Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
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 Imlac, “with more and more frequency, and was every
time more enamoured of his conversation; he was sublime without
haughtiness, courteous without formality, and communicative without
ostentation. I was at first, great Princess, of your opinion, thought
him the happiest of mankind, and often congratulated him on the blessing
that he enjoyed. He seemed to hear nothing with indifference but the
praises of his condition, to which he always returned a general answer,
and diverted the conversation to some other topic.
“Amidst this willingness to be pleased and labour to please, I had
quickly reason to imagine that some painful sentiment pressed upon his
mind. He often looked up earnestly towards the sun, and let his voice
fall in the midst of his discourse. He would sometimes, when we were
alone, gaze upon me in silence with the air of a man who longed to speak
what he was yet resolved to suppress. He would often send for me with
vehement injunction of haste, though when I came to him he had nothing
extraordinary to say; and sometimes, when I was leaving him, would call
me back, pause a few moments, and then dismiss me.”
CHAPTER XLI
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 awhile silent in the dark, and
then he addressed himself to me in these words: ‘Imlac, I have long
considered thy friendship as the greatest blessing of my life. Integrity
without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is
dangerous and dreadful. I have found in thee all the qualities requisite
for trust—benevolence, experience, and fortitude. I have long discharged
an office which I must soon quit at the call of Nature, and shall rejoice
in the hour of imbecility and pain to devolve it upon thee.’
“I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and protested that whatever
could conduce to his happiness would add likewise to mine.
“‘Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty 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 XLII
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 infirmities of age
increase upon me, and the time will soon come when the regulator of the
year must mingle with the dust. The care of appointing a successor has
long disturbed me; 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 XLIII
THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.
“‘HEAR, therefore, what I shall impart with attention, such as the
welfare of a world requires. If the task of a king be considered as
difficult, who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he cannot do
much good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him on whom depends the
action of the elements and the great gifts of light and heat? Hear me,
therefore, with attention.
“‘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 cheerfully
bequeath the inheritance of the sun.’”
The Prince heard this narration with very serious regard; but the
Princess smiled, and Pekuah convulsed herself with laughter. “Ladies,”
said Imlac, “to mock the heaviest of human afflictions is neither
charitable nor wise. Few can attain this man’s knowledge and few
practise his virtues, but all may suffer his calamity. Of the
uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the
uncertain continuance of reason.”
The Princess was recollected, and the favourite was abashed. Rasselas,
more deeply affected, inquired of Imlac whether he thought such maladies
of the mind frequent, and how they were contracted.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE DANGEROUS PREVALENCE OF IMAGINATION.
“DISORDERS of intellect,” answered Imlac, “happen much more often than
superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps if we speak with
rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man
whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason who can
regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and
go at his command. No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do
not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits
of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason is a degree of
insanity, but while this power is such as we can control and repress it
is not visible to others, nor considered as any deprivation of the mental
faculties; it is not pronounced madness but when it becomes ungovernable,
and apparently influences speech or action.
“To indulge the power of fiction and send imagination out upon the wing
is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent speculation.
When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour of excogitation is
too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give way
to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing external that can divert him
must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he
is not; for who is pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in
boundless futurity, and culls from all imaginable conditions that which
for the present moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with
impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion.
The mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all
combinations, and riots in delights which Nature and fortune, with all
their bounty, cannot bestow.
“In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all other