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.