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To such societies he was readily admitted, but a few days brought
him back weary and disgusted. Their mirth was without images,
their laughter without motive; their pleasures were gross and
sensual, in which the mind had no part; their conduct was at once
wild and mean--they laughed at order and at law, but the frown of
power dejected and the eye of wisdom abashed them.

The Prince soon concluded that he should never be happy in a course
of life of which he was ashamed. He thought it unsuitable to a
reasonable being to act without a plan, and to be sad or cheerful
only by chance. "Happiness," said he, "must be something solid and
permanent, without fear and without uncertainty."

But his young companions had gained so much of his regard by their
frankness and courtesy that he could not leave them without warning
and remonstrance. "My friends," said he, "I have seriously
considered our manners and our prospects, and find that we have
mistaken our own interest. The first years of man must make
provision for the last. He that never thinks, never can be wise.
Perpetual levity must end in ignorance; and intemperance, though it
may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short or
miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no long duration, and
that in mature age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and
phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we shall have no
comforts but the esteem of wise men and the means of doing good.
Let us therefore stop while to stop is in our power: let us live
as men who are some time to grow old, and to whom it will be the
most dreadful of all evils to count their past years by follies,
and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the
maladies which riot has produced."

They stared awhile in silence one upon another, and at last drove
him away by a general chorus of continued laughter.

The consciousness that his sentiments were just and his intention
kind was scarcely sufficient to support him against the horror of
derision. But he recovered his tranquillity and pursued his
search.



CHAPTER XVIII--THE PRINCE FINDS A WISE AND HAPPY MAN.



As he was one day walking in the street he saw a spacious building
which all were by the open doors invited to enter. He followed the
stream of people, and found it a hall or school of declamation, in
which professors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed his eye
upon a sage raised above the rest, who discoursed with great energy
on the government of the passions. His look was venerable, his
action graceful, his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant.
He showed with great strength of sentiment and variety of
illustration that human nature is degraded and debased when the
lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the
parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues
but the natural effect of unlawful government, perturbation, and
confusion; that she betrays the fortresses of the intellect to
rebels, and excites her children to sedition against their lawful
sovereign. He compared reason to the sun, of which the light is
constant, uniform, and lasting; and fancy to a meteor, of bright
but transitory lustre, irregular in its motion and delusive in its
direction.

He then communicated the various precepts given from time to time
for the conquest of passion, and displayed the happiness of those
who had obtained the important victory, after which man is no
longer the slave of fear nor the fool of hope; is no more emaciated
by envy, inflamed by anger, emasculated by tenderness, or depressed
by grief; but walks on calmly through the tumults or privacies of
life, as the sun pursues alike his course through the calm or the
stormy sky.

He enumerated many examples of heroes immovable by pain or
pleasure, who looked with indifference on those modes or accidents
to which the vulgar give the names of good and evil. He exhorted
his hearers to lay aside their prejudices, and arm themselves
against the shafts of malice or misfortune, by invulnerable
patience: concluding that this state only was happiness, and that
this happiness was in every one's power.

Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to the
instructions of a superior being, and waiting for him at the door,
humbly implored the liberty of visiting so great a master of true
wisdom. The lecturer hesitated a moment, when Rasselas put a purse
of gold into his hand, which he received with a mixture of joy and
wonder.

"I have found," said the Prince at his return to Imlac, "a man who
can teach all that is necessary to be known; who, from the unshaken
throne of rational fortitude, looks down on the scenes of life
changing beneath him. He speaks, and attention watches his lips.
He reasons, and conviction closes his periods. This man shall be
my future guide: I will learn his doctrines and imitate his life."

"Be not too hasty," said Imlac, "to trust or to admire the teachers
of morality: they discourse like angels, but they live like men."

Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man could reason so
forcibly without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his
visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He had now learned
the power of money, and made his way by a piece of gold to the
inner apartment, where he found the philosopher in a room half
darkened, with his eyes misty and his face pale. "Sir," said he,
"you are come at a time when all human friendship is useless; what
I suffer cannot be remedied: what I have lost cannot be supplied.
My daughter, my only daughter, from whose tenderness I expected all
the comforts of my age, died last night of a fever. My views, my
purposes, my hopes, are at an end: I am now a lonely being,
disunited from society."

"Sir," said the Prince, "mortality is an event by which a wise man
can never be surprised: we know that death is always near, and it
should therefore always be expected." "Young man," answered the
philosopher, "you speak like one that has never felt the pangs of
separation." "Have you then forgot the precepts," said Rasselas,
"which you so powerfully enforced? Has wisdom no strength to arm
the heart against calamity? Consider that external things are
naturally variable, but truth and reason are always the same."
"What comfort," said the mourner, "can truth and reason afford me?
Of what effect are they now, but to tell me that my daughter will
not be restored?"

The Prince, whose humanity would not suffer him to insult misery
with reproof, went away, convinced of the emptiness of rhetorical
sounds, and the inefficacy of polished periods and studied
sentences.



CHAPTER XIX--A GLIMPSE OF PASTORAL LIFE.



He was still eager upon the same inquiry; and having heard of a
hermit that lived near the lowest cataract of the Nile, and filled
the whole country with the fame of his sanctity, resolved to visit
his retreat, and inquire whether that felicity which public life
could not afford was to be found in solitude, and whether a man
whose age and virtue made him venerable could teach any peculiar
art of shunning evils or enduring them.

Imlac and the Princess agreed to accompany him, and after the
necessary preparations, they began their journey. Their way lay
through the fields, where shepherds tended their flocks and the
lambs were playing upon the pasture. "This," said the poet, "is
the life which has been often celebrated for its innocence and
quiet; let us pass the heat of the day among the shepherds' tents,
and know whether all our searches are not to terminate in pastoral
simplicity."

The proposal pleased them; and they induced the shepherds, by small
presents and familiar questions, to tell the opinion of their own
state. They were so rude and ignorant, so little able to compare
the good with the evil of the occupation, and so indistinct in
their narratives and descriptions, that very little could be
learned from them. But it was evident that their hearts were
cankered with discontent; that they considered themselves as
condemned to labour for the luxury of the rich, and looked up with
stupid malevolence towards those that were placed above them.

The Princess pronounced with vehemence that she would never suffer
these envious savages to be her companions, and that she should not
soon be desirous of seeing any more specimens of rustic happiness;
but could not believe that all the accounts of primeval pleasures
were fabulous, and was in doubt whether life had anything that
could be justly preferred to the placid gratification of fields and
woods. She hoped that the time would come when, with a few
virtuous and elegant companions, she should gather flowers planted
by her own hands, fondle the lambs of her own ewe, and listen
without care, among brooks and breezes, to one of her maidens
reading in the shade.



CHAPTER XX--THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY.



On the next day they continued their journey till the heat
compelled them to look round for shelter. At a small distance they
saw a thick wood, which they no sooner entered than they perceived
that they were approaching the habitations of men. The shrubs were
diligently cut away to open walks where the shades ware darkest;
the boughs of opposite trees were artificially interwoven; seats of
flowery turf were raised in vacant spaces; and a rivulet that
wantoned along the side of a winding path had its banks sometimes
opened into small basins, and its stream sometimes obstructed by
little mounds of stone heaped together to increase its murmurs.

They passed slowly through the wood, delighted with such unexpected
accommodations, and entertained each other with conjecturing what
or who he could be that in those rude and unfrequented regions had
leisure and art for such harmless luxury.

As they advanced they heard the sound of music, and saw youths and
virgins dancing in the grove; and going still farther beheld a
stately palace built upon a hill surrounded by woods. The laws of
Eastern hospitality allowed them to enter, and the master welcomed
them like a man liberal and wealthy.

He was skilful enough in appearances soon to discern that they were
no common guests, and spread his table with magnificence. The
eloquence of Imlac caught his attention, and the lofty courtesy of
the Princess excited his respect. When they offered to depart, he
entreated their stay, and was the next day more unwilling to
dismiss them than before. They were easily persuaded to stop, and
civility grew up in time to freedom and confidence.

The Prince now saw all the domestics cheerful and all the face of
nature smiling round the place, and could not forbear to hope that
he should find here what he was seeking; but when he was
congratulating the master upon his possessions he answered with a
sigh, "My condition has indeed the appearance of happiness, but
appearances are delusive. My prosperity puts my life in danger;
the Bassa of Egypt is my enemy, incensed only by my wealth and
popularity. I have been hitherto protected against him by the
princes of the country; but as the favour of the great is uncertain
I know not how soon my defenders may be persuaded to share the
plunder with the Bassa. I have sent my treasures into a distant
country, and upon the first alarm am prepared to follow them. Then
will my enemies riot in my mansion, and enjoy the gardens which I
have planted."

They all joined in lamenting his danger and deprecating his exile;
and the Princess was so much disturbed with the tumult of grief and
indignation that she retired to her apartment. They continued with
their kind inviter a few days longer, and then went to find the
hermit.



CHAPTER XXI--THE HAPPINESS OF SOLITUDE--THE HERMIT'S HISTORY.



They came on the third day, by the direction of the peasants, to
the hermit's cell. It was a cavern in the side of a mountain,
overshadowed with palm trees, at such a distance from the cataract
that nothing more was heard than a gentle uniform murmur, such as
composes the mind to pensive meditation, especially when it was
assisted by the wind whistling among the branches. The first rude
essay of Nature had been so much improved by human labour that the
cave contained several apartments appropriated to different uses,
and often afforded lodging to travellers whom darkness or tempests
happened to overtake.

The hermit sat on a bench at the door, to enjoy the coolness of the
evening. On one side lay a book with pens and paper; on the other
mechanical instruments of various kinds. As they approached him
unregarded, the Princess observed that he had not the countenance
of a man that had found or could teach the way to happiness.

They saluted him with great respect, which he repaid like a man not
unaccustomed to the forms of Courts. "My children," said he, "if
you have lost your way, you shall be willingly supplied with such
conveniences for the night as this cavern will afford. I have all
that Nature requires, and you will not expect delicacies in a
hermit's cell."

They thanked him; and, entering, were pleased with the neatness and
regularity of the place. The hermit set flesh and wine before
them, though he fed only upon fruits and water. His discourse was
cheerful without levity, and pious without enthusiasm. He soon
gained the esteem of his guests, and the Princess repented her
hasty censure.

At last Imlac began thus: "I do not now wonder that your
reputation is so far extended: we have heard at Cairo of your
wisdom, and came hither to implore your direction for this young
man and maiden in the CHOICE OF LIFE."

"To him that lives well," answered the hermit, "every form of life
is good; nor can I give any other rule for choice than to remove
all apparent evil."

"He will most certainly remove from evil," said the Prince, "who
shall devote himself to that solitude which you have recommended by
your example."

"I have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude," said the hermit,
"but have no desire that my example should gain any imitators. In
my youth I professed arms, and was raised by degrees to the highest
military rank. I have traversed wide countries at the head of my
troops, and seen many battles and sieges. At last, being disgusted
by the preferments of a younger officer, and feeling that my vigour
was beginning to decay, I resolved to close my life in peace,
having found the world full of snares, discord, and misery. I had
once escaped from the pursuit of the enemy by the shelter of this
cavern, and therefore chose it for my final residence. I employed
artificers to form it into chambers, and stored it with all that I
was likely to want.

"For some time after my retreat I rejoiced like a tempest-beaten
sailor at his entrance into the harbour, being delighted with the
sudden change of the noise and hurry of war to stillness and
repose. When the pleasure of novelty went away, I employed my
hours in examining the plants which grow in the valley, and the
minerals which I collected from the rocks. But that inquiry is now
grown tasteless and irksome. I have been for some time unsettled
and distracted: my mind is disturbed with a thousand perplexities
of doubt and vanities of imagination, which hourly prevail upon me,
because I have no opportunities of relaxation or diversion. I am
sometimes ashamed to think that I could not secure myself from vice
but by retiring from the exercise of virtue, and begin to suspect
that I was rather impelled by resentment than led by devotion into
solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I lament that I
have lost so much, and have gained so little. In solitude, if I
escape the example of bad men, I want likewise the counsel and
conversation of the good. I have been long comparing the evils
with the advantages of society, and resolve to return into the
world to-morrow. The life of a solitary man will be certainly
miserable, but not certainly devout."

They heard his resolution with surprise, but after a short pause
offered to conduct him to Cairo. He dug up a considerable treasure
which he had hid among the rocks, and accompanied them to the city,
on which, as he approached it, he gazed with rapture.



CHAPTER XXII--THE HAPPINESS OF A LIFE LED ACCORDING TO NATURE.



Rasselas went often to an assembly of learned men, who met at
stated times to unbend their minds and compare their opinions.
Their manners were somewhat coarse, but their conversation was
instructive, and their disputations acute, though sometimes too
violent, and often continued till neither controvertist remembered
upon what question he began. Some faults were almost general among
them: every one was pleased to hear the genius or knowledge of
another depreciated.

In this assembly Rasselas was relating his interview with the
hermit, and the wonder with which he heard him censure a course of
life which he had so deliberately chosen and so laudably followed.
The sentiments of the hearers were various. Some were of opinion
that the folly of his choice had been justly punished by
condemnation to perpetual perseverance. One of the youngest among
them, with great vehemence, pronounced him a hypocrite. Some
talked of the right of society to the labour of individuals, and
considered retirement as a desertion of duty. Others readily
allowed that there was a time when the claims of the public were
satisfied, and when a man might properly sequester himself, to
review his life and purify his heart.

One who appeared more affected with the narrative than the rest
thought it likely that the hermit would in a few years go back to
his retreat, and perhaps, if shame did not restrain or death
intercept him, return once more from his retreat into the world.
"For the hope of happiness," said he, "is so strongly impressed
that the longest experience is not able to efface it. Of the
present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess
the misery; yet when the same state is again at a distance,
imagination paints it as desirable. But the time will surely come
when desire will no longer be our torment and no man shall be
wretched but by his own fault.

"This," said a philosopher who had heard him with tokens of great
impatience, "is the present condition of a wise man. The time is
already come when none are wretched but by their own fault.
Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness which Nature
has kindly placed within our reach. The way to be happy is to live
according to Nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable
law with which every heart is originally impressed; which is not
written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny; not instilled by
education, but infused at our nativity. He that lives according to
Nature will suffer nothing from the delusions of hope or
importunities of desire; he will receive and reject with equability
of temper; and act or suffer as the reason of things shall
alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse themselves with subtle
definitions or intricate ratiocination. Let them learn to be wise
by easier means: let them observe the hind of the forest and the
linnet of the grove: let them consider the life of animals, whose
motions are regulated by instinct; they obey their guide, and are
happy. Let us therefore at length cease to dispute, and learn to
live: throw away the encumbrance of precepts, which they who utter
them with so much pride and pomp do not understand, and carry with
us this simple and intelligible maxim: that deviation from Nature
is deviation from happiness.

When he had spoken he looked round him with a placid air, and
enjoyed the consciousness of his own beneficence.

"Sir," said the Prince with great modesty, "as I, like all the rest
of mankind, am desirous of felicity, my closest attention has been
fixed upon your discourse: I doubt not the truth of a position
which a man so learned has so confidently advanced. Let me only
know what it is to live according to Nature."

"When I find young men so humble and so docile," said the
philosopher, "I can deny them no information which my studies have
enabled me to afford. To live according to Nature is to act always
with due regard to the fitness arising from the relations and
qualities of causes and effects; to concur with the great and
unchangeable scheme of universal felicity; to co-operate with the
general disposition and tendency of the present system of things."

The Prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should
understand less as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was
silent; and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied and the rest
vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-
operated with the present system.



CHAPTER XXIII--THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN THEM THE
WORK OF OBSERVATION.



Rasselas returned home full of reflections, doubting how to direct
his future steps. Of the way to happiness he found the learned and
simple equally ignorant; but as he was yet young, he flattered
himself that he had time remaining for more experiments and further
inquiries. He communicated to Imlac his observations and his
doubts, but was answered by him with new doubts and remarks that
gave him no comfort. He therefore discoursed more frequently and
freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope with himself, and
always assisted him to give some reason why, though he had been
hitherto frustrated, he might succeed at last.

"We have hitherto," said she, "known but little of the world; we
have never yet been either great or mean. In our own country,
though we had royalty, we had no power; and in this we have not yet
seen the private recesses of domestic peace. Imlac favours not our
search, lest we should in time find him mistaken. We will divide
the task between us; you shall try what is to be found in the
splendour of Courts, and I will range the shades of humbler life.
Perhaps command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as they
afford the most opportunities of doing good; or perhaps what this
world can give may be found in the modest habitations of middle
fortune--too low for great designs, and too high for penury and
distress."



CHAPTER XXIV--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.



CHAPTER XXV--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.

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