Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
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 intemperance, though it may fire the spirits for an hour,
will make life short or miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no
long duration, and that in 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 awhile 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 tranquillity and pursued his search.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.
AS he was one day walking in the street he saw a spacious building which
all were by the open doors invited to enter. He followed the stream of
people, and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which professors
read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his 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; that when
fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing
ensues but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation, and
confusion; that she 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, or 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 every one’s power.
Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to the instructions of a
superior being, and waiting for him at the door, humbly implored the
liberty of visiting so great a master of true wisdom. The lecturer
hesitated a moment, when Rasselas put a purse of gold into his hand,
which he received with a mixture of joy and wonder.
“I have found,” said the Prince at his return to Imlac, “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 Imlac, “to trust or to admire the teachers of
morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men.”
Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so forcibly
without feeling the cogency of 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 Rasselas, “which you so powerfully
enforced? Has wisdom no strength to arm the heart against calamity?
Consider that external things are naturally variable, but truth and
reason are always the same.” “What comfort,” said the mourner, “can
truth and reason afford me? Of what 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 XIX
A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.
HE was still eager upon the same inquiry; and having heard of a hermit
that lived near the lowest cataract of the Nile, and filled the whole
country with the fame of his sanctity, resolved to visit his retreat, and
inquire whether that felicity which public life could not afford was to
be found in solitude, and whether a man whose age and virtue made him
venerable could teach any peculiar art of shunning evils or enduring
them.
Imlac and the Princess agreed to accompany him, and after the necessary
preparations, they began their 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 shepherds’ 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
presents 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 cankered 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 ewe,
and listen without care, among brooks and breezes, to one of her maidens
reading in the shade.
CHAPTER XX
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 ware 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 skilful enough in appearances soon to discern that they were no
common guests, and spread his table with magnificence. The eloquence of
Imlac caught his attention, and the lofty courtesy of the Princess
excited 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 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