Book: Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

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"There is no part of history so generally useful as that which
relates to the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement
of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of
learning and ignorance (which are the light and darkness of
thinking beings), the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the
revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of battles and
invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful or
elegant arts are not to be neglected; those who have kingdoms to
govern have understandings to cultivate.

"Example is always more efficacious than precept. A soldier is
formed in war, and a painter must copy pictures. In this,
contemplative life has the advantage. Great actions are seldom
seen, but the labours of art are always at hand for those who
desire to know what art has been able to perform.

"When the eye or the imagination is struck with any uncommon work,
the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it
was performed. Here begins the true use of such contemplation. We
enlarge our comprehension by new ideas, and perhaps recover some
art lost to mankind, or learn what is less perfectly known in our
own country. At least we compare our own with former times, and
either rejoice at our improvements, or, what is the first motion
towards good, discover our defects."

"I am willing," said the Prince, "to see all that can deserve my
search."

"And I," said the Princess, "shall rejoice to learn something of
the manners of antiquity."

"The most pompous monument of Egyptian greatness, and one of the
most bulky works of manual industry," said Imlac, "are the
Pyramids: fabrics raised before the time of history, and of which
the earliest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. Of
these the greatest is still standing, very little injured by time."

"Let us visit them to-morrow," said Nekayah. "I have often heard
of the Pyramids, and shall not rest till I have seen them, within
and without, with my own eyes."



CHAPTER XXXI--THEY VISIT THE PYRAMIDS.



The resolution being thus taken, they set out the next day. They
laid tents upon their camels, being resolved to stay among the
Pyramids till their curiosity was fully satisfied. They travelled
gently, turned aside to everything remarkable, stopped from time to
time and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed the various
appearances of towns ruined and inhabited, of wild and cultivated
nature.

When they came to the Great Pyramid they were astonished at the
extent of the base and the height of the top. Imlac explained to
them the principles upon which the pyramidal form was chosen for a
fabric intended to co-extend its duration with that of the world:
he showed that its gradual diminution gave it such stability as
defeated all the common attacks of the elements, and could scarcely
be overthrown by earthquakes themselves, the least resistible of
natural violence. A concussion that should shatter the pyramid
would threaten the dissolution of the continent.

They measured all its dimensions, and pitched their tents at its
foot. Next day they prepared to enter its interior apartments, and
having hired the common guides, climbed up to the first passage;
when the favourite of the Princess, looking into the cavity,
stepped back and trembled. "Pekuah," said the Princess, "of what
art thou afraid?"

"Of the narrow entrance," answered the lady, "and of the dreadful
gloom. I dare not enter a place which must surely be inhabited by
unquiet souls. The original possessors of these dreadful vaults
will start up before us, and perhaps shut us in for ever." She
spoke, and threw her arms round the neck of her mistress.

"If all your fear be of apparitions," said the Prince, "I will
promise you safety. There is no danger from the dead: he that is
once buried will be seen no more."

"That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, "I will not undertake
to maintain against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all
ages and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned,
among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed.
This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far as human nature is
diffused, could become universal only by its truth: those that
never heard of one another would not have agreed in a tale which
nothing but experience can make credible. That it is doubted by
single cavillers can very little weaken the general evidence, and
some who deny it with their tongues confess it by their fears.

"Yet I do not mean to add new terrors to those which have already
seized upon Pekuah. There can be no reason why spectres should
haunt the Pyramid more than other places, or why they should have
power or will to hurt innocence and purity. Our entrance is no
violation of their privileges: we can take nothing from them; how,
then, can we offend them?"

"My dear Pekuah," said the Princess, "I will always go before you,
and Imlac shall follow you. Remember that you are the companion of
the Princess of Abyssinia."

"If the Princess is pleased that her servant should die," returned
the lady, "let her command some death less dreadful than enclosure
in this horrid cavern. You know I dare not disobey you--I must go
if you command me; but if I once enter, I never shall come back."

The Princess saw that her fear was too strong for expostulation or
reproof, and, embracing her, told her that she should stay in the
tent till their return. Pekuah was not yet satisfied, but
entreated the Princess not to pursue so dreadful a purpose as that
of entering the recesses of the Pyramids. "Though I cannot teach
courage," said Nekayah, "I must not learn cowardice, nor leave at
last undone what I came hither only to do."



CHAPTER XXXII--THEY ENTER THE PYRAMID.



Pekuah descended to the tents, and the rest entered the Pyramid.
They passed through the galleries, surveyed the vaults of marble,
and examined the chest in which the body of the founder is supposed
to have been deposited. They then sat down in one of the most
spacious chambers to rest awhile before they attempted to return.

"We have now," said Imlac, "gratified our minds with an exact view
of the greatest work of man, except the wall of China.

"Of the wall it is very easy to assign the motive. It secured a
wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of barbarians,
whose unskilfulness in the arts made it easier for them to supply
their wants by rapine than by industry, and who from time to time
poured in upon the inhabitants of peaceful commerce as vultures
descend upon domestic fowl. Their celerity and fierceness made the
wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious.

"But for the Pyramids, no reason has ever been given adequate to
the cost and labour of the work. The narrowness of the chambers
proves that it could afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures
might have been reposited at far less expense with equal security.
It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger
of imagination which preys incessantly upon life, and must be
always appeased by some employment. Those who have already all
that they can enjoy must enlarge their desires. He that has built
for use till use is supplied must begin to build for vanity, and
extend his plan to the utmost power of human performance that he
may not be soon reduced to form another wish.

"I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the
insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king whose power is
unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all real and imaginary
wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a pyramid, the
satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse
the tediousness of declining life by seeing thousands labouring
without end, and one stone, for no purpose, laid upon another.
Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition,
imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that
command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual
gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly!"



CHAPTER XXXIII--THE PRINCESS MEETS WITH AN UNEXPECTED MISFORTUNE.



They rose up, and returned through the cavity at which they had
entered; and the Princess prepared for her favourite a long
narrative of dark labyrinths and costly rooms, and of the different
impressions which the varieties of the way had made upon her. But
when they came to their train, they found every one silent and
dejected: the men discovered shame and fear in their countenances,
and the women were weeping in their tents.

What had happened they did not try to conjecture, but immediately
inquired. "You had scarcely entered into the Pyramid," said one of
the attendants, "when a troop of Arabs rushed upon us: we were too
few to resist them, and too slow to escape. They were about to
search the tents, set us on our camels, and drive us along before
them, when the approach of some Turkish horsemen put them to
flight: but they seized the Lady Pekuah with her two maids, and
carried them away: the Turks are now pursuing them by our
instigation, but I fear they will not be able to overtake them."

The Princess was overpowered with surprise and grief. Rasselas, in
the first heat of his resentment, ordered his servants to follow
him, and prepared to pursue the robbers with his sabre in his hand.
"Sir," said Imlac, "what can you hope from violence or valour? The
Arabs are mounted on horses trained to battle and retreat; we have
only beasts of burden. By leaving our present station we may lose
the Princess, but cannot hope to regain Pekuah."

In a short time the Turks returned, having not been able to reach
the enemy. The Princess burst out into new lamentations, and
Rasselas could scarcely forbear to reproach them with cowardice;
but Imlac was of opinion that the escape of the Arabs was no
addition to their misfortune, for perhaps they would have killed
their captives rather than have resigned them.



CHAPTER XXXIV--THEY RETURN TO CAIRO WITHOUT PEKUAH.



There was nothing to be hoped from longer stay. They returned to
Cairo, repenting of their curiosity, censuring the negligence of
the government, lamenting their own rashness, which had neglected
to procure a guard, imagining many expedients by which the loss of
Pekuah might have been prevented, and resolving to do something for
her recovery, though none could find anything proper to be done.

Nekayah retired to her chamber, where her women attempted to
comfort her by telling her that all had their troubles, and that
Lady Pekuah had enjoyed much happiness in the world for a long
time, and might reasonably expect a change of fortune. They hoped
that some good would befall her wheresoever she was, and that their
mistress would find another friend who might supply her place.

The Princess made them no answer; and they continued the form of
condolence, not much grieved in their hearts that the favourite was
lost.

Next day the Prince presented to the Bassa a memorial of the wrong
which he had suffered, and a petition for redress. The Bassa
threatened to punish the robbers, but did not attempt to catch
them; nor indeed could any account or description be given by which
he might direct the pursuit.

It soon appeared that nothing would be done by authority.
Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can
punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at
ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request
when they lose sight of the petitioner.

Imlac then endeavoured to gain some intelligence by private agents.
He found many who pretended to an exact knowledge of all the haunts
of the Arabs, and to regular correspondence with their chiefs, and
who readily undertook the recovery of Pekuah. Of these, some were
furnished with money for their journey, and came back no more; some
were liberally paid for accounts which a few days discovered to be
false. But the Princess would not suffer any means, however
improbable, to be left untried. While she was doing something, she
kept her hope alive. As one expedient failed, another was
suggested; when one messenger returned unsuccessful, another was
despatched to a different quarter.

Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah nothing had been heard;
the hopes which they had endeavoured to raise in each other grew
more languid; and the Princess, when she saw nothing more to be
tried, sunk down inconsolable in hopeless dejection. A thousand
times she reproached herself with the easy compliance by which she
permitted her favourite to stay behind her. "Had not my fondness,"
said she, "lessened my authority, Pekuah had not dared to talk of
her terrors. She ought to have feared me more than spectres. A
severe look would have overpowered her; a peremptory command would
have compelled obedience. Why did foolish indulgence prevail upon
me? Why did I not speak, and refuse to hear?"

"Great Princess," said Imlac, "do not reproach yourself for your
virtue, or consider that as blameable by which evil has
accidentally been caused. Your tenderness for the timidity of
Pekuah was generous and kind. When we act according to our duty,
we commit the events to Him by whose laws our actions are governed,
and who will suffer none to be finally punished for obedience.
When, in prospect of some good, whether natural or moral, we break
the rules prescribed us, we withdraw from the direction of superior
wisdom, and take all consequences upon ourselves. Man cannot so
far know the connection of causes and events as that he may venture
to do wrong in order to do right. When we pursue our end by lawful
means, we may always console our miscarriage by the hope of future
recompense. When we consult only our own policy, and attempt to
find a nearer way to good by over-leaping the settled boundaries of
right and wrong, we cannot be happy even by success, because we
cannot escape the consciousness of our fault; but if we miscarry,
the disappointment is irremediably embittered. How comfortless is
the sorrow of him who feels at once the pangs of guilt and the
vexation of calamity which guilt has brought upon him!

"Consider, Princess, what would have been your condition if the
Lady Pekuah had entreated to accompany you, and, being compelled to
stay in the tents, had been carried away; or how would you have
borne the thought if you had forced her into the Pyramid, and she
had died before you in agonies of terror?"

"Had either happened," said Nekayah, "I could not have endured life
till now; I should have been tortured to madness by the remembrance
of such cruelty, or must have pined away in abhorrence of myself."

"This, at least," said Imlac, "is the present reward of virtuous
conduct, that no unlucky consequence can oblige us to repent it."



CHAPTER XXXV--THE PRINCESS LANGUISHES FOR WANT OF PEKUAH.



Nekayah, being thus reconciled to herself, found that no evil is
insupportable but that which is accompanied with consciousness of
wrong. She was from that time delivered from the violence of
tempestuous sorrow, and sunk into silent pensiveness and gloomy
tranquillity. She sat from morning to evening recollecting all
that had been done or said by her Pekuah, treasured up with care
every trifle on which Pekuah had set an accidental value, and which
might recall to mind any little incident or careless conversation.
The sentiments of her whom she now expected to see no more were
treasured in her memory as rules of life, and she deliberated to no
other end than to conjecture on any occasion what would have been
the opinion and counsel of Pekuah.

The women by whom she was attended knew nothing of her real
condition, and therefore she could not talk to them but with
caution and reserve. She began to remit her curiosity, having no
great desire to collect notions which she had no convenience of
uttering. Rasselas endeavoured first to comfort and afterwards to
divert her; he hired musicians, to whom she seemed to listen, but
did not hear them; and procured masters to instruct her in various
arts, whose lectures, when they visited her again, were again to be
repeated. She had lost her taste of pleasure and her ambition of
excellence; and her mind, though forced into short excursions,
always recurred to the image of her friend.

Imlac was every morning earnestly enjoined to renew his inquiries,
and was asked every night whether he had yet heard of Pekuah; till,
not being able to return the Princess the answer that she desired,
he was less and less willing to come into her presence. She
observed his backwardness, and commanded him to attend her. "You
are not," said she, "to confound impatience with resentment, or to
suppose that I charge you with negligence because I repine at your
unsuccessfulness. I do not much wonder at your absence. I know
that the unhappy are never pleasing, and that all naturally avoid
the contagion of misery. To hear complaints is wearisome alike to
the wretched and the happy; for who would cloud by adventitious
grief the short gleams of gaiety which life allows us, or who that
is struggling under his own evils will add to them the miseries of
another?

"The time is at hand when none shall be disturbed any longer by the
sighs of Nekayah: my search after happiness is now at an end. I
am resolved to retire from the world, with all its flatteries and
deceits, and will hide myself in solitude, without any other care
than to compose my thoughts and regulate my hours by a constant
succession of innocent occupations, till, with a mind purified from
earthly desires, I shall enter into that state to which all are
hastening, and in which I hope again to enjoy the friendship of
Pekuah."

"Do not entangle your mind," said Imlac, "by irrevocable
determinations, nor increase the burden of life by a voluntary
accumulation of misery. The weariness of retirement will continue
to increase when the loss of Pekuah is forgot. That you have been
deprived of one pleasure is no very good reason for rejection of
the rest."

"Since Pekuah was taken from me," said the Princess, "I have no
pleasure to reject or to retain. She that has no one to love or
trust has little to hope. She wants the radical principle of
happiness. We may perhaps allow that what satisfaction this world
can afford must arise from the conjunction of wealth, knowledge,
and goodness. Wealth is nothing but as it is bestowed, and
knowledge nothing but as it is communicated. They must therefore
be imparted to others, and to whom could I now delight to impart
them? Goodness affords the only comfort which can be enjoyed
without a partner, and goodness may be practised in retirement."

"How far solitude may admit goodness or advance it, I shall not,"
replied Imlac, "dispute at present. Remember the confession of the
pious hermit. You will wish to return into the world when the
image of your companion has left your thoughts."

"That time," said Nekayah, "will never come. The generous
frankness, the modest obsequiousness, and the faithful secrecy of
my dear Pekuah will always be more missed as I shall live longer to
see vice and folly."

"The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden calamity," said Imlac,
"is like that of the fabulous inhabitants of the new-created earth,
who, when the first night came upon them, supposed that day would
never return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see
nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled;
yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long
without a dawn of ease. But they who restrain themselves from
receiving comfort do as the savages would have done had they put
out their eyes when it was dark. Our minds, like our bodies, are
in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something
acquired. To lose much at once is inconvenient to either, but
while the vital power remains uninjured, nature will find the means
of reparation. Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the
eye; and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave
behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach
increasing in magnitude. Do not suffer life to stagnate: it will
grow muddy for want of motion; commit yourself again to the current
of the world; Pekuah will vanish by degrees; you will meet in your
way some other favourite, or learn to diffuse yourself in general
conversation."

"At least," said the Prince, "do not despair before all remedies
have been tried. The inquiry after the unfortunate lady is still
continued, and shall be carried on with yet greater diligence, on
condition that you will promise to wait a year for the event,
without any unalterable resolution."

Nekayah thought this a reasonable demand, and made the promise to
her brother, who had been obliged by Imlac to require it. Imlac
had, indeed, no great hope of regaining Pekuah; but he supposed
that if he could secure the interval of a year, the Princess would
be then in no danger of a cloister.



CHAPTER XXXVI--PEKUAH IS STILL REMEMBERED. THE PROGRESS OF SORROW.



Nekayah, seeing that nothing was omitted for the recovery of her
favourite, and having by her promise set her intention of
retirement at a distance, began imperceptibly to return to common
cares and common pleasures. She rejoiced without her own consent
at the suspension of her sorrows, and sometimes caught herself with
indignation in the act of turning away her mind from the
remembrance of her whom yet she resolved never to forget.

She then appointed a certain hour of the day for meditation on the
merits and fondness of Pekuah, and for some weeks retired
constantly at the time fixed, and returned with her eyes swollen
and her countenance clouded. By degrees she grew less scrupulous,
and suffered any important and pressing avocation to delay the
tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to less occasions, and
sometimes forgot what she was indeed afraid to remember, and at
last wholly released herself from the duty of periodical
affliction.

Her real love of Pekuah was not yet diminished. A thousand
occurrences brought her back to memory, and a thousand wants, which
nothing but the confidence of friendship can supply, made her
frequently regretted. She therefore solicited Imlac never to
desist from inquiry, and to leave no art of intelligence untried,
that at least she might have the comfort of knowing that she did
not suffer by negligence or sluggishness. "Yet what," said she,
"is to be expected from our pursuit of happiness, when we find the
state of life to be such that happiness itself is the cause of
misery? Why should we endeavour to attain that of which the
possession cannot be secured? I shall henceforward fear to yield
my heart to excellence, however bright, or to fondness, however
tender, lest I should lose again what I have lost in Pekuah."



CHAPTER XXXVII--THE PRINCESS HEARS NEWS OF PEKUAH.



In seven mouths one of the messengers who had been sent away upon
the day when the promise was drawn from the Princess, returned,
after many unsuccessful rambles, from the borders of Nubia, with an
account that Pekuah was in the hands of an Arab chief, who
possessed a castle or fortress on the extremity of Egypt. The
Arab, whose revenue was plunder, was willing to restore her, with
her two attendants, for two hundred ounces of gold.

The price was no subject of debate. The Princess was in ecstasies
when she heard that her favourite was alive, and might so cheaply
be ransomed. She could not think of delaying for a moment Pekuah's
happiness or her own, but entreated her brother to send back the
messenger with the sum required. Imlac, being consulted, was not
very confident of the veracity of the relater, and was still more
doubtful of the Arab's faith, who might, if he were too liberally
trusted, detain at once the money and the captives. He thought it
dangerous to put themselves in the power of the Arab by going into
his district; and could not expect that the rover would so much
expose himself as to come into the lower country, where he might be
seized by the forces of the Bassa.

It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. But Imlac,
after some deliberation, directed the messenger to propose that
Pekuah should be conducted by ten horsemen to the monastery of St.
Anthony, which is situated in the deserts of Upper Egypt, where she
should be met by the same number, and her ransom should be paid.

That no time might be lost, as they expected that the proposal
would not be refused, they immediately began their journey to the
monastery; and when they arrived, Imlac went forward with the
former messenger to the Arab's fortress. Rasselas was desirous to
go with them; but neither his sister nor Imlac would consent. The
Arab, according to the custom of his nation, observed the laws of
hospitality with great exactness to those who put themselves into
his power, and in a few days brought Pekuah, with her maids, by
easy journeys, to the place appointed, where, receiving the
stipulated price, he restored her, with great respect, to liberty
and her friends, and undertook to conduct them back towards Cairo
beyond all danger of robbery or violence.

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