THE PRINCESS PURSUES HER INQUIRY WITH MORE DILIGENCE THAN SUCCESS.
THE Princess in the meantime insinuated herself into many families; for
there are few doors through which liberality, joined with good humour,
cannot find its way. The daughters of many houses were airy and
cheerful; but Nekayah had been too long accustomed to the conversation of
Imlac and her brother to be much pleased with childish levity and prattle
which had no meaning. She found their thoughts narrow, their wishes low,
and their merriment often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as they
were, could not be preserved pure, but were embittered by petty
competitions and worthless emulation. They were always jealous of the
beauty of each other, of a quality to which solicitude can add nothing,
and from which detraction can take nothing away. Many were in love with
triflers like themselves, and many fancied that they were in love when in
truth they were only idle. Their affection was not fixed on sense or
virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in vexation. Their grief,
however, like their joy, was transient; everything floated in their mind
unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way
to another, as a second stone, cast into the water, effaces and confounds
the circles of the first.
With these girls she played as with inoffensive animals, and found them
proud of her countenance and weary of her company.
But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her affability easily
persuaded the hearts that were swelling with sorrow to discharge their
secrets in her ear, and those whom hope flattered or prosperity delighted
often courted her to partake their pleasure.
The Princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in a private
summerhouse on the banks of the Nile, and related to each other the
occurrences of the day. As they were sitting together the Princess cast
her eyes upon the river that flowed before her. “Answer,” said she,
“great father of waters, thou that rollest thy goods through eighty
nations, to the invocations of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me
if thou waterest through all thy course a single habitation from which
thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint.”
“You are then,” said Rasselas, “not more successful in private houses
than I have been in Courts.” “I have, since the last partition of our
provinces,” said the Princess, “enabled myself to enter familiarly into
many families, where there was the fairest show of prosperity and peace,
and know not one house that is not haunted by some fury that destroys
their quiet.
“I did not seek ease among the poor, because I concluded that there it
could not be found. But I saw many poor whom I had supposed to live in
affluence. Poverty has in large cities very different appearances. It
is often concealed in splendour and often in extravagance. It is the
care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the
rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is
lost in contriving for the morrow.
“This, however, was an evil which, though frequent, I saw with less pain,
because I could relieve it. Yet some have refused my bounties; more
offended with my quickness to detect their wants than pleased with my
readiness to succour them; and others, whose exigencies compelled them to
admit my kindness, have never been able to forgive their benefactress.
Many, however, have been sincerely grateful without the ostentation of
gratitude or the hope of other favours.”