THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OF HIGH STATIONS.
RASSELAS applauded the design, and appeared next day with a splendid
retinue at the Court of the Bassa. He was soon distinguished for his
magnificence, and admitted, as a Prince whose curiosity had brought him
from distant countries, to an intimacy with the great officers and
frequent conversation with the Bassa himself.
He was at first inclined to believe that the man must be pleased with his
own condition whom all approached with reverence and heard with
obedience, and who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole kingdom.
“There can be no pleasure,” said he, “equal to that of feeling at once
the joy of thousands all made happy by wise administration. Yet, since
by the law of subordination this sublime delight can be in one nation but
the lot of one, it is surely reasonable to think that there is some
satisfaction more popular and accessible, and that millions can hardly be
subjected to the will of a single man, only to fill his particular breast
with incommunicable content.”
These thoughts were often in his mind, and he found no solution of the
difficulty. But as presents and civilities gained him more familiarity,
he found that almost every man who stood high in his employment hated all
the rest and was hated by them, and that their lives were a continual
succession of plots and detections, stratagems and escapes, faction and
treachery. Many of those who surrounded the Bassa were sent only to
watch and report his conduct: every tongue was muttering censure, and
every eye was searching for a fault.
At last the letters of revocation arrived: the Bassa was carried in
chains to Constantinople, and his name was mentioned no more.
“What are we now to think of the prerogatives of power?” said Rasselas to
his sister: “is it without efficacy to good, or is the subordinate degree
only dangerous, and the supreme safe and glorious? Is the Sultan the
only happy man in his dominions, or is the Sultan himself subject to the
torments of suspicion and the dread of enemies?”
In a short time the second Bassa was deposed. The Sultan that had
advanced him was murdered by the Janissaries, and his successor had other
views or different favourites.