Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
imbecility of age. We are long before we are able to think, and we soon
cease from the power of acting. The true period of human existence may
be reasonably estimated at forty years, of which I have mused away the
four-and-twentieth part. What I have lost was certain, for I have
certainly possessed it; but of twenty months to come, who can assure me?”
The consciousness of his own folly pierced him deeply, and he was long
before he could be reconciled to himself. “The rest of my time,” said
he, “has been lost by the crime or folly of my ancestors, and the absurd
institutions of my country; I remember it with disgust, yet without
remorse: but the months that have passed since new light darted into my
soul, since I formed a scheme of reasonable felicity, have been
squandered by my own fault. I have lost that which can never be
restored; I have seen the sun rise and set for twenty months, an idle
gazer on the light of heaven; in this time the birds have left the nest
of their mother, and committed themselves to the woods and to the skies;
the kid has forsaken the teat, and learned by degrees to climb the rocks
in quest of independent sustenance. I only have made no advances, but am
still helpless and ignorant. The moon, by more than twenty changes,
admonished me of the flux of life; the stream that rolled before my feet
upbraided my inactivity. I sat feasting on intellectual luxury,
regardless alike of the examples of the earth and the instructions of the
planets. Twenty months are passed: who shall restore them?”
These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind; he passed four months
in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves, and was awakened to
more vigorous exertion by hearing a maid, who had broken a porcelain cup,
remark that what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
This was obvious; and Rasselas reproached himself that he had not
discovered it—having not known, or not considered, how many useful hints
are obtained by chance, and how often the mind, hurried by her own ardour
to distant views, neglects the truths that lie open before her. He for a
few hours regretted his regret, and from that time bent his whole mind
upon the means of escaping from the Valley of Happiness.
CHAPTER V
THE PRINCE MEDITATES HIS ESCAPE.
HE now found that it would be very difficult to effect that which it was
very easy to suppose effected. When he looked round about him, he saw
himself confined by the bars of nature, which had never yet been broken,
and by the gate through which none that had once passed it were ever able
to return. He was now impatient as an eagle in a grate. He passed week
after week in clambering the mountains to see if there was any aperture
which the bushes might conceal, but found all the summits inaccessible by
their prominence. The iron gate he despaired to open for it was not only
secured with all the power of art, but was always watched by successive
sentinels, and was, by its position, exposed to the perpetual observation
of all the inhabitants.
He then examined the cavern through which the waters of the lake were
discharged; and, looking down at a time when the sun shone strongly upon
its mouth, he discovered it to be full of broken rocks, which, though
they permitted the stream to flow through many narrow passages, would
stop any body of solid bulk. He returned discouraged and dejected; but
having now known the blessing of hope, resolved never to despair.
In these fruitless researches he spent ten months. The time, however,
passed cheerfully away—in the morning he rose with new hope; in the
evening applauded his own diligence; and in the night slept soundly after
his fatigue. He met a thousand amusements, which beguiled his labour and
diversified his thoughts. He discerned the various instincts of animals
and properties of plants, and found the place replete with wonders, of
which he proposed to solace himself with the contemplation if he should
never be able to accomplish his flight—rejoicing that his endeavours,
though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him with a source of inexhaustible
inquiry. But his original curiosity was not yet abated; he resolved to
obtain some knowledge of the ways of men. His wish still continued, but
his hope grew less. He ceased to survey any longer the walls of his
prison, and spared to search by new toils for interstices which he knew
could not be found, yet determined to keep his design always in view, and
lay hold on any expedient that time should offer.
CHAPTER VI
A DISSERTATION ON THE ART OF FLYING.
AMONG the artists that had been allured into the Happy Valley, to labour
for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man eminent
for his knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had contrived many engines
both of use and recreation. By a wheel which the stream turned he forced
the water into a tower, whence it was distributed to all the apartments
of the palace. He erected a pavilion in the garden, around which he kept
the air always cool by artificial showers. One of the groves,
appropriated to the ladies, was ventilated by fans, to which the rivulets
that ran through it gave a constant motion; and instruments of soft music
were played at proper distances, of which some played by the impulse of
the wind, and some by the power of the stream.
This artist was sometimes visited by Rasselas who was pleased with every
kind of knowledge, imagining that the time would come when all his
acquisitions should be of use to him in the open world. He came one day
to amuse himself in his usual manner, and found the master busy in
building a sailing chariot. He saw that the design was practicable upon
a level surface, and with expressions of great esteem solicited its
completion. The workman was pleased to find himself so much regarded by
the Prince, and resolved to gain yet higher honours. “Sir,” said he,
“you have seen but a small part of what the mechanic sciences can
perform. I have been long of opinion that, instead of the tardy
conveyance of ships and chariots, man might use the swifter migration of
wings, that the fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only
ignorance and idleness need crawl upon the ground.”
This hint rekindled the Prince’s desire of passing the mountains. Having
seen what the mechanist had already performed, he was willing to fancy
that he could do more, yet resolved to inquire further before he suffered
hope to afflict him by disappointment. “I am afraid,” said he to the
artist, “that your imagination prevails over your skill, and that you now
tell me rather what you wish than what you know. Every animal has his
element assigned him; the birds have the air, and man and beasts the
earth.” “So,” replied the mechanist, “fishes have the water, in which
yet beasts can swim by nature and man by art. He that can swim needs not
despair to fly; to swim is to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to
swim in a subtler. We are only to proportion our power of resistance to
the different density of matter through which we are to pass. You will
be necessarily up-borne by the air if you can renew any impulse upon it
faster than the air can recede from the pressure.”
“But the exercise of swimming,” said the Prince, “is very laborious; the
strongest limbs are soon wearied. I am afraid the act of flying will be
yet more violent; and wings will be of no great use unless we can fly
further than we can swim.”
“The labour of rising from the ground,” said the artist, “will be great,
as we see it in the heavier domestic fowls; but as we mount higher the
earth’s attraction and the body’s gravity will be gradually diminished,
till we shall arrive at a region where the man shall float in the air
without any tendency to fall; no care will then be necessary but to move
forward, which the gentlest impulse will effect. You, sir, whose
curiosity is so extensive, will easily conceive with what pleasure a
philosopher, furnished with wings and hovering in the sky, would see the
earth and all its inhabitants rolling beneath him, and presenting to him
successively, by its diurnal motion, all the countries within the same
parallel. How must it amuse the pendent spectator to see the moving
scene of land and ocean, cities and deserts; to survey with equal
security the marts of trade and the fields of battle; mountains infested
by barbarians, and fruitful regions gladdened by plenty and lulled by
peace. How easily shall we then trace the Nile through all his passages,
pass over to distant regions, and examine the face of nature from one
extremity of the earth to the other.”
“All this,” said the Prince, “is much to be desired, but I am afraid that
no man will be able to breathe in these regions of speculation and
tranquillity. I have been told that respiration is difficult upon lofty
mountains, yet from these precipices, though so high as to produce great
tenuity of air, it is very easy to fall; therefore I suspect that from
any height where life can be supported, there may be danger of too quick
descent.”
“Nothing,” replied the artist, “will ever be attempted if all possible
objections must be first overcome. If you will favour my project, I will
try the first flight at my own hazard. I have considered the structure
of all volant animals, and find the folding continuity of the bat’s wings
most easily accommodated to the human form. Upon this model I shall
begin my task to-morrow, and in a year expect to tower into the air
beyond the malice and pursuit of man. But I will work only on this
condition, that the art shall not be divulged, and that you shall not
require me to make wings for any but ourselves.”
“Why,” said Rasselas, “should you envy others so great an advantage? All
skill ought to be exerted for universal good; every man has owed much to
others, and ought to repay the kindness that he has received.”
“If men were all virtuous,” returned the artist, “I should with great
alacrity teach them to fly. But what would be the security of the good
if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army
sailing through the clouds neither walls, mountains, nor seas could
afford security. A flight of northern savages might hover in the wind
and light with irresistible violence upon the capital of a fruitful
reason. Even this valley, the retreat of princes, the abode of
happiness, might be violated by the sudden descent of some of the naked
nations that swarm on the coast of the southern sea!”
The Prince promised secrecy, and waited for the performance, not wholly
hopeless of success. He visited the work from time to time, observed its
progress, and remarked many ingenious contrivances to facilitate motion
and unite levity with strength. The artist was every day more certain
that he should leave vultures and eagles behind him, and the contagion of
his confidence seized upon the Prince. In a year the wings were
finished; and on a morning appointed the maker appeared, furnished for
flight, on a little promontory; he waved his pinions awhile to gather
air, then leaped from his stand, and in an instant dropped into the lake.
His wings, which were of no use in the air, sustained him in the water;
and the Prince drew him to land half dead with terror and vexation.
CHAPTER VII
THE PRINCE FINDS A MAN OF LEARNING.
THE Prince was not much afflicted by this disaster, having suffered
himself to hope for a happier event only because he had no other means of
escape in view. He still persisted in his design to leave the Happy
Valley by the first opportunity.
His imagination was now at a stand; he had no prospect of entering into
the world, and, notwithstanding all his endeavours to support himself,