THE PRINCE CONTINUES TO GRIEVE AND MUSE.
AT this time the sound of music proclaimed the hour of repast, and the
conversation was concluded. The old man went away sufficiently
discontented to find that his reasonings had produced the only conclusion
which they were intended to prevent. But in the decline of life, shame
and grief are of short duration: whether it be that we bear easily what
we have borne long; or that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we
less regard others; or that we look with slight regard upon afflictions
to which we know that the hand of death is about to put an end.
The Prince, whose views were extended to a wider space, could not
speedily quiet his emotions. He had been before terrified at the length
of life which nature promised him, because he considered that in a long
time much must be endured: he now rejoiced in his youth, because in many
years much might be done. The first beam of hope that had been ever
darted into his mind rekindled youth in his cheeks, and doubled the
lustre of his eyes. He was fired with the desire of doing something,
though he knew not yet, with distinctness, either end or means. He was
now no longer gloomy and unsocial; but considering himself as master of a
secret stock of happiness, which he could only enjoy by concealing it, he
affected to be busy in all the schemes of diversion, and endeavoured to
make others pleased with the state of which he himself was weary. But
pleasures can never be so multiplied or continued as not to leave much of
life unemployed; there were many hours, both of the night and day, which
he could spend without suspicion in solitary thought. The load of life
was much lightened; he went eagerly into the assemblies, because he
supposed the frequency of his presence necessary to the success of his
purposes; he retired gladly to privacy, because he had now a subject of
thought. His chief amusement was to picture to himself that world which
he had never seen, to place himself in various conditions, to be
entangled in imaginary difficulties, and to be engaged in wild
adventures; but, his benevolence always terminated his projects in the
relief of distress, the detection of fraud, the defeat of oppression, and
the diffusion of happiness.
Thus passed twenty months of the life of Rasselas. He busied himself so
intensely in visionary bustle that he forgot his real solitude; and
amidst hourly preparations for the various incidents of human affairs,
neglected to consider by what means he should mingle with mankind.
One day, as he was sitting on a bank, he feigned to himself an orphan
virgin robbed of her little portion by a treacherous lover, and crying
after him for restitution. So strongly was the image impressed upon his
mind that he started up in the maid’s defence, and ran forward to seize
the plunderer with all the eagerness of real pursuit. Fear naturally
quickens the flight of guilt. Rasselas could not catch the fugitive with
his utmost efforts; but, resolving to weary by perseverance him whom he
could not surpass in speed, he pressed on till the foot of the mountain
stopped his course.
Here he recollected himself, and smiled at his own useless impetuosity.
Then raising his eyes to the mountain, “This,” said he, “is the fatal
obstacle that hinders at once the enjoyment of pleasure and the exercise
of virtue. How long is it that my hopes and wishes have flown beyond
this boundary of my life, which yet I never have attempted to surmount?”
Struck with this reflection, he sat down to muse, and remembered that
since he first resolved to escape from his confinement, the sun had
passed twice over him in his annual course. He now felt a degree of
regret with which he had never been before acquainted. He considered how
much might have been done in the time which had passed, and left nothing
real behind it. He compared twenty months with the life of man. “In
life,” said he, “is not to be counted the ignorance of infancy or
imbecility of age. We are long before we are able to think, and we soon
cease from the power of acting. The true period of human existence may
be reasonably estimated at forty years, of which I have mused away the
four-and-twentieth part. What I have lost was certain, for I have
certainly possessed it; but of twenty months to come, who can assure me?”
The consciousness of his own folly pierced him deeply, and he was long
before he could be reconciled to himself. “The rest of my time,” said
he, “has been lost by the crime or folly of my ancestors, and the absurd
institutions of my country; I remember it with disgust, yet without
remorse: but the months that have passed since new light darted into my
soul, since I formed a scheme of reasonable felicity, have been
squandered by my own fault. I have lost that which can never be
restored; I have seen the sun rise and set for twenty months, an idle
gazer on the light of heaven; in this time the birds have left the nest
of their mother, and committed themselves to the woods and to the skies;
the kid has forsaken the teat, and learned by degrees to climb the rocks
in quest of independent sustenance. I only have made no advances, but am
still helpless and ignorant. The moon, by more than twenty changes,
admonished me of the flux of life; the stream that rolled before my feet
upbraided my inactivity. I sat feasting on intellectual luxury,
regardless alike of the examples of the earth and the instructions of the
planets. Twenty months are passed: who shall restore them?”
These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his mind; he passed four months
in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves, and was awakened to
more vigorous exertion by hearing a maid, who had broken a porcelain cup,
remark that what cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.
This was obvious; and Rasselas reproached himself that he had not
discovered it—having not known, or not considered, how many useful hints
are obtained by chance, and how often the mind, hurried by her own ardour
to distant views, neglects the truths that lie open before her. He for a
few hours regretted his regret, and from that time bent his whole mind
upon the means of escaping from the Valley of Happiness.