Book: Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

S >> Samuel Johnson >> Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia



Transcribed from the 1889 Cassell & Company edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk




RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA




CHAPTER I--DESCRIPTION OF A PALACE IN A VALLEY.



Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue
with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will
perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the
present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history
of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

Rasselas was the fourth son of the mighty Emperor in whose
dominions the father of waters begins his course--whose bounty
pours down the streams of plenty, and scatters over the world the
harvests of Egypt.

According to the custom which has descended from age to age among
the monarchs of the torrid zone, Rasselas was confined in a private
palace, with the other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty,
till the order of succession should call him to the throne.

The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity had destined for
the residence of the Abyssinian princes was a spacious valley in
the kingdom of Amhara, surrounded on every side by mountains, of
which the summits overhang the middle part. The only passage by
which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, of
which it had long been disputed whether it was the work of nature
or of human industry. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a
thick wood, and the mouth which opened into the valley was closed
with gates of iron, forged by the artificers of ancient days, so
massive that no man, without the help of engines, could open or
shut them.

From the mountains on every side rivulets descended that filled all
the valley with verdure and fertility, and formed a lake in the
middle, inhabited by fish of every species, and frequented by every
fowl whom nature has taught to dip the wing in water. This lake
discharged its superfluities by a stream, which entered a dark
cleft of the mountain on the northern side, and fell with dreadful
noise from precipice to precipice till it was heard no more.

The sides of the mountains were covered with trees, the banks of
the brooks were diversified with flowers; every blast shook spices
from the rocks, and every month dropped fruits upon the ground.
All animals that bite the grass or browse the shrubs, whether wild
or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, secured from beasts of
prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were flocks
and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of
chase frisking in the lawns, the sprightly kid was bounding on the
rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn
elephant reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world
were brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and
its evils extracted and excluded.

The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants with all
the necessaries of life, and all delights and superfluities were
added at the annual visit which the Emperor paid his children, when
the iron gate was opened to the sound of music, and during eight
days every one that resided in the valley was required to propose
whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, to fill up
the vacancies of attention, and lessen the tediousness of time.
Every desire was immediately granted. All the artificers of
pleasure were called to gladden the festivity; the musicians
exerted the power of harmony, and the dancers showed their activity
before the princes, in hopes that they should pass their lives in
blissful captivity, to which those only were admitted whose
performance was thought able to add novelty to luxury. Such was
the appearance of security and delight which this retirement
afforded, that they to whom it was new always desired that it might
be perpetual; and as those on whom the iron gate had once closed
were never suffered to return, the effect of longer experience
could not be known. Thus every year produced new scenes of
delight, and new competitors for imprisonment.

The palace stood on an eminence, raised about thirty paces above
the surface of the lake. It was divided into many squares or
courts, built with greater or less magnificence according to the
rank of those for whom they were designed. The roofs were turned
into arches of massive stone, joined by a cement that grew harder
by time, and the building stood from century to century, deriding
the solstitial rains and equinoctial hurricanes, without need of
reparation.

This house, which was so large as to be fully known to none but
some ancient officers, who successively inherited the secrets of
the place, was built as if Suspicion herself had dictated the plan.
To every room there was an open and secret passage; every square
had a communication with the rest, either from the upper storeys by
private galleries, or by subterraneous passages from the lower
apartments. Many of the columns had unsuspected cavities, in which
a long race of monarchs had deposited their treasures. They then
closed up the opening with marble, which was never to be removed
but in the utmost exigences of the kingdom, and recorded their
accumulations in a book, which was itself concealed in a tower, not
entered but by the Emperor, attended by the prince who stood next
in succession.



CHAPTER II--THE DISCONTENT OF RASSELAS IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.



Here the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived only to know the
soft vicissitudes of pleasure and repose, attended by all that were
skilful to delight, and gratified with whatever the senses can
enjoy. They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and slept in the
fortresses of security. Every art was practised to make them
pleased with their own condition. The sages who instructed them
told them of nothing but the miseries of public life, and described
all beyond the mountains as regions of calamity, where discord was
always racing, and where man preyed upon man. To heighten their
opinion of their own felicity, they were daily entertained with
songs, the subject of which was the Happy Valley. Their appetites
were excited by frequent enumerations of different enjoyments, and
revelry and merriment were the business of every hour, from the
dawn of morning to the close of the evening.

These methods were generally successful; few of the princes had
ever wished to enlarge their bounds, but passed their lives in full
conviction that they had all within their reach that art or nature
could bestow, and pitied those whom nature had excluded from this
seat of tranquillity as the sport of chance and the slaves of
misery.

Thus they rose in the morning and lay down at night, pleased with
each other and with themselves, all but Rasselas, who, in the
twenty-sixth year of his age, began to withdraw himself from the
pastimes and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and
silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered with luxury,
and forgot to taste the dainties that were placed before him; he
rose abruptly in the midst of the song, and hastily retired beyond
the sound of music. His attendants observed the change, and
endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure. He neglected their
officiousness, repulsed their invitations, and spent day after day
on the banks of rivulets sheltered with trees, where he sometimes
listened to the birds in the branches, sometimes observed the fish
playing in the streams, and anon cast his eyes upon the pastures
and mountains filled with animals, of which some were biting the
herbage, and some sleeping among the bushes. The singularity of
his humour made him much observed. One of the sages, in whose
conversation he had formerly delighted, followed him secretly, in
hope of discovering the cause of his disquiet. Rasselas, who knew
not that any one was near him, having for some time fixed his eyes
upon the goats that were browsing among the rocks, began to compare
their condition with his own.

"What," said he, "makes the difference between man and all the rest
of the animal creation? Every beast that strays beside me has the
same corporal necessities with myself: he is hungry, and crops the
grass; he is thirsty, and drinks the stream; his thirst and hunger
are appeased; he is satisfied, and sleeps; he rises again, and is
hungry; he is again fed, and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty,
like him, but when thirst and hunger cease, I am not at rest. I
am, like him, pained with want, but am not, like him, satisfied
with fulness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloomy; I
long again to be hungry that I may again quicken the attention.
The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fly away to the groves,
where they sit in seeming happiness on the branches, and waste
their lives in tuning one unvaried series of sounds. I likewise
can call the lutist and the singer; but the sounds that pleased me
yesterday weary me to-day, and will grow yet more wearisome to-
morrow. I can discover in me no power of perception which is not
glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself
delighted. Man surely has some latent sense for which this place
affords no gratification; or he has some desire distinct from
sense, which must be satisfied before he can be happy."

After this he lifted up his head, and seeing the moon rising,
walked towards the palace. As he passed through the fields, and
saw the animals around him, "Ye," said he, "are happy, and need not
envy me that walk thus among you, burdened with myself; nor do I,
ye gentle beings, envy your felicity; for it is not the felicity of
man. I have many distresses from which you are free; I fear pain
when I do not feel it; I sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and
sometimes start at evils anticipated: surely the equity of
Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar
enjoyments."

With observations like these the Prince amused himself as he
returned, uttering them with a plaintive voice, yet with a look
that discovered him to feel some complacence in his own
perspicacity, and to receive some solace of the miseries of life
from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt and the
eloquence with which he bewailed them. He mingled cheerfully in
the diversions of the evening, and all rejoiced to find that his
heart was lightened.



CHAPTER III--THE WANTS OF HIM THAT WANTS NOTHING.



On the next day, his old instructor, imagining that he had now made
himself acquainted with his disease of mind, was in hope of curing
it by counsel, and officiously sought an opportunity of conference,
which the Prince, having long considered him as one whose
intellects were exhausted, was not very willing to afford. "Why,"
said he, "does this man thus intrude upon me? Shall I never be
suffered to forget these lectures, which pleased only while they
were new, and to become new again must be forgotten?" He then
walked into the wood, and composed himself to his usual
meditations; when, before his thoughts had taken any settled form,
he perceived his pursuer at his side, and was at first prompted by
his impatience to go hastily away; but being unwilling to offend a
man whom he had once reverenced and still loved, he invited him to
sit down with him on the bank.

The old man, thus encouraged, began to lament the change which had
been lately observed in the Prince, and to inquire why he so often
retired from the pleasures of the palace to loneliness and silence.
"I fly from pleasure," said the Prince, "because pleasure has
ceased to please: I am lonely because I am miserable, and am
unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."
"You, sir," said the sage, "are the first who has complained of
misery in the Happy Valley. I hope to convince you that your
complaints have no real cause. You are here in full possession of
all the Emperor of Abyssinia can bestow; here is neither labour to
be endured nor danger to be dreaded, yet here is all that labour or
danger can procure or purchase. Look round and tell me which of
your wants is without supply: if you want nothing, how are you
unhappy?"

"That I want nothing," said the Prince, "or that I know not what I
want, is the cause of my complaint: if I had any known want, I
should have a certain wish; that wish would excite endeavour, and I
should not then repine to see the sun move so slowly towards the
western mountains, or to lament when the day breaks, and sleep will
no longer hide me from myself. When I see the kids and the lambs
chasing one another, I fancy that I should be happy if I had
something to pursue. But, possessing all that I can want, I find
one day and one hour exactly like another, except that the latter
is still more tedious than the former. Let your experience inform
me how the day may now seem as short as in my childhood, while
nature was yet fresh, and every moment showed me what I never had
observed before. I have already enjoyed too much: give me
something to desire." The old man was surprised at this new
species of affliction, and knew not what to reply, yet was
unwilling to be silent. "Sir," said he, "if you had seen the
miseries of the world, you would know how to value your present
state." "Now," said the Prince, "you have given me something to
desire. I shall long to see the miseries of the world, since the
sight of them is necessary to happiness."



CHAPTER IV--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.



CHAPTER V--THE PRINCE MEDITATES HIS ESCAPE.



He now found that it would be very difficult to effect that which
it was very easy to suppose effected. When he looked round about
him, he saw himself confined by the bars of nature, which had never
yet been broken, and by the gate through which none that had once
passed it were ever able to return. He was now impatient as an
eagle in a grate. He passed week after week in clambering the
mountains to see if there was any aperture which the bushes might
conceal, but found all the summits inaccessible by their
prominence. The iron gate he despaired to open for it was not only
secured with all the power of art, but was always watched by
successive sentinels, and was, by its position, exposed to the
perpetual observation of all the inhabitants.

He then examined the cavern through which the waters of the lake
were discharged; and, looking down at a time when the sun shone
strongly upon its mouth, he discovered it to be full of broken
rocks, which, though they permitted the stream to flow through many
narrow passages, would stop any body of solid bulk. He returned
discouraged and dejected; but having now known the blessing of
hope, resolved never to despair.

In these fruitless researches he spent ten months. The time,
however, passed cheerfully away--in the morning he rose with new
hope; in the evening applauded his own diligence; and in the night
slept soundly after his fatigue. He met a thousand amusements,
which beguiled his labour and diversified his thoughts. He
discerned the various instincts of animals and properties of
plants, and found the place replete with wonders, of which he
proposed to solace himself with the contemplation if he should
never be able to accomplish his flight--rejoicing that his
endeavours, though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him with a source
of inexhaustible inquiry. But his original curiosity was not yet
abated; he resolved to obtain some knowledge of the ways of men.
His wish still continued, but his hope grew less. He ceased to
survey any longer the walls of his prison, and spared to search by
new toils for interstices which he knew could not be found, yet
determined to keep his design always in view, and lay hold on any
expedient that time should offer.



CHAPTER VI--A DISSERTATION ON THE ART OF FLYING.



Among the artists that had been allured into the Happy Valley, to
labour for the accommodation and pleasure of its inhabitants, was a
man eminent for his knowledge of the mechanic powers, who had
contrived many engines both of use and recreation. By a wheel
which the stream turned he forced the water into a tower, whence it
was distributed to all the apartments of the palace. He erected a
pavilion in the garden, around which he kept the air always cool by
artificial showers. One of the groves, appropriated to the ladies,
was ventilated by fans, to which the rivulets that ran through it
gave a constant motion; and instruments of soft music were played
at proper distances, of which some played by the impulse of the
wind, and some by the power of the stream.

This artist was sometimes visited by Rasselas who was pleased with
every kind of knowledge, imagining that the time would come when
all his acquisitions should be of use to him in the open world. He
came one day to amuse himself in his usual manner, and found the
master busy in building a sailing chariot. He saw that the design
was practicable upon a level surface, and with expressions of great
esteem solicited its completion. The workman was pleased to find
himself so much regarded by the Prince, and resolved to gain yet
higher honours. "Sir," said he, "you have seen but a small part of
what the mechanic sciences can perform. I have been long of
opinion that, instead of the tardy conveyance of ships and
chariots, man might use the swifter migration of wings, that the
fields of air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance and
idleness need crawl upon the ground."

This hint rekindled the Prince's desire of passing the mountains.
Having seen what the mechanist had already performed, he was
willing to fancy that he could do more, yet resolved to inquire
further before he suffered hope to afflict him by disappointment.
"I am afraid," said he to the artist, "that your imagination
prevails over your skill, and that you now tell me rather what you
wish than what you know. Every animal has his element assigned
him; the birds have the air, and man and beasts the earth." "So,"
replied the mechanist, "fishes have the water, in which yet beasts
can swim by nature and man by art. He that can swim needs not
despair to fly; to swim is to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is
to swim in a subtler. We are only to proportion our power of
resistance to the different density of matter through which we are
to pass. You will be necessarily up-borne by the air if you can
renew any impulse upon it faster than the air can recede from the
pressure."

"But the exercise of swimming," said the Prince, "is very
laborious; the strongest limbs are soon wearied. I am afraid the
act of flying will be yet more violent; and wings will be of no
great use unless we can fly further than we can swim."

"The labour of rising from the ground," said the artist, "will be
great, as we see it in the heavier domestic fowls; but as we mount
higher the earth's attraction and the body's gravity will be
gradually diminished, till we shall arrive at a region where the
man shall float in the air without any tendency to fall; no care
will then be necessary but to move forward, which the gentlest
impulse will effect. You, sir, whose curiosity is so extensive,
will easily conceive with what pleasure a philosopher, furnished
with wings and hovering in the sky, would see the earth and all its
inhabitants rolling beneath him, and presenting to him
successively, by its diurnal motion, all the countries within the
same parallel. How must it amuse the pendent spectator to see the
moving scene of land and ocean, cities and deserts; to survey with
equal security the marts of trade and the fields of battle;
mountains infested by barbarians, and fruitful regions gladdened by
plenty and lulled by peace. How easily shall we then trace the
Nile through all his passages, pass over to distant regions, and
examine the face of nature from one extremity of the earth to the
other."

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.