THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOPIC
"All this," said the astronomer, "I have often thought, but my reason
has been so long subjugated by an uncontrollable 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 Abyssinian 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 monastic 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 public 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 diseases 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 purpose 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 could 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 offered, 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.