Book: Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia

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CHAPTER XLIII--THE ASTRONOMER LEAVES IMLAC HIS DIRECTIONS.



"'Hear, therefore, what I shall impart with attention, such as the
welfare of a world requires. If the task of a king be considered
as difficult, who has the care only of a few millions, to whom he
cannot do much good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him on
whom depends the action of the elements and the great gifts of
light and heat? Hear me, therefore, with attention.

"'I have diligently considered the position of the earth and sun,
and formed innumerable schemes, in which I changed their situation.
I have sometimes turned aside the axis of the earth, and sometimes
varied the ecliptic of the sun, but I have found it impossible to
make a disposition by which the world may be advantaged; what one
region gains another loses by an imaginable alteration, even
without considering the distant parts of the solar system with
which we are acquainted. Do not, therefore, in thy administration
of the year, indulge thy pride by innovation; do not please thyself
with thinking that thou canst make thyself renowned to all future
ages by disordering the seasons. The memory of mischief is no
desirable fame. Much less will it become thee to let kindness or
interest prevail. Never rob other countries of rain to pour it on
thine own. For us the Nile is sufficient.'

"I promised that when I possessed the power I would use it with
inflexible integrity; and he dismissed me, pressing my hand. 'My
heart,' said he, 'will be now at rest, and my benevolence will no
more destroy my quiet; I have found a man of wisdom and virtue, to
whom I can cheerfully bequeath the inheritance of the sun.'"

The Prince heard this narration with very serious regard; but the
Princess smiled, and Pekuah convulsed herself with laughter.
"Ladies," said Imlac, "to mock the heaviest of human afflictions is
neither charitable nor wise. Few can attain this man's knowledge
and few practise his virtues, but all may suffer his calamity. Of
the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and
alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason."

The Princess was recollected, and the favourite was abashed.
Rasselas, more deeply affected, inquired of Imlac whether he
thought such maladies of the mind frequent, and how they were
contracted.



CHAPTER XLIV--THE DANGEROUS PREVALENCE OF IMAGINATION.



"Disorders of intellect," answered Imlac, "happen much more often
than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps if we
speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state.
There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate
over his reason who can regulate his attention wholly by his will,
and whose ideas will come and go at his command. No man will be
found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannise, and
force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity, but while
this power is such as we can control and repress it is not visible
to others, nor considered as any deprivation of the mental
faculties; it is not pronounced madness but when it becomes
ungovernable, and apparently influences speech or action.

"To indulge the power of fiction and send imagination out upon the
wing is often the sport of those who delight too much in silent
speculation. When we are alone we are not always busy; the labour
of excogitation is too violent to last long; the ardour of inquiry
will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing
external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own
thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is
pleased with what he is? He then expatiates in boundless futurity,
and culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the present
moment he should most desire, amuses his desires with impossible
enjoyments, and confers upon his pride unattainable dominion. The
mind dances from scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all
combinations, and riots in delights which Nature and fortune, with
all their bounty, cannot bestow.

"In time some particular train of ideas fixes the attention; all
other intellectual gratifications are rejected; the mind, in
weariness or leisure, recurs constantly to the favourite
conception, and feasts on the luscious falsehood whenever she is
offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of
fancy is confirmed; she grows first imperious and in time despotic.
Then fictions begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten
upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rapture or of anguish.

"This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which the hermit has
confessed not always to promote goodness, and the astronomer's
misery has proved to be not always propitious to wisdom."

"I will no more," said the favourite, "imagine myself the Queen of
Abyssinia. I have often spent the hours which the Princess gave to
my own disposal in adjusting ceremonies and regulating the Court; I
have repressed the pride of the powerful and granted the petitions
of the poor; I have built new palaces in more happy situations,
planted groves upon the tops of mountains, and have exulted in the
beneficence of royalty, till, when the Princess entered, I had
almost forgotten to bow down before her."

"And I," said the Princess, "will not allow myself any more to play
the shepherdess in my waking dreams. I have often soothed my
thoughts with the quiet and innocence of pastoral employments, till
I have in my chamber heard the winds whistle and the sheep bleat;
sometimes freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, and sometimes
with my crook encountered the wolf. I have a dress like that of
the village maids, which I put on to help my imagination, and a
pipe on which I play softly, and suppose myself followed by my
flocks."

"I will confess," said the Prince, "an indulgence of fantastic
delight more dangerous than yours. I have frequently endeavoured
to imagine the possibility of a perfect government, by which all
wrong should be restrained, all vice reformed, and all the subjects
preserved in tranquillity and innocence. This thought produced
innumerable schemes of reformation, and dictated many useful
regulations and salutary effects. This has been the sport and
sometimes the labour of my solitude, and I start when I think with
how little anguish I once supposed the death of my father and my
brothers."

"Such," said Imlac, "are the effects of visionary schemes. When we
first form them, we know them to be absurd, but familiarise them by
degrees, and in time lose sight of their folly."



CHAPTER XLV--THEY DISCOURSE WITH AN OLD MAN.



The evening was now far past, and they rose to return home. As
they walked along the banks of the Nile, delighted with the beams
of the moon quivering on the water, they saw at a small distance an
old man whom the Prince had often heard in the assembly of the
sages. "Yonder," said he, "is one whose years have calmed his
passions, but not clouded his reason. Let us close the
disquisitions of the night by inquiring what are his sentiments of
his own state, that we may know whether youth alone is to struggle
with vexation, and whether any better hope remains for the latter
part of life."

Here the sage approached and saluted them. They invited him to
join their walk, and prattled awhile as acquaintance that had
unexpectedly met one another. The old man was cheerful and
talkative, and the way seemed short in his company. He was pleased
to find himself not disregarded, accompanied them to their house,
and, at the Prince's request, entered with them. They placed him
in the seat of honour, and set wine and conserves before him.

"Sir," said the Princess, "an evening walk must give to a man of
learning like you pleasures which ignorance and youth can hardly
conceive. You know the qualities and the causes of all that you
behold--the laws by which the river flows, the periods in which the
planets perform their revolutions. Everything must supply you with
contemplation, and renew the consciousness of your own dignity."

"Lady," answered he, "let the gay and the vigorous expect pleasure
in their excursions: it is enough that age can attain ease. To me
the world has lost its novelty. I look round, and see what I
remember to have seen in happier days. I rest against a tree, and
consider that in the same shade I once disputed upon the annual
overflow of the Nile with a friend who is now silent in the grave.
I cast my eyes upwards, fix them on the changing moon, and think
with pain on the vicissitudes of life. I have ceased to take much
delight in physical truth; for what have I to do with those things
which I am soon to leave?"

"You may at least recreate yourself," said Imlac, "with the
recollection of an honourable and useful life, and enjoy the praise
which all agree to give you."

"Praise," said the sage with a sigh, "is to an old man an empty
sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation
of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband. I have
outlived my friends and my rivals. Nothing is now of much
importance; for I cannot extend my interest beyond myself. Youth
is delighted with applause, because it is considered as the earnest
of some future good, and because the prospect of life is far
extended; but to me, who am now declining to decrepitude, there is
little to be feared from the malevolence of men, and yet less to be
hoped from their affection or esteem. Something they may yet take
away, but they can give me nothing. Riches would now be useless,
and high employment would be pain. My retrospect of life recalls
to my view many opportunities of good neglected, much time
squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness and vacancy. I
leave many great designs unattempted, and many great attempts
unfinished. My mind is burdened with no heavy crime, and therefore
I compose myself to tranquillity; endeavour to abstract my thoughts
from hopes and cares which, though reason knows them to be vain,
still try to keep their old possession of the heart; expect, with
serene humility, that hour which nature cannot long delay, and hope
to possess in a better state that happiness which here I could not
find, and that virtue which here I have not attained."

He arose and went away, leaving his audience not much elated with
the hope of long life. The Prince consoled himself with remarking
that it was not reasonable to be disappointed by this account; for
age had never been considered as the season of felicity, and if it
was possible to be easy in decline and weakness, it was likely that
the days of vigour and alacrity might be happy; that the noon of
life might be bright, if the evening could be calm.

The Princess suspected that age was querulous and malignant, and
delighted to repress the expectations of those who had newly
entered the world. She had seen the possessors of estates look
with envy on their heirs, and known many who enjoyed pleasures no
longer than they could confine it to themselves.

Pekuah conjectured that the man was older than he appeared, and was
willing to impute his complaints to delirious dejection; or else
supposed that he had been unfortunate, and was therefore
discontented. "For nothing," said she, "is more common than to
call our own condition the condition of life."

Imlac, who had no desire to see them depressed, smiled at the
comforts which they could so readily procure to themselves; and
remembered that at the same age he was equally confident of
unmingled prosperity, and equally fertile of consolatory
expedients. He forbore to force upon them unwelcome knowledge,
which time itself would too soon impress. The Princess and her
lady retired; the madness of the astronomer hung upon their minds;
and they desired Imlac to enter upon his office, and delay next
morning the rising of the sun.



CHAPTER XLVI--THE PRINCESS AND PEKUAH VISIT THE ASTRONOMER.



The Princess and Pekuah, having talked in private of Imlac's
astronomer, thought his character at once so amiable and so strange
that they could not be satisfied without a nearer knowledge, and
Imlac was requested to find the means of bringing them together.

This was somewhat difficult. The philosopher had never received
any visits from women, though he lived in a city that had in it
many Europeans, who followed the manners of their own countries,
and many from other parts of the world, that lived there with
European liberty. The ladies would not be refused, and several
schemes were proposed for the accomplishment of their design. It
was proposed to introduce them as strangers in distress, to whom
the sage was always accessible; but after some deliberation it
appeared that by this artifice no acquaintance could be formed, for
their conversation would be short, and they could not decently
importune him often. "This," said Rasselas, "is true; but I have
yet a stronger objection against the misrepresentation of your
state. I have always considered it as treason against the great
republic of human nature to make any man's virtues the means of
deceiving him, whether on great or little occasions. All imposture
weakens confidence and chills benevolence. When the sage finds
that you are not what you seemed, he will feel the resentment
natural to a man who, conscious of great abilities, discovers that
he has been tricked by understandings meaner than his own, and
perhaps the distrust which he can never afterwards wholly lay aside
may stop the voice of counsel and close the hand of charity; and
where will you find the power of restoring his benefactions to
mankind, or his peace to himself?"

To this no reply was attempted, and Imlac began to hope that their
curiosity would subside; but next day Pekuah told him she had now
found an honest pretence for a visit to the astronomer, for she
would solicit permission to continue under him the studies in which
she had been initiated by the Arab, and the Princess might go with
her, either as a fellow-student, or because a woman could not
decently come alone. "I am afraid," said Imlac, "that he will soon
be weary of your company. Men advanced far in knowledge do not
love to repeat the elements of their art, and I am not certain that
even of the elements, as he will deliver them, connected with
inferences and mingled with reflections, you are a very capable
auditress." "That," said Pekuah, "must be my care. I ask of you
only to take me thither. My knowledge is perhaps more than you
imagine it, and by concurring always with his opinions I shall make
him think it greater than it is."

The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was told that a
foreign lady, travelling in search of knowledge, had heard of his
reputation, and was desirous to become his scholar. The
uncommonness of the proposal raised at once his surprise and
curiosity, and when after a short deliberation he consented to
admit her, he could not stay without impatience till the next day.

The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and were attended by
Imlac to the astronomer, who was pleased to see himself approached
with respect by persons of so splendid an appearance. In the
exchange of the first civilities he was timorous and bashful; but
when the talk became regular, he recollected his powers, and
justified the character which Imlac had given. Inquiring of Pekuah
what could have turned her inclination towards astronomy, he
received from her a history of her adventure at the Pyramid, and of
the time passed in the Arab's island. She told her tale with ease
and elegance, and her conversation took possession of his heart.
The discourse was then turned to astronomy. Pekuah displayed what
she knew. He looked upon her as a prodigy of genius, and entreated
her not to desist from a study which she had so happily begun.

They came again and again, and were every time more welcome than
before. The sage endeavoured to amuse them, that they might
prolong their visits, for he found his thoughts grow brighter in
their company; the clouds of solitude vanished by degrees as he
forced himself to entertain them, and he grieved when he was left,
at their departure, to his old employment of regulating the
seasons.

The Princess and her favourite had now watched his lips for several
months, and could not catch a single word from which they could
judge whether he continued or not in the opinion of his
preternatural commission. They often contrived to bring him to an
open declaration; but he easily eluded all their attacks, and, on
which side soever they pressed him, escaped from them to some other
topic.

As their familiarity increased, they invited him often to the house
of Imlac, where they distinguished him by extraordinary respect.
He began gradually to delight in sublunary pleasures. He came
early and departed late; laboured to recommend himself by assiduity
and compliance; excited their curiosity after new arts, that they
might still want his assistance; and when they made any excursion
of pleasure or inquiry, entreated to attend them.

By long experience of his integrity and wisdom, the Prince and his
sister were convinced that he might be trusted without danger; and
lest he should draw any false hopes from the civilities which he
received, discovered to him their condition, with the motives of
their journey, and required his opinion on the choice of life.

"Of the various conditions which the world spreads before you which
you shall prefer," said the sage, "I am not able to instruct you.
I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in
study without experience--in the attainment of sciences which can
for the most part be but remotely useful to mankind. I have
purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of
life; I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship,
and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. If I have obtained
any prerogatives above other students, they have been accompanied
with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity; but even of these
prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, since my thoughts have
been diversified by more intercourse with the world, begun to
question the reality. When I have been for a few days lost in
pleasing dissipation, I am always tempted to think that my
inquiries have ended in error, and that I have suffered much, and
suffered it in vain."

Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's understanding was
breaking through its mists, and resolved to detain him from the
planets till he should forget his task of ruling them, and reason
should recover its original influence.

From this time the astronomer was received into familiar
friendship, and partook of all their projects and pleasures; his
respect kept him attentive, and the activity of Rasselas did not
leave much time unengaged. Something was always to be done; the
day was spent in making observations, which furnished talk for the
evening, and the evening was closed with a scheme for the morrow.

The sage confessed to Imlac that since he had mingled in the gay
tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession of
amusements, he found the conviction of his authority over the skies
fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less to an opinion
which he never could prove to others, and which he now found
subject to variation, from causes in which reason had no part. "If
I am accidentally left alone for a few hours," said he, "my
inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are
chained down by some irresistible violence; but they are soon
disentangled by the Prince's conversation, and instantaneously
released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually
afraid of spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at
the dread which harassed him in the dark; yet, if his lamp be
extinguished, feels again the terrors which he knows that when it
is light he shall feel no more. But I am sometimes afraid, lest I
indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget the
great charge with which I am entrusted. If I favour myself in a
known error, or am determined by my own ease in a doubtful question
of this importance, how dreadful is my crime!"

"No disease of the imagination," answered Imlac, "is so difficult
of cure as that which is complicated with the dread of guilt; fancy
and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift
their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished from
the dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or
religious, the mind drives them away when they give it pain; but
when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the
faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or
banish them. For this reason the superstitious are often
melancholy, and the melancholy almost always superstitious.

"But do not let the suggestions of timidity overpower your better
reason; the danger of neglect can be but as the probability of the
obligation, which, when you consider it with freedom, you find very
little, and that little growing every day less. Open your heart to
the influence of the light, which from time to time breaks in upon
you; when scruples importune you, which you in your lucid moments
know to be vain, do not stand to parley, but fly to business or to
Pekuah; and keep this thought always prevalent, that you are only
one atom of the mass of humanity, and have neither such virtue nor
vice as that you should be singled out for supernatural favours or
afflictions."



CHAPTER XLVII--THE PRINCE ENTERS, AND BRINGS A NEW TOPIC.



"All this," said the astronomer, "I have often thought; but my
reason has been so long subjugated by an uncontrollable and
overwhelming idea, that it durst not confide in its own decisions.
I now see how fatally I betrayed my quiet, by suffering chimeras to
prey upon me in secret; but melancholy shrinks from communication,
and I never found a man before to whom I could impart my troubles,
though I had been certain of relief. I rejoice to find my own
sentiments confirmed by yours, who are not easily deceived, and can
have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope that time and variety
will dissipate the gloom that has so long surrounded me, and the
latter part of my days will be spent in peace."

"Your learning and virtue," said Imlac, "may justly give you
hopes."

Rasselas then entered, with the Princess and Pekuah, and inquired
whether they had contrived any new diversion for the next day.
"Such," said Nekayah, "is the state of life, that none are happy
but by the anticipation of change; the change itself is nothing;
when we have made it the next wish is to change again. The world
is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never
saw before."

"Variety," said Rasselas, "is so necessary to content, that even
the Happy Valley disgusted me by the recurrence of its luxuries;
yet I could not forbear to reproach myself with impatience when I
saw the monks of St. Anthony support, without complaint, a life,
not of uniform delight, but uniform hardship."

"Those men," answered Imlac, "are less wretched in their silent
convent than the Abyssinian princes in their prison of pleasure.
Whatever is done by the monks is incited by an adequate and
reasonable motive. Their labour supplies them with necessaries; it
therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. Their
devotion prepares them for another state, and reminds them of its
approach while it fits them for it. Their time is regularly
distributed; one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left
open to the distraction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades
of listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be performed at
an appropriated hour, and their toils are cheerful, because they
consider them as acts of piety by which they are always advancing
towards endless felicity."

"Do you think," said Nekayah, "that the monastic rule is a more
holy and less imperfect state than any other? May not he equally
hope for future happiness who converses openly with mankind, who
succours the distressed by his charity, instructs the ignorant by
his learning, and contributes by his industry to the general system
of life, even though he should omit some of the mortifications
which are practised in the cloister, and allow himself such
harmless delights as his condition may place within his reach?"

"This," said Imlac, "is a question which has long divided the wise
and perplexed the good. I am afraid to decide on either part. He
that lives well in the world is better than he that lives well in a
monastery. But perhaps everyone is not able to stem the
temptations of public life, and if he cannot conquer he may
properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and have
likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are weary of the
conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions
which have long busied them in vain. And many are dismissed by age
and diseases from the more laborious duties of society. In
monasteries the weak and timorous may be happily sheltered, the
weary may repose, and the penitent may meditate. Those retreats of
prayer and contemplation have something so congenial to the mind of
man, that perhaps there is scarcely one that does not purpose to
close his life in pious abstraction, with a few associates serious
as himself."

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