The princess, in the mean time, 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 Nekayah had been too long accustomed to the conversation

of Imlac 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 imbittered 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; every thing 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 pleasures.

The princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in a private

summer house, on the bank 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 floods through eighty

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 Rasselas, "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 expedients, 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 succour 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."

CHAP. XXVI.

THE PRINCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS UPON PRIVATE LIFE.

Nekayah, 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 Imlac tells us, a great family, a family,

likewise, is a little kingdom, torn with factions, and exposed to

revolutions. An unpractised 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 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 despondence, 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,

vigour, and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the

youth reverences 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 practise 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 consolation?"

"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."

"Domestick 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 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 may often make 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 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 vitious 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 Rasselas; "the more we inquire, the less

we can resolve. Surely he is most likely to please himself, that has no

other inclination to regard."

CHAP. XXVII.

DISQUISITION UPON GREATNESS.

The conversation had a short pause. The prince, having considered his

sister's observations, 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 Imlac were but faint sketches of the evils

painted by Nekayah. 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 Rasselas, "will not always be without reason

under the most just and vigilant administration of publick 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 inferiour desert 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, for ever, in the 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

servility.

"He that has 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

Nekayah, "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 incident alike 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, a steady prospect of a happier state; this may

enable us to endure calamity with patience; but remember, that patience

must suppose pain.

CHAP. XXVIII.

RASSELAS AND NEKAYAH CONTINUE THEIR CONVERSATION.

"Dear princess," said Rasselas, "you fall into the common errours 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

horrid, are ordained to be rare. Let us not imagine evils which we do

not feel, nor injure life by misrepresentations; I cannot bear that

querulous eloquence, which threatens every city with a siege, like that

of Jerusalem, that makes famine attend on every flight of locusts, 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 ten thousands, flourish in youth, and wither

in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestick 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 ambassadours are negotiating in foreign countries, the

smith still plies his anvil, and the husbandman drives his plough

forward; the necessaries of life are required and obtained; and the

successive business of the seasons continues to make its wonted

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 labouring 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 are made to

be 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 connubial 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 contests of disagreeable virtues, where both are supported

by consciousness of good intention, I am, sometimes, disposed to think,

with the severer casuists 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

compacts."

"You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, "that you have, even now,

represented celibacy, as less happy than marriage. Both conditions may

be bad, but they cannot both be worst. 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. Where 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, 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 politicks and morality; but when we perceive the whole at

once, as in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment, and none

ever varies 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

subtilties 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 Nekayah, "is not my care, and

needs not be yours. I see no danger that the present generation should

omit to leave successours behind them: we are not now inquiring for the

world, but for ourselves."

CHAP. XXIX.

THE DEBATE ON MARRIAGE CONTINUED.

"The good of the whole," says Rasselas, "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 incommodities 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 room, 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 Nekayah, "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

suffrages worthy of regard. They have generally determined, that it is

dangerous for a man and 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 mien, 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 Nekayah, "that philosophers are deceived. There are a

thousand familiar disputes, which reason can never decide; questions

that elude investigation, and make logick 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 detail of a domestick day.

"Those who marry at an advanced age, will, probably, escape the

encroachments of their children; but, in 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, conform 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 Rasselas, "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 Imlac: '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 another. 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."

CHAP. XXX.

IMLAC ENTERS, AND CHANGES THE CONVERSATION.

Here Imlac entered, and interrupted them. "Imlac," said Rasselas, "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 Imlac, "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 sciences first

dawned that illuminate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be

traced of civil society or domestick 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 Rasselas, "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 never can return, and

heroes, whose form of life was different, from all that the present

condition of mankind requires or allows?"

"To know any thing," 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 incited, 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 evil that we suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the

study of history is not prudent: if we are intrusted 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

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 an 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 Imlac, "are the pyramids; fabricks

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 Nekayah. "I have often heard of the

pyramids, and shall not rest, till I have seen them, within and without,

with my own eyes."

CHAP. XXXI.

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 every thing 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. Imlac explained to them the

principles upon which the pyramidal form was chosen for a fabrick,

intended to coextend 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 resistible 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 interiour 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. "Pekuah," 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 possessours of these dreadful vaults will start up

before us, and, perhaps, shut us in for ever[a]." 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 Imlac, "I will not undertake to

maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried 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 cavillers, can very

little weaken the general evidence; and some, who deny it with their

tongues, confess it by their fears".[b]

"Yet I do not mean to add new terrours to those which have already

seized upon Pekuah. 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 Pekuah," said the princess, "I will always go before you, and

Imlac shall follow you. Remember that you are the companion of the

princess of Abissinia."

"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 never shall 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. Pekuah was yet not satisfied, but entreated the

princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose, as that of entering the

rececess of the pyramid. "Though I cannot teach courage," said Nekayah,

"I must not learn cowardice; nor leave, at last, undone what I came

hither only to do."

[a] It may not be unacceptable to our readers, to quote, in this place,

a stanza, from an Ode to Horror in the Student, ii. 313. It alludes

to the story of a French gentleman, who, going into the catacombs,

not far from Cairo, with some Arab guides, was there robbed by them,

and left; a huge stone being placed over the entrance.

What felt the Gallic, traveller,

When far in Arab desert, drear,

He found within the catacomb,

Alive, the terrors of a tomb?

While many a mummy, through the shade,

In hieroglyphic stole arrayed,

Seem'd to uprear the mystic head,

And trace the gloom with ghostly tread;

Thou heard'st him pour the stifled groan,

Horror! his soul was all thy own! ED.

[b] See Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions. It is to be regretted, that

Coleridge has never yet gratified the wish he professed to feel, in

the first volume of his Friend, p. 246, to devote an entire work to

the subject of dreams, visions, ghosts, witchcraft, &c; in it we

should have had the satisfaction of tracing the workings of a most

vivid imagination, analyzed by the most discriminating judgment. See

Barrow's sermon on the being of God, proved from supernatural

effects. We need scarcely request the reader to bear in mind, that

Barrow was a mathematician, and one of the most severe of

reasoners.--ED.

CHAP. XXXII.

THEY ENTER THE PYRAMID.

Pekuah 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 reposited. They then sat down in one of the most spacious chambers,

to rest awhile before they attempted to return.

"We have now," said Imlac, "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

unskilfulness in arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by

rapine than by industry, and who, from time to time, poured in upon the

habitations of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestick

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

reposited, 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 be always 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 enjoyments. 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 labouring without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid

upon another. Whoever thou art, that, not content with a moderate

condition, imaginest 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!"

CHAP. XXXIII.

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 every one silent and dejected: the men

discovered shame and fear in their countenances, and the women were

weeping in the 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 Pekuah 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. Rasselas, 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. "Sir," said

Imlac, "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 Pekuah."

In a short time, the Turks returned, having not been able to reach the

enemy. The princess burst out into new lamentations, and Rasselas could

scarcely forbear to reproach them with cowardice; but Imlac 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.

CHAP. XXXIV.

THEY RETURN TO CAIRO WITHOUT PEKUAH.

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 expedients, by which the loss of Pekuah might

have been prevented, and resolving to do something for her recovery,

though none could find any thing proper to be done.

Nekayah retired to her chamber, where her women attempted to comfort

her, by telling her, that all had their troubles, and that lady Pekuah

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 favourite 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. Governours,

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.

Imlac 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 Pekuah. 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 despatched to a different quarter.

Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah 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, Pekuah had not dared to talk of her terrours. 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 Imlac, "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 Pekuah was generous and kind. When

we act according to our duty, we commit the event 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 superiour wisdom, and take all consequences upon ourselves.

Man cannot so far know the connexion 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 overleaping 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 imbittered. 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

Pekuah 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 terrour?"

"Had either happened," said Nekayah, "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 Imlac, "is the present reward of virtuous

conduct, that no unlucky consequence can oblige us to repent it."

CHAP. XXXV.

THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEKUAH.

Nekayah, 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

tranquillity. She sat, from morning to evening, recollecting all that

had been done or said by her Pekuah; treasured up, with care, every

trifle on which Pekuah 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 Pekuah.

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 care to

collect notions which she had no convenience of uttering. Rasselas

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.

Imlac was, every morning, earnestly enjoined to renew his inquiries, and

was asked, every night, whether he had yet heard of Pekuah, 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

sighs of Nekayah: 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 all earthly desires, I

shall enter into that state, to which all are hastening, and in which I

hope again to enjoy the friendship of Pekuah."

"Do not entangle your mind," said Imlac, "by irrevocable determinations,

nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary accumulation of misery:

the weariness of retirement will continue or increase, when the loss of

Pekuah is forgotten. That you have been deprived of one pleasure, is no

very good reason for rejection of the rest."

"Since Pekuah 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 Imlac, "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 Nekayah, "will

never come. The generous frankness, the modest obsequiousness, and the

faithful secrecy of my dear Pekuah, 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 Imlac, "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 powers remain 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; Pekuah

will vanish by degrees; you will meet, in your way, some other

favourite, 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."

Nekayah thought this a reasonable demand, and made the promise to her

brother, who had been advised, by Imlac, to require it. Imlac had,

indeed, no great hope of regaining Pekuah, but he supposed, that, if he

could secure the interval of a year, the princess would be then in no

danger of a cloister.

CHAP. XXXVI.

PEKUAH IS STILL REMEMBERED. THE PROGRESS OF SORROW.

Nekayah, seeing that nothing was omitted for the recovery of her

favourite, 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 yet she resolved never to forget.

She then appointed a certain hour of the day for meditation on the

merits and fondness of Pekuah, 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; 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 Pekuah was yet not 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 Imlac 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 Pekuah."

CHAP. XXXVII.

THE PRINCESS HEARS NEWS OF PEKUAH.

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 borders of Nubia, with an account that

Pekuah 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, Pekuah's

happiness or her own, but entreated her brother to send back the

messenger with the sum required. Imlac, being consulted, was not very

confident of the veracity of the relater, 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 Imlac, after

some deliberation, directed the messenger to propose, that Pekuah 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 ransome 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, Imlac went forward with the former messenger to the

Arab's fortress. Rasselas was desirous to go with them; but neither his

sister nor Imlac 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 Pekuah,

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 exchange 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 Pekuah the history of her adventures.

CHAP. XXXVIII.

THE ADVENTURES OF THE LADY PEKUAH.

"At what time, and in what manner I was forced away," said Pekuah, "your

servants have told you. The suddenness of the event struck me with

surprise, and I was, at first, rather stupified, than agitated with any

passion of either fear or sorrow. My confusion was increased by the

speed and tumult of our flight, while we were followed by the Turks,

who, as it seemed, soon despaired to overtake us, or were afraid of

those whom they made a show of menacing.

"When the Arabs saw themselves out of danger, they slackened their

course, and, as I was less harassed by external violence, I began to

feel more uneasiness in my mind. After some time, we stopped near a

spring, shaded with trees, in a pleasant meadow, where we were set upon

the ground, and offered such refreshments, as our masters were

partaking. I was suffered to sit, with my maids, apart from the rest,

and none attempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first began to feel

the full weight of my misery. The girls sat weeping in silence, and,

from time to time, looked on me for succour. I knew not to what

condition we were doomed, nor could conjecture where would be the place

of our captivity, or whence to draw any hope of deliverance. I was in

the hands of robbers and savages, and had no reason to suppose, that

their pity was more than their justice, or that they would forbear the

gratification of any ardour of desire, or caprice of cruelty. I,

however, kissed my maids, and endeavoured to pacify them, by remarking,

that we were yet treated with decency, and that, since we were now

carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger of violence to our lives.

"When we were to be set again on horseback, my maids clung round me, and

refused to be parted, but I commanded them not to irritate those who had

us in their power. We travelled, the remaining part of the day, through

an unfrequented and pathless country, and came, by moonlight, to the

side of a hill, where the rest of the troop was stationed. Their tents

were pitched, and their fires kindled, and our chief was welcomed, as a

man much beloved by his dependants.

"We were received into a large tent, where we found women, who had

attended their husbands in the expedition. They set before us the

supper, which they had provided, and I ate rather to encourage my maids

than to comply with any appetite of my own. When the meat was taken

away, they spread the carpets for repose. I was weary, and hoped to

find, in sleep, that remission of distress which nature seldom denies.

Ordering myself, therefore, to be undressed, I observed that the women

looked submissively attended. When my upper vest was taken off, they

were, apparently, struck with the splendour of my clothes, and one of

them timorously laid her hand upon the embroidery. She then went out,

and, in a short time, came back with another woman, who seemed to be of

higher rank and greater authority. She did, at her entrance, the usual

act of reverence, and, taking me by the hand, placed me in a smaller

tent, spread with finer carpets, where I spent the night quietly with my

maids.

"In the morning, as I was sitting on the grass, the chief of the troop

came towards me. I rose up to receive him, and he bowed with great

respect. 'Illustrious lady,' said he, 'my fortune is better than I had

presumed to hope; I am told, by my women, that I have a princess in my

camp.' 'Sir,' answered I, 'your women have deceived themselves and you;

I am not a princess, but an unhappy stranger, who intended soon to have

left this country, in which I am now to be imprisoned for ever.'

'Whoever, or whencesoever, you are,' returned the Arab, 'your dress, and

that of your servants, show your rank to be high, and your wealth to be

great. Why should you, who can so easily procure your ransome, think

yourself in danger of perpetual captivity? The purpose of my incursions

is to increase my riches, or, more properly, to gather tribute. The sons

of Ishmael are the natural and hereditary lords of this part of the

continent, which is usurped by late invaders, and low-born tyrants, from

whom we are compelled to take, by the sword, what is denied to justice.

The violence of war admits no distinction: the lance that is lifted at

guilt and power, will, sometimes, fall on innocence and gentleness.'

"'How little,' said I, 'did I expect that yesterday it should have

fallen upon me!'

"'Misfortunes,' answered the Arab, 'should always be expected. If the

eye of hostility could learn reverence or pity, excellence, like yours,

had been exempt from injury. But the angels of affliction spread their

toils alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the mighty and the

mean. Do not be disconsolate: I am not one of the lawless and cruel

rovers of the desert; I know the rules of civil life: I will fix your

ransome, give a passport to your messenger, and perform my stipulation,

with nice punctuality.'

"You will easily believe, that I was pleased with his courtesy: and,

finding, that his predominant passion was desire of money, I began now

to think my danger less, for I knew that no sum would be thought too

great for the release of Pekuah. I told him, that he should have no

reason to charge me with ingratitude, if I was used with kindness, and

that any ransome, which could be expected for a maid of common rank,

would be paid; but that he must not persist to rate me as a princess. He

said he would consider what he should demand, and then, smiling, bowed

and retired.

"Soon after the women came about me, each contending to be more

officious than the other, and my maids, themselves, were served with

reverence. We travelled onwards by short journeys. On the fourth day the

chief told me, that my ransome must be two hundred ounces of gold; which

I not only promised him, but told him, that I would add fifty more, if I

and my maids were honourably treated.

"I never knew the power of gold before. From that time, I was the leader

of the troop. The march of every day was longer, or shorter, as I

commanded, and the tents were pitched where I chose to rest. We now had

camels, and other conveniencies for travel; my own women were always at

my side, and I amused myself with observing the manners of the vagrant

nations, and with viewing remains of ancient edifices, with which these

deserted countries appear to have been, in some distant age, lavishly

embellished.

"The chief of the band was a man far from illiterate: he was able to

travel by the stars, or the compass, and had marked, in his erratick

expeditions, such places as are most worthy the notice of a passenger.

He observed to me, that buildings are always best preserved in places

little frequented, and difficult of access: for, when once a country

declines from its primitive splendour, the more inhabitants are left,

the quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply stones more easily than

quarries, and palaces and temples will be demolished, to make stables of

granite, and cottages of porphyry.

CHAP. XXXIX.

THE ADVENTURES OF PEKUAH CONTINUED.

"We wandered about, in this manner, for some weeks, whether, as our

chief pretended, for my gratification, or, as I rather suspected, for

some convenience of his own. I endeavoured to appear contented, where

sullenness and resentment would have been of no use, and that endeavour

conduced much to the calmness of my mind; but my heart was always with

Nekayah, and the troubles of the night much overbalanced the amusements

of the day. My women, who threw all their cares upon their mistress, set

their minds at ease, from the time when they saw me treated with

respect, and gave themselves up to the incidental alleviations of our

fatigue, without solicitude or sorrow. I was pleased with their

pleasure, and animated with their confidence. My condition had lost much

of its terrour, since I found that the Arab ranged the country merely to

get riches. Avarice is an uniform and tractable vice: other intellectual

distempers are different in different constitutions of mind; that which

sooths the pride of one, will offend the pride of another; but to the

favour of the covetous, there is a ready way: bring money, and nothing

is denied.

"At last we came to the dwelling of our chief, a strong and spacious

house, built with stone, in an island of the Nile, which lies, as I was

told, under the tropick. 'Lady,' said the Arab, 'you shall rest, after

your journey, a few weeks, in this place, where you are to consider

yourself as sovereign. My occupation is war; I have, therefore, chosen

this obscure residence, from which I can issue unexpected, and to which

I can retire unpursued. You may now repose in security: here are few

pleasures, but here is no danger.' He then led me into the inner

apartments, and seating me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground.

His women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me with malignity;

but, being soon informed that I was a great lady, detained only for my

ransome, they began to vie with each other in obsequiousness and

reverence.

"Being again comforted with new assurances of speedy liberty, I was, for

some days, diverted from impatience by the novelty of the place. The

turrets overlooked the country to a great distance, and afforded a view

of many windings of the stream. In the day, I wandered from one place to

another, as the course of the sun varied the splendour of the prospect,

and saw many things which I had never seen before. The crocodiles and

river-horses, are common in this unpeopled region, and I often looked

upon them with terrour, though I knew that they could not hurt me. For

some time I expected to see mermaids and tritons, which, as Imlac has

told me, the European travellers have stationed in the Nile, but no such

beings ever appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after them, laughed

at my credulity.

"At night the Arab always attended me to a tower, set apart for

celestial observations, where he endeavoured to teach me the names and

courses of the stars. I had no great inclination to this study, but an

appearance of attention was necessary to please my instructer, who

valued himself for his skill; and, in a little while, I found some

employment requisite to beguile the tediousness of time, which was to be

passed always amidst the same objects. I was weary of looking in the

morning, on things from which I had turned away weary in the evening. I,

therefore, was, at last, willing to observe the stars, rather than do

nothing, but could not always compose my thoughts, and was very often

thinking on Nekayah, when others imagined me contemplating the sky. Soon

after the Arab went upon another expedition, and then my only pleasure

was to talk with my maids, about the accident by which we were carried

away, and the happiness that we should all enjoy at the end of our

captivity."

"There were women in your Arab's fortress," said the princess, "why did

you not make them your companions, enjoy their conversation, and partake

their diversions'? In a place, where they found business or amusement,

why should you alone sit corroded with idle melancholy? or, why could

not you bear, for a few months, that condition to which they were

condemned for life?"

"The diversions of the women," answered Pekuah, "were only childish

play, by which the mind, accustomed to stronger operations, could not be

kept busy. I could do all which they delighted in doing by powers merely

sensitive, while my intellectual faculties were flown to Cairo. They

ran, from room to room, as a bird hops, from wire to wire, in his cage.

They danced for the sake of motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow. One

sometimes pretended to be hurt, that the rest might be alarmed; or hid

herself, that another might seek her. Part of their time passed in

watching the progress of light bodies, that floated on the river, and

part, in marking the various forms into which clouds broke in the sky.

"Their business was only needlework in which I and my maids, sometimes

helped them; but you know that the mind will easily straggle from the

fingers, nor will you suspect that captivity and absence from Nekayah

could receive solace from silken flowers.

"Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their conversation: for of

what could they be expected to talk? They had seen nothing; for they had

lived, from early youth, in that narrow spot: of what they had not seen

they could have no knowledge, for they could not read. They had no ideas

but of the few things that were within their view, and had hardly names

for any thing but their clothes and their food. As I bore a superiour

character, I was often called to terminate their quarrels, which I

decided as equitably as I could. If it could have amused me to hear the

complaints of each against the rest, I might have been often detained by

long stories; but the motives of their animosity were so small, that I

could not listen without intercepting the tale."

"How," said Rasselas, "can the Arab, whom you represented as a man of

more than common accomplishments, take any pleasure in his seraglio,

when it is filled only with women like these? Are they exquisitely

beautiful?"

"They do not," said Pekuah, "want that unaffecting and ignoble beauty,

which may subsist without sprightliness or sublimity, without energy of

thought, or dignity of virtue. But to a man, like the Arab, such beauty

was only a flower, casually plucked, and carelessly thrown away.

Whatever pleasures he might find among them, they were not those of

friendship or society. When they were playing about him, he looked on

them with inattentive superiority: when they vied for his regard, he

sometimes turned away disgusted. As they had no knowledge, their talk

could take nothing from the tediousness of life; as they had no choice,

their fondness, or appearance of fondness, excited in him neither pride

nor gratitude; he was not exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a

woman, who saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that regard, of

which he could never know the sincerity, and which he might often

perceive to be exerted, not so much to delight him, as to pain a rival.

That which he gave, and they received, as love, was only a careless

distribution of superfluous time, such love as man can bestow upon that

which he despises, such as has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor

sorrow."

"You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy," said Imlac, "that you

have been thus easily dismissed. How could a mind, hungry for knowledge,

be willing, in an intellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as

Pekuah's conversation?"

"I am inclined to believe," answered Pekuah, "that he was, for sometime,

in suspense; for, notwithstanding his promise, whenever I proposed to

despatch a messenger to Cairo, he found some excuse for delay. While I

was detained in his house, he made many incursions into the neighbouring

countries, and, perhaps, he would have refused to discharge me, had his

plunder been equal to his wishes. He returned always courteous, related

his adventures, delighted to hear my observations, and endeavoured to

advance my acquaintance with the stars. When I importuned him to send

away my letters, he soothed me with professions of honour and sincerity;

and, when I could be no longer decently denied, put his troop again in

motion, and left me to govern in his absence. I was much afflicted by

this studied procrastination, and was sometimes afraid, that I should be

forgotten; that you would leave Cairo, and I must end my days in an

island of the Nile.

"I grew, at last, hopeless and dejected, and cared so little to

entertain him, that he, for awhile, more frequently talked with my

maids. That he should fall in love with them, or with me, might have

been equally fatal, and I was not much pleased with the growing

friendship. My anxiety was not long; for, as I recovered some degree of

cheerfulness, he returned to me, and I could not forbear to despise my

former uneasiness.

"He still delayed to send for my ransome, and would, perhaps, never have

determined, had not your agent found his way to him. The gold, which he

would not fetch, he could not reject, when it was offered. He hastened

to prepare for our journey hither, like a man delivered from the pain of

an intestine conflict. I took leave of my companions in the house, who

dismissed me with cold indifference."

Nekayah, having heard her favourite's relation, rose and embraced her,

and Rasselas gave her a hundred ounces of gold, which she presented to

the Arab for the fifty that were promised.

CHAP. XL.

THE HISTORY OF A MAN OF LEARNING.

They returned to Cairo, and were so well pleased at finding themselves

together, that none of them went much abroad. The prince began to love

learning, and, one day, declared to Imlac, that he intended to devote

himself to science, and pass the rest of his days in literary solitude.

"Before you make your final choice," answered Imlac, "you ought to

examine its hazards, and converse with some of those who are grown old

in the company of themselves. I have just left the observatory of one of

the most learned astronomers in the world, who has spent forty years in

unwearied attention to the motions and appearances of the celestial

bodies, and has drawn out his soul in endless calculations. He admits a

few friends, once a month, to hear his deductions, and enjoy his

discoveries. I was introduced, as a man of knowledge worthy of his

notice. Men of various ideas, and fluent conversation, are commonly

welcome to those whose thoughts have been long fixed upon a single

point, and who find the images of other things stealing away. I

delighted him with my remarks; he smiled at the narrative of my travels,

and was glad to forget the constellations, and descend, for a moment,

into the lower world.

"On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, and was so fortunate as

to please him again. He relaxed, from that time, the severity of his

rule, and permitted me to enter at my own choice. I found him always

busy, and always glad to be relieved. As each knew much which the other

was desirous of learning, we exchanged our notions with great delight. I

perceived that I had, every day, more of his confidence, and always

found new cause of admiration in the profundity of his mind. His

comprehension is vast, his memory capacious and retentive, his discourse

is methodical, and his expression clear.

"His integrity and benevolence are equal to his learning. His deepest

researches, and most favourite studies, are willingly interrupted for

any opportunity of doing good, by his counsel or his riches. To his

closest retreat, at his most busy moments, all are admitted that want

his assistance: 'For, though I exclude idleness and pleasure, I will

never,' says he, bar my doors against charity. To man is permitted the

contemplation of the skies, but the practice of virtue is commanded.'"

"Surely," said the princess, "this man is happy."

"I visited him," said 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 topick.

"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 injunctions 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."

CHAP. 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

emersion 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 weather, and the

distribution of the seasons: the sun has listened to my dictates, and

passed, from tropick to tropick, 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!'

CHAP. 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 successour

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.'

CHAP. XLIII.

THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.

"'Hear, therefore, what I shall impart, with attention, such as the

welfare of the 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

ecliptick 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 ye are

unacquainted. 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.

CHAP. 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[a]. There is no

man, whose imagination does not, sometimes, predominate over his reason,

who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will

come and go at his command. No man will be found, in whose mind airy

notions do not, sometimes, tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear

beyond the limits of sober probability. All power of fancy over reason,

is a degree of insanity; but, while this power is such as we can control

and repress, it is not visible to others, nor considered as any

deprivation of the mental faculties: it is not pronounced madness, but

when it becomes ungovernable, and apparently influences speech or

action.

"To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the

wing, is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent

speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour of

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

intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in weariness or

leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on

the luscious falsehood, whenever she is offended with the bitterness of

truth. By degrees, the reign of fancy is confirmed; she grows first

imperious, and in time despotick. Then fictions begin to operate as

realities, false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in

dreams of rapture or of anguish.

"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the hermit has

confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's misery

has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom."

"I will no more," said the favourite, "imagine myself the queen of

Abissinia. I have often spent the hours, which the princess gave to my

own disposal, in adjusting ceremonies, and regulating the court; I have

repressed the pride of the powerful, and granted the petitions of the

poor; I have built new palaces in more happy situations, planted groves

upon the tops of mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence of

royalty, till, when the princess entered, I had almost forgotten to bow

down before her."

"And I," said the princess, "will not allow myself any more to play the

shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have often soothed my thoughts with

the quiet and innocence of pastoral employments, till I have, in my

chamber, heard the winds whistle, and the sheep bleat: sometimes freed

the lamb entangled in the thicket, and, sometimes, with my crook,

encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of the village maids,

which I put on to help my imagination, and a pipe, on which I play

softly, and suppose myself followed by my flocks."

"I will confess," said the prince, "an indulgence of fantastick delight

more dangerous than yours. I have frequently endeavoured to image the

possibility of a perfect government, by which all wrong should be

restrained, all vice reformed, and all the subjects preserved in

tranquillity and innocence. This thought produced innumerable schemes of

reformation, and dictated many useful regulations and salutary edicts.

This has been the sport, and sometimes the labour, of my solitude; and I

start, when I think, with how little anguish I once supposed the death

of my father and my brothers."

"Such," said Imlac, "are the effects of visionary schemes; when we first

form them, we know them to be absurd, but familiarize them by degrees,

and, in time, lose sight of their folly."

[a] See Traite Médico-philosophique sur l'Aliénation Mentale, par

Pinel. Dr. Willis defined, in remarkable accordance with this case

in Rasselas, insanity to be the tendency of a mind to cherish one

idea, or one set of ideas, to the exclusion of others.--ED.

CHAP. XLV.

THEY DISCOURSE WITH AN OLD MAN.

The evening was now far past, and they rose to return home. As they

walked along the bank of the Nile, delighted with the beams of the moon

quivering on the water, they saw, at a small distance, an old man, whom

the prince had often heard in the assembly of the sages. "Yonder," said

he, "is one whose years have calmed his passions, but not clouded his

reason: let us close the disquisitions of the night, by inquiring, what

are his sentiments of his own state, that we may know whether youth

alone is to struggle with vexation, and whether any better hope remains

for the latter part of life."

Here the sage approached and saluted them. They invited him to join

their walk, and prattled awhile, as acquaintance that had unexpectedly

met one another. The old man was cheerful and talkative, and the way

seemed short in his company. He was pleased to find himself not

disregarded, accompanied them to their house, and, at the prince's

request, entered with them. They placed him in the seat of honour, and

set wine and conserves before him. "Sir," said the princess, "an evening

walk must give, to a man of learning, like you, pleasures which

ignorance and youth can hardly conceive. You know the qualities and the

causes of all that you behold, the laws by which the river flows, the

periods in which the planets perform their revolutions. Every thing must

supply you with contemplation, and renew the consciousness of your own

dignity."

"Lady," answered he, "let the gay and the vigorous expect pleasure in

their excursions; it is enough that age can obtain ease. To me, the

world has lost its novelty: I look round, and see what I remember to

have seen in happier days. I rest against a tree, and consider, that in

the same shade I once disputed upon the annual overflow of the Nile,

with a friend who is now silent in the grave. I cast my eyes upwards,

fix them on the changing moon, and think, with pain, on the vicissitudes

of life. I have ceased to take much delight in physical truth; for what

have I to do with those things which I am soon to leave?"

"You may, at least, recreate yourself," said Imlac, "with the

recollection of an honourable and useful life, and enjoy the praise

which all agree to give you."

"Praise," said the sage, with a sigh, "is, to an old man, an empty

sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation of her

son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband. I have outlived my

friends and my rivals. Nothing is now of much importance; for I cannot

extend my interest beyond myself. Youth is delighted with applause,

because it is considered, as the earnest of some future good, and

because the prospect of life is far extended; but to me, who am now

declining to decrepitude, there is little to be feared from the

malevolence of men, and yet less to be hoped from their affection or

esteem. Something they may yet take away, but they can give me nothing.

Riches would now be useless, and high employment would be pain. My

retrospect of life recalls to my view many opportunities of good

neglected, much time squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness

and vacancy. I leave many great designs unattempted, and many great

attempts unfinished. My mind is burdened with no heavy crime, and,

therefore, I compose myself to tranquillity; endeavour to abstract my

thoughts from hopes and cares, which, though reason knows them to be

vain, still try to keep their old possession of the heart; expect, with

serene humility, that hour which nature cannot long delay; and hope to

possess, in a better state, that happiness, which here I could not find,

and that virtue, which here I have not attained."

He rose and went away, leaving his audience not much elated with the

hope of long life. The prince consoled himself with remarking, that it

was not reasonable to be disappointed by this account; for age had never

been considered as the season of felicity, and, if it was possible to be

easy in decline and weakness, it was likely that the days of vigour and

alacrity might be happy; that the noon of life might be bright, if the

evening could be calm.

The princess suspected that age was querulous and malignant, and

delighted to repress the expectations of those, who had newly entered

the world. She had seen the possessours of estates look with envy on

their heirs, and known many who enjoyed pleasure no longer than they

could confine it to themselves.

Pekuah conjectured, that the man was older than he appeared, and was

willing to impute his complaints to delirious dejection: or else

supposed that he had been unfortunate, and was, therefore, discontented:

"For nothing," said she, "is more common than to call our own condition,

the condition of life."

Imlac, who had no desire to see them depressed, smiled at the comforts

which they could so readily procure to themselves, and remembered, that,

at the same age, he was equally confident of unmingled prosperity, and

equally fertile of consolatory expedients. He forbore to force upon them

unwelcome knowledge, which time itself would too soon impress. The

princess and her lady retired; the madness of the astronomer hung on

their minds, and they desired Imlac to enter upon his office, and delay

next morning, the rising of the sun.

CHAP. XLVI.

THE PRINCESS AND PEKUAH VISIT THE ASTRONOMER.

The princess and Pekuah having talked in private of Imlac's astronomer,

thought his character at once so amiable and so strange, that they could

not be satisfied without a nearer knowledge; and Imlac was requested to

find the means of bringing them together.

This was somewhat difficult; the philosopher had never received any

visits from women, though he lived in a city that had in it many

Europeans, who followed the manners of their own countries, and many,

from other parts of the world, that lived there with European liberty.

The ladies would not be refused, and several schemes were proposed for

the accomplishment of their design. It was proposed to introduce them as

strangers in distress, to whom the sage was always accessible; but,

after some deliberation, it appeared, that by this artifice, no

acquaintance could be formed, for their conversation would be short, and

they could not decently importune him often. "This," said Rasselas, "is

true; but I have yet a stronger objection against the misrepresentation

of your state. I have always considered it as treason against the great

republick of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of

deceiving him, whether on great or little occasions. All imposture

weakens confidence, and chills benevolence. When the sage finds that you

are not what you seemed, he will feel the resentment natural to a man

who, conscious of great abilities, discovers that he has been tricked by

understandings meaner than his own, and, perhaps, the distrust, which he

can never afterwards wholly lay aside, may stop the voice of counsel,

and close the hand of charity; and where will you find the power of

restoring his benefactions to mankind, or his peace to himself?"

To this no reply was attempted, and Imlac began to hope that their

curiosity would subside; but, next day, Pekuah told him, she had now

found an honest pretence for a visit to the astronomer, for she would

solicit permission to continue, under him, the studies in which she had

been initiated by the Arab, and the princess might go with her, either

as a fellow-student, or because a woman could not decently come alone.

"I am afraid," said Imlac, "that he will be soon weary of your company:

men, advanced far in knowledge do not love to repeat the elements of

their art, and I am not certain that even of the elements, as he will

deliver them, connected with inferences, and mingled with reflections,

you are a very capable auditress." "That," said Pekuah, "must be my

care: I ask of you only to take me thither. My knowledge is, perhaps,

more than you imagine it, and, by concurring always with his opinions, I

shall make him think it greater than it is."

The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was told, that a

foreign lady, travelling in search of knowledge, had heard of his

reputation, and was desirous to become his scholar. The uncommonness of

the proposal raised, at once, his surprise and curiosity; and when,

after a short deliberation, he consented to admit her, he could not

stay, without impatience, till the next day.

The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and were attended by Imlac

to the astronomer, who was pleased to see himself approached with

respect by persons of so splendid an appearance. In the exchange of the

first civilities, he was timorous and bashful; but, when the talk became

regular, he recollected his powers, and justified the character which

Imlac had given. Inquiring of Pekuah, what could have turned her

inclination toward astronomy, he received from her a history of her

adventure at the pyramid, and of the time passed in the Arab's island.

She told her tale with ease and elegance, and her conversation took

possession of his heart. The discourse was then turned to astronomy;

Pekuah displayed what she knew: he looked upon her as a prodigy of

genius, and entreated her not to desist from a study, which she had so

happily begun.

They came again and again, and were, every time, more welcome than

before. The sage endeavoured to amuse them, that they might prolong

their visits, for he found his thoughts grow brighter in their company;

the clouds of solicitude vanished by degrees, as he forced himself to

entertain them, and he grieved, when he was left, at their departure, to

his old employment of regulating the seasons.

The princess and her favourite had now watched his lips for several

months, and could not catch a single word, from which they could judge

whether he continued, or not, in the opinion of his preternatural

commission. They often contrived to bring him to an open declaration;

but he easily eluded all their attacks, and on which side soever they

pressed him, escaped from them to some other topick.

As their familiarity increased, they invited him often to the house of

Imlac, where they distinguished him by extraordinary respect. He began,

gradually, to delight in sublunary pleasures. He came early, and

departed late; laboured to recommend himself by assiduity and

compliance; excited their curiosity after new arts, that they might

still want his assistance; and, when they made any excursion of

pleasure, or inquiry, entreated to attend them.

By long experience of his integrity and wisdom, the prince and his

sister were convinced that he might be trusted without danger; and, lest

he should draw any false hopes from the civilities which he received,

discovered to him their condition, with the motives of their journey;

and required his opinion on the CHOICE OF LIFE.

"Of the various conditions which the world spreads before you, which you

shall prefer," said the sage, "I am not able to instruct you. I can only

tell, that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study, without

experience; in the attainment of sciences, which can, for the most part,

be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the

expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing

elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestick

tenderness. If I have obtained any prerogatives above other students,

they have been accompanied with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity; but,

even of these prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, since my

thoughts have been diversified by more intercourse with the world, begun

to question the reality. When I have been, for a few days, lost in

pleasing dissipation, I am always tempted to think that my inquiries

have ended in errour, and that I have suffered much, and suffered it in

vain."

Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's understanding was breaking

through its mists, and resolved to detain him from the planets, till he

should forget his task of ruling them, and reason should recover its

original influence.

From this time the astronomer was received into familiar friendship, and

partook of all their projects and pleasures: his respect kept him

attentive, and the activity of Rasselas did not leave much time

unengaged. Something was always to be done; the day was spent in making

observations which furnished talk for the evening, and the evening was

closed with a scheme for the morrow.

The sage confessed to Imlac, that since he had mingled in the gay

tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession of amusements, he

found the conviction of his authority over the skies fade gradually from

his mind, and began to trust less to an opinion which he never could

prove to others, and which he now found subject to variation, from

causes in which reason had no part. "If I am accidentally left alone for

a few hours," said he, "my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul,

and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence; but they

are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously

released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually afraid of

spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which

harassed him in the dark; yet, if his lamp be extinguished, feels again

the terrours which he knows, that when it is light he shall feel no

more. But I am sometimes afraid, lest I indulge my quiet by criminal

negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which I am

intrusted. If I favour myself in a known errour, or am determined, by my

own ease, in a doubtful question of this importance, how dreadful is my

crime!"

"No disease of the imagination," answered Imlac, "is so difficult of

cure, as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt: fancy and

conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their

places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from the

dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious,

the mind drives them away when they give it pain, but when melancholick

notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without

opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them. For this

reason, the superstitious are often melancholy, and the melancholy

almost always superstitious.

"But do not let the suggestions of timidity overpower your better

reason: the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the

obligation, which, when you consider it with freedom, you find very

little, and that little growing every day less. Open your heart to the

influence of the light, which, from time to time, breaks in upon you:

when scruples importune you, which you, in your lucid moments know to be

vain, do not stand to parley, but fly to business or to Pekuah, and keep

this thought always prevalent, that you are only one atom of the mass of

humanity, and have neither such virtue nor vice, as that you should be

singled out for supernatural favours or afflictions."

CHAP. XLVII.

THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOPICK.

"All this," said the astronomer, "I have often thought, but my reason

has been so long subjugated by an uncontroulable and overwhelming idea,

that it durst not confide in its own decisions. I now see how fatally I

betrayed my quiet, by suffering chimeras to prey upon me in secret; but

melancholy shrinks from communication, and I never found a man before,

to whom I could impart my troubles, though I had been certain of relief.

I rejoice to find my own sentiments confirmed by yours, who are not

easily deceived, and can have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope

that time and variety will dissipate the gloom that has so long

surrounded me, and the latter part of my days will be spent in peace."

"Your learning and virtue," said Imlac, "may justly give you hopes."

Rasselas then entered with the princess and Pekuah, and inquired,

whether they had contrived any new diversion for the next day? "Such,"

said Nekayah, "is the state of life, that none are happy, but by the

anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing: when we have made

it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted;

let me see something to-morrow, which I never saw before."

"Variety," said Rasselas, "is so necessary to content, that even the

happy valley disgusted me by the recurrence of its luxuries; yet I could

not forbear to reproach myself with impatience, when I saw the monks of

St. Anthony support, without complaint, a life not of uniform delight,

but uniform hardship."

"Those men," answered Imlac, "are less wretched in their silent convent,

than the Abissinian princes in their prison of pleasure. Whatever is

done by the monks is incited by an adequate and reasonable motive. Their

labour supplies them with necessaries; it, therefore, cannot be omitted,

and is certainly rewarded. Their devotion prepares them for another

state, and reminds them of its approach, while it fits them for it.

Their time is regularly distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that

they are not left open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost

in the shades of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be

performed at an appropriated hour; and their toils are cheerful, because

they consider them as acts of piety, by which they are always advancing

towards endless felicity."

"Do you think," said Nekayah, "that the monastick rule is a more holy

and less imperfect state than any other? May not he equally hope for

future happiness, who converses openly with mankind, who succours the

distressed by his charity, instructs the ignorant by his learning, and

contributes, by his industry, to the general system of life: even though

he should omit some of the mortifications which are practised in the

cloister, and allow himself such harmless delights, as his condition may

place within his reach."

"This," said Imlac, "is a question which has long divided the wise, and

perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either part. He that lives

well in the world, is better than he that lives well in a monastery.

But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the temptations of publick

life; and, if he cannot conquer, he may properly retreat. Some have

little power to do good, and have, likewise, little strength to resist

evil. Many are weary of their conflicts with adversity, and are willing

to eject those passions which have long busied them in vain. And many

are dismissed, by age and disease, from the more laborious duties of

society. In monasteries, the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered,

the weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of

prayer and contemplation have something so congenial to the mind of man,

that, perhaps, there is scarcely one that does not propose to close his

life in pious abstraction with a few associates, serious as himself."

"Such," said Pekuah, "has often been my wish; and I have heard the

princess declare, that she should not willingly die in a crowd."

"The liberty of using harmless pleasures," proceeded Imlac, "will not be

disputed; but it is still to be examined, what pleasures are harmless.

The evil of any pleasure that Nekayah can image, is not in the act

itself, but in its consequences. Pleasure, in itself harmless, may

become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be

transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that, of

which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no

length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous

in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the

allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all

aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without

restraint."

The princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to the astronomer, asked

him, whether he could not delay her retreat, by showing her something

which she had not seen before.

"Your curiosity," said the sage, "has been so general, and your pursuit

of knowledge so vigorous, that novelties are not now very easily to be

found; but what you can no longer procure from the living, may be given

by the dead. Among the wonders of this country are the catacombs, or the

ancient repositories, in which the bodies of the earliest generations

were lodged, and where, by the virtue of the gums which embalmed them,

they yet remain without corruption."

"I know not," said Rasselas, "what pleasure the sight of the catacombs

can afford; but, since nothing else offers, I am resolved to view them,

and shall place this with many other things which I have done, because I

would do something."

They hired a guard of horsemen, and the next day visited the catacombs.

When they were about to descend into the sepulchral caves, "Pekuah,"

said the princess, "we are now again invading the habitations of the

dead: I know that you will stay behind; let me find you safe when I

return." "No, I will not be left," answered Pekuah; "I will go down

between you and the prince."

They then all descended, and roved, with wonder, through the labyrinth

of subterraneous passages, where the bodies were laid in rows on either

side.

CHAP. XLVIII.

IMLAC DISCOURSES ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL.

"What reason," said the prince, "can be given, why the Egyptians should

thus expensively preserve those carcasses which some nations consume

with fire, others lay to mingle with the earth, and all agree to remove

from their sight, as soon as decent rites can be performed?"

"The original of ancient customs," said Imlac "is commonly unknown; for

the practice often continues when the cause has ceased; and, concerning

superstitious ceremonies, it is vain to conjecture; for what reason did

not dictate, reason cannot explain. I have long believed that the

practice of embalming arose only from tenderness to the remains of

relations or friends; and to this opinion I am more inclined, because it

seems impossible that this care should have been general: had all the

dead been embalmed, their repositories must, in time, have been more

spacious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the rich or

honourable were secured from corruption, and the rest left to the course

of nature.

"But it is commonly supposed, that the Egyptians believed the soul to

live as long as the body continued undissolved, and, therefore, tried

this method of eluding death."

"Could the wise Egyptians," said Nekayah, "think so grossly of the soul?

If the soul could once survive its separation, what could it afterwards

receive or suffer from the body?"

"The Egyptians would, doubtless, think erroneously," said the

astronomer, "in the darkness of heathenism, and the first dawn of

philosophy. The nature of the soul is still disputed, amidst all our

opportunities of clearer knowledge; some yet say, that it may be

material, who, nevertheless, believe it to be immortal."

"Some," answered Imlac, "have, indeed, said, that the soul is material,

but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to

think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of

mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science concur

to prove the unconsciousness of matter.

"It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or that

every particle is a thinking being. Yet, if any part of matter be devoid

of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter can differ from

matter only in form, density, bulk, motion, and direction of motion: to

which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be

annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or

little, to be moved slowly or swiftly one way or another, are modes of

material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If

matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by some new

modification, but all the modifications which it can admit, are equally

unconnected with cogitative powers."

"But the materialists," said the astronomer, "urge, that matter may have

qualities, with which we are unacquainted."

"He who will determine," returned Imlac, "against that which he knows,

because there may be something, which he knows not; he that can set

hypothetical possibility against acknowledged certainty, is not to be

admitted among reasonable beings. All that we know of matter is, that

matter is inert, senseless, and lifeless; and, if this conviction cannot

be opposed but by referring us to something that we know not, we have

all the evidence that human intellect can admit. If that which is known

may be overruled by that which is unknown, no being, not omniscient, can

arrive at certainty."

"Yet let us not," said the astronomer, "too arrogantly limit the

creator's power."

"It is no limitation of omnipotence," replied the poet, "to suppose that

one thing is not consistent with another; that the same proposition

cannot be, at once, true and false; that the same number cannot be even

and odd; that cogitation cannot be conferred on that which is created

incapable of cogitation."

"I know not," said Nekayah, "any great use of this question. Does that

immateriality, which, in my opinion, you have sufficiently proved,

necessarily include eternal duration?"

"Of immateriality," said Imlac, "our ideas are negative, and, therefore,

obscure. Immateriality seems to imply a natural power of perpetual

duration, as a consequence of exemption from all causes of decay:

whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its contexture, and

separation of its parts; nor can we conceive how that which has no

parts, and, therefore, admits no solution, can be naturally corrupted or

impaired."

"I know not," said Rasselas, "how to conceive any thing without

extension; what is extended must have parts, and you allow, that

whatever has parts may be destroyed."

"Consider your own conceptions," replied Imlac, "and the difficulty will

be less. You will find substance without extension. An ideal form is no

less real than material bulk: yet an ideal form has no extension. It is

no less certain, when you think on a pyramid, that your mind possesses

the idea of a pyramid, than that the pyramid itself is standing. What

space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than the idea of a grain of

corn? or how can either idea suffer laceration? As is the effect, such

is the cause: as thought, such is the power that thinks; a power

impassive and indiscerptible."

"But the being," said Nekayah, "whom I fear to name, the being which

made the soul, can destroy it."

"He, surely, can destroy it," answered Imlac, "since, however

unperishable, it receives from a superiour nature its power of duration.

That it will not perish by any inherent cause of decay, or principle of

corruption, may be shown by philosophy; but philosophy can tell no more.

That it will not be annihilated by him that made it, we must humbly

learn from higher authority."

The whole assembly stood, awhile, silent and collected. "Let us return,"

said Rasselas, "from this scene of mortality. How gloomy would be these

mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die;

that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall

think on for ever. Those that lie here, stretched before us, the wise

and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of

our present state: they were, perhaps, snatched away, while they were

busy, like us, in the choice of life."

"To me," said the princess, "the choice of life is become less

important; I hope, hereafter, to think only on the choice of eternity."

They then hastened out of the caverns, and, under the protection of

their guard, returned to Cairo.

CHAP. XLIX.

THIS CONCLUSION, IN WHICH NOTHING IS CONCLUDED.

It was now the time of the inundation of the Nile: a few days after

their visit to the catacombs the river began to rise.

They were confined to their house. The whole region, being under water,

gave them no invitation to any excursions, and, being well supplied with

materials for talk, they diverted themselves with comparisons of the

different forms of life, which they had observed, and with various

schemes of happiness, which each of them had formed.

Pekuah was never so much charmed with any place as the convent of St.

Anthony, where the Arab restored her to the princess, and wished only to

fill it with pious maidens, and to be made prioress of the order: she

was weary of expectation and disgust, and would gladly be fixed in some

unvariable state.

The princess thought, that, of all sublunary things, knowledge was the

best: she desired, first, to learn all sciences, and then purposed to

found a college of learned women, in which she would preside; that, by

conversing with the old, and educating the young, she might divide her

time between the acquisition and communication of wisdom, and raise up,

fur the next age, models of prudence, and patterns of piety.

The prince desired a little kingdom, in which he might administer

justice in his own person, and see all the parts of government with his

own eyes; but he could never fix the limits of his dominion, and was

always adding to the number of his subjects.

Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be driven along the stream of

life, without directing their course to any particular port. Of these

wishes, that they had formed, they well knew that none could be

obtained. They deliberated awhile what was to be done, and resolved,

when the inundation should cease, to return to Abissinia.

LETTERS.

I.--To MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON.

Sept. 25th, 1750.

DEAR SIR,--You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an

excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of

partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age,

whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please God that she rather

should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your

mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I

tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you, nor

to me, of any farther use, when once the tribute of nature has been

paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls

us to the exercise of those virtues, of which we are lamenting our

deprivation.

The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to

guard and excite and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still

perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her

death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a

death, resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that

neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope, that you may increase

her happiness, by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present

state, look, with pleasure, upon every act of virtue, to which her

instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a

pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no

great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the

eye of God: yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief, that

our separation from those, whom we love, is merely corporeal; and it may

be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made

probable, that that union, which has received the divine approbation,

shall continue to eternity.

There is one expedient, by which you may, in some degree, continue her

presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your

earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from

it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet

farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To

this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a

source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort

and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by,

Dear sir,

Your most obliged, most obedient,

And most humble servant,

SAM. JOHNSON.

II.--To MRS. THRALE.

London, Aug. 13, 1765.

MADAM,--If you have really so good an opinion of me as you express, it

will not be necessary to inform you how unwillingly I miss the

opportunity of coming to Brighthelmstone in Mr. Thrale's company; or,

since I cannot do what I wish first, how eagerly I shall catch the

second degree of pleasure, by coming to you and him, as soon as I can

dismiss my work from my hands.

I am afraid to make promises, even to myself; but I hope that the week

after the next will be the end of my present business. When business is

done, what remains but pleasure? and where should pleasure be sought,

but under Mrs. Thrale's influence?

Do not blame me for a delay by which I must suffer so much, and by which

I suffer alone. If you cannot think I am good, pray think I am mending,

and that in time I may deserve to be, dear madam, your, &c.

III.--To MRS. THRALE.

Lichfield, July 20, 1767.

Madam,--Though I have been away so much longer than I purposed or

expected, I have found nothing that withdraws my affections from the

friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less desirous of reposing

at that place, which your kindness and Mr. Thrale's allows me to call my

home.

Miss Lucy[a] is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised my

esteem by many excellencies, very noble and resplendent, though a little

discoloured by hoary virginity. Every thing else recalls to my

remembrance years, in which I proposed what, I am afraid, I have not

done, and promised myself pleasure which I have not found. But complaint

can be of no use; and why then should I depress your hopes by my

lamentations? I suppose it is the condition of humanity to design what

never will be done, and to hope what never will be obtained. But, among

the vain hopes, let me not number the hope which I have, of being long,

dear madam, your, &c.

[a] Miss Lucy Porter, daughter to Dr. Johnson's wife, by a former

husband.

IV.--TO THE SAME.

Lichfield, August 14, 1769.

MADAM,--I set out on Thursday morning, and found my companion, to whom I

was very much a stranger, more agreeable than I expected. We went

cheerfully forward, and passed the night at Coventry. We came in late,

and went out early; and, therefore, I did not send for my cousin Tom:

but I design to make him some amends for the omission.

Next day we came early to Lucy, who was, I believe, glad to see us. She

had saved her best gooseberries upon the tree for me; and, as Steele

says, "I was neither too proud nor too wise" to gather them. I have

rambled a very little "inter fontes et flumina nota," but I am not yet

well. They have cut down the trees in George lane. Evelyn, in his book

of Forest Trees, tells us of wicked men that cut down trees, and never

prospered afterwards; yet nothing has deterred these audacious aldermen

from violating the Hamadryads of George lane. As an impartial traveller,

I must however tell, that, in Stow street, where I left a draw-well, I

have found a pump; but the lading-well, in this ill fated George lane,

lies shamefully neglected.

I am going to-day, or to-morrow, to Ashbourne; but I am at a loss how I

shall get back in time to London. Here are only chance coaches, so that

there is no certainty of a place. If I do not come, let it not hinder

your journey. I can be but a few days behind you; and I will follow in

the Brighthelmstone coach. But I hope to come.

I took care to tell Miss Porter, that I have got another Lucy. I hope

she is well. Tell Mrs. Salusbury that I beg her stay at Streatham, for

little Lucy's sake. I am, &c.

V.--To MRS. THRALE.

Lichfield, July 11, 1770.

MADAM,--Since my last letter, nothing extraordinary has happened.

Rheumatism, which has been very troublesome, is grown better. I have not

yet seen Dr. Taylor, and July runs fast away. I shall not have much time

for him, if he delays much longer to come or send. Mr. Green, the

apothecary, has found a book, which tells who paid levies in our parish,

and how much they paid, above a hundred years ago. Do you not think we

study this book hard? Nothing is like going to the bottom of things.

Many families, that paid the parish-rates, are now extinct, like the

race of Hercules: "Pulvis et umbra sumus." What is nearest us, touches

us most. The passions rise higher at domestick, than at imperial,

tragedies. I am not wholly unaffected by the revolutions of Sadler

street; nor can forbear to mourn a little when old names vanish away,

and new come into their place.

Do not imagine, madam, that I wrote this letter for the sake of these

philosophical meditations; for when I began it, I had neither Mr. Green,

nor his book, in my thoughts; but was resolved to write, and did not

know what I had to send, but my respects to Mrs. Salusbury, and Mr.

Thrale, and Harry, and the Misses. I am, dearest madam, your, &c.

VI.--To MRS. THRALE.

Ashbourne, July 23, 1770.

DEAREST MADAM,--There had not been so long an interval between my two

last letters, but that, when I came hither, I did not at first

understand the hours of the post.

I have seen the great bull; and very great he is. I have seen, likewise,

his heir apparent, who promises to inherit all the bulk, and all the

virtues, of his sire. I have seen the man who offered a hundred guineas

for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf. Matlock,

I am afraid, I shall not see, but I purpose to see Dovedale; and, after

all this seeing, I hope to see you. I am, &c.

VII.--TO THE SAME.

Ashbourne, July 3, 1771.

DEAR MADAM,--Last Saturday I came to Ashbourne; the dangers or the

pleasures of the journey I have, at present, no disposition to recount;

else might I paint the beauties of my native plains; might I tell of the

"smiles of nature, and the charms of art;" else might I relate, how I

crossed the Staffordshire canal, one of the great efforts of human

labour, and human contrivance, which, from the bridge on which I viewed

it, passed away on either side, and loses itself in distant regions,

uniting waters that nature had divided, and dividing lands which nature

had united. I might tell how these reflections fermented in my mind,

till the chaise stopped at Ashbourne, at Ashbourne in the Peak. Let not

the barren name of the Peak terrify you; I have never wanted

strawberries and cream. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope,

in time, to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him, too,

a hundred years hence. I am, &c.

VIII.--To MRS. THRALE.

Ashbourne, July 10, 1771.

DEAREST MADAM,--I am obliged to my friend Harry, for his remembrance,

but think it a little hard that I hear nothing from Miss.

There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk, he

went to see the bull, and said, that he had seen a bigger. Do you think

he is likely to get the farm?

_Toujours_ strawberries and cream.

Dr. Taylor is much better, and my rheumatism is less painful. Let me

hear, in return, as much good of you and of Mrs. Salusbury. You despise

the Dog and Duck: things that are at hand are always slighted. I

remember that Dr. Grevil, of Gloucester, sent for that water when his

wife was in the same danger; but he lived near Malvern, and you live

near the Dog and Duck. Thus, in difficult cases, we naturally trust most

what we least know.

Why Bromefield, supposing that a lotion can do good, should despise

laurel-water, in comparison with his own receipt, I do not see; and see,

still less, why he should laugh at that which Wall thinks efficacious. I

am afraid philosophy will not warrant much hope in a lotion.

Be pleased to make my compliments from Mrs. Salusbury to Susy. I am, &c.

IX.--To THE SAME.

October 31, 1772.

MADAM,--Though I am just informed, that, by some accidental negligence,

the letter, which I wrote on Thursday, was not given to the post, yet I

cannot refuse myself the gratification of writing again to my mistress;

not that I have any thing to tell, but that, by showing how much I am

employed upon you, I hope to keep you from forgetting me.

Doctor Taylor asked me, this morning, on what I was thinking; and I was

thinking on Lucy. I hope Lucy is a good girl. But she cannot yet be so

good as Queeney. I have got nothing yet for Queeney's cabinet.

I hope dear Mrs. Salusbury grows no worse. I wish any thing could be

found that would make her better. You must remember her admonition, and

bustle in the brewhouse. When I come, you may expect to have your hands

full with all of us.

Our bulls and cows are all well, but we yet hate the man that had seen a

bigger bull. Our deer have died, but many are left. Our waterfall, at

the garden, makes a great roaring this wet weather.

And so no more at present from, madam, your, &c.

X.--To MRS. THRALE.

November 23, 1772.

DEAR MADAM,--I am sorry that none of your letters bring better news of

the poor dear lady. I hope her pain is not great. To have a disease

confessedly incurable, and apparently mortal, is a very heavy

affliction; and it is still more grievous, when pain is added to

despair.

Every thing else in your letter pleased me very well, except that when I

come I entreat I may not be flattered, as your letters flatter me. You

have read of heroes and princes ruined by flattery, and, I question, if

any of them had a flatterer so dangerous as you. Pray keep strictly to

your character of governess.

I cannot yet get well; my nights are flatulent and unquiet, but my days

are tolerably easy, and Taylor says, that I look much better than when I

came hither. You will see when I come, and I can take your word.

Our house affords no revolutions. The great bull is well. But I write,

not merely to think on you, for I do that without writing, but to keep

you a little thinking on me. I perceive that I have taken a broken piece

of paper, but that is not the greatest fault that you must forgive in,

madam, your, &c.

XI.--To MRS. THRALE.

November 27, 1772.

DEAR MADAM,--If you are so kind as to write to me on Saturday, the day

on which you will receive this, I shall have it before I leave

Ashbourne. I am to go to Lichfield on Wednesday, and purpose to find my

way to London, through Birmingham and Oxford.

I was yesterday at Chatsworth. It is a very fine house. I wish you had

been with me to see it; for then, as we are apt to want matter of talk,

we should have gained something new to talk on. They complimented me

with playing the fountain, and opening the cascade. But I am of my

friend's opinion, that when one has seen the ocean, cascades are but

little things.

I am in hope of a letter to-day from you or Queeney, but the post has

made some blunder, and the packet is not yet distributed. I wish it may

bring me a little good of you all. I am, &c.

XII.--To THE SAME.

Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1773.

MADAM,--The inequalities of human life have always employed the

meditation of deep thinkers, and I cannot forbear to reflect on the

difference between your condition and my own. You live upon mock-turtle,

and stewed rumps of beef; I dined, yesterday, upon crumpets. You sit

with parish officers, caressing and caressed, the idol of the table, and

the wonder of the day. I pine in the solitude of sickness, not bad

enough to be pitied, and not well enough to be endured. You sleep away

the night, and laugh, or scold away the day. I cough and grumble, and

grumble and cough. Last night was very tedious, and this day makes no

promises of much ease. However, I have this day put on my shoe, and hope

that gout is gone. I shall have only the cough to contend with, and I

doubt whether I shall get rid of that without change of place. I caught

cold in the coach as I went away, and am disordered by very little

things. Is it accident or age? I am, dearest madam, &c.

XIII.--To MRS. THRALE.

March 17, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--To tell you that I am sorry, both for the poor lady and for

you, is useless. I cannot help either of you. The weakness of mind is,

perhaps, only a casual interruption or intermission of the attention,

such as we all suffer when some weighty care or urgent calamity has

possession of the mind. She will compose herself. She is unwilling to

die, and the first conviction of approaching death raised great

perturbation. I think she has but very lately thought death close at

hand. She will compose herself to do that as well as she can, which

must, at last, be done. May she not want the divine assistance!

You, madam, will have a great loss; a greater than is common in the loss

of a parent. Fill your mind with hope of her happiness, and turn your

thoughts first to him who gives and takes away, in whose presence the

living and dead are standing together. Then remember, that when this

mournful duty is paid, others yet remain of equal obligation, and, we

may hope, of less painful performance. Grief is a species of idleness,

and the necessity of attention to the present preserves us, by the

merciful disposition of providence, from being lacerated and devoured by

sorrow for the past. You must think on your husband and your children,

and do what this dear lady has done for you.

Not to come to town while the great struggle continues is, undoubtedly,

well resolved. But do not harass yourself into danger; you owe the care

of your health to all that love you, at least to all whom it is your

duty to love. You cannot give such a mother too much, if you do not give

her what belongs to another. I am, &c.

XIV.--To MRS. THRALE.

April 27, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--Hope is more pleasing than fear, but not less fallacious;

you know, when you do not try to deceive yourself, that the disease,

which at last is to destroy, must be gradually growing worse, and that

it is vain to wish for more than, that the descent to death may be slow

and easy. In this wish I join with you, and hope it will be granted.

Dear, dear lady, whenever she is lost she will be missed, and whenever

she is remembered she will be lamented. Is it a good or an evil to me,

that she now loves me? It is surely a good; for you will love me better,

and we shall have a new principle of concord; and I shall be happier

with honest sorrow, than with sullen indifference: and far happier still

than with counterfeited sympathy.

I am reasoning upon a principle very far from certain, a confidence of

survivance. You or I, or both, may be called into the presence of the

supreme judge before her. I have lived a life of which I do not like the

review. Surely I shall, in time, live better.

I sat down with an intention to write high compliments; but my thoughts

have taken another course, and some other time must now serve to tell

you with what other emotions, benevolence, and fidelity, I am, &c.

XV.--To THE SAME.

May 17, 1773.

MADAM,--Never imagine that your letters are long; they are always too

short for my curiosity. I do not know that I was ever content with a

single perusal.

Of dear Mrs. Salusbury I never expect much better news than you send me;

_de pis en pis_ is the natural and certain course of her dreadful

malady. I am content, when it leaves her ease enough for the exercise of

her mind. Why should Mr. **** suppose, that what I took the liberty of

suggesting, was concerted with you? He does not know how much I revolve

his affairs, and how honestly I desire his prosperity. I hope he has let

the hint take some hold of his mind.

Your declaration to Miss **** is more general than my opinions allow. I

think an unlimited promise of acting by the opinion of another so wrong,

that nothing, or hardly anything, can make it right. All unnecessary

vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future which

has not been given us. They are, I think, a crime, because they resign

that life to chance which God has given us to be regulated by reason;

and superinduce a kind of fatality, from which it is the great privilege

of our nature to be free. Unlimited obedience is due only to the

universal father of heaven and earth. My parents may be mad and foolish;

may be wicked and malicious; may be erroneously religious, or absurdly

scrupulous. I am not bound to compliance with mandates, either positive

or negative, which either religion condemns, or reason rejects. There

wanders about the world a wild notion, which extends over marriage more

than over any other transaction. If Miss **** followed a trade, would it

be said, that she was bound, in conscience, to give or refuse credit at

her father's choice? And is not marriage a thing in which she is more

interested, and has, therefore, more right of choice? When I may suffer

for my own crimes, when I may be sued for my own debts, I may judge, by

parity of reason, for my own happiness. The parent's moral right can

arise only from his kindness, and his civil right only from his money.

Conscience cannot dictate obedience to the wicked, or compliance with

the foolish; and of interest mere prudence is the judge.

If the daughter is bound without a promise, she promises nothing;

and if she is not bound, she promises too much.

What is meant by tying up money in trade I do not understand No money is

so little tied, as that which is employed in trade. Mr. ****, perhaps,

only means, that in consideration of money to be advanced, he will

oblige his son to be a trader. This is reasonable enough. Upon ten

thousand pounds, diligently occupied, they may live in great plenty and

splendour, without the mischiefs of idleness.

I can write a long letter, as well as my mistress; and shall be glad

that my long letters may be as welcome as hers.

My nights are grown again very uneasy and troublesome. I know not that

the country will mend them; but I hope your company will mend my days.

Though I cannot now expect much attention, and would not wish for more

than can be spared from the poor dear lady, yet I shall see you and hear

you every now and then; and to see and hear you, is always to hear wit,

and to see virtue.

I shall I hope, see you to-morrow, and a little on the two next days;

and with that little I must, for the present, try to be contented. I am,

&c.

XVI.--To MRS. THRALE.

August 12, 1773.

DEAR MADAM,--We left London on Friday, the 6th, not very early, and

travelled, without any memorable accident, through a country which I had

seen before. In the evening I was not well, and was forced to stop at

Stilton, one stage short of Stamford, where we intended to have lodged.

On the 7th we passed through Stamford and Grantham, and dined at Newark,

where I had only time to observe, that the market-place was uncommonly

spacious and neat. In London, we should call it a square, though the

sides were neither straight nor parallel. We came, at night, to

Doncaster, and went to church in the morning, where Chambers found the

monument of Robert of Doncaster, who says on his stone something like

this:--What I gave, that I have; what I spent, that I had; what I left,

that I lost.--So saith Robert of Doncaster, who reigned in the world

sixty-seven years, and all that time lived not one. Here we were invited

to dinner, and, therefore, made no great haste away.