THE PRINCESS PURSUES HER INQUIRY WITH MORE DILIGENCE THAN SUCCESS
The princess, in the meantime, insinuated herself into many families;
for there are few doors through which liberality, joined with good
humour, cannot find its way. The daughters of many houses were airy and
cheerful; but 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 embittered by petty
competitions and worthless emulation. They were always jealous of the
beauty of each other; of a quality to which solicitude can add nothing,
and from which detraction can take nothing away. Many were in love with
triflers like themselves, and many fancied that they were in love when
in truth they were only idle. Their affection was seldom fixed on sense
or virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in vexation. Their grief,
however, like their joy, was transient; everything floated in their mind
unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way
to another, as a second stone cast into the water effaces and confounds
the circles of the first.
With these girls she played as with inoffensive animals, and found them
proud of her countenance, and weary of her company.
But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her affability easily
persuaded the hearts that were swelling with sorrow to discharge their
secrets in her ear; and those whom hope flattered, or prosperity
delighted, often courted her to partake their 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 the 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."