The History of Rasselas, XXIII–XXIV

THE

HISTORY OF RASSELAS. PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. CHAPTER XXIII. THE PRINCE AND HIS SISTER DIVIDE BETWEEN THEM THE WORK OF OBSERVATION. Rasselas returned home full of reflections, doubtful 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 observa- tions 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 favors 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 splendor of courts, and I will range the shades of humbler life. Perhaps command and authority may be the supreme blessings, as they afford most opportunities of doing good; or, perhaps, what this world can give may be found in the modest

464 IMPROVEMENT ERA. habitations of middls fortune; too low for great designs, and too high for penury and distress." CHAPTER XXIV. THE PRINCE EXAMINES THE HAPPINESS OP HIGH STATIONS. Rasselas applauded the design, and appeared next day with a splendid retinue at the court of 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 rever- ence 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 satis- faction 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 solu- tion of the difficulty. But as presents and civilities gained him more familiarity, he found that almost every man who stood high in 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 car- ried 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 any efficacy for gcod? or is the subordinate degree only dangerous, and the supreme safe and glorious? Is the Sultan the only happy man in his dominions?

THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS. 465 oris 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 Janizaries, and his successor had other views and different favorites. CHAPTER XXV. THE PRINCESS PURSUES HER INQUIRY WITH MORE DILIGENCE IEAH SUCCESS. The princess, in the meantime, insinuated herself into many families; for there are few doors through which liberality, joined with good humor, 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 mean- ing. 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 imbittered by petty compe- titions and worthless emulation. They were always jealous of the beauty of each other; or 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 affec- tion 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. With these girls she played as with inoffensive animals, and found them proud of her countenance, and weary of her com- pany. But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and her affa- bility easily persuaded the hearts that were swelling with sorrow to discharge their secrets in her ear; and those whom hope flat- tered or prosperity delighted, often courted her to partake their pleasures. The princess and her brother commonly met in the evening in

466 IMPROVEMENT ERA. a private summerhouse on the bank of the Nile, and related to each other the occurrences of the day. As they were sitting together, the princess cast her eyes upon the river that flowed before her. "Answer," said she, "great father of waters, thou that rollest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invocation of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me if thou waterest through all thy course, a single habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs of complaint!" "You are, then," said Rasselas, "not more successful in private houses than I have been in courts." "I have, since the last partition of our provinces," said the princess, ' 'enabled myself to enter familiarly into many families where there was the fairest show of piosperity and peace, and know not one house that is not haunted by some fury that destroys their quiet. I did not seek ease among the poor, because I con- cluded that there it could not be found. But I saw many poor whom I had supposed to live in affluence. Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest; they support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in con- triving for the morrow. "This, however, was an evil which, though frequent, I saw with less pain, because I could relieve it. Yet some have refused my bounties; more offended with my quickness to detect their wants than pleased with my readiness to succor them, and others, whose exigencies compelled them to admit my kindness, have never been able to forgive their benefactress. Many, however, have been sin- cerely grateful, without the ostentation of gratitude, or the hope of other favors." CHAPTER XXVI. THE PRINCESS CONTINUES HER REMARKS UPON PRIVATE LIFE. Nekayah, perceiving her brother's attention fixed, proceeded in her narrative. "In families, where there is or is not poverty, there is com- monly discord; if a kingdom be, as Imlac tells us, a great family, a family likewise is a little kingdom, torn with factions and ex-

THE HISTORY OF RASSELAS. 467 posed to revolutions. An unpracticed observer expects the love of parents and children to be constant and equal; but this kind- ness seldom continues beyond the years of infancy; in a short time the children become rivals to their parents. Benefits are allayed by reproaches, and gratitude debased by envy. "Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children: thus some place their confidence in the father, and some in the mother, and by degrees the house is filled with artifices and feuds. "The opinions of children and parents, of the young and the old, are naturally opposite, by the contrary effects of hope and de- spondence, of expectation and experience, without crime or folly on either side. The colors of life in youth and age appear differ- ent, as the face of nature in spring and winter. And how can chil- dren credit the assertions of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false? "Few parents act in such a manner as much tc enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives. The old man trusts wholly to slow contrivance and gradual progression: the youth expects to force his way by genius, vigor, and precipitance. The old man pays regard to riches, and the youth reverences virtue. The old man defies prudence: the youth commits himself to magnanimity and chance. The young man, who intends no ill, believes that none is intended, and therefore acts with openness and candor; but his father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to suspect, and too often allured to practice it. Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age. Thus parents and children, for the greatest part, live on to love less and less: and if those whom nature has thus closely united are the torments of each other, where^shall we look for tenderness and consolation." "Surely," said the prince, "you must have been unfortunate in your choice of acquaintance: I am unwilling to believe that the most tender of all relations is thus impeded in its effects by natur- al necessity." "Domestic discord," answered she, "is not inevitably and

468 IMPROVEMENT ERA. fatally necessary; but yet it is not easy to avoid. We seldom see that a whole family is virtuous; the good and evil cannot well agree; and the evil can yet less agree with one another; even the virtuous fall sometimes to variance, when their virtues are of dif- ferent kinds and tending to extremes. In general, those parents have most reverence that most deserve it: for he that lives well cannot be despised. "Many other evils infest private life. Some are the slaves of servants whom they have trusted with their affairs. Some are kept in continued anxiety by the caprice of rich rela- tives, whom they cannot please and dare not offend. Some hus- bands are imperious, and some wives perverse: and as it is always more easy to do evil than good, though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one may often make many miserable. " "If such be the general effect of marriage," said the prince, "I shall, for the future, think it dangerous to connect my interest with that of another, lest I should be unhappy by my partner's fault." "I have met," said the princess, "with many who live single *or that reason; but I have never found that their prudence ought io raise envy. They dream away their time without friendship, without fondness, and are driven to rid themselves of the day, for which they have no use, by childish amusements or vicious de- lights. Thev act as beings under the constant sense of some known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancor; and their tongues with censure. They are peevish at home, and malevolent abroad; and, as the outlaws of human nature, make it their busi- ness and their pleasure to disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than soli- tude; it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.'' "What, then, is to be done?" said Rasselas; "the more we inquire the less we can lesolve. Surely he is most likely to please himself that has no other inclination or regard." [to be continued.]