IMLAC’S NARRATIVE (_continued_)—A HINT OF PILGRIMAGE.
IMLAC now felt the enthusiastic fit, and was proceeding to aggrandise his
own profession, when then Prince cried out: “Enough! thou hast convinced
me that no human being can ever be a poet. Proceed with thy narration.”
“To be a poet,” said Imlac, “is indeed very difficult.”
“So difficult,” returned the Prince, “that I will at present hear no more
of his labours. Tell me whither you went when you had seen Persia.”
“From Persia,” said the poet, “I travelled through Syria, and for three
years resided in Palestine, where I conversed with great numbers of the
northern and western nations of Europe, the nations which are now in
possession of all power and all knowledge, whose armies are irresistible,
and whose fleets command the remotest parts of the globe. When I
compared these men with the natives of our own kingdom and those that
surround us, they appeared almost another order of beings. In their
countries it is difficult to wish for anything that may not be obtained;
a thousand arts, of which we never heard, are continually labouring for
their convenience and pleasure, and whatever their own climate has denied
them is supplied by their commerce.”
“By what means,” said the Prince, “are the Europeans thus powerful? or
why, since they can so easily visit Asia and Africa for trade or
conquest, cannot the Asiatics and Africans invade their coast, plant
colonies in their ports, and give laws to their natural princes? The
same wind that carries them back would bring us thither.”
“They are more powerful, sir, than we,” answered Imlac, “because they are
wiser; knowledge will always predominate over ignorance, as man governs
the other animals. But why their knowledge is more than ours I know not
what reason can be given but the unsearchable will of the Supreme Being.”
“When,” said the Prince with a sigh, “shall I be able to visit Palestine,
and mingle with this mighty confluence of nations? Till that happy
moment shall arrive, let me fill up the time with such representations as
thou canst give me. I am not ignorant of the motive that assembles such
numbers in that place, and cannot but consider it as the centre of wisdom
and piety, to which the best and wisest men of every land must be
continually resorting.”
“There are some nations,” said Imlac, “that send few visitants to
Palestine; for many numerous and learned sects in Europe concur to
censure pilgrimage as superstitious, or deride it as ridiculous.”
“You know,” said the Prince, “how little my life has made me acquainted
with diversity of opinions; it will be too long to hear the arguments on
both sides; you, that have considered them, tell me the result.”
“Pilgrimage,” said Imlac, “like many other acts of piety, may be
reasonable or superstitious, according to the principles upon which it is
performed. Long journeys in search of truth are not commanded. Truth,
such as is necessary to the regulation of life, is always found where it
is honestly sought. Change of place is no natural cause of the increase
of piety, for it inevitably produces dissipation of mind. Yet, since men
go every day to view the fields where great actions have been performed,
and return with stronger impressions of the event, curiosity of the same
kind may naturally dispose us to view that country whence our religion
had its beginning, and I believe no man surveys those awful scenes
without some confirmation of holy resolutions. That the Supreme Being
may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another is the dream
of idle superstition, but that some places may operate upon our own minds
in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly experience will justify.
He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in
Palestine, will perhaps find himself mistaken; yet he may go thither
without folly; he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned,
dishonours at once his reason and religion.”
“These,” said the Prince, “are European distinctions. I will consider
them another time. What have you found to be the effect of knowledge?
Are those nations happier than we?”
“There is so much infelicity,” said the poet, “in the world, that scarce
any man has leisure from his own distresses to estimate the comparative
happiness of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the means of
pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of
increasing its ideas. Ignorance is mere privation, by which nothing can
be produced; it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid
for want of attraction, and, without knowing why, we always rejoice when
we learn, and grieve when we forget. I am therefore inclined to conclude
that if nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow
more happy as out minds take a wider range.
“In enumerating the particular comforts of life, we shall find many
advantages on the side of the Europeans. They cure wounds and diseases
with which we languish and perish. We suffer inclemencies of weather
which they can obviate. They have engines for the despatch of many
laborious works, which we must perform by manual industry. There is such
communication between distant places that one friend can hardly be said
to be absent from another. Their policy removes all public
inconveniences; they have roads cut through the mountains, and bridges
laid over their rivers. And, if we descend to the privacies of life,
their habitations are more commodious and their possessions are more
secure.”
“They are surely happy,” said the Prince, “who have all these
conveniences, of which I envy none so much as the facility with which
separated friends interchange their thoughts.”
“The Europeans,” answered Imlac, “are less unhappy than we, but they are
not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be
endured and little to be enjoyed.”