 CHAPTER 38 THE ADVENTURES OF THE LADY PECOIR At what time, and in what manner I was forced away, said Pekwa, your servants have told you. The suddenness of the event struck me with surprise, and I was at first rather stupefied than agitated with any passion of either fear or sorrow. My confusion was increased by the speed and tumult of our flight, while we were followed by the Turks, who as it seemed soon despaired to overtake us, or were afraid of those whom they made a show of menacing. When the Arabs saw themselves out of danger, they slackened their course, and as I was less harassed by external violence, I began to feel more uneasiness in my mind. After some time, we stopped near a spring shaded with trees, in a pleasant meadow, where we were set upon the ground, and offered such refreshments as our masters were partaking. I was suffered to sit with my maids apart from the rest, and none attempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first began to feel the full weight of my misery. The girls sat weeping in silence, and from time to time looked on me for succour. I knew not to what condition we were doomed, nor could conjecture where would be the place of our captivity, or went to draw any hope of deliverance. I was in the hands of robbers and savages, and had no reason to suppose that their pity was more than their justice, or that they would forbear the gratification of any ardour of desire or caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my maids, and endeavoured to pacify them, by remarking that we were yet treated with decency, and that since we were now carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence to our lives. When we were to be set again on horseback, my maids clung round me, and refused to be parted. But I commanded them not to irritate those who had us in their power. We travelled the remaining part of the day through an unfrequented and pathless country, and came by moonlight to the side of a hill where the rest of the troop was stationed. Their tents were pitched, and their fires kindled, and our chief was welcomed as a man much beloved by his dependents. We were received into a large tent, where we found women who had attended their husbands in the expedition. They set before us the supper which they had provided, and I at it rather to encourage my maids than to comply with any appetite of my own. When the meat was taken away, they spread the carpets for repose. I was weary, and hoped to find in sleep that remission of distress which nature seldom denies. Ordering myself, therefore, to be undressed, I observed that the women looked very earnestly upon me, not expecting I supposed to see me so submissively attended. When my upper vest was taken off, they were apparently struck with the splendour of my clothes, and one of them timorously laid her hand upon the embroidery. She then went out, and in a short time came back with another woman who seemed to be of higher rank and greater authority. She did at her entrance the usual act of reverence, and taking me by the hand, placed me in a smaller tent, spread with finer carpets, where I spent the night quietly with my maids. In the morning, as I was sitting on the grass, the chief of the troop came towards me. I rose up to receive him, and he bowed with great respect. Illustrious lady said he, My fortune is better than I had presumed to hope. I am told by my women that I have a princess in my camp. Sir, answered I, Your women have deceived themselves and you. I am not a princess, but an unhappy stranger, who intended soon to have left this country, in which I am now to be imprisoned for ever. Whoever or whence so ever you are, return to the Arab. Your dress and that of your servants show your rank to be high, and your wealth to be great. Why should you, who can so easily procure your ransom, think yourself in danger of perpetual captivity? The purpose of my incursions is to increase my riches, or more properly, to gather tribute. The sons of Ishmael are the natural and hereditary lords of this part of the continent, which is usurped by late invaders and low-born tyrants, from whom we are compelled to take by the sword what is denied to justice. The violence of war admits no distinction. The lance that is lifted at guilt and power will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness. How little, said I, did I expect that yesterday should have fallen upon me. Miss Fortunes, answered the Arab, should always be expected. If the eye of hostility could learn reverence or pity, excellence like yours had been exempt from injury. But the angels of affliction spread their toils alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the mighty and the mean. Do not be disconsolate. I am not one of the lawless and cruel rovers of the desert. I know the rules of civil life. I will fix your ransom, give a passport to your messenger, and perform my stipulation with nice punctuality. You will easily believe that I was pleased with his courtesy, and finding that his predominant passion was desire for money. I began now to think my danger less, for I knew that no sum would be thought too great for the release of pegua. I told him that he should have no reason to charge me with ingratitude if I was used with kindness, and that any ransom which could be expected for a maid of common rank would be paid, but that he must not persist to rate me as a princess. He said he would consider what he should demand, and then smiling, bowed, and retired. Soon after the women came about me, each contending to be more officious than the other, and my maids themselves were served with reverence. We travelled onward by short journeys. On the fourth day the chief told me that my ransom must be two hundred ounces of gold, which I not only promised him, but told him that I would add fifty more if I and my maids were honorably treated. I never knew the power of gold before. From that time I was the leader of the troop. The march of every day was longer or shorter as I commanded, and the tents were pitched where I chose to rest. We now had camels and other conveniences for travel. My own women were always at my side, and I amused myself with observing the manners of the vagrant nations, and with viewing remains of ancient edifices with which these deserted countries appear to have been in some distant age labishly 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 the most worthy the notice of a passenger. He observed to me that buildings are always best preserved in places little frequented and difficult of access. For when once a country declines from its primitive splendour the more inhabitants are left the quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply stones more easily than quarries, and palaces and temples will be demolished to make stables of granite and cottages of porphyry. Chapter 39 The Adventures of Pequah Continued We wandered about in this manner for some weeks, either as our chief pretended for my gratification, or as I rather suspected for some convenience of his own. I endeavoured to appear contented where sullenness and resentment would have been of no use, and that endeavour conduced much to the calmness of my mind. But my heart was always with necaya, and the troubles of the night much overbalanced the amusements of the day. My women, who through all their cares upon their mistress, set their minds at ease from the time when they saw me treated with respect, and gave themselves up to the incidental alleviations of our fatigue without solicitude or sorrow. I was pleased with their pleasure, and animated with their confidence. My condition had lost much of its terror, since I found that the Arab ranged the country merely to get riches. Avaris is a uniform and tractable vice. Other intellectual distempers are different in different constitutions of mind. That which soothes the pride of one will offend the pride of another. But to the favour of the covetous there is a ready way. Bring money, and nothing is denied. At last we came to the dwelling of the chief, a strong and spacious house built with stone in an island of the Nile, which lies, as I was told, under the Tropic. Lady, said the Arab, you shall rest after your journey a few weeks in this place, where you are to consider yourself as sovereign. My occupation is war. I have therefore chosen this obscure residence, from which I can issue unexpected, and to which I can retire un-pursued. You may now repose in security. Here are few pleasures, but here is no danger. He then led me into the inner apartments, and seating me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground. His women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me with malignity. But being soon informed that I was a great lady, detained only for my ransom, they began to vie with each other in obsequiousness and reverence. Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy liberty, I was for some days diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place. The turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and afforded a view of many windings of the stream. In the day I wandered from one place to another, as the course of the sun varied the splendour of the prospect, and saw many things which I had never seen before. The crocodiles and river-horses are common in this un-peopled region, and I often looked upon them with terror, though I knew they could not hurt me. For some time I expected to see mermaids and tritons, which as Imlak 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. At night the Arab always attended me to a tower set apart for celestial observations, where he endeavoured to teach me the names and courses of the stars. I had no great inclination to this study, but an appearance of attention was necessary to please my instructor, who valued himself for his skill, and in a little while I found some employment requisite to beguile the tediousness of time, which was to be passed always amidst the same objects. I was weary of looking in the morning on things from which I had turned away weary in the evening. I therefore was at last willing to observe the stars rather than do nothing, but could not always compose my thoughts, and was very often thinking on Nekhaya, when others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon after the Arab went upon another expedition, and then my only pleasure was to talk with my maids about the accident by which we were carried away, and the happiness we should all enjoy at the end of our captivity. There were women in your Arab's fortress, said the princess. Why did you not make them your companions, enjoy their conversation, and partake their diversions? In a place where they found business or amusement, why should you alone sit corroded with idle melancholy? Or why could not you bear for a few months that condition to which they were condemned for life? The diversions of the women, answered Pekua, were only childish play by which the mind accustomed to stronger operations could not be kept busy. I could do all which they delighted in doing by powers merely sensitive, while my intellectual faculties were flown to Cairo. They ran from room to room as a bird hops from wire to wire in his cage. They danced for sake of motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow. One sometimes pretended to be hurt that the rest might be alarmed, or hid herself that another might seek her. Part of their time passed in watching the progress of light bodies that floated on the river, at part in marking the various forms into which clouds broke in the sky. Their business was only needlework, in which I and my maid sometimes helped them, but you know that the mind will easily straggle from the fingers, nor will you suspect that captivity and absence from Nekaya could receive solace from silken flowers. Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conversation. For of what could they be expected to talk? They had seen nothing, for they had lived from early youth in that narrow spot. Of what they had not seen they could have no knowledge, for they could not read. They had no idea but of the few things that were within their view, and had hardly names for anything but their clothes and their food. As I bore a superior character I was often called to terminate their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could. If it could have amused me to hear the complaints of each against the rest I might have been often detained by long stories, but the motives of their animosity were so small that I could not listen without interupting the tale. How, said Rasilas, can the Arab whom you represented as a man of more than common accomplishments take any pleasure in his serralio when it is filled only with women like these? Are they exquisitely beautiful? They do not, said Pequah, want that unaffecting and ignoble beauty which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity, without energy of thought or dignity of virtue, but to a man like the Arab such beauty was only a flower casually plucked and carelessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he might find among them they were not those of friendship or society. When they were playing about him he looked on them with inattentive superiority. When they vied for his regard he sometimes turned away disgusted. As they had no knowledge their talk could take nothing from the tediousness of life. As they had no choice their fondness or appearance of fondness excited in him neither pride nor gratitude. He was not exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a woman who saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard of which he could never know the sincerity, and which he might often perceive to be exerted not so much to delight him as to pain arrival. That which he gave and they received as love was only a careless distribution of superfluous time. Such love as man can bestow upon that which he despises, such as has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow. You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy, said Imlag, that you have been thus easily dismissed. How could a mind hungry for knowledge be willing, in an intellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as Pekua's conversation? I am inclined to believe, answered Pekua, that he was for some time in suspense, for notwithstanding his promise, whenever I proposed to dispatch a messenger to Cairo, he found some excuse for delay. While I was detained in his house he made many incursions into the neighbouring countries, and perhaps he would have refused to discharge me had his plunder been equal to his wishes. He returned always courteous, related his adventures, delighted to hear my observations, and endeavoured to advance my acquaintance with the stars. When I impotuned him to send away my letters, he soothed me with professions of honour and sincerity, and when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again in motion, and left me to govern in his absence. I was much afflicted by this studied procrastination, and was sometimes afraid that I should be forgotten, that you would leave Cairo, and I must end my days in an island of the Nile. I grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so little to entertain him, that he for a while more frequently talked with my maids. That he should fall in love with them, or with me, might have been equally fatal, and I was not much pleased with the growing friendship. My anxiety was not long, for as I recovered some degree of cheerfulness, he returned to me, and I could not forbear to despise my former uneasiness. He still delayed to send for my ransom, and would perhaps never have determined, had not your agent found his way to him. The gold, which he would not fetch, he could not reject when it was offered. He hastened to prepare 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. Nikaia, having heard her favourites relation, rose and embraced her, and Rasilas gave her a hundred ounces of gold, which she presented to the Arab for the fifty that were promised. End of Chapter 39 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapters 40-43 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson Chapter 40 The History of a Man of Learning They 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 Imlak that he intended to devote himself to science, and pass the rest of his days in literary solitude. Before you make your final choice, answered Imlak, you ought to examine its hazards, and converse with some of those who are grown old in the company of themselves. I have just left the observatory of one of the most learned astronomers in the world, who has spent forty years in unwearied attention to the motion and appearances of the celestial bodies, and has drawn out his soul in endless calculations. He admits a few friends once a month to hear his deductions and enjoy his discoveries. I was introduced as a man of knowledge worthy of his notice. Men of various ideas and fluent conversation are commonly welcome to those whose thoughts have been long fixed upon a single point, and who find the images of other things stealing away. I delighted him with my remarks. He smiled at the narrative of my travels, and was glad to forget the constellations, and descend for a moment into the lower world. On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, and was so fortunate as to please him again. He relaxed from that time the severity of his rule, and permitted me to enter at my own choice. I found him always busy, and always glad to be relieved. As each knew much which the other was desirous of learning, we exchanged our notions with great delight. I perceived that I had every day more of his confidence, and always found new cause of admiration in the profundity of his mind. His comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and retentive, his discourse is methodical, and his expression clear. His integrity and benevolence are equal to his learning. His deepest researches and most favourite studies are willingly interrupted for any opportunity of doing good by his counsel or his riches. To his closest retreat at his most busy moments all are admitted that want his assistance. For though I exclude idleness and pleasure, I will never, says he, bar my doors against charity. To man is permitted the contemplation of the skies, but the practice of virtue is commanded. Surely, said the princess, this man is happy. I visited him, said Imlach, with more and more frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his conversation. He was sublime without haughtiness, courteous without formality, and communicative without ostentation. I was at first great princess of your opinion, thought him the happiest of mankind, and often congratulated him on the blessing that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing within difference, but the praises of his condition, to which he always returned a general answer, and diverted the conversation to some other topic. Amidst this willingness to be pleased, and labour to please, I had quickly reasoned to imagine that some painful sentiment pressed upon his mind. He often looked up earnestly towards the sun, and let his voice fall in the midst of his discourse. He would sometimes, when we were alone, gaze upon me in silence, with the air of a man who longed to speak what he was yet resolved to suppress. He would often send for me with vehement injunction of haste, though when I came to him he had nothing extraordinary to say, and sometimes, when I was leaving him, would call me back, pause a few moments, and then dismiss me. Chapter 41 The astronomer discovers the cause of his uneasiness. At last the time came when the secret burst his reserve. We were sitting together last night in the turret of his house, watching the immersion of a satellite of Jupiter. A sudden tempest clouded the sky, and disappointed our observation. We sat a while silent in the dark, and then he addressed himself to me in these words, Imlak, I have long considered thy friendship as the greatest blessing of my life. Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. I have found in thee all the qualities requisite for trust, benevolence, experience, and fortitude. I have long discharged an office which I must soon quit at the call of nature, and shall rejoice in the hour of imbecility and pain to devolve it upon thee. I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and protested that whatever could conduce to his happiness would add likewise to mine. Here, Imlak, what thou wilt not without difficulty credit. I have possessed for five years the regulation of the weather, and the distribution of the seasons. The sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction. The clouds at my call have poured their waters, and the nile has overflowed at my command. I have restrained the rage of the dog-star, and mitigated the fervours of the crab. The winds alone of all the elemental powers have hitherto refused my authority, and multitudes have perished by equinoctial tempests which I found myself unable to prohibit or restrain. I have administered this great office with exact justice, and made to the different nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and sunshine. What must have been the misery of half the globe if I had limited the clouds to particular regions, or confined the sun to either side of the equator? Chapter 42 The opinion of the astronomer is explained and justified. I 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. Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor offend me, for I am probably the first of human beings to whom this trust has been imparted, nor do I know whether to deem this distinction a reward or punishment. Since I have possessed it, I have been far less happy than before, and nothing but the consciousness of good intention could have enabled me to support the weariness of unremitted vigilance. How long, sir, said I, has this great office been in your hands? About ten years ago, said he, my daily observations of the changes of the sky led me to consider whether, if I had the power of the seasons, I could confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the earth. This contemplation fastened on my mind, and I sat days and nights in imaginary dominion, pouring upon this country and that the showers of fertility, and seconding every fall of rain with a due proportion of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do good, and did not imagine that I should ever have the power. One day, as I was looking on the fields, withering with heat, I felt in my mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains, and raise the nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination, I commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time of my command with that of the inundation, I found that the clouds had listened to my lips. Might not some other cause, said I, produce this concurrence, the nile does not always rise on the same day. Do not believe, said he with impatience, that such objections could escape me. I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboured against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret, but to a man like you capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible, and the incredible from the false. 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 to think that my conviction ought to influence another who cannot, like me, be conscious of its force. I therefore shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. It is sufficient that I feel this power that I have long possessed, and every day exerted it. But the life of man is short, the infamities of age increase upon me, and the time will soon come when the regulator of the year must mingle with the dust. The care of appointing a successor has long disturbed me. The night and the day have been spent in comparisons of all the characters which have come to my knowledge, and I have yet found none so worthy as thyself. Chapter 43 The Astronomer Leaves Imlach His Directions Here, therefore, what I shall impart with attention such as the welfare of a world requires. If the task of a king be considered as difficult, who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he cannot do much good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him on whom depends the action of the elements, and the great gifts of light and heat? Here may, therefore, with attention. I have diligently considered the position of the earth and sun, and formed innumerable schemes in which I changed their situation. I have sometimes turned aside the axis of the earth, and sometimes varied the ecliptic of the sun, but I have found it impossible to make a disposition by which the world may be advantaged. What one region gains, another loses, by an imaginable alteration, even without considering the distant parts of the solar system with which we are acquainted. Do not, therefore, in thy administration of the year, indulge thy pride by innovation. Do not please thyself with thinking that thou canst make thyself renowned to all future ages by disordering the seasons. The memory of mischief is no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee to let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain to pour it on thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient. I promised that when I possessed the power I would use it with inflexible integrity, and he dismissed me pressing my hand. My heart, said he, will be now at rest, and my benevolence will no more destroy my quiet. I have found a man of wisdom and virtue, to whom I can chairfully bequeath the inheritance of the sun. The Prince hurt this narration with very serious regard, but the Princess smiled, and Pecoa convulsed herself with laughter. Ladies, to mock the heaviest of human afflictions is neither charitable nor wise. Few can attain this man's knowledge, and few practice his virtues, but all may suffer his calamity. Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason. The Princess was recollected, and the Favourite was abashed. Rasilas, more deeply affected, inquired of Imlach whether he thought such maladies of the mind frequent, and how they were contracted. End of Chapter 43. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapters 44 and 45 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. By Samuel Johnson. Chapter 44. The Dangerous Prevalence of Imagination. Disorders of intellect, answered Imlach, happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason, who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity, but while this power is such as we can control and repress, it is not visible to others, nor considered as any deprivation of the mental faculties. It is not pronounced madness, but when it becomes ungovernable, and apparently influences speech or action. To indulge the power of fiction and send imagination out upon the wing is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy. The labour of ex-cogitation is too violent to last long. The ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not, for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoyment, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots in delights which nature and fortune with all their bounty cannot bestow. In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention. All other intellectual gratifications are rejected. The mind in weariness or leisure recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is confirmed. She grows first imperious and in time despotic. Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish. This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude which the hermit has confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's misery has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom. I will know more, said the favourite, imagine myself the queen of Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours which the princess gave to my own disposal in adjusting ceremonies and regulating the court. I have repressed the pride of the powerful, and granted the petitions of the poor. I have built new palaces in more happy situations, planted groves upon the tops of mountains, and have exalted in the beneficence of royalty. Till when the princess entered, I had almost forgotten to bow down before her. And I, said the princess, will not allow myself any more to play the shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have often soothed my thoughts with the quiet and innocence of pastoral employments, till I have in my chamber heard the wind's whistle and the sheep bleed. Sometimes freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes with my crook encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of the village-maids, which I put on to help my imagination, and a pipe on which I play softly, and suppose myself followed by my flocks. I will confess, said the prince, an indulgence of fantastic delight more dangerous than yours. I have frequently endeavored to imagine the possibility of a perfect government, by which all wrong should be restrained, all vice reformed, and all the subjects preserved in tranquility and innocence. This thought produced innumerable schemes of reformation, and dictated many useful regulations and salutary effects. This has been the sport, and sometimes the labour of my solitude. And I start when I think with how little anguish I once supposed the death of my father and my brothers. Such, said Imlak, are the effects of visionary schemes. When we first form them we know them to be absurd, but familiarize them by degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly. Chapter 45 They discourse with an old man. The evening was now far past, and they rose to return home. As they walked along the banks of the Nile, delighted with the beams of the moon quivering on the water, they saw at a small distance an old man, whom the prince had often heard in the assembly of the sages. Yonder, said he, is one whose years have calmed his passions, but not clouded his reason. Let us close the disquisitions of the night by inquiring what are his sentiments of his own state, that we may know whether youth alone is to struggle with vexation, and whether any better hope remains for the latter part of life. Here the sage approached and saluted them. They invited him to join their walk, and prattled a while as acquaintances that had unexpectedly met one another. The old man was cheerful and talkative, and the way seemed short in his company. He was pleased to find himself not disregarded, accompanied them to their house, and at the prince's request entered with them. They placed him in the seat of honor and set wine and conserves before him. Sir, said the princess, an evening walk must give to a man of learning like you, pleasures which ignorance and youth can hardly conceive. You know the qualities and the causes of all that you behold. The laws by which the river flows, the periods in which the planets perform their revolutions. Everything must supply you with contemplation, and renew the consciousness of your own dignity. Lady, answered he, let the gay and the vigorous expect pleasure in their excursions. It is enough that age can attain ease. To me the world has lost its novelty. I look round, and see what I remember to have seen in happier days. I rest against a tree, and consider that in the same shade I once disputed upon the annual overflow of the Nile, with a friend who is now silent in the grave. I cast my eyes upward, fix them on the changing moon, and think with pain on the vicissitudes of life. I have ceased to take much delight in physical truth, for what have I to do with those things which I am soon to leave? You may at least recreate yourself, said Imlach, with the recollection of an honorable and useful life, and enjoy the praise which all agree to give you. Ah, praise, said the sage with a sigh, is to an old man an empty sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband. I have outlived my friends and my rivals. Nothing is now of much importance, for I cannot extend my interest beyond myself. You this delighted with applause, because it is considered as the earnest of some future good, and because the prospect of life is far extended. But to me, who am now declining to decrepitude, there is little to be feared from the malevolence of men, and yet less to be hoped from their affection or esteem. Something they may yet take away, but they can give me nothing. Riches would now be useless, and high employment would be pain. My retrospect of life recalls to my view many opportunities of good neglected, much time squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness and vacancy. I leave many great designs unattempted, and many great attempts unfinished. My mind is burdened with no heavy crime, and therefore I compose myself to tranquility, endeavour to abstract my thoughts from hopes and cares, which though reason knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old possession of the heart. Expect with serene humility that hour which nature cannot long delay, and hope to possess in a better state that happiness which here I could not find, and that virtue which here I have not attained. He arose and went away, leaving his audience not much elated with the hope of long life. The Prince consoled himself with remarking that it was not reasonable to be disappointed by this account, for age had never been considered as the season of felicity, and if it was possible to be easy in decline and weakness, it was likely that the days of vigor and alacrity might be happy, that the noon of life might be bright if the evening could be calm. The Princess suspected that age was quarrelous and malignant, and delighted to repress the expectations of those who had newly entered the world. She had seen the possessors of estates look with envy on their heirs, and known many who enjoyed pleasure no longer than they could confine it to themselves. Pequah conjectured that the man was older than he appeared, and was willing to impute his complaints to delirious dejection, or else supposed that he had been unfortunate, and was therefore discontented. For nothing, said she, is more common than to call our own condition the condition of life. Imlach, who had no desire to see them depressed, smiled at the comforts which they could so readily procure to themselves, and remembered that at the same age he was equally confident of unmingled prosperity, and equally fertile of consolatory expedience. He forbore to force upon them unwelcome knowledge, which time itself would too soon impress. The princess and her lady retired. The madness of the astronomer hung upon their minds, and they desired Imlach to enter upon his office, and delay next morning the rising of the sun. End of Chapter 45 Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey Chapters 46 and 47 of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson Chapter 46 The Princess and Pekua visit the astronomer The princess and Pekua, having talked in private of Imlach's astronomer, thought his character at once so amiable and so strange that they could not be satisfied without a nearer knowledge, and Imlach was requested to find the means of bringing them together. This was somewhat difficult. The philosopher had never received any visits from women, though he lived in a city that had in it many Europeans who followed the manners of their own countries, and many from other parts of the world that lived there with European liberty. The ladies would not be refused, and several schemes were proposed for the accomplishment of their design. It was proposed to introduce them as strangers in distress, to whom the sage was always accessible, but after some deliberation it appeared that by this artifice no acquaintance could be formed, for their conversation would be short, and they could not decently importune him often. This, said Rasselas, is true, but I have yet a stronger objection against the misrepresentation of your state. I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him, whether on great or little occasions. All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence. When the sage finds that you are not what you seemed, he will feel the resentment natural to a man who, conscious of great abilities, discovers that he has been tricked by understandings meaner than his own, and perhaps the distrust which he can never afterwards wholly lay aside, may stop the voice of council and close the hand of charity. And where will you find the power of restoring his benefactions to mankind, or his peace to himself? To this no reply was attempted, and Imlak began to hope that their curiosity would subside. But next day Pekua told him she had now found an honest pretense for a visit to the astronomer, for she would solicit permission to continue under him the studies in which she had been initiated by the Arab, and the princess might go with her, either as a fellow student, or because a woman could not decently come alone. I am afraid, said Imlak, that he will soon be weary of your company. Men advanced far in knowledge do not love to repeat the elements of their art, and I am not certain that even of the elements, as he will deliver them connected with inferences and mingled with reflections, you are a very capable auditress. That, said Pekua, must be my care. I ask of you only to take me thither. My knowledge is perhaps more than you imagine it, and by concurring always with his opinions, I shall make him think it greater than it is. The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was told that a foreign lady travelling in search of knowledge had heard of his reputation, and was desirous to become his scholar. The uncommonness of the proposal raised at once his surprise and curiosity, and when after a short deliberation he consented to admit her, he could not stay without impatience till the next day. The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and were attended by Imlak to the astronomer, who was pleased to see himself approached with respect by persons of so splendid an appearance. In the exchange of the first civilities he was timorous and bashful, but when the talk became regular he recollected his powers and justified the character which Imlak had given. Inquiring of Pekua what could have turned her inclination towards astronomy, he received from her a history of her adventure at the Pyramid, and of the time passed in the Arabs island. She told her tale with ease and elegance, and her conversation took possession of his heart. The discourse was then turned to astronomy. Pekua displayed what she knew. He looked upon her as a prodigy of genius, and entreated her not to desist from a study which she had so happily begun. They came again and again, and were every time more welcome than before. The sage endeavored to amuse them that they might prolong their visits, for he found his thoughts grow brighter in their company. The clouds of solitude vanished by degrees as he forced himself to entertain them, and he grieved when he was left at their departure to his old employment of regulating the seasons. The princess and her favourite had now watched his lips for several months, and could not catch a single word from which they could judge whether he continued or not in the opinion of his preternatural commission. They often contrived to bring him to an open declaration, but he easily eluded all their attacks, and on which side so ever they pressed him, escaped from them to some other topic. As their familiarity increased, they invited him often to the house of Imlak, where they distinguished him by extraordinary respect. He began gradually to delight in sub-lunary pleasures. He came early and departed late, laboured to recommend himself by acidity and compliance, excited their curiosity after new arts that they might still want his assistance, and when they made any excursion of pleasure or inquiry, entreated to attend them. By long experience of his integrity and wisdom, the prince and his sister were convinced that he might be trusted without danger, and lest he should draw any false hopes from the civilities which he received, discovered to him their condition, with the motives of their journey, and required his opinion on the choice of life. Of the various conditions which the world spreads before you, which you shall prefer, said the sage, I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience, in the attainment of sciences which can for the most part be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life. I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. If I have obtained any prerogatives above other students, they have been accompanied with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity. But even of these prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, since my thoughts have been diversified by more intercourse with the world, begun to question the reality. When I have been for a few days lost in pleasing dissipation, I am always tempted to think that my inquiries have ended in error, and that I have suffered much and suffered it in vain. Imlach was delighted to find that the sage's understanding was breaking through its mists, and resolved to detain him from the planets, till he should forget his task of ruling them, and reason should recover its original influence. From this time the astronomer was received into familiar friendship and partook of all their projects and pleasures. His respect kept him attentive, and the activity of Brasilas did not leave much time unengaged. Something was always to be done. The day was spent in making observations, which furnished talk for the evening, and the evening was closed with a scheme for the morrow. The sage confessed to Imlach that since he had mingled in the gay tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession of amusements, he found the conviction of his authority over the skies fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less to an opinion which he could never prove to others, and which he now found subject to variation, from causes in which reason had no part. If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence. But they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekua. I am like a man habitually afraid of spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which harassed him in the dark. Yet if his lamp be extinguished, feels again the terrors which he knows that when it is light he shall feel no more. But I am sometimes afraid, lest I indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which I am entrusted. If I favour myself in a known error, or am determined by my own ease in a doubtful question of this importance, how dreadful is my crime? No disease of the imagination, answered Imlak, is so difficult of cure as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt. Fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give it pain. But when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this reason the superstitious are often melancholy, and the melancholy almost always superstitious. But do not let the suggestions of timidity overpower your better reason. The danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the obligation, which when you consider it with freedom, you find very little, and that little growing every day less. Open your heart to the influence of the light, which from time to time breaks in upon you. When scruples importune you, which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, do not stand to Pali, but fly to business or to Pekua, and keep this thought always prevalent, that you are only one atom of the mass of humanity, and have neither such virtue nor vice as that you should be singled out for supernatural favours or afflictions. Chapter 47 The Prince Enters and Brings a New Topic All this, said the astronomer, I have often thought, but my reason has been so long subjugated by an uncontrollable and overwhelming idea that it does not confide in its own decisions. I now see how fatally I betrayed my quiet by suffering chimeras to pray upon me in secret, but melancholy shrinks from communication, and I never found a man before to whom I could impart my troubles, though I had been certain of relief. I rejoice to find my own sentiments confirmed by yours, who are not easily deceived, and can have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope that time and variety will dissipate the gloom that has so long surrounded me, and the latter part of my days will be spent in peace. Your learning and virtue, said Imlak, may justly give you hopes. Rasilas then entered with the princess and Pekua, and inquired whether they had contrived any new diversion for the next day. Such, said Nikaya, is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing. When we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted. Let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before. Variety, said Rasilas, is so necessary to content, that even the happy valley disgusted me by the recurrence of its luxuries. Yet I could not forbear to reproach myself with impatience, when I saw the monks of St Anthony's support without complaint, a life not of uniform delight, but uniform hardship. Those men, answered Imlak, are less wretched in their silent convent than the Abyssinian princes in their prison of pleasure. Whatever is done by the monks is incited by an adequate and reasonable motive. Their labour supplies them with necessaries. It therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. Their devotion prepares them for another state, and reminds them of its approach while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly distributed. One duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at an appropriated hour, and their toils are cheerful, because they consider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advancing towards endless felicity. Do you think, said Nikhaya, that the monastic rule is a more holy and less imperfect state than any other? May not he equally hope for future happiness, who converses openly with mankind, who suckers the distress by his charity, instructs the ignorant by his learning, and contributes by his industry to the general system of life, even though he should omit some of the mortifications which are practised in the cloister, and allow himself such harmless delights as his condition may place within his reach? This, said Imlak, is a question which has long divided the wise and perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either part. He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a monastery, but perhaps everyone is not able to stem the temptations of public life, and if he cannot conquer he may properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are weary of the conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions which have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed by age and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of prayer and contemplation have something so congenial to the mind of man, but perhaps there is scarcely one that does not purpose to close his life in pious abstraction, with a few associates serious as himself. Such, said Pekua, has often been my wish, and I have heard the princess declare that she should not willingly die in a crowd. The liberty of using harmless pleasures, preceded Imlak, will not be disputed, but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless. The evil of any pleasure that Nikaya can image is not in the act itself, but in its consequences. Pleasure in itself harmless may become mischievous by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint. The princess was silent, and Rasilas, turning to the astronomer, asked him whether he could not delay her retreat by showing her something which she had not seen before. Your curiosity, said the sage, has been so general, and your pursuit of knowledge so vigorous that novelties are not now very easily to be found, but what you can no longer procure from the living may be given by the dead. Among the wonders of this country are the catacombs, or the ancient repositories in which the bodies of the earliest generations were lodged, and where, by virtue of the gums which embalmed them, they yet remain without corruption. I know not, said Rasilas, what pleasure the sight of the catacombs can afford, but since nothing else is offered, I am resolved to view them, and shall place this with my other things which I have done because I would do something. They hired a guard of horsemen, and the next day visited the catacombs. When they were about to descend into the sepulchral caves, Pekua, said the princess, we are now again invading the habitations of the dead. I know that you will stay behind. Let me find you safe when I return. No, I will not be left, answered Pekua. I will go down between you and the prince. They then all descended, and roved with wonder through the labyrinths of subterraneous passages, where the bodies were laid in rows on either side. End of chapter 47. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapters 48 and 49 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson. Chapter 48. Imlach discourses on the nature of the soul. What reason, said the prince, can be given why the Egyptians should thus expensively preserve those carcasses which some nations consume with fire, others lay to mingle with the earth, and all agree to remove from their sight as soon as decent rites can be performed. The origin of ancient customs, said Imlach, is commonly unknown, for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased. And concerning superstitious ceremonies it is vain to conjecture. For what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain. I have long believed that the practice of embalming arose only from tenderness to the remains of relations or friends, and to this opinion I am more inclined, because it seems impossible that this care should have been general. Had all the dead been embalmed, their repositories must in time have been more spacious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the rich or honourable were secured from corruption, and the rest left to the course of nature. But it is commonly supposed that the Egyptians believed the soul to live as long as the body continued undissolved, and therefore tried this method of eluding death. Could the wise Egyptians, said Nekhaya, think so grossly of the soul? If the soul could once survive its separation, what could it afterwards receive or suffer from the body? The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneously, said the astronomer, in the darkness of heathenism and the first dawn of philosophy. The nature of the soul is still disputed amidst all our opportunities of clearer knowledge. Some yet say that it may be material, who nevertheless believe it to be immortal. Some, answered Imlak, have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think. For all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter. It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet if any part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, density, bulk, motion, and direction of motion. To which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or little, to be moved slowly or swiftly, one way or another, are modes of material existence all equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by some new modification. But all the modifications which it can admit are equally unconnected with cogitative powers. But the materialists, said the astronomer, urge that matter may have qualities with which we are unacquainted. He who will determine returned in luck against that which he knows, because there may be something which he knows not. He that can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged certainty is not to be admitted among reasonable beings. All that we know of matter is that matter is inert, senseless, and lifeless. And if this conviction cannot be opposed, but by referring us to something that we know not, we have all the evidence that human intellect can admit. If that which is known may be overruled by that which is unknown, no being not omniscient can arrive at certainty. Yet let us not, said the astronomer, too arrogantly limit the creator's power. It is no limitation of omnipotence, replied the poet, to suppose that one thing is not consistent with another, that the same proposition cannot be at once true and false, that the same number cannot be even and odd, that cogitation cannot be conferred on that which is created incapable of cogitation. I know not, said Nikhaya, any great use of this question. Does that immateriality, which in my opinion you have sufficiently proved, necessarily include eternal duration? Of immateriality, said Imlak, our ideas are negative and therefore obscure. Immateriality seems to imply a natural power of perpetual duration, as a consequence of exemption from all causes of decay. Whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its contextual and separation of its parts, nor can we conceive how that which has no parts, and therefore admits no solution, can be naturally corrupted or impaired. I know not, said Rasilas, how to conceive anything without extension. What is extended must have parts, and you allow that whatever has parts may be destroyed. Consider your own conceptions, replied Imlak, and the difficulty will be less. You will find substance without extension. An ideal form is no less real than material bulk, yet an ideal form has no extension. It is no less certain, when you think on a pyramid, that your mind possesses the idea of a pyramid, than that the pyramid itself is standing. What space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than the idea of a grain of corn? Or how can either idea suffer laceration? As is the effect, such is the cause, as thought such is the power that thinks, a power impassive and indeceptible. But the being, said Nikhaya, whom I fear to name, the being which made the soul can destroy it. He surely can destroy it, answered Imlak, since, however imperishable, it receives from a superior nature its power of duration. That it will not perish by any inherent cause of decay or principle of corruption may be shown by philosophy. But philosophy can tell no more. That it will not be annihilated by him that made it, we must humbly learn from higher authority. The whole assembly stood a while silent and collected. Let us return, said Rasilas, 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 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 has become less important. I hope hereafter to think only on the choice of eternity. They then hastened out of the caverns, and under the protection of their guard, returned to Cairo. Chapter 49. The conclusion, in which nothing is concluded. It was now the time of the inundation of the Nile. A few days after their visit to the catacombs, the river began to rise. They were confined to their house. The whole region, being underwater, gave them no invitation to any excursions. And being well supplied with materials for talk, they diverted themselves with comparisons of the different forms of life which they had observed, and with various schemes of happiness which each of them had formed. Pekua was never so much charmed with any place as the Convent of St. Anthony, where the Arab restored her to the Princess, and wished only to fill it with pious maidens, and to be made prioress of the Order. She was weary of expectation and disgust, and would gladly be fixed in some unvariable state. The Princess thought that of all sub-lunary things knowledge was the best. She desired first to learn all sciences, and then proposed to found a college of learned women, in which she would preside, that by conversing with the old and educating the young, she might divide her time between the acquisition and communication of wisdom, and raise up for the next age models of prudence and patterns of piety. The Prince desired a little kingdom in which he might administer justice in his own person, and see all the parts of government with his own eyes, but he could never fix the limits of his dominion, and was always adding to the number of his subjects. Imlach and the astronomer were contented to be driven along the stream of life, without directing their course to any particular port. Of those wishes that they had formed, they well knew that none could be obtained. They deliberated a while what was to be done, and resolved, when the inundation should cease, to return to Abyssinia, end of Chapter 49, Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey End of Rassilas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson