Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia | Page 3

Samuel Johnson
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 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 the
attention. The birds peck 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 lutist and the singer; but the sounds that pleased me yesterday
weary me to-day, and will grow yet more wearisome to- morrow. I can
discover in 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 desire 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, and 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 you 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 III
--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 curing it by
counsel, and officiously sought an opportunity of conference, 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 never be suffered to forget these
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 Prince, and to inquire why he so often
retired from the pleasures of the palace to loneliness and silence. "I fly
from pleasure," 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 the Emperor of Abyssinia can bestow; here is
neither labour to be endured nor danger to be dreaded, yet here is all

that labour or danger can procure or purchase. Look round and tell me
which of your wants is without supply: if you want nothing, how are
you unhappy?"
"That I want nothing," said the Prince, "or 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 would excite endeavour, and I should not then
repine to see the sun move so slowly towards the western mountains, or
to 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
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