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. 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. "Of the various conditions which the world spreads before you, which you shall prefer," said "But do not let the suggestions of timidity the sage, "I am not able to instruct you. I can overpower your better reason: the danger of neonly tell that I have chosen wrong. I have glect can be but as the probability of the obliga passed my time in study without experience: in tion, which, when you consider it with freedom, the attainment of sciences which can, for the you find very little, and that little growing every most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I day less. Open your heart to the influence of have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the light, which, from time to time, breaks in the common comforts of life: I have missed the upon you: when scruples importune you, which endearing elegance of female friendship, and the you in your lucid moments know to be vain, do happy commerce of domestic tenderness. If I not stand to parley, but fly to business, or to Pehave obtained any prerogatives above other stu- kuah; and keep this thought always prevalent, dents, they have been accompanied with fear, dis- that you are only one atom of the mass of huquiet, and scrupulosity; but even of these prero- manity, and have neither such virtue nor vice as gatives, whatever they were, I have, since my that you should be singled out for supernatural thoughts have been diversified by more inter- favours or afflictions." course 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 accidently 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 intrusted. 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 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-mor row 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 Abissinian princes in their prison of pleasure. What ever is done by the monks is incited by an ade quate and reasonable motive. Their labour sup plies them with necessaries; it therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. Their de votion prepares them for another state, and re minds 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?" the virtue of the gums which embalmed then, they yet remain without corruption." "I know not," said Rasselas, "what pleasure the sight of the catacombs can afford; but, since nothing else is offered, I am resolved to view them, and shall place this with many other things which I have done, because I would do something." They hired a guard of horsemen, and the next day visited the catacombs. When they were about to descend into the sepulchral caves, “Pekuah," said the princess, "we are now again invading the habitations of the dead, I know that you will stay behind; let me find you safe when I return."-"No, I will not be left," answered Pekuah: "I will go down between you and the prince." They then all descended, and roved with wonder through the labyrinth of subterran ous passages, where the bodies were laid in rows on either side. CHAPTER XLVIII. IMLAC DISCOURSES ON THE NATURE OF THE SOUL "WHAT reason," said the prince, "can be given, why the Egyptians should thus expensively preserve those carcasses which some nations consume with fire, others lay to mingle with the earth, and all agree to remove from their sight as soon as decent rites can be performed ?" "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, every one 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 their conflicts with adversity, and are willing to eject those passions which have long busied them in vain. And many are dis- "The original of ancient customs," said Imlac, missed by age and diseases from the more labo- "is commonly unknown; for the practice often rious duties of society. In monasteries the weak continues when the cause has ceased: and conand timorous may be happily sheltered, the weary cerning superstitious ceremonies, it is vain to may repose, and the penitent may meditate. conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reaThose retreats of prayer and contemplation have son cannot explain. I have long believed that something so congenial to the mind of man, that, the practice of embalming arose only from tenderperhaps, there is scarcely one that does not pur-ness to the remains of relations or friends; and pose to close his life in pious abstraction, with a few associates serious as himself.” "Such," said Pekuah, "has often been my wish; and I have heard the princess declare, that she should not willingly die in a crowd." "The liberty of using harmless pleasures," proceeded Imlac, "will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless. The evil of any pleasure that Nekayah can image is not in the act itself, but in its consequences. Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that, of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint." The princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to the astrone.ner, asked him whether he could not delay her retreat, by showing her something which she had not seen before. "Your curiosity," said the sage, " has been so general, and your pursuit of knowledge so vigorous, that novelties are not now very easily to be found: but what you can no longer procure from the living may be given by the dead. Among the wonders of this country are the catacombs, or the ancient repositories, in which the bodies of the earliest generations were lodged, and where, by to this opinion I am more inclined, because it seems impossible that this care should have been general; had all the dead been embalmed, their repositories must in time have been more spacious than the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the rich or honourable were secured from corrup tion, and the rest left to the course of nature. "But it is commonly supposed that the Egyptians believed the soul to live as long as the body continued undissolved, and therefore tried this method of eluding death." "Could the wise Egyptians," said Nekayah "think so grossly of the soul? If the soul could once survive its separation, what could it afterwards receive or suffer from the body?" "The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneously," said the astronomer, "in the darkness of heathenism, and the first dawn of philosophy. The nature of the soul is still disputed, amidst all our opportunities of clearer knowledge: some yet say, that it may be material, who, nevertheless, believe it to be immortal." "Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter. "It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. Yet if any part of matter be devoid of thought, what part can we suppose to think? Matter can differ from matter only in form, den sity, bulk, motion, and direction of motion. To which of these, however varied or combined, can consciousness be annexed? To be round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or little, to be moved slowly or swiftly, one way or another, are modes of material existence, all equally alien from the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without thought, it can only be made to think by some new modification; but all the modifications which it can admit are equally unconnected with cogitative powers." "But the materialists," said the astronomer, urge that matter may have qualities with which we are unacquainted." "He who will determine," returned Imlac, "against that which he knows, because there may be something which he knows not; he that can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged certainty, is not to be admitted among reasonable beings. All that we know of matter is, that matter is inert, senseless, and lifeless; and if this conviction cannot be opposed but by referring us to something that we know not, we have all the evidence that human intellect can admit. If that which is known may be overruled by that which is unknown, no being, not omniscient, can arrive at certainty." "Yet let us not," said the astronomer, "too arrogantly limit the Creator's power." "It is no limitation of Omnipotence," replied the poet, "to suppose that one thing is not consistent with another, that the same proposition cannot be at once true and false, that the same number cannot be even and odd, that cogitation cannot be conferred on that which is created incapable of cogitation." "I know not," said Nekayah, "any great use of this question. Does that immateriality, which, in my opinion, you have sufficiently proved, necessarily include eternal duration ?” "Of immateriality," said Imlac, "our ideas are negative, and therefore obscure. Immateriality seems to imply a natural power of perpetual duration as a consequence of exemption from all causes of decay: whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its contexture, and separation of its parts; nor can we conceive how that which has no parts, and therefore admits no solution, can be naturally corrupted or impaired." "I know not," said Rasselas, "how to conceive any thing without extension: what is extended must have parts, and you allow that whatever has parts may be destroyed." "Consider your own conceptions," replied Imlac, "and the difficulty will be less. You will find substance without extension. An ideal form is no less real than material bulk; yet an ideal form has no extension. It is no less certain, when you think on a pyramid, that your mind possesses the idea of a pyramid, than that the pyramid itself is standing. What space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than the idea of a grain of corn? or how can either idea suffer laceration? As is the effect, such is the cause; as thought, such is the power that thinks, a power impassive and indiscerptible." "But the Being," said Nekayah, "whom I fear to name, the Being which made the soul, can destroy it." "He surely can destroy it," answered Imlac, since, however unperishable, it receives from a superior nature its power of duration. That it will not perish by any inherent cause of decay, or principle of corruption, may be shown by philosophy; but philosophy can tell no more. That it will not be annihilated by Him that made it, we must humbly learn from higher authority." The whole assembly stood a while silent, and collected. "Let us return," said Rasselas, "from this scene of mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on for ever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state: they were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life." "To me," said the princess, "the choice of life is become less important; I hope hereafter to think only on the choice of eternity." They then hastened out of the caverns, and, under the protection of their guard, returned to Cairo. CHAPTER XLIX. THE CONCLUSION, IN WHICH NOTHING IS Ir was now the time of the inundation of the Nile: a few days after their visit to the catacombs the river began to rise. They were confined to their house. The whole region being under water, gave them no invitation to any excursions; and being well supplied with materials for talk, they diverted themselves with comparisons of the different forms of life which they had observed, and with various schemes of happiness which each of them had formed. Pekuah was never so much charmed with any place as the convent of St. Anthony, where the Arab restored her to the princess, and wished only to fill it with pious maidens, and to be made prioress of the order: she was weary of expectation and disgust, and would gladly be fixed in some unvariable state. The princess thought, that, of all sublunary things, knowledge was the best. She desired first to learn all sciences, and then purposed to found a college of learned women, in which she would preside, that, by conversing with the old, and educating the young, she might divide her time between the acquisition and communication of wisdom, and raise up for the next age models of prudence and patterns of piety. 'The prince desired a little kingdom, in which he might administer justice in his own person, and see all the parts of government with his own eyes; but he could never fix the limits of his dominion, and was always adding to the number of his subjects. Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be driven along the stream of life, without directing their course to any particular port. Of these wishes that they had formed, they well knew that none could be obtained. They deliberated a while what was to be done, and resolved, when the inundation should cease, to return to Abissinia. TALES OF IMAGINATION. THE VISION OF THEODORE, THE FROM THE PRECEPTOR. SON of Perseverance, whoever thou art, whose curiosity has led thee hither, read and be wise. He that now calls upon thee is Theodore, the Hermit of Teneriffe, who in the fifty-seventh year of his retreat, left this instruction to mankind, lest his solitary hours should be spent in vain. I was once what thou art now, a groveller on the earth, and a gazer at the sky; I trafficked and heaped wealth together, I loved and was favoured, 1 wore the robe of honour, and heard the music of adulation: I was ambitious, and rose to greatness: I was unhappy, and retired. I sought for some time what I at length found here, a place where all real wants might be easily supplied, and where I might not be under the necessity of purchasing the assistance of men by the toleration of their follies. Here I saw fruits and herbs and water, and here determined to wait the hand of death, which I hope, when at last it comes, will fall lightly upon me. fainting with labour, I arrived at a small plan almost enclosed by rocks, and open only to the east. I sat down to rest awhile, in full persuasion that when I had recovered my strength I should proceed on my design; but when once I had tasted ease, I found many reasons against disturbing it. The branches spread a shade over my head, and the gales of spring wafted odours to my bosom. faults, bring upon themselves. Look round there fore without fear: observe, contemplate, and be instructed." As I sat thus, forming alternately excuses for delay, and resolutions to go forward, an irresistible heaviness suddenly surprised me; I laid my head upon the bank, and resigned myself to sleep: when methought I heard the sound as of the flight of eagles, and a being of more than human dig nity stood before me. While I was deliberating how to address him, he took me by the hand with an air of kindness, and asked me solemnly, but without severity, "Theodore, whither art thou going?" "I am climbing," answered I, "to the top of the mountain, to enjoy a more extensive prospect of the works of nature." "Attend first," says he, " to the prospect which this place affords, and what thou dost not understand I will explain. I am one of the benevolent beings who watch over the children of the dust, to preserve them Forty-eight years had I now passed in forget- from those evils which will not ultimately termifulness of all mortal cares, and without any inclinate in good, and which they do not, by their own nation to wander farther than the necessity of procuring sustenance required; but as I stood one day beholding the rock that overhangs my cell, I found in myself a desire to climb it; and when I Encouraged by this assurance, I looked and was on its top, was in the same manner deter- beheld a mountain higher than Teneriffe, to the mined to scale the next, till by degrees I conceived summit of which the human eye could never a wish to view the summit of the mountain, at the reach: when I had tired myself with gazing upon foot of which I had so long resided. This motion its height, I turned my eyes towards its foot, of my thoughts I endeavoured to suppress, not which I could easily discover, but was amazed to because it appeared criminal, but because it was find it without foundation, and placed inconceiva new; and all change not evidently for the bet-bly in emptiness and darkness. Thus I stood ter, alarms a mind taught by experience to distrust itself. I was often afraid that my heart was deceiving me, that my impatience of confinement arose from some earthly passion, and that my ardour to survey the works of nature was only a hidden longing to mingle once again in the scenes of life. I therefore endeavoured to settle my thoughts into their former state, but found their distraction every day greater. I was always reproaching myself with the want of happiness within my reach, and at last began to question whether it was not laziness rather than caution that restrained me from climbing to the summit of Teneriffe. I rose therefore before the day, and began my journey up the steep of the mountain; but I had not advanced far, old as I was and burdened with provisions, when the day began to shine upon me, the declivities grew more precipitous, and the sand slided from beneath my feet: at last, terrified and confused; above were tracks inscru table and below was total vacuity. But my preceptor, with a voice of admonition, cried out, "Theodore, be not affrighted, but raise thy eyes again; the Mountain of Existence is before thee, survey it and be wise." I then looked with more deliberate attention, and observed the bottom of the mountain to be of gentle rise, and overspread with flowers; the middle to be more steep, embarrassed with crags, and interrupted by precipices, over which hung branches loaded with fruits, and among which were scattered palaces and bowers. The tracts which my eye could reach nearest the top were generally barren; but there were among the clefts of the rocks a few hardy evergreens, which though they did not give much pleasure to the sight or smell, yet seemed to cheer the labour and facilitate the steps of those who were clambering among them. Then, beginning to examine more minutely the different parts, I observed at a great distance a multitude of both sexes issuing into view from the bottom of the mountain. Their first actions I could not accurately discern; but, as they every moment approached nearer, I found that they amused themselves with gathering flowers under the superintendence of a modest virgin in a white robe, who seemed not over solicitous to confine them to any settled pace or certain track: for she knew that the whole ground was smooth and solid, and that they could not easily be hurt or bewildered. When, as it often happened, they plucked a thistle for a flower, Innocence, so she was called, would smile at the mistake. Happy, said I, are they who are under so gentle a government, and yet are safe. But I had no opportunity to dwell long on the consideration of their felicity; for I found that Innocence continued her attendance but a little way, and seemed to consider only the flowery bottom of the mountain as her proper province. Those whom she abandoned scarcely knew that they were left, before they perceived themselves in the hands of Education, a nymph more severe in her aspect, and imperious in her commands, who confined them to certain paths, in their opinion too narrow and too rough. These they were continually solicited to leave by Appetite, whom Education could never fright away, though she sometimes awed her to such timidity, that the effects of her presence were scarcely perceptible. Some went back to the first part of the mountain, and seemed desirous of continuing busied in plucking flowers, but were no longer guarded by Innocence; and such as Education could not force back, proceeded up the mountain by some miry road, in which they were seldom seen, and scarcely ever regarded. As Education led her troop up the mountain, nothing was more observable than that she was frequently giving them cautions to beware of Habits; and was calling out to one or another at every step, that a Habit was ensnaring them; that they would be under the dominion of Habit before they perceived their danger; and that those whom Habit should once subdue, had little hope of regaining their liberty. bulk or strength; for though they were always willing to join with Appetite, yet when Education kept them apart from her, they would very punctually obey command, and make the narrow roads in which they were confined easier and smoother It was observable, that their stature was never at a stand, but continually growing or decreasing, yet not always in the same proportions: nor could I forbear to express my admiration, when I saw in how much less time they generally gained than lost bulk. Though they grew slowly in the road of Education, it might however be perceived that they grew; but if they once deviated at the call of Appetite, their stature soon became gigantic ; and their strength was such that Education pointed out to her tribe many that were led in chains by them, whom she could never more rescue from their slavery. She pointed them out, but with little effect; for all her pupils appeared confident of their own superiority to the strongest Habit, and some seemed in secret to regret that they were hindered from following the triumph of Appetite. It was the peculiar artifice of Habit not to suffer her power to be felt at first. Those whom she led, she had the address of appearing only to attend, but was continually doubling her chains upon her companions; which were so slender in themselves, and so silently fastened, that while the attention was engaged by other objects, they were not easily perceived. Each link grew tighter as it had been longer worn; and when by continual additions they became so heavy as to be felt, they were very frequently too strong to be broken. When Education had proceeded in this manner to the part of the mountain where the declivity began to grow craggy, she resigned her charge to two powers of superior aspect. The meaner of them appeared capable of presiding in senates, or governing nations, and yet watched the steps of the other with the most anxious attention, and was visibly confounded and perplexed if ever she suffered her regard to be drawn away. The other seemed to approve her submission as pleasing, but with such a condescension as plainly showed that she claimed it as due; and indeed so great was her dignity and sweetness, that he who would not reverence, must not behold her. Of this caution, so frequently repeated, I was very solicitous to know the reason, when my protector directed my regard to a troop of pigmies, "Theodore," said my protector, "be fearless, which appeared to walk silently before those that and be wise; approach these powers, whose dowere climbing the mountain, and each to smooth minion extends to all the remaining part of the the way before her follower. I found that I had Mountain of Existence." I trembled, and venmissed the notice of them before, both because tured to address the inferior nymph, whose eyes, they were so minute as not easily to be discerned, though piercing and awful, I was not able to sus and because they grew every moment nearer in tain. "Bright Power," said I, "by whatever name their colour to the objects with which they were it is lawful to address thee, tell me, thou who presurrounded. As the followers of Education sidest here, on what condition thy protection will did not appear to be sensible of the presence of be granted?" "It will be granted," said she, these dangerous associates, or, ridiculing their "only to obedience. I am Reason, of all subordidiminutive size, did not think it possible that hu-nate beings the noblest and the greatest; who, if man beings should ever be brought into subjection by such feeble enemies, they generally heard her precepts of vigilance with wonder: and when they thought her eye withdrawn, treated them with contempt. Nor could I myself think her cautions so necessary as her frequent inculcations seemed to suppose, till I observed that each of these petty beings held secretly a chain in her hand, with which she prepared to bind those whom she found within her power. Yet these Habits, under the eye of Education, went quietly forward, and seemed very little to increase in thou wilt receive my laws, will reward thee like the rest of my votaries, by conducting thee to Religion." Charmed by her voice and aspect, I professed my readiness to follow her. She then presented me to her mistress, who looked upon me with tenderness. I bowed before her, and she smiled. When Education delivered up those for whose happiness she had been so long solicitous, she seemed to expect that they should express some gratitude for her care, or some regret at the loss of that protection which she had hitherto afforded |