 Chapter 17 to 20 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. Chapter 17 The prince associates with young men of spirit and gaiety. Rasilas 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.' To such societies he was readily admitted, but a few days brought him back weary and disgusted. Their mirth was without images, their laughter without motive, their pleasures were gross and sensual, in which the mind had no part. Their conduct was at once wild and mean. They laughed at order and at law, but the frown of power dejected, and the eye of wisdom abashed them. The prince soon concluded that he should never be happy in a course of life of which he was ashamed. He thought it unsuitable to a reasonable being to act without a plan, and to be sad or cheerful only by chance. Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty. But his young companions had gained so much of his regard by their frankness and courtesy that he could not leave them without warning and remonstrance. "'My friends,' said he, "'I have seriously considered our manners and our prospects, and find that we have mistaken our own interest. The first years of man must make provision for the last. He that never thinks never can be wise. Perpetual levity must end in ignorance, and in temperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short or miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no long duration, and that in mature age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of delight dance no more about us. We shall have no comforts but the esteem of wise men and the means of doing good. Let us therefore stop while to stop is in our power. Let us live as men who are some time to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils to count their past years by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the maladies which Riot has produced. They stared a while in silence, one upon another, and at last drove him away by a general chorus of continued laughter. The consciousness that his sentiments were just, and his intention kind, was scarcely sufficient to support him against the horror of derision. But he recovered his tranquility and pursued his search. CHAPTER 18 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 eye upon a sage raised above the rest, who discoursed with great energy on the government of the passions. His look was venerable, his action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He showed with great strength of sentiment and variety of illustration that human nature is degraded and debased when the lower faculties predominate over the higher, but when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation, and confusion, that she betrays the fortresses of the intellect to rebels, and excites her children to sedition against their lawful sovereign. He compared reason to the sun of which the light is constant, uniform, and lasting, and fancy to a meteor of bright but transitory lustre, irregular in its motion, and delusive in its direction. He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time for the conquest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no longer the slave of fear, nor the fool of hope, is no more emaciated by envy, inflamed by anger, emasculated by tenderness, nor depressed by grief, but walks on calmly through the tumults or privacies of life, as the sun pursues alike his course through the calm or the stormy sky. He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference on those modes or accidents to which the vulgar give the names of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers to lay aside their prejudices, and arm themselves against the shafts of malice or misfortune by invulnerable patience, concluding that this state only was happiness, and that this happiness was in everyone's power. Rasilas listened to him with the veneration due to the instructions of a superior being, and waiting for him at the door, humbly implored the liberty of visiting so great a master of true wisdom. The lecturer hesitated a moment when Rasilas put a purse of gold into his hand, which he received with a mixture of joy and wonder. "'I have found,' said the prince, at his return to Imlak, a man who can teach all that is necessary to be known, who from the unshaken throne of rational fortitude looks down on the scenes of life changing beneath him. He speaks, and attention watches his lips. He reasons, and conviction closes his periods. This man shall be my future guide. I will learn his doctrines, and imitate his life.' "'Be not too hasty,' said Imlak, to trust or to admire the teachers of morality. They discourse like angels, but they live like men.' Rasilas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so forcibly, without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He had now learned the power of money, and made his way by a piece of gold to the inner apartment, where he found the philosopher in a room half darkened, with his eyes misty, and his face pale. "'Sir,' said he, you are come at a time when all human friendship is useless. What I suffer cannot be remedied. What I have lost cannot be supplied. My daughter, my only daughter, from whose tenderness I expected all the comforts of my age, died last night of a fever. My views, my purposes, my hopes are at an end. I am now a lonely being, disunited from society.' "'Sir,' said the prince, mortality is an event by which a wise man can never be surprised. We know that death is always near, and it should therefore always be expected.' "'Young man,' answered the philosopher, you speak like one that has never felt the pangs of separation.' "'Have you then forgot the precepts,' said Rasilas, which you so powerfully enforced, as wisdom no strength to arm the heart against calamity. Consider that external things are naturally variable, but truth and reason are always the same.' "'What comfort,' said the mourner, can truth and reason afford me. Of what effect are they now, but to tell me that my daughter will not be restored?' The prince, whose humanity would not suffer him to insult misery with reproof, went away, convinced of the emptiness of rhetorical sounds, and the inefficacy of polished periods and studied sentences. Chapter 19 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 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. Imlak and the princess agreed to accompany him, and after the necessary preparations they began their journey. Their way lay through the fields, where shepherds tended their flocks, and the lambs were playing upon the pasture. "'This,' said the poet, is the life which has been often celebrated for its innocence and quiet. Let us pass the heat of the day among the shepherd's tents, and know whether all our searches are not to terminate in pastoral simplicity. The proposal pleased them, and they induced the shepherds by small presence and familiar questions to tell the opinion of their own state. They were so rude and ignorant, so little able to compare the good with the evil of the occupation, and so indistinct in their narratives and descriptions that very little could be learned from them. But it was evident that their hearts were conquered with discontent, that they considered themselves as condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich, and looked up with stupid malevolence towards those that were placed above them. The princess pronounced with vehemence that she would never suffer these envious savages to be her companions, and that she should not soon be desirous of seeing any more specimens of rustic happiness, but could not believe that all the accounts of primeval pleasures were fabulous, and was in doubt whether life had anything that could be justly preferred to the placid gratification of fields and woods. She hoped that the time would come when with a few virtuous and elegant companions she should gather flowers planted by her own hands, fondle the lambs of her own you, and listen without care among brooks and breezes to one of her maidens reading in the shade. Chapter 20 The Danger of Prosperity On the next day they continued their journey till the heat compelled them to look round for shelter. At a small distance they saw a thick wood, which they no sooner entered than they perceived that they were approaching the habitations of men. The shrubs were diligently cut away to open walks where the shades were darkest. The boughs of opposite trees were artificially interwoven. Seats of flowery turf were raised in vacant spaces, and a rivulet that wantoned along the side of a winding path had its banks sometimes opened into small basins, and its stream sometimes obstructed by little mounds of stone heaped together to increase its murmurs. They passed slowly through the wood, delighted with such unexpected accommodations, and entertained each other with conjecturing what or who he could be that in those rude and unfrequented regions had leisure and art for such harmless luxury. As they advanced they heard the sound of music, and saw youths and virgins dancing in the grove, and going still farther beheld a stately palace built upon a hill surrounded by woods. The laws of eastern hospitality allowed them to enter, and the master welcomed them like a man liberal and wealthy. He was skillful enough in appearances, soon to discern that they were no common guests, and sped his table with magnificence. The eloquence of Imlach caught his attention, and the lofty courtesy of the princess excited his respect. When they offered to depart he entreated their stay, and was the next day more unwilling to dismiss them than before. They were easily persuaded to stop, and civility grew up in time to freedom and confidence. The prince now saw all the domestics cheerful, and all the face of nature smiling round the place, and could not forbear to hope that he should find here what he was seeking. But when he was congratulating the master upon his possessions, he answered with a sigh, my condition has indeed the appearance of happiness, but appearances are delusive. My prosperity puts my life in danger. The Bassa of Egypt is my enemy, incensed only by my wealth and popularity. I have been hitherto protected against him by the princes of the country, but as the favour of the great is uncertain, I know 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 I am prepared to follow them. Then will my enemies riot in my mansion, and enjoy the gardens which I have planted. They all joined in lamenting his danger, and deprecating his exile, and the princess was so much disturbed with the tumult of grief and indignation that she retired to her apartment. They continued with their kind inviter a few days longer, and then went to find the hermit. End of chapter 20. Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazel, near Surrey. Chapters 21 and 22 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson. Chapter 21. The Happiness of Solitude. The Hermits History. They came on the third day by the direction of the peasants to the Hermits cell. It was a cavern in the side of a mountain, overshadowed with palm trees, at such a distance from the cataract that nothing more was heard than a gentle uniform murmur, such as composes the mind to pensive meditation, especially when it was assisted by the wind whistling among the branches. The first rude essay of nature had been so much improved by human labour that the cave contained several apartments appropriated to different uses, and often afforded lodging to travellers whom darkness or tempests happened to overtake. The hermit sat on a bench at the door to enjoy the coolness of the evening. On one side lay a book with pens and paper, on the other mechanical instruments of various kinds. As they approached him unregarded, the princess observed that he had not the countenance of a man that had found, or could teach, the way to happiness. They saluted him with great respect, which he repaid like a man not unaccustomed to the forms of courts. My children, said he, if you have lost your way, you shall be willingly supplied with such conveniences for the night as this cavern will afford. I have all that nature requires, and you will not expect delicacies in a hermit's cell. They thanked him, and entering were pleased with the neatness and regularity of the place. The hermit set flesh and wine before them, though he fed only upon fruits and water. His discourse was cheerful without levity, and pious without enthusiasm. He soon gained the esteem of his guests, and the princess repented her hasty censure. At last Imlach 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 employ your 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 all apparent evil. He will most certainly remove from evil, said the prince, who shall devote himself to that solitude which you have recommended by your example. I have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude, said the hermit, but have no desire that my example should gain any imitators. In my youth I professed arms, and was raised by degrees to the highest military rank. I have traversed wide countries at the head of my troops, and seen many battles and sieges. At last, being disgusted by the preferments of a younger officer, and feeling that my vigor was beginning to decay, I resolved to close my life in peace, having found the world full of snares, discord, and misery. I had once escaped from the pursuit of the enemy by the shelter of this cavern, and therefore chose it for my final residence. I employed artificers to form it into chambers, and stored it with all that I was likely to want. For some time after my retreat I rejoiced like a tempest-beaten sailor at his entrance into the harbour, being delighted with the sudden change of the noise and hurry of war to stillness and repose. When the pleasure of novelty went away, I employed my hours in examining the plants which grow in the valley, and the minerals which I collected from the rocks. But that inquiry is now grown tasteless and irksome. I have been for some time unsettled and distracted. My mind is disturbed with a thousand perplexities of doubt and vanities of imagination, which hourly prevail upon me, because I have no opportunities of relaxation or diversion. I am sometimes ashamed to think that I could not secure myself from vice, but by retiring from the exercise of virtue, and begin to suspect that I was rather impelled by resentment than led by devotion into solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I lament that I have lost so much and gained so little. In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the council and conversation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils with the advantages of society, and resolve to return into the world tomorrow. The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout. They hurt his resolution with surprise, but after a short pause offered to conduct him to Cairo. He dug up a considerable treasure which he had hid among the rocks, and accompanied them to the city, on which, as he approached it, he gazed with rapture. Chapter 22 The Happiness of a Life Led According to Nature Rasilas often went to an assembly of learned men who met at stated times to unbend their minds and compare their opinions. Their manners were somewhat coarse, but their conversation was instructive, and their disputations acute, though sometimes too violent, and often continued to neither controvertist remembered upon what question he began. Some faults were almost general among them. Everyone was pleased to hear the genius or knowledge of another depreciated. In this assembly Rasilas 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 lordably followed. The sentiments of the hearers were various. Some were of the opinion that the folly of his choice had been justly punished by condemnation to perpetual perseverance. One of the youngest among them, with great vehemence, pronounced him a hypocrite. Some talked of the right of society to the labour of individuals, and considered retirement as a desertion of duty. Others readily allowed that there was a time when the claims of the public were satisfied, and when a man might properly sequester himself to review his life and purify his heart. One who appeared more affected with the narrative than the rest thought it likely that the hermit would in a few years go back to his retreat, and perhaps if shame did not restrain or death intercept him return once more from his retreat into the world. For the hope of happiness said he, is so strongly impressed that the longest experience is not able to efface it. Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery. Yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable. But the time will surely come when desire will no longer be our torment, and no man shall be wretched but by his own fault. This, said a philosopher who had heard him with tokens of great impatience, is the present condition of a wise man. The time is already come when none are wretched but by their own fault. Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness which nature has kindly placed within our reach. The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed, which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity. He that lives according to nature will suffer nothing from the delusions of hope or importunities of desire. He will receive and reject with equability of temper, and act or suffer as the reason of things shall alternately prescribe. Other men may have mused themselves with subtle definitions or intricate ratiocination. Let them learn to be wise by easier means. Let them observe the hind of the forest and the limit of the grove. Let them consider the life of animals whose motions are regulated by instinct. They obey their guide and are happy. Let us therefore at length cease to dispute and learn to live. Throw away the encumbrance of precepts which they who utter them with so much pride and pomp do not understand, and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim, that deviation from nature is deviation from happiness. 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, 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. When I find young men so humble and so docile, said the philosopher, I can deny them no information which my studies have enabled me to afford. To live according to nature is to act always with due regard to the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of causes and effects. To concur with the great and unchangeable scheme of universal felicity. To co-operate with the general disposition and tendency of the present system of things. The Prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should understand less as he hurt him longer. He therefore bowed and was silent, and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied and the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the present system. End of chapter 22. Recording by Martin Giesen in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapters 23 to 26 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 23. The Prince and his sister divide between them the work of observation. Rasilas returned home full of reflections, doubting how to direct his future steps. Of the way to happiness he found the learned and simple equally ignorant, but as he was yet young he flattered himself that he had time remaining for more experiments and further inquiries. He communicated to Imlak, his observations and his doubts, but was answered by him with new doubts and remarks that gave him no comfort. He therefore discoursed more frequently and freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope with himself, and always assisted him to give some reason why, though he had been hitherto frustrated, he might succeed at last. We have hitherto, said she, known but little of the world. We have never yet been either great or mean. In our own country, though we had royalty, we had no power, and in this we have not yet seen the private recesses of domestic peace. Imlak favours not our search, lest we should in time find him mistaken. We will divide the task between us. You shall try what is to be found in the splendour of courts, and I will range the shades of humbler life. Perhaps command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as they afford the most opportunities of doing good. Or perhaps what this world can give may be found in the modest habitations of middle fortune, too low for great designs, and too high for penury and distress. Chapter 24 The Prince Examines the Happiness of High Stations Rasilas applauded the design, and appeared next day with a splendid retinue at the court of the Bassa. He was soon distinguished for his magnificence, and admitted as a prince whose curiosity had brought him from distant countries to an intimacy with the great officers, and frequent conversation with the Bassa himself. He was at first inclined to believe that the man must be pleased with his own condition, whom all approached with reverence and heard with obedience, and who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom. There can be no pleasure, said he, equal to that of feeling at once the joy of thousands, all made happy by wise administration. Yet, since by the law of subordination this sublime delight can be in one nation but the lot of one, it is surely reasonable to think that there is some satisfaction more popular and accessible, and that millions can hardly be subjected to the will of a single man only to fill his particular breast with incommunicable content. These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no solution of the difficulty. But as presence and civilities gained him more familiarity, he found that almost every man who stood high in his employment hated all the rest, and was hated by them, and that their lives were a continual succession of plots and detections, stratigems 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. 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 Rasilas to his sister. Is it without efficacy to good, or is the subordinate degree only dangerous, and the supreme safe and glorious? Is the Sultan the only happy man in his dominions, or is the Sultan himself subject to the torments of suspicion and the dread of enemies? In a short time the second Bassa was deposed. The Sultan that had advanced him was murdered by the Janissaries, and his successor had other views or different favourites. Chapter 25 The Princess Pursues Her Inquiry With More Diligence Than Success The princess in the meantime insinuated herself into many families, for there are few doors through which liberality, joined with good humour, cannot find its way. The daughters of many houses were airy and cheerful, but Nikhaya had been too long accustomed to the conversation of Imlak and her brother to be much pleased with childish levity and prattle, which had no meaning. She found their thoughts narrow, their wishes low, and their merriment often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as they were, could not be preserved pure, but were embittered by petty competitions and worthless emulation. They were always jealous of the beauty of each other, of a quality to which solicitude can add nothing, and from which detraction can take nothing away. Many were in love with triflers like themselves, and many fancied that they were in love when in truth they were only idle. Their affection was not fixed on sense or virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in vexation. Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient. Everything floated in their mind, unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way to another, as a second stone cast into the water effaces and confounds the circles of the first. With these girls she played as with inoffensive animals, and found them proud of her countenance and 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, often courted her to partake their pleasure. The princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in a private summer-house on the banks of the Nile, and related to each other the occurrences of the day. As they were sitting together the princess cast her eyes upon the river that flowed before her. Answer, said she, great father of waters, thou that rollest thy goods through 80 nations to the invocations of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me if thou waterest through all thy course a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint. You are then, said Rasilas, not more successful in private houses than I have been in courts. I have, since the last partition of our provinces, said the princess, enabled myself to enter familiarly into many families where there was the fairest show of prosperity and peace, and know not one house that is not haunted by some fury that destroys their quiet. I did not seek ease among the poor, because I concluded that there it could not be found. But I saw many poor whom I had supposed to live in affluence. Poverty has in large cities very different appearances. It is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedience, 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 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 gratitude or the hope of other favours. Chapter 26 The Princess Continues Her Remarks Upon Private Life Nikaia perceiving her brother's attention fixed, proceeded in her narrative. In families where there is or is not poverty there is commonly discord. If a kingdom be, as Imlak tells us, a great family, a family likewise is a little kingdom, torn with factions, and exposed to revolutions. An unpracticed observer expects the love of parents and children to be constant and equal. But this kindness seldom continues beyond the years of infancy. In a short time the children become rivals to their parents. Benefits are allayed by reproaches and gratitude debased by envy. Parents and children seldom act in concert. Each child endeavours to appropriate the esteem or the fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children. Thus some place their confidence in the father, and some in the mother, and by degrees the house is filled with artifices and feuds. The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the old, are naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope and despondency, of expectation and experience, without crime or folly on either side. The colours of life in youth and age appear different, as the face of nature in spring and winter. And how can children credit the assertions of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false? Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives. The old man trusts wholly to slow contrivance and gradual progression. The youth expects to force his way by genius, vigor and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the young reverence is virtue. The old man deifies prudence. The youth commits himself to magnanimity and chance. The young man who intends no ill believes that none is intended, and therefore acts with openness and candour. But his father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to suspect and too often allured to practice it. Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age. Thus parents and children, for the greatest part, live on to love less and less. And if those whom nature has thus closely united are the torments of each other, where shall we look for tenderness and consolations? Surely, said the Prince, you must have been unfortunate in your choice of acquaintance. I am unwilling to believe that the most tender of all relations is thus impeded in its effects by natural necessity. Domestic discord, answered she, is not inevitably and fatally necessary, but yet it is not easily avoided. We seldom see that a whole family is virtuous. The good and the evil cannot well agree, and the evil can yet less agree with one another. Even the virtuous fall sometimes to variance, when their virtues are of different kinds and tending to extremes. In general those parents have most reverence who most deserve it, for he that lives well cannot be despised. Many other evils infest private life. Some are the slaves of servants whom they have trusted with their affairs. Some are kept in continual anxiety by the caprice of rich relations, whom they cannot please and dare not offend. Some husbands are imperious, and some wives perverse. And as it is always more easy to do evil than good, though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one makes many miserable. 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. I have met, said the Princess, with many who live single for that reason, but I have never found that their prudence ought to raise envy. They dream away their time without friendship, without fondness, and are driven to rid themselves of the day for which they have no use by childish amusements or vicious delights. They act as beings under the constant sense of some known inferiority that fills their minds with rancour and their tongues with censure. They are peevish at home and malevolent abroad, and as the outlaws of human nature make it their business and their pleasure to disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude. It is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. What then is to be done? said Rasilas. The more we inquire, the less we can resolve. Surely he is most likely to please himself that has no other inclination to regard. End of chapter 26. Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey. Chapters 27 and 28 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson. Chapter 27. Disquisition upon Greatness. The conversation had a short pause. The Prince, having considered his sister's observation, told her that she had surveyed life with prejudice, and supposed misery where she did not find it. Your narrative, says he, throws yet a darker gloom upon the prospects of futurity. The predictions of Imlak were but faint sketches of the evils painted by Nikhaya. I have been lately convinced that quiet is not the daughter of grandeur or of power, that her presence is not to be bought by wealth, nor enforced by conquest. It is evident that as any man acts in a wider compass he must be more exposed to opposition from enmity or miscarriage from chance. Whoever has many to please or to govern must use the ministry of many agents, some of whom will be wicked and some ignorant. By some he will be misled, and by others betrayed. If he gratifies one he will offend another. Those that are not favoured will think themselves injured, and since favours can be conferred, but upon few the greater number will be always discontented. The discontent, said the princess, which is thus unreasonable, I hope that I shall always have spirit to despise, and you power to repress. Discontent, answered Rasilas, will not always be without reason under the most just and vigilant administration of public affairs. None, however attentive, can always discover that merit which indigence or faction may happen to obscure, and none, however powerful, can always reward it. Yet he that sees inferior dessert advanced above him will naturally impute that preference to partiality or caprice, and indeed it can scarcely be hoped that any man, however magnanimous by nature or exalted by condition, will be able to persist forever in fixed and inexorable justice of distribution. He will sometimes indulge his own affections, and sometimes those of his favourites. He will permit some to please him who can never serve him. He will discover in those whom he loves qualities which in reality they do not possess, and to those from whom he receives pleasure he will in his turn endeavour to give it. Thus will recommendations sometimes prevail which were purchased by money, or by the more destructive bribery of flattery and civility. He that hath much to do will do something wrong, and of that wrong must suffer the consequences, and if it were possible that he should always act rightly. Yet when such numbers are to judge of his conduct, the bad will censure and obstruct him by malevolence, and the good sometimes by mistake. The highest stations cannot therefore hope to be the abodes of happiness, which I would willingly believe to have fled from thrones and palaces to seats of humble privacy and placid obscurity. For what can hinder the satisfaction or intercept the expectations of him whose abilities are adequate to his employments, who sees with his own eyes the whole circuit of his influence, who chooses by his own knowledge all whom he trusts, and whom none are tempted to deceive by hope or fear? Surely he has nothing to do but to love and to be loved, to be virtuous and to be happy. Whether perfect happiness would be procured by perfect goodness, said Nikhaya, this world will never afford an opportunity of deciding. But this at least may be maintained, that we do not always find visible happiness in proportion to visible virtue. All natural and almost all political evils are incidental like to the bad and good. They are confounded in the misery of a famine, and not much distinguished in the fury of a faction. They sink together in a tempest, and are driven together from their country by invaders. All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience, and a steady prospect of a happy estate. This may enable us to endure calamity with patience. But remember that patience must oppose pain. Chapter 28. Rassilas and Nikhaya Continue Their Conversation Dear Princess, said Rassilas, you fall into the common errors of exaggeratory declamation by producing in a familiar disquisition examples of national calamities and scenes of extensive misery which are found in books rather than in the world, and which as they are hoarded are ordained to be rare. Let us not imagine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life by misrepresentations. I cannot bear that quarrelous eloquence which threatens every city with a siege like that of Jerusalem, that makes famine attend on every flight of a locust, 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 happen they must be endured. But it is evident that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt. Thousands and tens of thousands flourish in youth and wither in age without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them. While courts are disturbed with intestine competitions and ambassadors are negotiating in foreign countries, the smith still plies his anvil, and the husbandment drives his plow forward. The necessaries of life are required and obtained, and the successive business of the season continues to make its won'ted revolutions. Let us cease to consider what perhaps may never happen, and what, when it shall happen, will laugh at human speculation. We will not endeavour to modify the motions of the elements or to fix the destiny of kingdoms. It is our business to consider what beings like us may perform, each laboring for his own happiness, by promoting within his circle, however narrow, the happiness of others. Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature. Men and women were made to be the companions of each other, and therefore I cannot be persuaded but that marriage is one of the means of happiness. I know not, said the princess, whether marriage be more than one of the innumerable modes of human misery. When I see and reckon the various forms of cannubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of lasting discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of opinion, the rude collisions of contrary desire where both are urged by violent impulses, the obstinate contest of disagreeing virtues where both are supported by consciousness of good intention. I am sometimes disposed to think with the severe acasioists of most nations that marriage is rather permitted than approved, and that none but by the instigation of a passion too much indulged entangle themselves with indissoluble compact. You seem to forget, replied Rasilas, that you have even now represented celibacy as less happy than marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they cannot both be worse. Thus it happens when wrong opinions are entertained that they mutually destroy each other and leave the mind open to truth. I did not expect, answered the princess, to hear that imputed to falsehood which is the consequence only of frailty. To the mind as to the eye it is difficult to compare with exactness objects vast in their extent and various in their parts. When we see or conceive the whole at once we readily note the discriminations and decide the preference, but of two systems of which neither can be surveyed by any human being in its full compass of magnitude and multiplicity of complication. Where is the wonder that's judging of the whole by parts? I am alternately affected by one and the other as either presses on my memory or fancy. We differ from ourselves just as we differ from each other when we see only part of the question as in the multifarious relations of politics and morality, but when we perceive the whole at once as in numerical computations all agree in one judgment and none ever varies in his opinion. Let us not add, said the prince, to the other evils of life the bitterness of controversy, nor endeavour to vie with each other in subtleties of argument. We are employed in a search of which both are equally to enjoy the success or suffer by the miscarriage. It is therefore fit that we assist each other. You surely conclude too hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its institution. Will not the misery of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of heaven? The world must be peopled by marriage or peopled without it. How the world is to be peopled, returned Nicaiah, is not my care and need not be yours. I see no danger that the present generation should omit to leave successors behind them. We are not now inquiring for the world, but for ourselves. Chapters 29 and 30 of Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Geeson. Rasilas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson. Chapter 29 The debate on marriage continued. The good of the whole, says Rasilas, is the same with the good of all its parts. If marriage be best for mankind, it must be evidently best for individuals, or a permanent and necessary duty must be the cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed to the convenience of others. In the estimate which you have made of the two states, it appears that the incomodities of a single life are in a great measure necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal state accidental and avoidable. I cannot forbear to flatter myself that prudence and benevolence will make marriage happy. The general folly of mankind is the cause of general complaint. What can be expected but disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in the ardour of desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment? Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden, meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had concealed. They wear out life in altercations and charge nature with cruelty. From those early marriages proceeds likewise the rivalry of parents and children. The son is eager to enjoy the world before the father is willing to forsake it, and there is hardly rum 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. Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deliberation and delay, which prudence prescribes to irrevocable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful pleasures life may be well enough supported without the help of a partner. Longer time will increase experience, and wider views will allow better opportunities of inquiry and selection. One advantage at least will be certain, the parents will be visibly older than their children. What reason cannot collect, said Nikaia, and what experiment has not yet taught can be known only from the report of others. I have been told that late marriages are not eminently happy. This is a question too important to be neglected, and I have often proposed it to those whose accuracy of remark and comprehensiveness of knowledge made their suffragies worthy of regard. They have generally determined that it is dangerous for a man and a woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when opinions are fixed and habits are established. When friendships have been contracted on both sides, when life has been planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own prospects, it is scarcely possible that two travelling through the world under the conduct of chance should have been both directed to the same path, and it will not often happen that either will quit the track which custom has made pleasing. When the desultory levity of youth has settled into regularity, it is soon succeeded by pride ashamed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to contend, and even though mutual esteem produces mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies unchangeably the external mean, determines likewise the direction of the passions, and gives an inflexible rigidity to the manners. Long customs are not easily broken. He that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labours in vain. And how shall we do that for others which we are seldom able to do for ourselves? But surely, interposed the Prince, you suppose the chief motive of choice, forgotten or neglected. Whenever I shall seek a wife it shall be my first question, whether she be willing to be led by reason. Thus it is, said Nikhaya, that philosophers are deceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide, questions that elude investigation, and make logic ridiculous, cases where something must be done, and where little can be said. Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed to act upon any occasions, whether small or great, with all the reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute details of a domestic day. Those who marry at an advanced age will probably escape the encroachments of their children, but in the diminution of this advantage they will be likely to leave them ignorant and helpless to a guardian's mercy. Or if that should not happen, they must at least go out of the world before they see those whom they love best, either wise or great. From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose without equivalent the joys of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies, by continual attrition, can form their surfaces to each other. I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased with their children, and those who marry early with their partners. The union of these two affections, said Rasilas, 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 favour of the position so often uttered by the mouth of Imlak, 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 the other. There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but by too much prudence may pass between them at too great a distance to reach, either. This is often the fate of long consideration. He does nothing who endeavours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before you, make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring. No man can at the same time fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile. Chapter 30 Imlak enters and changes the conversation. Here Imlak entered and interrupted them. Imlak, said Rasilas, I have been taking from the princess the dismal history of private life, and am almost discouraged from further search. It seems to me, said Imlak, that while you are making the choice of life, you neglect to live. You wander about a single city which, however large and diversified, can now afford few novelties, and forget that you are in a country famous among the earliest monarchies for the power and wisdom of its inhabitants, a country where the science is first dawned that illuminates the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be traced of civil society or domestic life. The old Egyptians have left behind them monuments of industry and power before which all European magnificence is confessed to fade away. The ruins of their architecture are the schools of modern builders, and from the wonders which time has spared we may conjecture though uncertainly what it has destroyed. My curiosity, said Rasilas, does not very strongly lead me to survey piles of stone or mounds of earth. My business is with man. I came hither not to measure fragments of temples or trace choked aqueducts, but to look upon the various scenes of the present world. The things that are now before us, said the Princess, require attention and deserve it. What have I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient times, with times which can never return, and heroes whose form of life was different from all that the present condition of mankind requires or allows? To know anything, returned the poet, we must know its effects, to see men we must see their works, that we may learn what reason has dictated or passion has excited, and find what are the most powerful motives of action. To judge rightly of the present, we must oppose it to the past, for all judgment is comparative, and of the future nothing can be known. The truth is that no mind is much employed upon the present. Recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments. Our passions are joy and grief, love and hatred, hope and fear. Of joy and grief, the past is the object, and the future of hope and fear. Even love and hatred respect the past, for the cause must have been before the effect. The present state of things is the consequence of the former, and it is natural to inquire what were the sources of the good that we enjoy, or the evils that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the study of history is not prudent. If we are entrusted with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal, and he may properly be charged with evil, who refused to learn how he might prevent it. There is no part of history so generally useful as that which relates to the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking beings, the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglected. Those who have kingdoms to govern have understandings to cultivate. Example is always more efficacious than precept. A soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy pictures. In this contemplative life has the advantage. Great actions are seldom seen, but the labours of art are always at hand for those who desire to know what art has been able to perform. When the eye or the imagination is struck with any uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed. Here begins the true use of such contemplation. We enlarge our comprehension by new ideas, and perhaps recover some art lost to mankind, or learn what is less perfectly known in our own country. At least we compare our own with former times, and either rejoice at our improvements, or what is the first motion towards good discover our defects. I am willing, said the prince, to see all that can deserve my search. And I, said the princess, shall rejoice to learn something of the manners of antiquity. The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness, and one of the most bulky works of manual industry, said Imlak, are the pyramids. Fabrics raised before the time of history, and of which the earliest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. Of these, the greatest is still standing, very little injured by time. Let us visit them to-morrow, said Nikhaya. I have often heard of the pyramids, and shall not rest till I have seen them, within and without, with my own eyes. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Martin Giesen. Rassilas, Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson. Chapter 31. 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 everything remarkable, stopped from time to time, and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed the various appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated nature. When they came to the Great Pyramid, they were astonished at the extent of the base and the height of the top. Imlak explained to them the principles upon which the pyramidal form was chosen for a fabric intended to co-extend its duration with that of the world. He showed that its gradual diminution gave it such stability as defeated all the common attacks of the elements, and could scarcely be overthrown by earthquakes themselves, the least resistable of natural violence. A concussion that should shatter the pyramid would threaten the dissolution of the continent. They measured all its dimensions and pitched their tents at its foot. Next day they prepared to enter its interior apartments, and having hired the common guides, climbed up to the first passage, when the favourite of the princess, looking into the cavity, stepped back and trembled. Pekua said the princess of what art thou afraid? Of the narrow entrance, answered the lady, and of the dreadful gloom, I dare not enter a place which must surely be inhabited by unquiet souls. The original possessors of these dreadful vaults will start up before us, and perhaps shut us in for ever. She spoke, and threw her arms round the neck of her mistress. If all your fear be of apparitions, said the prince, I will promise you safety. There is no danger from the dead. He that is once buried will be seen no more. That the dead are seen no more, said Imlach, I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent and unvary testimony of all ages and of all nations. There is no people rude or learned among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth. Those that never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by single cavalers can very little weaken the general evidence, and some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears. Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which have already seized upon Pekua. There can be no reason why spectres should haunt the pyramid more than other places, or why they should have power or will to hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no violation of their privileges. We can take nothing from them. How then can we offend them? My dear Pekua, said the Princess, I will always go before you, and Imlach shall follow you. Remember that you are the companion of the Princess of Abyssinia. If the Princess is pleased that her servant should die, returned the Lady, let her command some death less dreadful than enclosure in this horrid cavern. You know I dare not disobey you. I must go if you command me. But if I once enter, I shall never come back. The Princess saw that her fear was too strong for expostulation or reproof, and embracing her, told her that she should stay in the tent till their return. Pekua was not yet satisfied, but entreated the Princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose as that of entering the recesses of the pyramids. Though I cannot teach courage, said Nikaia, I must not learn cowardice, nor leave at last undone what I came hither only to do. Chapter 32. They enter the pyramid. Pekua descended to the tents, and the rest entered the pyramid. They passed through the galleries, surveyed the vaults of marble, and examined the chest in which the body of the founder is supposed to have been deposited. They then sat down in one of the most spacious chambers to rest a while before they attempted to return. We have now, said Imlak, gratified our minds with an exact view of the greatest work of man, except the Wall of China. Of the Wall it is very easy to assign the motive. It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of barbarians, whose unskillfulness in the arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by raping than by industry, and who from time to time poured in upon the inhabitants of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious. But for the pyramids no reason has ever been given adequate to the cost and labour of the work. The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures might have been deposited at far less expense with equal security. It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon life, and must always be appeased by some employment. Those who have already all that they can enjoy must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use till use is supplied must begin to build for vanity, and extend his plan to the utmost power of human performance, that he may not be soon reduced to form another wish. I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyment. A king whose power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all real and imaginary wants is compelled to solace by the erection of a pyramid the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness of declining life by seeing thousands laboring without end, and one stone for no purpose laid upon another. Whoever thou art that not content with a moderate condition imagineest 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. Chapter 33 The Princess Meets with an Unexpected Misfortune They rose up and returned through the cavity at which they had entered, and the princess prepared for her favourite a long narrative of dark labyrinths and costly rooms, and of the different impressions which the varieties of the way had made upon her. But when they came to their train, they found everyone 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 conjecture, but immediately inquired. You had scarcely entered into the pyramid, said one of the attendants, when a troop of Arabs rushed upon us, we were too few to resist them, and too slow to escape. They were about to search the tents, set us on our camels, and drive us along before them, when the approach of some Turkish horsemen put them to flight. But they seized the Lady Pecua 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. The princess was overpowered with surprise and grief. Rasulas, 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. Sa said Imlak, what can you hope from violence or valour? The Arabs are mounted on horses trained to battle and retreat. We have only beasts of burden. By leaving our present station, we may lose the princess, but cannot hope to regain Pecua. In a short time, the Turks returned, having not been able to reach the enemy. The princess burst out into new lamentations, and Rasulas could scarcely forbear to reproach them with cowardice. But Imlak 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. Rasulas, Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson Chapter 34 They Returned to Cairo Without Pecua 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 guard, imagining many expedience by which the loss of Pecua might have been prevented, and resolving to do something for her recovery, though none could find anything proper to be done. Nikaia retired to her chamber, where her women attempted to comfort her by telling her that all had their troubles, and that Lady Pecua had enjoyed much happiness in the world for a long time, and might reasonably expect a change of fortune. They hoped that some good would befall her, wheresoever she was, and that their mistress would find another friend who might supply her place. The princess made them no answer, and they continued the form of condolence, not much grieved in their hearts that the favourit was lost. Next day the prince presented to the Bassa a memorial of the wrong which he had suffered, and a petition for redress. The Bassa threatened to punish the robbers, but did not attempt to catch them, nor indeed could any account or description be given by which he might direct the pursuit. It soon appeared that nothing would be done by authority. Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the petitioner. Imlach then endeavoured to gain some intelligence by private agents. He found many who pretended to an exact knowledge of all the haunts of the Arabs, and to regular correspondence with their chiefs, and who readily undertook the recovery of Pequah. Of these some were furnished with money for their journey, and came back no more. Some were liberally paid for accounts which a few days discovered to be false, but the princess would not suffer any means, however improbable, to be left untried. While she was doing something, she kept her hope alive. As one expedient failed, another was suggested. When one messenger returned unsuccessful, another was dispatched to a different quarter. Two months had now passed, and of Pequah nothing had been heard. The hopes which they had endeavoured to raise in each other grew more languid, and the princess, when she saw nothing more to be tried, sunk down inconsolable in hopeless dejection. A thousand times she reproached herself with the easy compliance by which she permitted her favourite to stay behind her. Had not my fondness, said she, lessened my authority, Pequah had not dared to talk of her terrors. She ought to have feared me more than spectres. A severe look would have overpowered her. A peremptory command would have compelled obedience. Why did foolish indulgence prevail upon me? Why did I not speak and refuse to hear? Great Princess, said Imlach, do not reproach yourself for your virtue, or consider that as blamable by which evil has accidentally been caused. Your tenderness for the timidity of Pequah was generous and kind. When we act according to our duty, we commit the events to him by whose laws our actions are governed, and who will suffer none to be finally punished for obedience. When in prospect of some good, whether natural or moral, we break the rules prescribed us, we withdraw from the direction of superior wisdom, and take all consequences upon ourselves. Man cannot so far know the connection of causes and events, as that he may venture to do wrong in order to do right. When we pursue our end by lawful means, we may always console our miscarriage by the hope of future recompense. When we consult only our own policy, and attempt to find a nearer way to good by over-leaping the settled boundaries of right and wrong, we cannot be happy even by success, because we cannot escape the consciousness of our fault. But if we miscarry, the disappointment is irremediably embittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him who feels at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexation of calamity which guilt has brought upon him. Consider, Princess, what would have been your condition if the Lady Pequah 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 died before you in agonies of terror? Had either happened, said Nikaiah, I could not have endured life till now. I should have been tortured to madness by the remembrance of such cruelty, or must have pined away in abhorrence of myself. This, at least, said Imlach, is the present reward of virtuous conduct, that no unlucky consequence can oblige us to repent it. CHAPTER 35 THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEQUAH Nikaiah, 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 tranquility. She sat from morning to evening, recollecting all that had been done or said by her Pequah, treasured up with care every trifle on which Pequah had set an accidental value, and which might recall to mind any little incident or careless conversation. The sentiments of her, whom she now expected to see no more, were treasured in her memory as rules of life, and she deliberated to no other end than to conjecture on any occasion what would have been the opinion and counsel of Pequah. The women by whom she was attended knew nothing of her real condition, and therefore she could not talk to them but with caution and reserve. She began to remit her curiosity, having no great desire to collect notions which she had no convenience of uttering. Rasilas endeavoured first to comfort and afterwards to divert her. He hired musicians to whom she seemed to listen, but did not hear them, and procured masters to instruct her in various arts, whose lectures, when they visited her again, were again to be repeated. She had lost her taste of pleasure and her ambition of excellence, and her mind, though forced into short excursions, always recurred to the image of her friend. Imlach was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew his inquiries, and was asked every night whether he had yet heard of Pequah. Till not being able to return the princess the answer that she desired, he was less and less willing to come into her presence. She observed his backwardness, and commanded him to attend her. You are not, said she, to confound impatience with resentment, or to suppose that I charge you with negligence, because I repine at your unsuccessfulness. I do not much wonder at your absence. I know that the unhappy are never pleasing, and that all naturally avoid the contagion of misery. To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy, for who would cloud by adventitious grief the short gleams of gaiety which life allows us, or who that is struggling under his own evils will add to them the miseries of another. The time is at hand when none shall be disturbed any longer by the size of negaya. My search after happiness is now at an end. I am resolved to retire from the world, with all its flatteries and deceits, and will hide myself in solitude, without any other care than to compose my thoughts, and regulate my hours by a constant succession of innocent occupations, till with a mind purified from earthly desires I shall enter into that state to which all are hastening, and in which I hope again to enjoy the friendship of pekua. Do not entangle your mind, said Imlak, by irrevocable determinations, nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary accumulation of misery. The weariness of retirement will continue to increase when the loss of pekua is forgot. That you have been deprived of one pleasure is no very good reason for the rejection of the rest. Since pekua was taken from me, said the princess, I have no pleasure to reject or to retain. She that has no one to love or trust has little to hope. She wants the radical principle of happiness. We may perhaps allow that what satisfaction this world can afford must arise from the conjunction of wealth, knowledge, and goodness. Wealth is nothing but as it is bestowed, and knowledge nothing but as it is communicated. They must therefore be imparted to others, and to whom could I now delight to impart them? Goodness affords the only comfort which can be enjoyed without a partner, and goodness may be practised in retirement. How far solitude may admit goodness or advance it, I shall not, replied Imlak, dispute at present. Remember the confession of the pious hermit. You will wish to return into the world when the image of your companion has left your thoughts. That time, said Nikhaya, will never come. The generous frankness, the modest obsequiousness, and the faithful secrecy of my dear pekua will always be more missed as I shall live longer to see vice and folly. The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity, said Imlak, is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the new created earth, who, when the first night came upon them, supposed that day would never return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled. Yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiving comfort, do as the savages would have done had they put out their eyes when it was dark. Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux. Something is hourly lost, and something acquired. To lose much at once is inconvenient to either, but while the vital power remains uninjured, nature will find the means of reparation. Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude. Do not suffer life to stagnate. It will grow muddy for want of motion. Commit yourself again to the current of the world. Pekua 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 remedies have been tried. The inquiry after the unfortunate lady is still continued, and shall be carried on with yet greater diligence, on condition that you will promise to wait a year for the event, without any unalterable resolution. Nikaia thought this a reasonable demand, and made the promise to her brother, who had been obliged by Imlak to require it. Imlak had indeed no great hope of regaining Pekua, but he supposed that if he could secure the interval of a year, the Princess would be then in no danger of a cloister. Chapter 36 Pekua is still remembered. The progress of sorrow. Nikaia, 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 imperceptibly to return to common cares and common pleasures. She rejoiced without her own consent at the suspension of her sorrows, and sometimes caught herself with indignation in the act of turning away her mind from the remembrance of her whom she yet resolved never to forget. She then appointed a certain hour of the day for meditation on the merits and fondness of Pekua, and for some weeks retired constantly at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes swollen, and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew less scrupulous, and suffered any important and pressing avocation to delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less occasions, and sometimes forgot what she was indeed afraid to remember, and at last wholly released herself from the duty of periodical affliction. Her real love of Pekua was not yet diminished. A thousand occurrences brought her back to memory, and a thousand wants, which nothing but the confidence of friendship can supply, made her frequently regretted. She therefore solicited Imlak never to desist from inquiry, and to leave no art of intelligence untried, that at least she might have the comfort of knowing that she did not suffer by negligence or sluggishness. Yet what, said she, is to be expected from our pursuit of happiness when we find the state of life to be such that happiness itself is the cause of misery? Why should we endeavour to attain that of which the possession cannot be secured? I shall henceforward fear to yield my heart to excellence, however bright, or to fondness, however tender, lest I should lose again what I have lost in Pekua. Chapter 37 The Princess hears news of Pekua 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 border of Nubia, with an account that Pekua was in the hands of an Arab chief who possessed a castle or fortress on the extremity of Egypt. The Arab, whose revenue was plunder, was willing to restore her with her two attendants for two hundred ounces of gold. The price was no subject of debate. The princess was in ecstasies when she heard that her favourite was alive, and might so cheaply be ransomed. She could not think of delaying for a moment Pekua's happiness or her own, but entreated her brother to send back the messenger with the sum required. Imlak, being consulted, was not very confident of the veracity of the relator, and was still more doubtful of the Arab's faith, who might, if he were too liberally trusted, detain at once the money and the captives. He thought it dangerous to put themselves in the power of the Arab by going into his district, and could not 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. It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust, but Imlak, after some deliberation, directed the messenger to propose that Pekua 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, Imlak went forward with the former messenger to the Arab's fortress. Rasselas was desirous to go with them, but neither his sister nor Imlak 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 Pekua 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 favourite embraced each other with transport too violent to be expressed, and went out together to pour the tears of tenderness in secret, and exchanged professions of kindness and gratitude. After a few hours, they returned into the refectory of the convent, where in the presence of the prior and his brethren, the prince required of Pekua the history of her adventures. End of Chapter 37 Recording by Martin Geeson in Hazelmere Surrey