffecting 5
and ignoble beauty which may subsist without sprightli-
ness or sublimity, without energy.of thought or dignity
of virtue. But to a man like the Arab, such beauty was
only a flower casually plucked and carelessly thrown
away. Whatever pleasures he might find among them, 10
they were not those of friendship or society. When
they were playing about him, he looked on them with
inattentive superiority ; when they vied for his regard,
he sometimes turned away disgusted. As they had no ©
knowledge, their talk could take nothing from the tedi- 15
ousness 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 20
know the sincerity, and which he might often perceive
to be exerted, not so much to delight him as to pain
a rival. That which he gave and they received as love,
was only a careless distribution of superfluous time, such
love as man can bestow upon that which he despises, 25
such as has neither hope, nor fear, neither joy nor
' sorrow.”
“You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy,” said
Imlac, “that you have been thus easily dismissed. How
could a mind, hungry for knowledge, be willing, in an
162 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
intellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as Pekuah’s
conversation ? ”
“JT am inclined to believe,” answered Pekuah, “ that
he was for some time in suspense; for, notwithstanding
5 his promise, whenever I proposed to despatch a messen-
ger to Cairo, he found some excuse for delay. While I
was detained in his house, he made many incursions into
the neighboring countries ; and, perhaps, he would have
refused to discharge me, had his plunder been equal to
10 his wishes. He returned always courteous, related his
adventures, delighted to hear my observations, and
endeavored to advance my acquaintance with the stars.
When I importuned him to send away my letters, he
soothed me with professions of honor and sincerity ; and
15 when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop
again in motion, and left me to govern in his absence.
I was much afflicted by this studied procrastination, and
, was sometimes afraid that I should be forgotten; that
you would leave Cairo, and I must end my days in an
20 island of the Nile.
“T grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so
little to entertain him, that he for a while more fre-
quently talked with my maids. That he should fall in
love with them or with me, might have been equally
25 fatal, and 1 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
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 163
found his way to him. The gold, which he would. not
fetch, he could not reject when it was offered. He
hastened to prepare for our journey hither, like a man
delivered from the pain of an intestine conflict. I took
leave of my companions in the house, who dismissed me
with cold indifference.”
Nekayah having heard her favorite’s relation, rose and
embraced her, and Rasselas gave her a hundred ounces
of gold, which she presented to the Arab for the fifty
that were promised.
164 | HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
CHAPTER XL.
THE HISTORY OF A MAN OF LEARNING.
Tuery returned to Cairo, and were so well pleased at
finding themselves together, that none of them went much
abroad. The prince began to love learning, and one day
declared to Imlac, that he intended to devote himself to
5 science, and pass the rest of his days in literary solitude.
“Before you make your final choice,” answered Imlac,
“vou ought to examine its hazards, and converse with
some of those who are grown old in the company of
themselves. I have just left the observatory of one
10 of the most learned astronomers in the world, who has
spent forty years in unwearied attention to the motions
and appearances of the celestial bodies, and has drawn
out his soul in endless calculations. He admits a few
friends.»nce a month, to hear his deductions and enjoy
15 his diseeveve@s. I was introduced as a man of knowledge
worthy of his notice. Men of various ideas and fluent
conversation are commonly welcome to those whose
thoughts have been long fixed upon a single point, and
who find the images of other things stealing away. I
20 delighted him with my remarks; he smiled at the narra-
tive of my travels, and was glad to forget the constella-
tions, and descend for a moment into the lower world.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 165
“On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, and
was so fortunate as to please him again. He relaxed
from that time the severity of his rule, and permitted me
to enter at my own choice. I found him always busy,
and always glad to be relieved. As each, knew much
which the other was desirous of learning, we exchanged
our notions with great delight. I perceived that I had
every day more of his confidence, and always found new
cause of admiration in the profundity of his mind. His
comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and reten- 10
tive, his discourse is methodical, and his expression clear.
“His integrity and benevolence are equal to his learn-
ing. 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, 15
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.’ ” 20
“ Surely,” said the princess, “this man is happy.”
“J visited him,” said Imlac, “with more a..d more
frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his
conversation; he was sublime without haughtiness,
courteous without formality, and communicative without 25
ostentation, I was at first, great princess, of your
opinion, thought him the happiest of mankind, and often
congratulated him on the blessing that he enjoyed. He
seemed to hear nothing with indifference but the praises
Or
of his condition, to which he always returned a general
3 u D>
OL
10
166 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
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 pain-
ful 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
nothing extraordinary to say; and sometimes, when I
was leaving him, would call me back, pause a few mo-
ments, and then dismiss me.
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 167
CHAPTER XLI.
THE ASTRONOMER DISCOVERS! THE CAUSE OF HIS
UNEASINESS.
“ Ar last the time came when the secret burst his
reserve. We were sitting together last night in the
turret of his house, watching the emersion! of a satellite
of Jupiter. A sudden tempest clouded the sky, and dis-
appointed our observation. We sat awhile silent in the 5
dark, and then he addressed himself to me in these
words: ‘Imlac, I have long considered thy friendship
as the greatest blessing of my life. Integrity rae
eens is weak and useless, and knowledge without
_\integrity is dangerous and dreadful. I have found in 10
\ 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.’ 15
“T thought myself honored by this testimony, and
protested, that whatever could conduce to his happiness
would add likewise to mine.
“¢ Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty
eredit. I have possessed for five years the regulation of 20
the weather, and the distribution of the seasons; the sun
168 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to
tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my call, have
poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed at my
command; I have restrained the rage of the dog-star,*
5 and mitigated the fervors of the crab.1 The winds alone,
of all the elemental powers, have hitherto refused my
authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial
tempests, which I found myself unable to prohibit or
‘restrain. I have adminstered this great office with exact
10 justice, and made to the different nations of the earth
an impartial dividend of rain and sunshine. What must
have been the misery of half the globe, if I had limited
the clouds to particular regions, or confined the sun to
either side of the equator ?’
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 169
CHAPTER XLII.
THE OPINION OF THE ASTRONOMER IS EXPLAINED AND
JUSTIFIED.
“TI suppose he discovered in me, through the obscurity
of the room, some tokens of amazement and doubt, for,
after a short pause, he proceeded thus : —
“ In the hurry of my imagination I
commanded rain to fall; and by comparing the time of
my command with that of the inundation, I found that
the clouds had listened to my lips.’
10 “Might not some other cause,’ said I, ‘produce this
concurrence ? the Nile does not always rise on the same
day.’
‘¢¢T)o not believe, ’ said he with impatience, ‘that cnek
objections could escape me: I reasoned long against my
15 own conviction, 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 incredible
20 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; and I know too well the laws of demonstration
25 to think that my conviction ought to influence another, —
who cannot like me be conscious of its force. Ithere- —
fore shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. It —
is sufficient that I feel this power, that I have long —
possessed, and every day exerted it. But the life of |
man is short, the infirmities of age increase upon me, ~
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 171
and the time will soon come, when the regulator of the
year must mingle with the dust. The care of appointing
a successor has long disturbed me; the night and the
day have been spent in comparisons of all the characters
which have come to my knowledge, and I have yet 5
found none so worthy as thyself.’
172 HISTORY OF RASSELAS.
CHAPTER XUITI.
THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.
«¢Hyar, therefore, what I shall impart, with attention
such as the welfare of a world requires. If the task of
a king be considered as difficult, who has the care only
of a few millions, to whom he cannot do much good or
5 harm, what must be the anxiety of him on whom depends
the action of the elements, and the great gifts of light
and heat! Hear me therefore with attention.
“
196 HISTORY OF RASSELAS,
whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its
contexture, and separation of its parts; nor can we con-
ceive how that which has no parts, and therefore , admits
no solution, can be naturally corrupted. or-impaired. vy
5 “I know not,” said Rasselas, “how to conceive any- —
thing without extension; what is extended must have
parts, and you allow that whatever has pale may be —
destroyed.” E
“Consider your own conceptions,” replied Imlae, ~
10 “and the difficulty will be less. You will find sub-
stance without extension. An ideal form is no less
real than material bulk; yet an ideal form has no ex-
tension. It is no less certain, when you think on a
pyramid, that your mind possesses the idea of a pyramid,
15 than that the pyramid itself is standing. What space
does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than the idea of
a grain of corn? or how can either idea suffer lacera-
tion? Asis the effect, such is the cause: as thought,
such is the power that thinks; a power impassive * and
20 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
25 its power of duration. That it will not perish by any —
inherent cause of decay, or principle of corruption, may
be shown by philosophy; but philosophy can tell no-
more. That it will not be annihilated by him that made ~
it, we must humbly learn from higher authority.”
The whole assembly stood awhile silent and collected.’
~ PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. SUT
“Let us return,” said Rasselas, “from this scene of
mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions of
* the dead to him who did not know that he should never
die, that what now acts shall continue its agency, and
what now thinks shall think on forever. Those that 5
_ lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful
of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of
} our present state: they were, perhaps, snatched away
while they were busy like us in the choice of life.”
“To me,” said the princess, “ the choice of life is 10
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.
198 HISTORY OF RASSELAS.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE CONCLUSION, IN WHICH NOTHING IS CONCLUDED.
Ir 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
5 being under water gave them no invitation to any excur-
sions, and, being well supplied with materials for talk,
they diverted themselves with comparisons of the dif-
ferent forms of life which they had observed, and with
various schemes of happiness which each of them had
10 formed.
Pekuah was never so much charmed with any place
as the Convent of St. Anthony, where the Arab re-
stored her to the princess, and wished only to fill it
with pious maidens, and to be made prioress of the
15 order; she was weary of expectation and disgust, and
would gladly be fixed in some unvariable state.
The princess thought, that of all sublunary things
knowledge was the best: she desired first to learn all
- geiences, and then proposed to found a college of
20 learned women, in which she would preside, that, by
conversing with the old, and educating the young, she
might divide her time between the acquisition and com-
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 199
munication of wisdom, 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 government with his own eyes; but he 5
could never fix the limits of his dominion, and was
always adding to the number of his subjects.
5]
wa
.
eo
»
t
.
a
Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be driven
| along’ the stream of life, without directing their course
oto any particular port. 10
Of these wishes that they had formed they well knew
‘that none could be obtained. ‘They deliberated awhile
what was to be done, and resolved, when the inunda-
tion should cease, to return to Abyssinia.
NOTES.
I. — DICTION.
TueE following words are peculiar to Johnson or are used by him in
an unfamiliar sense : —
Abstracted. For “ abstract.”
Accommodations. Defined by Johnson as ‘“ Conveniences,
things requisite to ease and refreshment.”
Acquaintance. For “acquaintances.”
Africk. For ‘ Africa.”
Airy. Applied toa person’s disposition. Consult the ‘dictionary.
Allay. Commonly used in Johnson’s time for “ alloy.” Consult
the dictionary for the etymology of each word.
‘Character. In the sense of ‘“ the part one has to play.”
Chariot. Consult the dictionary for the two meanings of this
term.
Civil. In the sense of “ civilized.”
Collected. ‘ Thoughtful.”
Condition. ‘ Rank,” or ‘ position.”
Contagion. ‘‘ Contagion of his confidence,” ‘‘ contagion of mis-
ery.” Consult the dictionary for the plain and the metaphorical
meaning of the word.
Controvertist, ‘ Disputant.”
Countenance. In the sense of “ favor,” ‘ good-will.”
Crab. Consult the dictionary under ‘ cancer.”
Discover. In the sense of ‘‘ to show,” “‘ to exhibit.”
Discovery. In the sense of ‘ disclosure,” ‘‘ revelation.”
Dog-star. Consult the dictionary under this word and “ Sirius.”
‘““To restrain the rage of the dog-star,” is a poetical expression
borrowed from the Latin writers, for ‘‘ to moderate the heat of
the dog-days.”
201
202 RASSELAS.
Elegance. ‘ Refinement,” “ culture.”
Emersion. An astronomical term. Consult the dictionary. -
Engine. ‘“ Apparatus,” or ‘‘ machinery.”
Excursion. ‘ Digression.”
Grate. Used once by Johnson in the sense of “ be for which
it is perhaps a misprint.
Humor. “Mood” is more common at the present day except in
such phrases as “ good-humor,” “ill-humor,” and the like.
Image. “To imagine.”
Images. “ Flights of imagination.”
Impassive. ‘ Not susceptible of suffering.”
Indiscerptible. Defined by J onneam: ‘‘incapable of being broken
or destroyed by dissolution of parts.”
Insinuate. Defined by Johnson, ‘‘to push gently into favor or
regard.” Now commonly used in a bad sense.
Intellects. ‘‘ Mental faculties.’’
Invention. Any product of the imagination; now confined almost
entirely to mechanical devices, though retained in its broader
meaning in many rhetorics.
Levity. “Lightness.” The technical instead of the common
term.
Lonely. ‘‘ Desirous of being alone.”
Long. Used predicatively to denote duration of time. ‘‘ We are
long before we are able to think,” for “‘it is a long time before.”
Mean. ‘“ Ordinary.”
Mine. Any subterranean passage. ‘‘ Tunnel,” is at the present
time the common word for a passage-way bored through a moun-
tain.
Naval. ‘ Belonging to ships.” Now coming to be almost exclu-
sively used in the sense of ‘‘ belonging to the navy.” \
Nice. ‘‘ Exact,’’ a meaning to which this abused adjective should
be confined for the next few generations. att
Partake. ‘.Partake of” is now somewhat more common. .
Persist. ‘‘ Persist to rate.” ‘‘ Persist in rating,” would “be the
modern expression.
Presently. ‘Immediately.” ‘ By and by,” is the more common
signification.
Proper. ‘ Peculiar,” “‘ belonging exclusively to the thing specified.”
NOTES. 208
Recollect. Sometimes used in the sense of ‘to bring to one’s
senses.” ‘‘ The Princess was recollected.”
Reparation. “Repair.” Reparation is now commonly used to
mean “satisfaction for injury done.” j
Ruggedness. ‘ Rudeness.’’
Sequester. ‘‘ Seclude.”
Subtle. ‘ Sly.”
Suffrage. ‘ Opinions,” “testimony.”
Superfluities. ‘Excess,’ ‘ overflow” (of the lake), ‘ luxuries”
(“ delights and superfluities ’’).
Transcendental. Defined by Johnson, “ general; pervading
many particulars.” ‘‘ Transcendental truths,” would thus be
those which have wide application.
Volent. Having wings.
Il, — FATHER OF WATERS.
‘‘The natives call the Nile Abavi, that is, the Father of Waters.”
— Loxo’s Abyssinia. The name is often applied to the Mississippi.
III. — ABYSSINIA. RASSELAS. THE HAPPY VALLEY.
For the description of Abyssinian life and scenery, Johnson de-
pended partly upon the ‘‘ Voyage to Abyssinia” of Father Lobo,
partly upon his own imagination. The name Rasselas was suggested
by a similar name Rassela (Ras, “a head;” sela christos, ‘‘for the
sake of Christ”) which occurs in Lobo’s narrative. The Happy Val-
ley was a pleasing fiction. Lobo records that ‘‘ on the barren summit
of Ambaguexa, in the kingdom of Amhara, the princes of the blood-
royal passed their melancholy life, being guarded by officers who
treated them often with great rigor and severity.” The religion of
the Abyssinians is a very corrupt form of Christianity. Johnson, for
the sake of his story, has portrayed a state of culture and intelli-
gence such as never existed among them. Consult the article
‘¢ Abyssinia” in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Iv. — SOURCE OF THE NILE.
By the explorations of Speke in 1858 and 1862, and of Stanley in
1875, the Victoria Nyanza* was definitely established as the head
reservoir of the Nile. As the lake has several unexplored tributaries,
(
ae’ at
204 RASSELAS.
one, the Alexandra Nile, pouring in more water than is carried off by
the Nile itself, the old mystery cannot be said to be even yet com-
pletely solved.
¥. —INUNDATIONS OF THE NILE.
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