--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Johnson, Samuel collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 10 number: 1 published: 1906-11 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Samuel Johnson, "The History of Rasselas, Chapters I–IV," *Improvement Era* 10, no. 1 (November 1906): 16–25.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera101unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera101unse start_page: 16 end_page: 25 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-11) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera101unse publication_year: 1906 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The History of Rasselas, Chapters I–IV THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS. PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. 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 half 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 cverhang the middle part. The only passage by which it could be entered was a cavern that passed under a rock, of which it has long been disputed whether it was the work of nature or of human industry. The outlet of the cav- THE STORY OF RASSELAS. 1? ern 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 massy that no man could without the help of engines open or shut them. From the mountains on every side, rivulets descended that filled all tl-e 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 shrub, 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 oc rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking in the tree?, 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 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 theii activity before the princes, in hope that they should pass their lives in this 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; they, to whom it was new, always desired that it might be 18 IMPROVEMENT ERA. 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 schemes 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 massy 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. Tkis 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 story by private galleries, or by subterranean 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 exigencies of the kingdom: and recorded theiraccumulations 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 skillful 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 practiced 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 raging, and where man preyed upon man. THE STOR Y OF RA SSELA S. 1 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 was the business of every hour, from the dawn of morning to the close of even. 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 fate had excluded from this seat of tranquility, 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 their 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 hinj; he rose abruptly in the midst of the song and hastily retired beyond the sound of music. His attendants observed the change and endeavored to renew his love of pleasure; he neglected their officiousness, and 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 stream, 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. This singularity of his humor 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 anyone 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 20 IMPROVEMENT ERA. 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 my attention. The birds pick 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 lutanist and the singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me today; and will grow yet more wearisome tomorrow. I can discover within 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 desires, 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 he 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 ye 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 in. 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 caring it by counsel, and officiously sought an opportunity of con- THE STORY OF RASSELAS. 21 ference; 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 be never suffered to forget those 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 piince, and to inquire why he so often retired from the "pleasures of the palace, to loneliness and silence." "I fly from pleasures," 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 that the Emperor of Abyssinia can bestow; here is neither labor to be endured nor danger to be dreaded, yet here is all that labor or danger can procure or purchase. Look around and tell me which of your wants is without supply; ifyou want nothing how are you unhappy?" "That I want nothing," said the prince, "nor 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 wculd excite endeavor, and I should not then repine to see the sun move so slowly towards the western mountain, or 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 seem a s short as in my childhood, while nature was yet fresh, and every moment showed me what I never had observed before. I 22 IMPROVEMENT ERA. 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 giver; 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 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. This first beam of hope, that had been ever darted into his mind, rekindled youth in his cheeks, and doubled the luster 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 enjoy only by concealing it, he affected to be busy in all schemes of diversion, and endeavored to make others pleased with the state of which he himself was weary. But pleasures never can be 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 sup- THE STORY OF RASSELAS. 23 posed the frequency of his presence necessary to the suceess 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 and redress. So strongly was the image impressed upon his mind that he started up in the maid's defense, and ran forward to seize the plunderer with all the eagerness of real pursuit. Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt. Rasselas could not reach 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. 24 IMPROVEMENT ERA. 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 locks 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, reg-irdless 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 exertions 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 how or not considered many useful hints are obtained by chance, and how often the mind, hurried by her own ardor 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. (to be continued.) THE GOOD SHIP ZION. (For the Improvement Eia ) Out on the waves of the billowy ocean, Under the gaze of the All-seeing eye, Lulled to a dream with the musical motion Of rippling sea, and the sunny, blue sky, We peacefully sailed, with the good ship Zion Spreading her sails to the changeable breeze When, out of the east, with the roar of a lion, And blackening over the treacherous seas, A tempest arose, the horizon obscuring, With flame and with night plunging over the deep With the shrill voice of a cataract roaring, Calling the placid sea out of its sleep Calling the crew from their dreaming, and pouring Its anarchy into the fluttering sail; Like a fleet eagle upon its prey low' ring, It caught the small ship in the whirl of the gale. The captain, above the loud thundering, shouted, "Hold fast to the ship, she will carry us through!" But, alas! there was many-a-man even doubted The power of a God to deliver that crew. The tempest tyrannical piled the wild water Like mountains, and many a sailor was hurled, Asleep at his post when the hurricane caught her, Down into the foam of the watery world. As suddenly, then, as its marvelous coming, The storm, like the wind in its threatening flight, The voice of the sea, with its plunging and foaming, The cloud, with its thundering, black as the night. Passed away, the menacing water subsided; The